 CHAPTER 45 IN CLOSING OF FOSSILS IN PEET, GROUND SAND AND VULCANIC EJECTIONS, DIVISION OF THE SUBJECT, EMBEDDING OF ORGANIC REMAINS IN DEPOSITS ON EMERGED LAND, GROWTH OF PEET, SIGHT OF ANCIENT FORESTS IN EUROPE, NOW OCCUPIED BY PEET, BOG IRON ORE, PRESERVATION OF ANIMAL SUBSTANCES IN PEET, MIARING OF QUADROPEADS, DIRSTING OF THE SULLWAY MOSS, GREAT DISMISSAL SWAMP, EMBEDDING OF ORGANIC BODYS AND HUMAN REMAINS IN BLOWN SAND, MOVING SANDS OF AFRICAN DESERTS, DELUK ON THEIR RECENT ORIGIN, BERRY TEMPLE OF EPSAMBUL, DRIED CARCUSES IN THE SANDS, TOWNS OVERWHELMED BY SAND FLUDDS, EMBEDDING OF ORGANIC AND OTHER REMAINS IN VOLCANIC FORMATIONS ON THE LAND. DIVISION OF THE SUBJECT The next subject of inquiry is the mode in which the remains of animals and plants become fossil, or are buried in the earth by natural causes. Mr. Constant Provost has observed that the effects of geological causes are divisible in two great classes, those produced during the submersion of land beneath the waters, and those which take place after its immersion. Agreeably to this classification, I shall consider, first, in what manner animal and vegetable remains become included and preserved in deposits on emerged land, or that part of the surface which is not permanently covered by water, whether of seas or lakes. Secondly, the manner in which organic remains become embedded in sub-aqueous deposits. Under the first division, I shall treat of the following topics. First, the growth of peat, and the preservation of vegetable and animal remains therein. Secondly, the burying of organic remains in blown sand. Thirdly, of the same in the ejections and alluviums of volcanoes. Fourthly, in alluviums generally, and in the ruins of land slips. Fifthly, in the mud and stalagmite of caves and fissures. Growth of peat and preservation of vegetable and animal remains therein. The generation of peat, when not completely under water, is confined to moist situations where the temperature is low and where vegetables may decompose without putrefying. It may consist of any of the numerous plants which are capable of growing in such stations, but a species of moss, sphagwinum, constitutes a considerable part of the peat found in marshes of the north of Europe. This plant, having the property of throwing up new shoots in its upper part, while its lower extremities are decaying. Reeds, rushes, and other aquatic plants may usually be traced in peat, and their organization is often so entire that there is no difficulty in discriminating the distinct species. Analysis of peat. In general, says Sir H. Davey, one hundred parts of dry peat contain from sixty to ninety-nine parts of matter destructible by fire, and the residuum consists of earths usually of the same kind as the substratum of clay, marl, gravel, or rock on which they are found, together with oxide of iron. The peat of the chalk counties of England, observes the same writer, contains much gypsum, but I have found very little in any specimens from Ireland or Scotland, and in general these peats contain very little saline matter. From the researches of Dr. McCulloch, it appears that peat is intermediate between simple vegetable matter in lignite, the conversion of peat to lignite being gradual, and being brought about by a prolonged action of water. Peat abundant in cold and humid climates. Peat is sometimes formed on a declivity in mountainous regions, where there is much moisture, but in such situations it rarely, if ever, exceeds four feet in thickness. In bogs, and in low grounds into which a louvial peat is drifted, it is found forty feet thick and upwards, but in such cases it generally owes one half of its volume to the water which it contains. It has seldom, if ever, been discovered within the tropics, and it rarely occurs in the valleys, even in the south of France and Spain. It abounds more and more in proportion as we advance farther from the equator, and becomes not only more frequent, but more inflammable in northern latitudes. The same phenomenon is repeated in the southern hemisphere. No peat is found in Brazil, nor even in the swampy parts of the country drained by the La Plata on the east side of South America, or in the island of Chiloé on the west. Yet when we reach the forty-fifth degree of latitude and examine the Chonoes archipelago, or the Falkland Islands, and Tierra del Fuego, we meet with an abundant growth of this substance. Almost all plants contribute here by their decay to the production of peat, even the grasses. But it is a singular fact, says Mr. Darwin, as contrasted with what occurs in Europe, that no kind of moss enters into the composition of the South American peat, which is formed by many plants, but chiefly by that called by Brown Estelia Pumila. I learned from Dr. Forchhammer, 1849, that water charged with vegetable matter in solution does not throw down a deposit of peat in countries where the mean temperatures of the year is above forty-three or forty-four degrees Fahrenheit. Frost causes the precipitation of such peat matter, but in warm climates the attraction of the carbon for the oxygen of the air mechanically mixed with the water increases with the increasing temperature, and the dissolved vegetable matter, or humic acid, which is organic matter in a progressive state of decomposition, being converted into carbonic acid, rises, and is absorbed into the atmosphere and thus disappears. Extent of surface covered by peat. There is a vast extent of surface in Europe covered with peat, which, in Ireland, is said to extend over a tenth of the whole island. One of the mosses on the Shannon is described as being fifty miles long, by two or three broad, and the great marsh of Montiori, near the mouth of the lorry, is mentioned by Blavier as being more than fifty leagues in circumference. It is a curious and well-acertained fact that many of these mosses of the north of Europe occupy the place of forests of Pine and Oak, which have, many of them, disappeared within the historical era. Such changes are brought about by the fall of trees, and the stagnation of water, caused by their trunks and branches obstructing the free drainage of the atmospheric waters, and giving rise to a marsh. In warm climate, such decayed timber would immediately be removed by insects, or by putrefaction, but in the cold temperature, now prevailing in our latitudes. Many examples are recorded of marshes originating in this source. Thus, in Marr Forest, in Aberdeenshire, large trunks of Scotch fir, which had fallen from age and decay, were soon immured in peat, formed partly out of their perishing leaves and branches, and in part from the growth of other plants. We also learn that the overthrow of a forest by a storm, about the middle of the 17th century, gave rise to a peat moss near Lochbroom, in Rothschire, where, in less than half a century after the fall of the trees, the inhabitants dug peat. Dr. Walker mentions a similar change, when in the year 1756 the whole wood of Drommelrich in Dumpfershire was overset by the wind. Such events explain the occurrence both in Britain and on the continent of mosses, where the trees are all broken within two or three feet of the original surface, and where their trunks all lie in the same direction. It may however be suggested in these cases, that the soil had become exhausted for trees, and that on the principle of that natural rotation which prevails in the vegetable world one set of plants died out and another succeeded. It is certainly a remarkable fact that in the Danish islands, and in Jutland and Holstein, fir wood of various species, especially Scotch fir, is found at the bottom of the peat mosses. Overwood is well ascertained that for the last five centuries no coniferay have grown wild in these countries, the coniferous trees which now flourish there, having been all planted toward the clothes of the last century. Nothing is more common than the occurrence of buried trees at the bottom of the Irish peat mosses, as also in most of those of England, France and Holland, and they have been so often observed with parts of their trunks standing erect and with their roots fixed to the subsoil that no doubt can be entertained of their having generally grown on the spot. They consist, for the most part, of the fir, the oak and the birch, where the subsoil is clay. The remains of oak are the most abundant, where sand is the substratum fir prevails. In the marsh of Cura, in the Isle of Man, vast trees are discovered standing firm on their