Essay on the Theory of the Earth
Part 36
[264] Ibid. p. 316.
[265] P. 317.
[266] Researches, vol. v. part ii. p. 266.
[267] Id. vol. v. part i. p. 234; and part ii. p. 521.
[268] See my Researches, in the whole of vol. iii., and especially p. 250; and vol. v. part ii. p. 505.
[269] Ibid. vol. v. part ii. p. 505.
[270] Researches, vol. iii. p. 254; and vol. iv. p. 498. and 499.
[271] Ibid. vol. iii. p. 258.
[272] Ibid. vol. v. part ii. p. 505.
[273] See my Researches, vol. ii. part i. p. 177 and 218; vol. iii. p. 394; and vol. iv. p. 498.
[274] Regarding the Anaplotheria, see the whole of the 3d volume of my “Researches,” and particularly p. 250 and 396.
[275] “Researches,” vol. iii. p. 398 and 404; vol. iv. p. 501; vol. v. part ii. p. 506.
[276] “Researches,” vol. iii. p. 260.
[277] Id. vol. iii. p. 265.
[278] “Researches,” vol. iv. p. 103.
[279] I am indebted for the knowledge of this animal to the Count de Bournon; and as I have not described it in my great work, I have given a figure of it here. See Plate II. figs. 1 and 2.
[280] “Researches,” vol. iii. p. 267.
[281] Id. vol. iii. p. 269.
[282] Id. vol. iii. p. 272.
[283] Id. vol. iii. p. 284.
[284] Id. vol. iii. p. 297 and 300.
[285] Id. vol. v. part ii. p. 506.
[286] “Researches,” vol. iii. p. 304 _et seq._
[287] Id. vol. v. part ii. p. 166.
[288] Id. vol. iii. p. 335; vol. v. part ii. p. 166.
[289] Id. vol. iii. p. 233.
[290] Id. vol. v. p. 232.
[291] Id. vol. iii. p. 329; vol. v. part ii. p. 222.
[292] “Researches,” vol. v. part ii. p. 223 and 227.
[293] Id. vol. iii. p. 338.
[294] See my “Researches,” vol. iii. p. 351. _et seq._
[295] Id. vol. v. part i. p. 309.
[296] Id. p. 390.
[297] “Researches,” vol. v. part i. p. 393.
[298] Id. vol. v. part i. p. 352. and 357.
[299] “Researches,” vol. i. p. 75, 195 and 335; vol. iii. p. 371 and 405; vol. iv. p. 491.
[300] “Researches,” vol. i. p. 250, 265 and 335; vol. iv. p. 493.
[301] Id. vol. i. p. 206, 249; vol. iii. p. 376.
[302] “Researches,” vol, i. p. 304, 322; vol, iii. p. 380; vol. iv. p. 493.
[303] Id. vol. ii. part i. p. 64; and vol. iv. p. 496.
[304] “Researches,” vol. ii. part i. p. 89. vol. iii.; p. 390; and vol. v. part ii. p. 50.
[305] Id. vol. iii. p. 385.
[306] Id. vol. ii. part i. p. 71.
[307] Id. vol. ii. part i. p. 89.
[308] See my “Researches,” vol. part i. p. 89.
[309] Id. p. 95.
[310] Id. p. 109.
[311] See my “Researches,” vol. iv. p. 70.
[312] “Researches,” vol. iv. p. 168-225.
[313] Id. p. 89.
[314] See my “Researches,” vol. iv. p. 94.
[315] Id. vol. iv. p. 98.
[316] Id. vol. iv. p. 148; and vol. v. part ii. p. 509.
[317] Id. vol. iv. p. 150; vol. v. part ii. p. 510.
[318] Id. vol. iv. p. 153.
[319] Id. vol. iv. p. 199-204.
[320] Id. vol. iv. p. 174, 177, 196; vol. v. part i. p. 55.
[321] See my “Researches,” vol. iv. p. 178, 202, and 206; vol. v. part i. p. 54.
[322] Id. vol. v. part i. p. 55.
[323] Id. vol. iv. p. 206.
[324] Id. vol. v. part ii. 517.
[325] Id. part i. p. 59.
