Part 4

In the woods and forests are found from one hundred and fifty to two hundred plants; amongst which may be mentioned the genera _Amentaceae_, which flower and blossom. In the month of April the woods are bespangled with the violet. _Viola._ Ficaria. Wind-flower. _Anemone nemorosa._ Lung-wort. _Pulmonaria Officinalis._ etc. In May and June we there also find the _Orchis. Mellitis._ Periwinkle. _Vinca Major._ Hyacinth or Blue Bell. _Hyacinthus non-scriptus._ Hare Bell. _Campanula rotundifolia._ St. John's Wort. _Hypericum-pulchrum._ Crane's Bill. _Geranium Molle._ Bitter vetch. _Orobus tuberosus._ Strawberry leaved cinque-foil. _Potentilla Frargariastrum._ Wood Angelica. _Angelica Sylvestris._ The star of Bethlehem. _Ornithogalum pyrenaicum._ Black centaury. _Centaurea Nigra._ Forget me not. _Myosotis palustris._ The above are to be found in the Woods of Chatenay, etc. in the immediate neighbourhood of Tours.

On the commons and higher arid tracts, are seen the cross leaved Heath. _Erica Tetralix._ Fine leaved Heath. _Erica cineria._ Male Fern. _Aspidium Felix Mas._ Common Broom. _Sparticum scoparium._ And the Furze. _Ulex Europaeus._ When these hardy natives of the wold and the waste, happen to be grouped together, which is very commonly the case, the varied and vivid hues of their blossoms, present a striking contrast, and a very pleasing appearance.

Between two hundred and three hundred plants are common to the cultivated fields, of which, may be named, the Corn Blue Bottle. _Centaurea cyanus._ Red Poppy. _Papaver Rhoea._ Venus's Mirror. _Campanula speculum._ Corn Cockle. _Agrostemma Githago._ Corn Spurrey. _Spergula Arvensis._ Common yellow Rattle. _Rhinanthus Crista-Galli._ Great White Ox Eye. _Chrysanthemum_ _Leucanthemum._ All flowering in July and August.

In the meadows which occupy the vales, subject to occasional inundations, a very great variety of plants luxuriate, consisting for the most part of the Family _Graminaceae_ amongst them may be seen shining the Pile-wort. _Ranunculus Ficaria._ Crow-foot. _Ranunculus sceleratus._ And many others of this genus. The Cuckoo flower. _Cardamime Pratensis._ Ragged Robin. _Lychnis Floscuculi._ White Campion. _Lichnis vespertina._ Tale Red Rattle. _Pedicularis palustris._ Queen of the Meadows. _Spiraea Ulmaria._ _Upatoria Cannabinum._ Common Loosestrife. _Lysimachia vulgaris._ Also the _Parnassia Palustris._, _Gentiana cruciata_, and _Colchicum Autumnale._

On the surface of the Pools and Brooks, many beautiful specimens of the _Nymphaea_ are to be seen reposing, as those of the white water Lilly. _Nymphaea Alba_, and yellow water Lilly. _Nymphaea Lutea._ On their banks may also be found the Water Iris, or Flower de Luce. _Iris Pseudacorus._--The emblem of France. The Flowering Rush. _Butomus umbellatus._ Arrow Head. _Sagittaria sagittifolia_, and Water ranunculus. _Ranunculus aquatilis._

Our limits will not admit of a further enumeration, but perhaps sufficient has been stated to signify the interesting character of the Botanical productions of the Province, and to induce the scientific visitor, or the lover of nature, to prosecute his researches through its sequestered glades and rural retreats; where in fact, he may on every hand, behold prolific nature displaying her exquisite charms, in elaborate perfections, rich profusion, and endless diversities.

Of cultivated Fruit trees, the Pear, Peach, and Prune, are justly famed for their size and richness of flavour; the Meddlar, Quince, and a great variety of choice Apple trees are thickly dispersed throughout the vineyards; some of the latter of which during the winter, present a very singular appearance, from their being often thickly studded over with the sombre tufts of the parasitical _Viscus_, or Misleto. A considerable quantity of excellent cyder is made in the neighbourhood of Tours.