roots, though at the depth of eighteen or twenty feet below the surface. Some naturalists have desired to refer the embedding of timber and peat mosses to aqueous transportation, since rivers are well known to float wood into lakes. But the facts above mentioned show that in numerous instances such a hypothesis is inadmissible. It has moreover been observed that in Scotland, as also in many parts of the continent, the largest trees are found in those peat mosses which lie in the least elevated regions, and that the trees are proportionately smaller in those which lie at higher levels. From which fact do Luke and Walker have both inferred that the trees grow on the spot, for they would naturally attain a greater size in lower and warmer levels. The leaves also, and fruits of each species, are continually found immersed in the moss along with the parent trees, as for example the leaves and acorns of the oak, the cones and leaves of the fir, and the nuts of the hazel. Recent origin of some peat mosses. In Hatfield Moss, in Yorkshire, which appears clearly to have been a forest 1800 years ago, fir trees have been found 90 feet long, and sold for masts and keels of ships. Oaks have also been discovered there about 100 feet long. The dimensions of an oak from this moss are given in the philosophical transactions number 275, which must have been larger than any tree now existing in the British dominions. In the same moss of Hatfield, as well as in that of King Cardin in Scotland, and several others, Roman roads have been found covered to the depth of 8 feet by peat. All the coins, axes, arms, and other utensils found in British and French mosses are also Roman. So that a considerable portion of the peat in European peat bogs is evidently not more ancient than the age of Julius Caesar. Nor can any vestiges of the ancient forests, described by that general, along the lines of the great Roman way in Britain, be discovered, except in the ruined trunks of trees and peat. D'Look ascertained that the very sites of the aboriginal forests of Hercinia, Simana, Ardennes, and several others are now occupied by mosses and fens, and a great part of these changes have with much probability been attributed to the strict orders given by Severus and other emperors to destroy all the wood in the conquered provinces. Several of the British forests, however, which are now mosses, were cut at different periods by order of the English Parliament because they harbored wolves or outlaws. Thus the Welsh woods were cut and burned in the reign of Edward I, as were many of those in Ireland by Henry II, to prevent the natives from harboring in them and harassing his troops. It is curious to reflect that considerable tracts have by these accidents been permanently sterilized, and that during a period when civilization has been making great progress, large areas in Europe have by human agency been rendered less capable of administering to the wants of man. Rennie observes, with truth, that in those regions alone which the Roman eagle never reached, in the remote circles of the German Empire, in Poland and Prussia, and still more Norway, Sweden, and the vast Empire of Russia, can we see what Europe was before it yielded to the power of Rome? Desolation now reigns where stately forests of pine and oak once flourished, such as might now have supplied all the navies of Europe with timber, sources of bog iron ore. At the bottom of peat mosses, there is sometimes found a cake, or pan, as it is termed, of oxide of iron, and the frequency of bog iron ore is familiar to the mineralologist. The oak, which is so often dyed black in peat, owes its color to the same metal. From what source the iron is derived has often been a subject of discussion, until the discoveries of Ehrenberg's seam at length to have removed the difficulty. He had observed, in the marshes about Berlin, a substance of a deep ochre yellow passing into red, which covered the bottom of the ditches, and which where it had become dry after the evaporation of water, appeared exactly like oxide of iron. But under the microscope it was found to consist of slender articulated threads, or plates, partly salacious, and partly ferruginous, of what he considered an animalcule. Galeonella ferruginia, but which most naturalists now regard as a plant. There can be little doubt, therefore, that bog iron ore consists of an aggregate of millions of these organic bodies, invisible to the naked eye. One interesting circumstance, attending the history of peat mosses, is the high state of preservation of animal substances buried in them, for periods of many years. In June 1747, the body of a woman was found six feet deep in a peat moor in the isle of Axholm in Lincolnshire. The antique sandals on her feet afforded evidence of her having been buried there for many ages. Yet her nails, hair, and skin are described as having shown hardly any marks of decay. On the estate of the Earl of Moira in Ireland, a human body was dug up, a foot deep in gravel, covered with eleven feet of moss. The body was completely clothed, and the garments seemed all to be made of hair. Before the use of wool was known in that country, the clothing of the inhabitants was made of hair, so that it would appear that this body had been buried at the early period. Yet it was fresh and unimpaired. In the philosophical transactions we find an example recorded of the bodies of two persons having been buried in moist peat in Derbyshire in 1674, about a yard deep, which were examined twenty-eight years and nine months afterward. The colors of their skin was fair and natural, the flesh soft as that of persons newly dead. Among other analogous facts we may mention that in digging a pit for a well near Doverton in Somersetshire, many pigs were found in various postures still entire. Their shape was well preserved, the skin which retained the hair having assumed a dry, membranous appearance. Their whole substance was converted into a white, friable, laminated, inodorous, and tasteless substance, but which, when exposed to heat, emitted an odor precisely similar to broiled bacon. Cause of the antiseptic property of peat. We naturally ask whence peat derives this antiseptic property. It has been attributed by some to the carponic and gallic acids which issued from decayed wood, as also to the presence of charred wood in the lowest strata of many peat mosses. For charcoal is a powerful antiseptic and capable of purifying water already putrid. Vegetable gums and resins also may operate in the same way. The tannin, occasionally present in peat, is the produce, says Dr. McCulloch, of Tormentila and some other plants, but the quantity he thinks too small and its occurrence too casual to give rise to effects of any importance. He hints that the soft parts of animal bodies preserved in peat bogs may have been converted into adipocera by the action of water merely. An explanation which appears clearly applicable to some of the cases above enumerated. Myering of quadrupeds. The manner, however, in which peat contributes to preserve for indefinite periods the hotter parts of terrestrial animals is a subject of more immediate interest to the geologist. There are two ways in which animals become occasionally buried in the peat of marshy grounds. They either sink down into the semi-fluid mud, underlying the turfy surface upon which they have rashly ventured, or at other times, as we shall see in the sequel, a bog bursts, and animals may be involved in the peaty alluvium. In the extensive bogs of Newfoundland, cattle are sometimes found buried with only their heads and necks above ground, and after having remained for days in this situation, they have been drawn out by ropes and saved. In Scotland also, cattle venturing on the quaking moss are often mired, or layered, as it is termed, and in Ireland a Mr. King asserts that the number of cattle which are lost in sloughs is quite incredible. Solway moss. The description given of the Solway moss will serve to illustrate the general character of these boggy grounds. That moss, observes Gilpin, is a flat area, about seven miles in circumference, situated on the western confines of England and Scotland. Its surface is covered with a grass and rushes, presenting a dry crust and a fair appearance, but it shakes under the least pressure, the bottom being unsound and semi-fluid. The adventurous passenger, therefore, who sometimes in dry seasons traverses this perilous waste to save a few miles, picks his cautious way over