[326] Id. p. 174; and part ii. p. 519.
[327] See my “Researches,” vol. v. part i. p. 160.
[328] Id. vol. v. p. 193.
[329] Id. vol. iv. p. 193.
[330] See my “Researches,” vol. iv. p. 351.
[331] Id. vol. iv. p. 356 and 357.
[332] Id. vol. iv. p. 392, and 507.
[333] Id. vol. iv. p. 452.
[334] Id. vol. iv. p. 458.
[335] Id. vol. iv. p. 461.
[336] Id. vol. iv. p. 475.
[337] Id. vol. iv. p. 467.
[338] See my “Researches,” vol. iv. p. 378 and 507; and vol. v. part ii. p. 516.
[339] See Mr Buckland’s excellent work, entitled _Reliquiæ Diluvianæ_.
[340] See in the _Reliquiæ Diluvianæ_ of Mr Buckland the account of the skeleton of a woman found in the cave of Pavyland; and in my Researches, vol. iv. p. 193, that of a fragment of a jaw, found in the osseous brecciæ of Nice.
M. de Schlotheim collected human bones in fissures at Kœstritz, where there are also bones of rhinoceroses; but he himself expresses his doubts regarding the epoch at which they were deposited.
[341] Herodotus, i. 2.
[342] Ælian, lib. ii. cap. 35 and 38.
[343] Id. lib. i. cap. 38.
[344] Bruce, French translation, 8vo. vol. viii, p. 264; and Atlas, pl. xxxv., under the name of Abouhannès.
[345] Description d’un Ibis blanc et de deux cicognes, Academie des Sciences de Paris, t. iii, pl. iii. p. 61. of the 4to edition of 1734, pl. xiii. fig. 1. The beak is represented as truncated at the end, but this is a fault of the engraver.
[346] Numenius sordide albo-rufescens, capite anteriore nudo rubro, lateribus rubro purpureo et carneo colore maculatis, remigibus majoribus nigris, rectricibus sordide albo rufescentibus, rostro in exortu dilute luteo, in extremitate aurantio, pedibus griseis. Ibis candida, Brisson, Ornithologia, t. v. p. 349.
[347] Planches Enluminées, No. 389; Histoire des Oiseaux, t. viii. 4to. p. 14. pl. 1. This last figure is a copy of that of Perault, with the same fault.
[348] Handbuch der Naturgeschichte, p. 203. of the edition of 1799; but in the edition of 1807 he has restored the name of Ibis to the bird to which it belongs.
[349] Philosophical Transactions for 1794.
[350] Folio edition, Oxford 1746, pl. v. and pages 64-66.
[351] Hasselquist, Iter Palestinum, p. 249. _Magnitudo gallinæ, seu cornicis_; and, p. 250. _vasa quæ in sepulchris inveniuntur, cum avibus conditis, hujus sunt magnitudinis_.
[352] We have definitively established this genus in our “Regne Animal,” t. i. p. 483, and it appears to have been adopted by naturalists.
[353] Bruce, _loc. cit._; and Savigny, “Mem. sur l’Ibis,” p. 12.
[354] Ælian, lib. ii. cap. 38.
[355] Ψιλὴ τὴν κεφαλὴν, καὶ τὴν δειρὴν πᾶσαν, λευκὴ πτεροῖσι πλην κεφαλῆς, καὶ αὐχένος καὶ ἀκρέων τῶν πτερύγων καὶ τοῦ πυγαίου ἄκρου. Larcher, in his French translation of Herodotus, has properly understood the difference of the words αὐχήν, the nape, and δειρή or δέρη the throat.
[356] Ælian, lib. v. cap. 29.
[357] Ælian, lib. ii. cap. xxxv;--Plut. De Solert. An.; Cic. de Nat. Deor. lib. ii.;--Phil. de Anim. prop. 16. &c.
[358] De Med. Ægypt. lib. i. fol. i. vers. Paris Edition, 1646.
[359] Rer. Ægypt. lib. iv. cap. i. t. i. p. 199 of the Leyden Edition.
[360] See the French Translation, vol. ii. p. 167.
[361] Description de l’Egypte, part ii. p. 23.