The vineyards which occupy so large a portion of this district, contain a great many varieties of the vine, which circumstance, together with the prevailing difference of _soil_ and _aspect_, naturally produces wines of very various flavour and opposite qualities.

It is affirmed, that the first requisite to make good wine seems to be a peculiar quality in the soil in which the fruit is grown, more than in the species of vine itself; the second requisite to good wine is the species of plant, aided by a judicious mode of training and cultivation. It would naturally be supposed that the wine is excellent in proportion to the size and luxuriance of the plant, but such is not the case, on the contrary, good rich soils invigorating the growth of the tree never produce even tolerable wine, but it is best as the soil is lighter and drier;--sandy, calcareous, stony and porous soils are found to be most friendly to the growth of the vine. The chalky soils particularly produce wines of great freshness and lightness.

Hence we may in a great degree account for the superiority of many of the vinous productions of the neighbourhood of Tours; on both sides of the vale of the Loire, the denudated or furrowed elevations naturally afford many genial sites, whose southern aspects are always exposed to the direct rays of the sun and which favoured situations are perhaps more prevalent on the northern banks of the river; where, as on the opposite slopes, the rather lofty chalky elevations, are mostly covered by deep accumulations of adventitious and heterogeneous materials, principally constituted of the debris of that cretaceous formation, and partly composing the extensive deposit termed the argile et poudinge.

It moreover appears, that the species of plant which is a favourite in one district is discarded in another; and also that very celebrated wines are produced in vineyards where the species of plant is by no means held in high repute; but the most inexplicable circumstance respecting the culture of the vine, is the fact, that the most delicious wine is sometimes grown on one little spot only, in the midst of vineyards which produce no others but of the ordinary quality: while in another place the product of a vineyard, in proportion to its surface, shall be incredibly small, yet of exquisite quality, at the same time, in the soil, aspect, treatment as to culture, and species of plant, there shall be no perceptible difference to the eye of the most experienced wine grower. Possibly this may in some measure be accounted for by the peculiar nature of the substratum which the roots of the respective vines may chance to penetrate.

The grape called _caux_ or _cos_, common on the banks of the Cher, imparts colour and body to the red wines.

The best vines for the more valuable white wines, are the species denominated _sauvignon_, _semilion_, _rochalin_, _blanc doux_, _pruneras_, _muscade_, and _blanc auba_. The _semilion_ should form two-thirds of a vineyard consisting of these seven species of plants.

Red Hermitage is produced from two varieties of plants named the little and great _Scyras_. White Hermitage is produced from the greater and lesser _Rousanne_ grape.

The esteemed red wines of Saumur, are made from the _pineau_ plant. The Haut Rhin is classed under the generic title of the _gentil_. Some excellent black wines are produced from a grape named _cote-rouge_, as also from _auxerrois_, or _pied de perdrix_ grape, so called because its stalk is red.

The best Bordeaux wine _de cotes_ is made with the grape called _noir de pressac_, the _bochet_, and the _merlot_.

The first class Burgundies, called _les tetes de cuves_, are from the choicest vines, namely; the _noirien_ and _pineau_, grown on the best spots of the vineyards having the finest aspect.

The black grape called the "golden plant" (_plant dore_,) is cultivated in all the most distinguished vineyards of Champagne, and from which is produced the finest of those celebrated wines.

The vines called the _semilion_ and _muscat-fou_ are very extensively cultivated, those most noted are the black _morillon_, of two varieties, the _madaleine_ and the vine of Ischia; the latter produces fine fruit as high as north lat. 48 deg..

The bloom upon the grape, which so delicately tints the skin, is considered in proportion to its prevalence a proof of attention or negligence in the culture.