the rushy tussocks as they appear before him, for here the soil is firmest. If his foot slip, or if he venture to desert this mark of security, it is possible he may never more be heard of. At the Battle of Solway in the time of Henry VIII, 1542, when the Scotch army commanded by Oliver Sinclair was rooted, an unfortunate troop of horse, driven by their fears, plunged into this morass, which instantly closed upon them. The tale was traditional, but it is now authenticated, a man and horse in complete armor having been found by peat-diggers, in the place where it was always supposed the affair had happened, the skeleton of each was well preserved, and the different parts of the armor easily distinguished. The same moss, on the 16th of December 1772, having been filled like a great sponge with water during heavy rains, swelled to an unusual height above the surrounding country and then burst. The turfy covering seemed for a time to act like the skin of a bladder, retaining the fluid within till it forced a passage for itself, when a stream of black, half-consolidated mud began at first to creep over the plain, resembling, in the rate of its progress, an ordinary lava current. No lives were lost, but the deluge totally overwhelmed some cottages and covered four hundred acres. The highest parts of that original moss subsided to the depth of about twenty-five feet, and the height of the moss on the lowest parts of the country, which it invaded, was at least fifteen feet. Bursting of a peat moss in Ireland. A recent inundation in Sligo, January 1831, affords another example of this phenomenon. After a sudden thought of snow, the bog between Bloomfield and Giva gave way, and a black deluge, carrying with it the contents of a hundred acres of bog, took the direction of a small stream and rolled on with the violence of a torrent, sweeping along heath, timber, mud, and stones, and overwhelming many meadows and arable land. On passing through some boggy land, the flood swept out a wide and deep ravine, and part of the road leading from Bloomfield to St. Jameswell was completely carried away from below the foundation for the breadth of two hundred yards. Great Dismal Swamp. I have described in my travels in North America an extensive swamp or morass, forty miles long from north to south and twenty-five wide, between the towns of Norfolk in Virginia and Weldon in North Carolina. It is called the Great Dismal. It has somewhat the appearance of an inundated river plain covered with aquatic trees and shrubs, the soil being as black as that of a peat bog. It is higher on all sides, except one, than the surrounding country, towards which it sends forth streams of water to the north, east, and south, receiving a supply from the west only. In its center it rises twelve feet above the flat region which bounds it. The soil, to the depth of fifteen feet, is formed of vegetable matter without any admixture of earthy particles, and offers an exception to general rule before alluded to, namely that such peaty accumulations scarcely ever occur so far south as latitude thirty-six degrees or in any region where the summer heat is so great as in Virginia. In digging canals through the morass, for the purpose of obtaining timber, much of the black soil has been thrown out from time to time and exposed to the sun and air, in which case it soon rots away so that nothing remains behind, showing clearly that it owes its preservation to the shade afforded by a luxuriant vegetation, and to the constant evaporation of the spongy soil by which the air is cooled during the hot months. The surface of the bog is carpeted with mosses, and densely covered with ferns and reeds, above which many evergreen shrubs and trees flourish, especially the white cedar, cuprisis thiodes, which stands firmly supported by its long tap roots in the softest parts of the quagmire. Over the whole the deciduous cypress taxodium disticum is seen to tower with its spreading top in full leaf in the season when the sun's rays are hottest, and when, if not intercepted by a screen of foliage, they might soon cause the fallen leaves and dead plants of the preceding autumn to decompose, instead of adding their contributions to the peaty mass. On the surface of the wide morass lie innumerable trunks of large and tall trees, while thousands of others, blown down by the winds, are buried at various depths in the black mire below. They remind the geologist of the prostrate position of large stems of Siglaria and Lepidodendron, converted into coal in ancient carboniferous rocks. Bones of herbivorous quadrupeds in peat. The antlers of large and full-ground stags are amongst the most common and conspicuous remains of animals in peat. They are not horns which have been shed, for portions of a skull are found attached, proving that the whole animal perished. Bones of the ox, hog, horse, sheep, and other herbivorous animals also occur. Mr. Moran had discovered in the peat of Flanders the bones of otters and beavers. But no remains have been met with belonging to those extinct quadrupeds of which the living cogeners inhabit warmer latitudes, such as the elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, hyena, and tiger. Though these are so common in superficial deposits of silt, mud, and sand, or stalactite, in various districts throughout Great Britain. Their absence seems to imply that they had ceased to live before the atmosphere of this part of the world, acquired that cold and eubid character which favours the growth of peat. Remains of ships, etc., in peat mosses. From the facts before mentioned, that mosses occasionally burst, and descend in a fluid state to lower levels, it will readily be seen that lakes and arms of the sea may occasionally become the receptacles of drift peat. Of this, accordingly, there are numerous examples, and hence the alternations of clay and sand, with different deposits of peat so frequent on some coasts as on those of the Baltic and German ocean. We are informed by De Gure that remains of ships, nautical instruments and oars, have been found in many of the Dutch mosses, and Gerard in the history of the Valley of the Some mentions that in the lowest tier of that moss was found a boat loaded with bricks, proving that these mosses were at one period navigable lakes and arms of the sea, as were also many mosses on the coast of Picardy, Zeeland, and Friesland from which soda and salt are procured. The canoes, stone hatchets, and stone arrow heads found in peat in different parts of Great Britain lead to similar conclusions. Embedding of human and other remains and works of art in blown sand. The drifting of sand may next be considered among the causes capable of preserving organic remains and works of art on the emerged land. African Sands The Sands of the African Deserts have been driven by the West winds over part of the arable land of Egypt on the western bank of the Nile, in those places where valleys open into the plain, or where there are gorges through the Libyan mountains. By similar sand drifts, the ruins of ancient cities have been buried between the temple of Jupiter Ammon and Nubia. Mr. G. A. Duluk attempted to infer the recent origin of our continents from the fact that these moving sands have arrived only in modern times at the fertile plains of the Nile. The same scourge, he said, would have afflicted Egypt for ages and terrier to the times of history had the continents risen above the level of the sea several hundred centuries before our era. But the author proceeded in this, as in all his other chronological computations, on a multitude of gratuitous assumptions. He ought, in the first place, to have demonstrated that the whole continent of Africa was raised above the level of the sea at one period. For until this point was established, the region from whence the sands began to move might have been the last addition made to Africa, and the commencement of the sand flood might have been long posterior to the laying dry of a greater portion of that continent. That the different parts of Europe were not all elevated at one time is now generally admitted. Duluk should have also pointed out the depth of drift sand in various parts of the great Libyan deserts, and have shown whether any valleys of large dimension had been filled up, how long these may have arrested the progress of the sands, and how far the flood had upon the whole advanced since the times of history. We have seen that Sir J. G. Wilkinson is of opinion that while