[362] Antiq. Monum. Pl. x. p. 129.
[363] Hist. Anim. lib. ix. cap. xxvii. and lib. x. cap. xxx.
[364] Buffon, Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux, 4to, vol. viii. p. 17.
[365] Belon, Nature des Oiseaux, p. 159 and 200; and Portraits d’Oiseaux, folio 44, vers.
[366] Observations de plusieurs singularités, &c.
[367] Savigny, Mémoire sur l’Ibis, p. 37.
[368] Idem, ibid.
[369] See the Great Work on Egypt, Natural History of Birds, pl. vii. fig. 2.
[370] Euterpe, cap. lxxv. Herodotus says a place in Arabia, but it is not seen how a place in Arabia could have been _near the city of Buto_, which was in the western part of the Delta.
[371] Avis excelsa, cruribus rigidis, corneo proceroque rostro. Cic. de Nat. Deor. lib. i.
[372] Strabo, lib. xvii.
[373] Ælian, Anim. lib. x. cap. xxix.
[374] Leopold de Buch, Voyage en Norwege, t. i. p. 30. of the German edition.
[375] The _Sierra Parima_.
[376] T. ii. p. 233, 236, 252, 273, 288, 382, 597, 627, and 633.
[377] Are there any blocks in North America to the north of the Great Lakes?
[378] In Silliman’s American Journal there are many interesting details in regard to the distribution of boulders in the northern parts of North America.
[379] By _geest_ is understood the alluvial matter which is spread over the surface both of the hilly and low country, and appears, according to De Luc, to have been formed the last time the waters of the ocean stood over the surface of the earth.--J.
[380] By _marsch_, according to De Luc, is understood the new land added to the coasts since the last retiring of the water of the globe from the surface of the earth, and is formed by the sediments of rivers, mixed more or less with sand from the bottom of the sea.--J.
[381] Vol. II. p. 114, 115, 116.
[382] A remarkable fact of this kind is related by Salt, in his second journey to Abyssinia. The Bay of Amphila, in the Red Sea, is formed, he says, of twelve islands, eleven of which are in part composed of alluvial matters, consisting of corallines, madrepores, echinites, and a great variety of shells common in that sea. The height of these islands is sometimes thirty feet above high water. The small island, which differs from the eleven others, is composed of a solid limestone rock, in which veins of calcedony are observed. Does not this small island, we may ask, indicate that some cause has prevented the madrepores from covering it, while they constructed their habitations in the neighbourhood, on bases which probably must be of the same nature as those of the small island?
[383] On glancing over the charts of Kotzebue’s voyage, we are struck at seeing several of these islands grouped in a circular form, connected with one another by reefs which appear to consist of madrepores, and to present, by this arrangement, a small internal sea of great depth, to which an entrance is afforded by one or more openings. May not this arrangement be owing to submarine craters, on the edge of which the lithophytes have erected their habitations?
[384] 1824, St. 12. p. 443.
Malté Brun. Precis de la Geogr. Univers. T. ii. p. 459.; Catteau Calleville, Tabl. de la Mer Balt. T. i. p. 158, 188.
[385] See the excellent figures in Blumenbach’s Decades.
[386] Equal to 27,340 yards and 10 inches English measure, or 15½ miles and 60 yards.
In these reductions of the revolutionary French _metres_ to English measure, the _metre_ is assumed as 39.37 English inches.--_Transl._
[387] Or 10,936 yards and 4 inches, equal to 6 miles and nearly a quarter, English measure.
Hence the entire advance of the alluvial promontory of the Po appears to have extended to 21 miles 5 furlongs and 216 yards.--_Transl._
[388] Equal to 10,936 or 12,030 yards English measure.--_Transl._
[389] Or 2,186 yards 2 feet English.--_Transl._
[390] Or 20,778 yards 1 foot 10 inches.--_Transl._
[391] Or 21,872 yards.--_Transl._
[392] Or 18,591 yards.--_Transl._
[393] Equal to 9,842 or 10,936 yards.--_Transl._
[394] Equal to 6,564 or 7,655 yards.--_Transl._
[395] From 19 miles 7 furlongs and 15 yards, to 20 miles 4 furlongs and 9 yards, English measure.--_Transl._
[396] Or 15,366 yards.--_Transl._
[397] Equal to 9,842 or 10,936 yards.--_Transl._
[398] 20,231 yards.--_Transl._
[399] Exactly 27 yards 1 foot and ¼ of an inch English.--_Transl._
[400] Already stated at from 19¾ to 20½ miles; or more precisely, from 34,995 yards 1 foot 8 inches, to 36,089 yards 10 inches English measure.--_Transl._
[401] Equal to 76 yards 1 foot 7 inches and 9/10ths.--_Transl._
[402] In the salt lakes of Westphalia, we find Lymnæa and fresh water plants in abundance.