The age of which the vine bears well, is from sixty to seventy years, or more, but in the common course of things it is six or seven years before it is in full bearing. The vines are pruned three times before they bear fruit, when this operation is again repeated. In France the vine is propagated by layers of buds, which are taken up after the vintage, and by slips chosen from among the cuttings; vines from the latter live longest and bear most fruit, though those from the layers shoot earliest. The general method of training the vine in France, is the "_tinge bas_" or low stem training, the young shoots of the year being tied to stakes from four to five feet in height.

The season of the vintage is one of stirring interest and alacrity, the merry groups of grape gatherers now to be seen in almost every field, commence their employment as early as possible after the sun has dissipated the dew, and the gathering is uniformly continued with as much rapidity as possible, if the weather continue fair, so as to terminate the pressing in one day.

In concluding this subject, we may very well exemplify the general distribution of the vegetable tribes in this part of France, by observing that merry _Bacchus_ presides over the cheerful hills, _Flora_ and _Pomona_ grace the laughing vallies and the sylvan shades, while the bountiful _Ceres_ extends her dominion over the upland plains, and the smiling prairies of the fertilizing Cher and Loire.

GEOLOGY OF TOURAINE.

_The GEOLOGY of Touraine_, being of a nature particularly worthy the attention of the scientific enquirer, we may properly close these restricted remarks, by a few cursory observations on so interesting a subject. In contemplating the geognostic structure of this department, the eye of the investigator encounters none of those strikingly bold and sublime operations of nature, almost every where to be met with in the primitive and volcanic regions of the globe.

Here with but a few solitary exceptions, the whole surface of the province presents a continuous series of rounded and gentle undulations, exhibiting to the careless glance of the unobservant, and to the uninitiated, one vast homogeneous mass of earthy and stony materials.

But when this wide spread, and apparently uninvestigable aggregation of particles, comes under the scrutinizing _eye of science_, a beautiful and systematic arrangement of undigenous formations are clearly developed. Individually containing within themselves the marvellous and decisive evidence of their comparative existence, in their present relative positions.

Those "_medallions of Nature_," the fossils which they contain not only furnishing us with a chronological knowledge of the progressive formation of the Earth's crust, but recording in language the most intelligible, what were the peculiar states, and characteristics of animal and vegetable existences at the distinct, and distant epochs of the World.

By the aid of these silent but eloquent intelligencers, we discover that the strata which now constitute the table lands of Touraine, were among the last, in the whole geological series, that emerged from the waves of the Ocean. That, that grand instrument of transposition and renovation, has in a general sense, ever since been restrained within its mighty confines. And that at the time its waters last prevailed over these regions now high and dry, many of the types of living testacea, etc. were become identical with those of existing species.

Touraine, or the department of Indre-et-Loire, may be said to be the grand repository of the _tertiary_ formations of central France. It constitutes the southern divisions of the great _Paris basin_, formed by a vast depression in the chalk, and which is about 180 miles long and 90 miles broad. This cretaceous or chalk basin terminates to the south a short distance from Poitiers, where the oolites and certain other formations older than the chalk, crop out from beneath it, and thence forward, principally constitute the formations of the more southern departments of the kingdom: and occasionally extend to the summits of the gigantic Pyrenees.

The long range of rocky precipices often constituting rather lofty escarpments, along the northern borders of the valley of the Loire, are a portion of the extensive cretaceous formations which surround Paris. In the vicinity of Tours and many other places where its strata are alike exposed to view, many beautiful specimens of some of its characteristic fossils may be readily obtained; this formation here also frequently contains its usual layers of flint, and which often assumes the exact form of the zoophytes, and other organic structures, into which it has percolated.

But in this locality, as also in many instances in the chalk region south of Angouleme, the mineralogical character of the formation is often completely altered, chiefly appearing as a fine white calcareous sandstone, occasionally passing into a compact siliceous limestone, similar to the _calcaire siliceux_ of the superior freshwater limestone, but for the most part destitute of the small sinuous cavities the latter commonly contains.

This calcareous sandstone is directly succeeded, in ascending order, by the most extensive surface deposit of Touraine, termed by the French geologist, argile et poudinge; a rather thick argillaceous deposit, in which flint boulders are sometimes thickly embedded, and on which reposes the _calc d'eau douce_ or freshwater limestone, both formations belonging to the uppermost subdivision of the Parisian tertiary strata, or newer Pliocene deposits.