the sand drift is making aggressions at certain points upon the fertile soil of Egypt, the alluvial deposit of the Nile is advancing very generally upon the desert, and that upon the whole the balance is greatly in favor of the fertilizing mud. No mode of interment can be conceived more favorable to the conservation of monuments for indefinite periods than that now so common in the region immediately westward of the Nile. The sand which surrounded and filled the great temple of Ipsimbul, first discovered by Burkhart, and afterwards partially uncovered by Belzoni in Bici, was so fine as to resemble a fluid and put in motion. Neither the features of the colossal figures nor the color of the stucco with which some were covered, nor the paintings on the walls, had received any injury from being enveloped for ages in this dry impalpable dust. At some future period, perhaps when the pyramids shall have perished, the action of the sea or an earthquake may lay open to the day some of these buried temples, or we may suppose the desert to remain undisturbed, and changes in the surrounding sea and land to modify the climate and the direction of the prevailing winds so that these may then waft away the Libyan sands, as gradually as they once brought them to those regions. Thus many a town and temple of higher antiquity than Thebes, or Memphis, may reappear in their original antiquity, and a part of the gloom which overhangs the history of the earlier nations be dispelled. Whole caravans are said to have been overwhelmed by the Libyan sands, and Burkhart informs us that after passing the Acaba near the head of the Red Sea the bones of dead camels are the only guides of the pilgrim through the wastes of sand. We did not see, says Captain Lyon, speaking of a plane near the Suda Mountains in North Africa, the least appearance of vegetation, but observed many skeletons of animals which had died of fatigue on the desert, and occasionally the grave of some human being. All these bodies were so dried by the heat of the sun that putrefaction appears not to have taken place after death. In recent expired animals I could not perceive the slightest offensive smell, and in those long dead the skin with the hair on it remained unbroken and perfect, although so brittle was to break with a slight blow. The sand winds never caused these carcasses to change their places, for in a short time a slight mound is formed around them, and they become stationary. Towns Overwhelmed by Sand Floods The burying of several towns and villages in England, France, and Jutland by blown sand is on record. Thus, for example, near St. Paul de Lyon in Brittany a whole village was completely buried beneath drift sand, so that nothing was seen but the spire of a church. In Jutland marine shells adhering to seaweed are sometimes blown by the violence of the wind to the height of a hundred feet, and buried in similar hills of sand. In Suffolk in the year 1688 part of Downham was overwhelmed by sands, which had broken loose about a hundred years before, from a warrant five miles to the southwest. This sand had, in the course of a century, traveled five miles, and covered more than a thousand acres of land. A considerable tract of cultivated land on the north coast of Cornwall has been inundated by drift sand forming hills several hundred feet above the level of the sea, and composed of common-nuded marine shells, in which some terrestrial shells are enclosed entire. By the shifting of these sands the ruins of ancient buildings have been discovered, and in some cases where wells had been bored to a great depth, distinct strata separated by a vegetable crust are visible. In some places, as at Nuke, large masses have become sufficiently indurated to be used for architectural purposes. The lipidification, which is still in progress, appears to be due to oxide of iron held in solution by the water which percolates the sand. Embedding of organic and other remains in volcanic formations on the land. I have in some degree anticipated the subject of this section in former chapters, when speaking of the buried cities around Naples, and those on the flanks of Etna. From the facts referred to, it appeared that the preservation of human remains and works of art is frequently due to the descent of floods caused by the copious rains which accompany eruptions. These aqueous lavas, as they are called in Campania, flow with great rapidity, and in 1822, surprised and suffocated, as was stated, seven persons in the village of Saint Sebastian and De Massa on the flanks of Vesuvius. In the tufts moreover, or solidified mud deposited by these aqueous lavas, impressions of leaves and of trees have been observed. Some of those, formed after the eruption of Vesuvius in 1822, are now preserved in the museum at Naples. Lava itself may become indirectly the means of preserving terrestrial remains, by overflowing beds of ash, pumice, and ejected matter which may have been showered down upon animals and plants, or upon human remains. Few substances are better non-conductors of heat than volcanic dust and scoriae, so that a bed of such materials is rarely melted by a superimposed lava current. After consolidation, the lava affords secure protection to the lighter and more removable mass below, in which the organic relics may be enveloped. The Herculinian tufts, containing the rolls of papyrus, of which the characters are still legible, have, as was before remarked, been for ages covered by lava. Another mode by which lava may tend to the conservation of embedded remains, at least of works of human art, is by its overflowing them, when it is not intensely heated, in which case they sometimes suffer little or no injury. Thus, when the Etnian lava current of 1669 covered 14 towns and villages and part of the city of Catania, it did not melt down a great number of statues and other articles in the vaults of Catania, and at depth of 35 feet in the same current on the site of Montpellier, one of the buried towns, the bell of a church, and some statues were found uninjured. We read of several buried cities in central India, and among others, of Ouijian, or Ouji, which about 50 years before the Christian era was the seat of empire of art and of learning, but which in the time of Raja Vikramaditya was overwhelmed, according to tradition, together with more than 80 other large towns in the provinces of Malwa and Bagore, by a shower of earth. The city which now bears a name is situated a mile to the southward of the ancient town, undigging on the spot where the ladder is supposed to have stood, to the depth of 15 or 18 feet there are frequently discovered, says Mr. Hunter, entire brick walls, pillars of stone, and pieces of wood of an extraordinary hardness, besides utensils of various kinds, ancient coins, and occasionally buried wheat, an estate resembling charcoal. The soil which covers Ouijian is described as being of an ash gray color with minute specks of black sand, and the shower of earth, said to have fallen from heaven, has been attributed by some travelers to volcanic agency. There are however no active volcanoes in central India, the nearest to Ouijian being Dhanador Hill near Buj, capital of Kuch, 300 geographical miles distant, if indeed that hill has ever poured out lava in historical times, which is doubted by many. The latest writers on Ouijian vow their suspicion that the supposed catastrophe was nothing more than the political decline and final abandonment of a gray city which, like Nineveh, or Babylon, and many an ancient seat of empire in the east after losing its importance as a metropolis, became a heap of ruins. The rapidity with which the sun dried bricks, of which even the most splendid oriental palaces are often constructed, crumbled down when exposed to rain and sun, and are converted into mounds of ordinary earthen clay, is well known. According to Captain Dangerfield, trap-tough and columnar basalt constitute the rocks in the environs of Ouijian, and the volcanic nature of these formations from which the materials of the bricks were originally derived may have led to the idea of the city having been overwhelmed by a volcanic eruption. End of Chapter 45 End of Section 97 Chapter 46 of Principles of Geology This is a LibriVox recording, while LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Principles of Geology by Charles Lyle Chapter 46 Burying of fossils in alluvial deposits and in caves Fossils in alluvium Effects of sudden inudations Terrestrial animals most