[403] “Jamque erat in totas sparsurus fulmina terras, Tela reponuntur, manibus fabricata Cyclopum: Pœna placet diversa; genus mortale sub undis Perdere, et ex omni nimbos dimittere cœlo.” OVID. _Met._ lib. i. v. 255.
[404] Vide note on the Non-mechanical Action of pure Water.
[405] T. ix. c. 6. Claudian describes this occurrence in the following words:
“Cum Thessaliam scopulis inclusa teneret Peneo stagnante palus, et mersa negarent Arva coli, trifida Neptunus euspide montes Impulit adversos: tum forti saucius ictu Dissiluit gelido vertex Ossæus Olympo.” _De raptu Proserp._ I. ii. v. 179.
[406] L. i c. 3.
[407] According to Wheeler, who was on the spot, it appears to have broken through the Mount Ptous.
[408] Bibliothec. Historic. l. v. c. 47.
[409] Vol. xiv. p. 205.
[410] The remarks on the connection of geology with agriculture and planting, are inserted here as an illustration of some of the details in the body of the work. They will, we think, be useful to students of agriculture and geology, and interesting to the general reader.
[411] The dryness depends chiefly, if not entirely, on the fissures or divisions in the rocky base of the soil; for, in some parts of Sologne in France, as stated by Mr Arthur Young, and in sundry districts of England, chalk and limestone bottoms are occasionally observed to be retentive and wet. Undergrounds, formed of chalk or limestone, have frequently a thin covering of vegetable mould, from their being, in some cases, over close and wet, and in others over open and dry; the former condition being unfriendly to vegetation and the formation of mould, and the latter too readily permitting its departure when formed, or otherwise favouring the decomposition and waste of that material.
[412] The reason here assigned is confirmed by some observations delivered by one of the latest and most intelligent of the English writers on agriculture. “If,” says Mr Marshall, “the several strata” (viz. the subsoil and base) “are of so loose a texture, as to permit the waters of rains to pass quickly downward, without being in any sufficient degree arrested by the soil, the land may be said to be worthless to agriculture.” He adds, “Before we suggest any improvement of lands of the latter description, it will be proper to premise, that many of the light sandy soils of Norfolk, which would otherwise be uniformly absorbed to a great depth, have a thin earthy substance, or ‘Pan,’ which intervenes between the soil and the subsoil, and which is of such a texture, as to check the descent of rain waters, and thereby retain them the longer in the soil, as well as to prevent the manure it contains from being carried away by their rapid descent; yet sufficiently pervious to prevent a surcharge of moisture from injuring the produce. To this fortunate circumstance is principally owing the fertility of the lands of East Norfolk: for wherever this filter happens to be broken by the plough, or otherwise, the soil becomes unfertile, and continues to be so for a length of years.”--(_See Norfolk_, vol. i. page 11.) “This fact aptly suggests the expedient of improving, or fresh forming, a filter of this kind; seeing how capable it is of producing so many valuable advantages; the more especially, as it is probably the Norfolk pan owes its origin to fortuitous art, rather than to nature.”--(_See Norfolk_, vol. i. page 12.) “A millstone, or other heavy wheel-shaped stone, made to run upon its edge, in the bottom of the plough-furrow (the thickness of its edge being equal to the width of the furrow), by the help of an axle and wheels, would greatly compress a light, porous subsoil. The idea of forming a pan artificially, struck me first in Norfolk; and time and experience have strengthened it. If the experiment be made on a compressible subsoil, as sandy loam, or the soft rubble which sometimes intervenes between an absorbent soil and an open rock, there can be little doubt of its success. But on loose open gravel, which is not sufficiently mixed with tenacious mould to sheath it, and lying on an open base, less utility may be expected from it.”