Immediately above the freshwater limestone just named, a series of isolated masses occur, consisting of marine sand and marl, the whole rarely exceeding fifty feet in thickness, and containing for the most part a different and immense assemblage of fossils. This tertiary formation which is provincially termed _faluns_, (broken shells) is considered to belong to a period intermediate between that of the Parisian and subapennine strata, and to assimulate in age to the crag formation of England, which belongs to the Miocene or middle Tertiary.

Mr Lyell who has closely examined the _faluns_[D], says that most of the shells they contain do not depart from the Mediterranean type, although a few would seem to indicate a tropical climate, among these may be mentioned some large species of the genera _conus_, _terebra_, _rynula_, _tasciolaria_, _cerithium_ and _cardita_.

The species he considers for the most part marine, but that a few of them belong to land and fluviatile genera. Among the former, _helix turonensis_ (faluns Touraine) is the most abundant.

Remains of terrestrial quadrupeds are here and there intermixed, belonging to the genera mastodon, rhinoceros, hyppopotamus, deer and others, and these are accompanied by cetacea, such as the lamantine, morse, sea calf, and dolphin, all of extinct species.

Out of two hundred and ninety species of shells from the _faluns_ Mr Lyell says he found seventy-two identical with recent species, and that out of the whole three hundred and two in his possession forty-five only were found to be common to the suffolk crag. Nevertheless a similarity of mineral composition, and the general analogy of the fossil shells and zoophytes, together with the perfect identity of certain species, strongly justifies the opinion that has long been pronounced, that the faluns of Touraine, and the Suffolk crag are nearly contemporaneous.

To this brief outline of what may properly be termed the regular stratifications of Touraine, it only remains to be stated, that they are frequently concealed by considerable deposits of alluvial and diluvian beds of flinty gravel, sand, and adventitious clays, in some of which numerous specimens of the rocks and fossils to be found existing in _situ_ in the neighbourhood are interspersed.

It is almost impossible to contemplate even the comparatively scanty catalogue of geological facts just adverted to, without being forcibly reminded of the remarkable physical transformations which the surface of the country must have undergone, at distinct, and incalculably distant epochs; and to speculate on the causes which effected; and the peculiar circumstances characterizing those revolutionizing periods.

Geology, may indeed, be truly said to be an inductive science, and while pondering over its natural inferences we find ourselves most marvellously progressing through a long concatenation of pre-existing realities, which at every remove may be said to assume more and more the features of romance!

During the cretaceous period, _Touraine_ had not emerged from the Ocean, which here was probably studded with Islands constituted of the primary rocks of Brittany, and those of the older secondary formations we have noticed as now principally occupying the more southern provinces. These lands, we may reasonably infer, were adorned by the luxuriant vegetation of a tropical climate, the fossil remains of which, are found abundantly dispersed throughout the first formed members of the tertiary series.

Subsequent to the deposition of the chalk, a retiring of the sea from this region, and a period of repose, are indicated by the presence of the _freshwater formation_, but on examining the overlying deposits of _faluns_, we have the most indubitable evidence, that this quiescent state, was succeeded by another irruption of the Ocean, which desolated the land, and deposited the wrecks of its animal and vegetable productions as now discovered in that formation. As yet, the geologian maintains, man had not been called into existence, and therefore the huge quadrupeds whose remains are found in the _faluns_, unmolestedly ranged through the umbrageous wilds of nature absolute Lords of the creation.

While the imagination is startled at the mystic nature of these successive cosmological revolutions, it is no less puzzled to account for the mighty causes which have effected them. The geologist however has discovered in various parts of the world, the most positive evidence of the upheaving and subsidence of immense tracts of territory, by the stupendous operations of subterranean convulsions.