abundantly preserved in alluvium where earthquakes prevail Marine alluvium Buried town Effects of land slips Organic remains in fissures and caves Form and dimensions of caverns Their probable origin Closed basins and subterranean rivers of the Moria Catavathra Formation of brescias with red cement Human remains embedded in Moria Intermixture in caves of south of France and elsewhere Of human remains and bones of extinct quadrupeds No proof of former coexistence of man with those lost species Fossils in alluvium The next subject for our consideration, according to the division before proposed, is the embedding of organic bodies in alluvium. The gravel, sand, and mud in the bed of a river does not often contain any animal or vegetable remains. For the whole mass is so continually shifting in place and the attrition of the various parts is so great that even the hardest rocks contained in it are at length ground down to powder. But when sand and sediment are suddenly swept by a flood and then let fall upon the land such an alluvium may envelop trees or the remains of animals which in this manner are often permanently preserved. In the mud and sand produced by the floods in Scotland in 1829 the dead and mutilated bodies of hares, rabbits, moles, mice, partridges, and even the bodies of men were found partially buried, but in these and similar cases one flood usually effaces the memorials left by another and there is rarely a sufficient depth of undisturbed transported matter in any one spot to preserve the organic remains for ages from destruction where earthquakes prevail and the levels of a country are changed from time to time the remains of animals may more easily be enumed and protected from disintegration. Portions of planes loaded with alluvial accumulations by transient floods may be gradually upraised and if any organic remains have been embedded in the transported materials they may, after such elevation, be placed beyond the reach of the erosive power of streams. In districts where the drainage is repeatedly deranged by subterranean movements every fissure, every hollow caused by the sinking in of land becomes a depository of organic and inorganic substances hurried along by transient floods. Marine alluvium In May 1787 a dreadful inundation of the sea was caused at Keringa, Ingaram and other places on the coast of Koromandel in the East Indies by a hurricane blowing from the northeast which raised the waters so that they rolled inland to the distance of about 20 miles from the shore swept away many villages drowned more 731 than 10,000 people and left the country covered with marine mud on which the carcasses of about 100,000 head of cattle were strewed an old tradition of the natives of a similar flood said to have happened about a century before was till this event regarded as fabulous by the European settlers the same coast of Koromandel was so late as May 1832 the scene of another catastrophe of the same kind and when the inundation subsided several vessels were seen grounded in the fields of the low country about Keringa many of the storms termed hurricanes have evidently been connected with submarine earthquakes as is shown by the atmospheric phenomena attendant on them and by the sounds heard in the ground and the odors emitted such were the circumstances which accompanied the swell of the sea of Jamaica in 1780 when a great wave desolated the western coast and bursting upon Savannah Lamar swept away the whole town in an instant so that not a vestige of man beast or habitation was seen upon the surface houses and works of art in alluvial deposits a very ancient subterranean town apparently of Hindu origin was discovered in India in 1833 in digging the Doab canal its site is north of Saharanam poor near the town of Bihat and 17 feet below the present surface of the country more than 170 coins of silver and copper have already been found and many articles in metal and earthenware the overlying deposit consisted of about five feet of river sand with a substratum about 12 feet thick of red alluvial clay in the neighborhood are several rivers and ponds which descend from the mountains charged with vast quantities of mud sand and shingle and within the memory of persons now living the modern Bihat has been threatened by an inundation which after retreating left the neighboring country strewed over with a superficial covering of sand several feet thick in sinking wells in the environs masses of shingle and boulders have been reached resembling those now in the river channels of the same district under a deposit of 30 feet of reddish loam captain caughtly therefore who directed the excavations supposes that the matter discharged by torrents has gradually raised the whole country skirting the base of the lower hills and that the ancient town having been originally built in a hollow was submerged by floods and covered over with sediment 17 feet in thickness we are informed by Mr. Bobley that in the Moria the formation termed ceramique consisting of pottery tiles and bricks intermixed with various works of art enters so largely into the alluvium and vegetable soil upon the plains of Greece and into hard and crystalline breccias which have been formed at the foot of declivities that it constitutes an important stratum which might in the absence of zoological characters serve to mark our epic in a most indestructible manner land slips the land slip by suddenly precipitating large masses of rock and soil into a valley overwhelms a multitude of animals and sometimes buries permanently whole villages with their inhabitants and large herds of cattle thus three villages with their entire population were covered when the mountain of Piz fell in 1772 in the district of Treviso in the state of Venice and part of Mount Griniere south of chambery in Savoy which fell down in the year 1248 buried five parishes including the town and church of St. Andre the ruins occupying an extent of about nine square miles the number of lives lost by the slide of the Rosberg in Switzerland in 1806 was estimated at more than 800 a great number of the bodies as well as several villages and scattered houses being buried deep under mud and rock in the same country several hundred cottages with 18 of their inhabitants and a great number of cows goats and sheeps were victim to the sudden fall of a bed of stones 30 yards deep which descended from the summits of the Diablores in Valais in the year 1618 a portion of Mount Kanto fell in the county of Chiavena in Switzerland and buried the town of Pleurs with all its inhabitants to the number of 2430 it is unnecessary to multiply examples of similar local catastrophes which however numerous they may have been in mountainous parts of Europe within the historical period have been nevertheless of rare occurrence when compared to events of the same kind which have taken place in regions convulsed with earthquakes it is then that enormous masses of rock and earth even in comparatively low and level countries are detached from the sides of valleys and cast down into the river courses and often so unexpectedly that they overwhelm even in the daytime every living thing upon the plains preservation of organic remains in fissures and caves in the history of earthquakes it was shown that many hundreds of new fissures and chasms had opened up in certain regions during the last 150 years some of which are described as being of unfathomable depth we also perceive that mountain masses have been violently fractured and dislocated during their rise above the level of the sea and thus we may account for the existence of many cavities in the interior of the earth by the simple agency of earthquakes but there are some caverns especially in limestone rocks which although usually if not always connected with rents are nevertheless of such forms and dimensions alternately expanding into spacious chambers and then contracting again into narrow passages that it is difficult to conceive that they can owe their origin to the mere fracturing and displacement of solid masses in the limestone of Kentucky in the basin of green river one of the 733 tributaries over the Ohio a line of underground cavities has been traced in one direction for a distance of 10 miles without any termination and one of the chambers of which there are many all connected by narrow tunnels is no less than 10 acres in area and 150 feet in its greatest height besides the principal series of entre vast there are a great many lateral embranchments