[413] _Vide_ Dr Adam of Calcutta’s Remarks on the Rocks and Soil of Constantia at the Cape of Good Hope, in an early number of the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal.
[414] The ochre yellow colour of the decayed greenstone around Edinburgh, and in general in many trap districts in this country, is caused by the decomposition of the imbedded iron pyrites.
[415] The Streams of Obsidian in Iceland, Lipari, Peak of Teneriffe, Ascension, and Mexico, afford striking examples of the fact stated above.
[416] Those who feel disposed to examine the connection of Geology and Agriculture, will find many additional details and views given in Hausmann’s work, of which the above may be considered in some degree as a condensed view.
[417] John Hart, Esq. Member of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, some time ago sent to me a copy of a very interesting tract entitled “A Description of the Skeleton of the Fossil Deer of Ireland, _Cervus megaceros_; drawn up at the instance of the Committee of Natural Philosophy of the Royal Dublin Society.” The details in the text are extracted from Mr Hart’s memoir, and the engraving of the Elk is copied from Mr Hart’s lithographic delineation.
[418] In a Report which Mr Hart made to the Committee of Natural Philosophy of the Royal Dublin Society, and which was printed in their Proceedings of July 8. 1824, he alluded to an instance of a pair of these horns having been used as a field gate near Tipperary. Since that he has learned that a pair had been in use for a similar purpose near Newcastle, county of Wicklow, until they were decomposed by the action of the weather. There is also a specimen in Charlemont House, the town residence of the Earl of Charlemont, which is said to have been used for some time as a temporary bridge across a rivulet in the county of Tyrone.
[419] I have seen this antler divided into three points in two specimens, one at the Earl of Besborough’s, county Kilkenny (which measured eight feet four inches between the tips), the other in the hall of the Museum of Trinity College: it is single in the greater number of specimens, as in those which Cuvier describes.
[420] Vide Annales du Museum d’Histoire Naturelle, tome xii. et Ossemens Fossiles, tome iv.
[421] Philosophical Transactions, vol. xix.
[422] A fine pair of this species, male and female, were exhibited by Mr Bullock in this city a few summers ago. They did not answer to any description of Pennant or of Dr Shaw, but had the characters of C. canadensis as given by Cuvier.
[423] Dr Percy, Bishop of Dromore, describes a pair which measured fourteen feet by the skull. Archæologia Brit. v. vii.
[424] Pennant’s Zoology, vol. i.
[425] Organic Remains, vol. iii.
[426] Ossemens Fossiles, tom. iv.
[427] The elk, when pursued in the forests of North America, breaks off branches of trees as thick as a man’s thigh.
[428] It is evidently not the animal mentioned by Julius Cæsar, under the name of Alces; vide Comment. de Bello Gallico, vi. cap. x.; nor is it the Alces of Pliny.
[429] I am well aware of the occasional existence of holes in the ribs, a few instances of which I have seen in the human subject: but they differ essentially in character from the opening here described, as they occupy the centre of the rib, mostly in its sternal extremity, and have their margin depressed on both sides.
[430] In A. W. Schlegel’s Contributions to the History of the Elephant, in the Indische Bibliothek, i. 2, are enumerated many facts not generally known regarding the African and Asiatic Elephants, and the details are accompanied with interesting inferences.
[431] According to Schleiermacher, Goldfuss and Von Bachr, fossil tusks, resembling those of the African Elephant, have been found in some districts. Cuvier, however, questions their being in a true fossil state.
[432] This plate forms the frontispiece to the present work.
[433] Sœmmering über die fossilien Knocken, welche in der _Protogæa_ Von Leibnitz abgebildet sind: eine Abhandlung in der Magazin für die Naturgeschichte des Menschen von C. Grosse, iii. 1790, s. 73.
[434] Rosenmüller, Beschreib. des Höhlenbären, s. 2.