At Alum Bay in the Isle of Wight we have an extraordinary and complete example of this description; in the remarkable _vertical_ position of the beautiful and variously coloured arenose stratifications of the plastic clay, we are enabled to discover that the ponderous substrata of chalk were uplifted subsequently to the deposition of the tertiary formation. And it would not be unreasonable to believe that the same, or a similar convulsion, finally raised the lands of Touraine to their present elevation above the level of the sea.

We have however in this country, as in almost every other part of the globe, the most striking proofs of the mighty modifying operations of the last grand _cataclysm_, the erosive power of whose turbulent waters have denudated or scooped out deep vallies, frequently leaving--as instanced in the faluns detached and widely scattered masses of pre-existing formations, and heaping up their _debris_ in the vast and variously shaped accumulations designated as diluvial deposits.

These popular speculations have been touched upon rather with the view of exciting the attention of the curious, and inviting the disquisitions of the able student of nature, than a desire to attach any absolute importance to existing theories; for in a progressive science like geology, new and amazing facts are continually being developed, and it is only when an immensely increased accumulation of such existing evidences has been thoroughly scrutinized by the penetrating and comprehensive genius of a _Newton in geology_, that we can hope to arrive at any thing approaching a correct explication of its remarkable and interesting phenomena.

To the commonest observer however the present state of geology presents an astounding exposition of divine power and goodness, and distinctively marks the gigantic footsteps of that creative energy, which out of stupendous confusion and disorder, the rocking earthquake, and the "wreck of worlds," has caused to spring forth the existing order of things; whose beauty, perfection, utility and harmony, charm our senses, enhance our knowledge, and demand for their Creator, the constant tribute, of our most grateful emanations.

There are a few Chalybeate, and many calcareous springs in the department, some of the latter of which incrust every substance over which they flow, and it is not uncommon to find an assemblage of most fancifully shaped stalactical incrustations in the caves of the calcareous freestone, etc., being often singularly imitative of the works both of nature and of art. Caves of this description known by the name of the caves gouttieres are to be seen near the _village of Savonnieres_ on the road from _Tours_ to Chinon, not far from the banks of the Cher. But perhaps no less remarkable in the estimation of the curious are the extraordinary series of excavations ranging nearly opposite Tours. These artificial caverns which are hewn out of the white calcareous sandstone rocks on the banks of the Loire, frequently constitute entire dwellings, and are so free from humidity as to be occupied by the peasantry during summer and winter, while others are formed into extensive storehouses for the wines of the country.

From the general and impartial review we have here taken of some of the more attractive features, climatic advantages, and geological structure of Touraine, it cannot but be admitted that it possesses inducements of no ordinary description to the searcher after health or recreation. Considerations, of more special importance to the hypochondriac and the valetudinarian, who may feel themselves obliged to abandon the soothing comforts of the domestic circle, for the purpose of obtaining relief from a temporary residence abroad.

In our just estimation of any country or locality, much however depends on the spirit and manner in which we scrutinize its resources, to the eye of the vacant and unobservant mind, the most beautiful and soul-stirring facts and scenes possess neither novelty nor charms, while the attentive and _intelligent investigator_ seldom fails to discover and appreciate those extraordinary assemblages of creative perfections, and wonders, with which the all bountiful hand of the Supreme Creator has most amply stored every portion of the material Universe.

SPAS OF FRANCE.

A small work of this description will not admit of our entering into a minute detail of all the mineral waters of France; we shall therefore merely give a sketch of their physical characters, medicinal properties, and of the different localities where they are found, to serve as a superficial guide to Invalids; and conclude by giving a more general description of the _Spas of Central France_.

Mineral waters may be arranged into the four following classes; _Saline_; _Acidulous_; _Chalybeate_; and _Sulphureous_.

_Saline._ These waters owe their properties altogether to saline compounds. Those which predominate and give their character to the waters of this class are either,

1. Salts, the basis of which is Lime.

2. Muriate of Soda and Magnesia.

3. Sulphate of Magnesia.

4. Alkaline Carbonates, particularly Carbonate of Soda.

They are mostly purgative, the powers of the salts they contain being very much increased by the large proportion of water in which they are exhibited.