not yet explored the cavernous structure here alluded to is not altogether confined to calcareous rocks for it has lately been observed in my case is and are Galatius Schist in the Grecian island of Thermia Scythnos of the ancients one of the Cyclades here also spacious halls with rounded and irregular walls are connected together by narrow passages or tunnels and there are many lateral branches which have no outlet a current of water is evidently at some period flowed through the hole and left a muddy deposit of bluish clay upon the floor but the erosive action of the stream cannot be supposed to have given rise to the excavations in the first instance mr. Verlay suggests that fissures were first caused by earthquakes and that these fissures became the chimneys or vents for the disengagement of gas generated below by volcanic heat gases he observes such as muriatic sulfuric floric and others might if raised to a high temperature alter and decompose the rocks which they traverse there are signs of the former action of such vapors in rinse of the Mycaceous Schist of Thermia and thermal springs now issue from the grottos of that island we may suppose that afterwards the elements of the decomposed rocks were gradually removed in a state of solution by mineral waters a theory which according to mr. Verlay is confirmed by the effect of heated gases which escape from rinse in the isthmus of Corinth and which have greatly altered and corroded the hard salacious and just peteous rocks when we reflect on the quantity of carbonate of lime annually poured out by mineral waters we are prepared to admit that large cavities must in the course of ages be formed at considerable depths below the surface in calcareous rocks these rocks it will be remembered or once more soluble more permeable and more fragile than any others at least all the compact varieties are very easily broken by the movements of earthquakes which would produce only flexures in our Galatius strata fissures once formed in limestone are not liable as in many other formations to become closed up by the impervious claye matter and hence a stream of assiduous water might for ages obtain a free and unobstructed passage warrior nothing is more common in limestone districts than the engulfment of rivers which after holding a subterranean course for many miles escape again by some new outlet as they are usually charged with fine sediment and often with sand and pebbles where they enter whereas they are usually pure and limpid where they flow out again they must deposit much matter and empty spaces in the interior of the earth in addition to the materials thus introduced stalagmite or carbonite of lime drops from the roofs of caverns and in this mixture the bones of animals washed in by rivers are often entombed in this manner we may account for those bony breaches which we often find in caves some of which are of high antiquity while others are very recent and in daily progress in no district are engulfed streams more conspicuous than in the moria where the phenomena attending them have been lately studied and described in great detail by Mr. Bobley and his fellow laborers of the french expedition to Greece their account is peculiarly interesting to geologists because it throws light on the red osseous breaches containing the bones of extinct quadrupeds which are so common in almost all the countries bordering the Mediterranean it appears that the numerous caverns of the moria occur in a compact limestone of the age of the English chalk immediately below which are arenatious strata refer to the period of our green sand in the more elevated districts of that peninsula there are many deep land locked valleys or basins closed round on all sides by mountains of fissured and cavernous limestone the year is divided almost as distinctly as between the tropics into a rainy season which lasts upwards of four months and a season of drought of nearly eight months duration when the torrents are swollen by the rains they rush from surrounding heights into the enclosed basins but instead of giving rise to lakes as would be the case in most other countries they are received into gulfs or chasms called by the Greeks catavathra and which correspond to what are termed swallow holes in the north of England the water of these torrents is charged with pebbles and red ochreous earth resembling precisely the well-known cement of the osseous breaches of the Mediterranean it dissolves in acids with evervescence and leaves a residue of hydrated oxide of iron granular iron impalpable grains of silics and small crystals of quartz soil of the same description abounds everywhere on the surface of the decomposing limestone in Greece that rock containing in it much salacious and feruganus matter many of the catavortha being insufficient to give passage to all the water in the rainy season a temporary lake is formed round the mouth of the chasm which then becomes still father obstructed by pebbles sand and red mud thrown down from the turbid waters the lake being thus raised its waters generally escape through the other openings at higher levels around the borders of the plain constituting the bottom of the closed basin in some places as at cavaros and triple itza where the principal discharge is by a gulf in the middle of the plain nothing can be seen over the opening in summer when the lake dries up but a deposit of red mud cracked in all directions but the catavathron is more commonly situated at the foot of the surrounding escarpment of limestone and in that case there is sometimes room enough to allow a person to enter in summer and even to penetrate far into the interior within is seen a suite of chambers communicating with each other by narrow passages and mr. virley relates that in one instance he observed near the entrance human bones embedded in recent red mud mingled with the remains of plants and animals of species now inhabiting the moria is it not wonderful he says that the bones of man should be met with in such receptacles for so murderous have been the late wars in Greece that skeletons are often seen lying exposed on the surface of the country in summer when no water is flowing into the catavathron its mouth half closed up with red mud is masked by a vigorous vegetation which is cherished by the moisture of the place it is then the favorite hiding place of den of foxes and jackals so that the same cavity serves at one season of the year for the habitation of coniferous beasts and at the other as the channel of an engulfed river near the mouth of one chasm mr. bob lay and his companions saw the carcass of a horse in part devoured the size of which seems to have prevented the jackals from dragging it in the marks of their teeth were observed on the bones and it was evident that the floods of the ensuing winter would wash in whatsoever might remain of the skeleton it has been stated that the waters of all these torrents of the moria are turbid where they are engulfed but when they come out again often at the distance of many leagues they are perfectly clear and limpid being only charged occasionally with a slight quantity of calcareous sand the points of efflux are usually near the seashores of the moria but sometimes they are submarine and when this is the case the sands are seen to boil up for a considerable space and the surface of the sea in calm weather swells in large convex waves it is curious to reflect that when this discharge fails in seasons of drought the pressure of the sea may force its salt waters into subterranean caverns and carry in marine sands and shells to be mingled with ossiferous mud and the remains of terrestrial animals in general however the efflux of water at these inferior openings is surprisingly uniform it seems therefore that the large caverns in the interior must serve as reservoirs and that the water escapes gradually from them in consequence of the smallness of the rents and passages by which they communicate with the surface the phenomena above described are not confined to the moria but occur in greece generally and in those parts of italy spain asia mina and syria where the formations of the moria extend the copaic lake in bocea is no outlet except by underground channels and hence can we explain those traditional and historical accounts of its having gained on the surrounding planes and overflowed towns as such floods must have happened whenever the outlet was partially choked up by mud gravel or the subsidence of rocks caused