[435] Further information in regard to these caves will be found in Leonhard Taschenb. der Min. vii. 2. S. 439; and in Nöggerath’s Gebirge in Rheinland-Westphalen, ii. S. 27. and iii. 1. 13.
[436] In England and Wales the following caves have been found to contain fossil bones:
1. Cave in _Duncombe Park_, not far from that of Kirkdale. It contains only recent bones.
2. Cave of _Hutton_, a village in Somersetshire, at the foot of the Mendip Hills. Bones of elephants, horses, hogs, of two species of deer, of oxen, the nearly entire skeleton of a fox, and the metacarpal bone of a large bear, have been found in it.
3. Cave of _Derdham Down_, near to _Clifton_, to the westward of Bristol. Bones of horses were found in it.
4. Cave of _Balleye_, near to _Warksworth_, in Derbyshire. In 1663, teeth of elephants, some of which are still preserved, were found in it.
5. Cave of _Dream_, at the village of _Callow_, near to _Warksworth_. It was discovered in the year 1822, by some miners in search of lead-ore. Nearly all the bones of a rhinoceros, in a good state of preservation, were found enclosed in a bed of mud in this cave.
6. Fissures and caves at _Oreston_. These are in transition limestone. Bones of the rhinoceros, hyæna, tiger, wolf, deer, ox, and horse, have been found in them.
7. Cave of _Nicholaston_, near the coast of _Glamorgan_, in the Bay of _Oxwich_. In the year 1792, bones of the elephant, rhinoceros, ox, deer, and hyæna, were found in it.
8. Caves of _Paveland_, in the county of _Glamorgan_, between the Bay of Oxwich and Cape Worms, at the entrance of the English Channel. There are two openings in a cliff thirty or forty feet above the level of the sea, which we cannot reach but at low water. The clergyman and the surgeon of the neighbouring village of Portinan found in them a tusk and grinder of an elephant; afterwards other bones of the elephant, rhinoceros, horse, bear, hyæna, fox, wolf, ox, deer, rat, of birds, the _skeleton of a woman_, and splinters of bones, were also found. But many of these bones are modern; and the diggings made at remote and unknown periods have displaced the ancient bones, and mixed them with the modern, and also with shells of the present sea.
Professor Goldfuss, in the 11th volume of the _Nova Acta Physico-medica Academiæ Cæsareæ Leopoldino-Carolinæ Naturæ Curiosorum_, published in 1823, gives an account of the fossil bones he met with in the caves of Westphalia and Franconia. Speaking of the Cave of Gaylenreuth, he says, that Esper has the following remarks on the quantity of bones taken from these caves:
On first examination, there were collected, in a very short time, in the dust of the floors of these caves, upwards of 200 different teeth; and we may assume that, by the end of the year 1774, some thousands were collected. It is difficult to form a conception of the number of these zoolithes, and of the earth in which they are contained; and I do not hesitate in believing, that, at the lowest estimate, several hundred waggons load would not remove the whole. The animal earth, with intermingled bones, was, in many places, eight or ten feet deep. Esper calculated that, in his time, 180 skulls had been taken out of the loose animal earth, the conglomerate not having been broken up for this purpose. Of late years, the conglomerate afforded, in the space of three years, 150 skulls; and we may estimate that twice as many more were destroyed in breaking them out of the hard stalactitic matter. If we add to this the pieces of skulls which occur in this repository, more frequently than perfect skulls, we may estimate that more than a thousand individuals lie buried here.
These bones occur now, as formerly, irregularly dispersed; that is, teeth, cylindrical bones, cranial bones, and vertebræ of different species, and of different individuals of different ages, and of various sizes, occur conglutinated together. We never find the under jaw of the same skull near to it, and rarely the two separated portions of the same lower jaw together; the skulls occurring all in the deeper places: and Esper found the teeth forming a bed by themselves. The bones still possess their sharper edges, and are neither rubbed nor gnawed.
If we assume a thousand buried individuals, the proportion of the different species will be, according to Dr Goldfuss, as follows:
1. Hyæna spelæa, 25 2. Canis spelæus, 50 3. Felis spelæa, 25 4. Gulo spelæus, 30 5. Ursus priscus, 10 6. Ursus arctoideus, 60 7. Ursus spelæus, 800