by earthquakes when speaking of the numerous fissures in the limestone of greece mr. boble reminds us of the famous earthquake of 469 bc when as we learn from cicero plutarch strabo and pliny sparta was laid in ruins part of the summit of mount tegetus torn off and numerous gulfs and fissures caused in the rocks of laconia during the great earthquake of 1693 in sicily several thousand people were at once entombed in the ruins of caverns in limestone at sartino vecchio and at the same time a large stream which had issued for ages from one of the grottoes below that town changed suddenly its subterranean course and came out from the mouth of a cave lower down the valley where no water had previously flowed to this new point the ancient water mills were transferred as i learned when i visited the spot in 1829 when the courses of engulfed rivers are thus liable to change from time to time by alternations in the levels of a country and by the rending and shattering of mountain masses we must suppose that the dens of wild beasts will sometimes be inundated by subterranean floods and their carcasses buried under heaps of alluvium the bones moreover of individuals which have died in the recesses of caves or of animals which have been carried in for a prey may be drifted along and mixed up with the mud sand and fragments of rocks so as to form osseous breccius in 1833 i had an opportunity of examining the celebrated caves of franconia and among others that of ravenstein newly discovered their general form and the nature and derangement of their contents appeared to me to agree perfectly with the notion of their having once served as the channels of subterranean rivers this mode of accounting for the introduction of transported matter into the franconian and other caves filled up as they often are even to their roofs with osseous breccia was long ago proposed by mc prevost and seems at length to be very generally adopted but i do not doubt that bears inhabited some of the german caves or that the cavern of kirkdale in yorkshire was once the den of hyenas the abundance of bony dung associated with hyenas bones has been pointed out by dr bucklin and with reason is confirmatory of this opinion the same author observed in every cave examined by him in germany that deposits of mud and sand with or without rolled pebbles and angular fragments of rock were covered over with a single crust of stalagmite in the english caves he remarked a similar absence of alterations of alluvium and stalagmite but dr schmerling has discovered in a cavern at chalky air about two leagues from liege three distinct beds of stalagmite and between each of them a mass of breccia and mud mixed with quartz pebbles and in the three deposits the bones of extinct quadrupeds this exception does not invalidate the generality of the phenomenon pointed out by dr bucklin one cause of which may perhaps be this that of several floods pass at different intervals of time through a subterranean passage the last if it has power to drift along fragments of rock will also tear up any alternating stalagmitic and alluvial beds that may have been previously formed another cause may be that a particular line of caverns will rarely be so situated in relation to the lowest levels of a country as to become at two distinct epics the receptacle of engulfed rivers and if this should happen some of the caves or at least the tunnels of communication may at the first period be entirely choked up with transported matter so as not to allow the subsequent passage of water in the same direction as the same chasms may remain open throughout the periods of indefinite duration the species inhabiting a country may in the meantime be greatly changed and thus the remains of animals belonging to very different epics may become mingled together in a common tune for this reason it is often difficult to separate the monuments of the human epic from those relating to periods long antecedent and it was not without great care and skill that dr. bukeland was enabled to guard against such an acronyms in his investigations of several of the english caves he mentions that human skeletons were found in the cave of wokie hole near wells in the mendips dispersed through reddish mud and clay and some of them united by stalagmite into a firm asia spretia the spot on which they lie is within reach of the highest floods of the adjacent river and the mud in which they are buried is evidently fluvia tile in speaking of the cave of paviland on the coast of the glamour gunshire the same author states that the entire mass through which bones were dispersed appears to have been disturbed by ancient diggings so that the remains of extinct animals had become mixed with recent bones and shells in the same cave was a human skeleton and the remains of recent testacea of eatable species which may have been carried in by man in several caverns of the banks of the muse near liege dr. shirmeling has found human bones in the same mud and breccia with those of the elephant rhinoceros bear and other quadrupeds of extinct species he has observed none of the dung of any of these animals and from this circumstance and the appearance of the mud and pebbles he concludes that these caverns were never inhabited by wild beasts but washed in by a current of water as the human skulls and bones were in fragments and no entire skeleton has been found he does not believe that these caves were places of subculture but that the human remains were washed in at the same time as the bones of extinct quadrupeds and that these lost species of memelia coexisted on the earth with man caverns in the south of france similar associations in the south of france of human bones and works of art with remains of extinct quadrupeds have induced other geologists to maintain that man was an inhabitant of that part of europe before the rhinoceros hyena tiger and many fossil species disappeared i may first mention the cavern of biza in the department of auda where mesur ma sel disiree met with a small number of human bones mixed with those of extinct animals and with land shells they occur in a calcareous stony mass bound together by a cement of stalagmite on examining the same caverns mesur tunal found not only in these calcareous beds but also in black mud which overlies a red osseous mud several human teeth together with broken angular fragments of a rude kind of pottery and also recent marine and terrestrial shells the teeth preserve their enamel but the fangs are so much altered as to adhere strongly when applied to the tongue of the terrestrial shells thus associated with the bones and pottery the most common are cyclostoma elegans bulimus decolatus helix memorialis and h natida among the marine are found pectin jacobius mitylus edulis and atica mealy punctata all of them eatable kinds and which may have been brought there for food bones were found in the same mass belonging to three new species of deer the brown bear ursis arcto edius and the wild bull bose oris formally a native of germany in the same parts of france mesur de cristal has found in caverns in a tertiary limestone at ponder and so vignargu two leagues north of lunal veal in the department of herald human bones and pottery confusedly mixed with remains of the rhinoceros bear aina and other terrestrial mammifers they were embedded in alluvial mud of the solidity of calcareous tufa and containing some flint pebbles and fragments of the limestone of the country beneath this mixed accumulation which sometimes attained a thickness of 13 feet is the original floor of the cavern about a foot thick covered with bones and the dung of animals album greekum and a sandy and tufaceous cement the human bones in these caverns of ponder and so vignargu were found upon a careful analysis to have parted with their animal matter to as great a degree as those of the hyena which accompany them and are equally brittle and adhere as strongly to the tongue in order to compare the degrees of alteration of these bones with those known to be of high antiquity jermacelle de sirre and mesur ballad chemists of montpelia procured some form of gallish sarcophagus in the plane of lunel supposed to have been buried for 14 or 15 centuries at least in these the cellular tissue was empty but they were more solid than fresh bones they did not adhere to the tongue in the same manner as those of the caverns of visa and ponder yet they had lost at least three-fourths of their original animal matter the superior solidity of the gallish bones to those in a fresh skeleton is a fact in perfect accordance with the observations made by dr. mantel on bones taken from a saxon tumulus near louis mesur tesiae has also described a cavern near mele in the department of guard where the remains of the bear and other animals were mingled confusedly with human bones coarse pottery teeth pierced for amulets pointed fragments of bone bracelets of bronze and a roman urn part of this deposit reached to the roof of the cavity and adhered firmly to it the author suggests that the exterior portion of the grotto may at one period have been a den of bears and that afterwards the aboriginal inhabitants of the country took possession of it either for a dwelling or a burial place and left there the coarse pottery amulets and pointed pieces of bone at a third period the romans may have used the cavern as a place of subculture or concealment and to them may have belonged the urn and bracelets of metal if we then suppose the course of the neighboring river to be impeded by some temporary cause a flood would be occasioned which rushing into the open grotto may have washed all the remains into the interior caves and tunnels heaping the whole confusedly together in the controversy which has arisen on this subject me jures marcel de cires de cristal tornail and others have contended that the phenomena of this and other caverns in the south of france prove that the fossil rhinoceros hyena bear and several other lost species were once contemporaneous inhabitants of the country together with man des noyes has supported the opposite opinion the flint hatchets and arrowheads he says and the pointed bones and coarse pottery of many french and english caves agree precisely in character with those found in the tumuli and under the dolmens rude altars of unhooned stone of the primitive inhabitants of gall britain in germany the human bones therefore in the caves which are associated with such fabricated objects must belong not to anti deluvian periods but to a people in the same stage of civilization as those who constructed the tumuli and altars in the gallish monuments we find together with the objects of industry above mentioned the bones of wild and domestic animals of species now inhabiting europe particularly of deer sheep wild boar dogs horses and oxen this fact has been ascertained in crercy and other provinces and it is supposed to be antiquaries that the animals in question were placed beneath the Celtic altars in memory of sacrifices offered to the gallish divinity hasis and in the tombs to commemorate funeral we pasts and also from a supposition prevalent among savage nations which induces them to lay up provisions for the mains of the dead in a future life but in none of these ancient monuments have any bones been found of the elephant rhinoceros hyena tiger and other quadrupeds such as are found in caves as might certainly have been expected had these species continued to flourish at the time that this part of gall was inhabited by man we are also reminded by musir des noirs of a passage in floris in which it is related that caesar ordered the caves into which the aquitainian galls had retreated to be closed up it is also on record that so late as the eighth century the aquitainians defended themselves in caverns against king pepon as many of these caverns therefore may have served in succession as temples and habitations as places of subculture concealment or defense it is easy to conceive that human bones and those of animals in osseous breccias of much older date may have been swept away together by inundations and then buried in one promiscuous heap it is not on the evidence of such intermixtures that we ought readily to admit either the high antiquity of the human race or the recent date of certain lost species of quadrupeds among the various modes in which the bones of animals become preserved independently of the agency of land floods and engulfed rivers i may mention that open fissures often serve as natural pitfalls in which herbivorous animals perish this may happen the more readily when they are chased by beasts of prey or when surprised while carelessly browsing on the shrubs which so often overgrowing conceal the edges of fissures during the excavations recently made near bahat in india the bones of two deer were found at the bottom of an ancient well which had been filled up with a louvy alone their horns were broken to pieces but the jaw bones and other parts of the skeleton remained tolerably perfect their presence says captain caughtly is easily accounted for as a great number of these and other animals are constantly lost in galloping over the jungles and among the high grass by falling into deserted wells above the village of selcide near engelboro in yorkshire a chasm of enormous but unknown depth occurs in the scar limestone a member of the carboniferous series the chasm says professor sedric is surrounded by grassy shelving banks and many animals tempted towards its brink have fallen down and perished in it the approach of the cattle is now prevented by a strong lofty wall but there can be no doubt that during the last two or three thousand years great masses of bony breccia must have accumulated in the lower parts of the great fissure which probably descends through the whole thickness of the scar limestone to the depth of perhaps five or six hundred feet when any of these natural pitfalls happen to communicate with lines of subterranean caverns the bones earth and breccia may sink by their own weight or be washed into the vaults below at the north extremity of the rock of draper altar are perpendicular fissures on the ledges of which a number of hawks nestle and rear their young in the breeding season they throw down from their nests the bones of small birds mice and other animals on which they feed and these are gradually united into a breccia of angular fragments of the decomposing limestone with a cement of red earth at the pass of iscranae in france on the northern escarpment of the corian hills near obena i have seen a breccia in the act of forming small pieces of disintegrating limestone are transported during heavy rains by a streamlet to the foot of the declivity where land shells are very abundant the shells and pieces of stone soon become cemented together by a stalagmite into a compact mass and the talus thus formed is in one place 50 feet deep and 500 yards wide so firmly is the lowest portion consolidated that it is quarried for millstones recent stalagmitic limestone of cuba one of the most singular examples of the recent growth of stalagmitic limestone in caves and fissures is that described by Mr. RC Taylor as observable on the northeast part of the island of cuba the country there is composed of a white marble in which are numerous cavities partially filled with a calcareous deposit of a brick red color in this red deposit are shells or often the hollow casts of shells chiefly referable to eight or nine species of land snails a few scattered bones of quadrupeds and what is still more singular marine univalve shells often at the height of many hundred or even 1000 feet above the sea the following explanation is given on the gradual increase of this deposit lands nails of the genera helix cyclostoma poopa and clausilia retire into the caves the floors of which are strewed with myriads of their dead and unoccupied shells at the same time that water and filtered through the mountain throws down carbonate of lime enveloping the shells together with fragments of the white limestone which occasionally falls from the roof multitudes of bats resort to the caves and their dung which is of a bright red color probably derived from the berries on which they feed imparts its red you to the mass sometimes also the hushia or great indian rat of the island dies and leaves its bones in the caves at certain seasons the soldier crabs resort to the seashore and then return from their pilgrimage each carrying with them or rather dragging the shell of some marine univalve for many a weary mile they may be traced even at the distance of eight or ten miles from the shore on the summit of mountains 1200 feet high like the pilgrims of the olden times each bearing his shell to denote the character and extent of his wanderings by this means several species of marine testacea of the genera trochus turbo the torina and monadonta are conveyed into inland caverns and enter into the composition of the newly formed rock end of section 98