 47. Embedding of Organic Remains in Subaqueous Deposits 5. Division of the Subject, Embedding of Terrestrial Animals and Plants, Increased Specific Gravity of Woods, Sunk to Great Depths in the Sea 6. Drift Timber of the Mackenzie in Slave Lake and Polar Sea 7. Floating Trees in the Mississippi, in the Gulf Stream, on the coast of Iceland, Spitsbergen and Labrador 8. Submarine Forests, Example on Coast of Hampshire 9. Mineralization of Plants, Embedding of Marine Plants, of Insects, of Reptiles, Bones of Birds, Why Rare 10. Embedding of Terrestrial Quadrupeds by River Floods, Skeletons in Recent Shell Marl 11. Embedding of Mammiferous Remains in Marine Strata 12. Division of the Subject 13. Having treated of the embedding of organic remains in deposits formed upon the land, I shall next consider the including of the same in deposits formed underwater 14. It will be convenient to divide this branch of our subject into three parts, considering first, the various modes whereby the relics of terrestrial species may be buried in subaqueous formations secondly, the modes whereby animals and plants inhabiting freshwater may be so entombed thirdly, how marine species may become preserved in new strata the phenomena above enumerated demand a fuller share of attention than those previously examined since the deposits which originate upon dry land are insignificant in thickness, superficial extent, and durability when contrasted with those of subaqueous origin at the same time, the study of the latter is beset with greater difficulties, for we are here concerned with the results of processes much farther removed from the sphere of ordinary observation there is indeed no circumstance which so seriously impedes the acquisition of just views in our science as an habitual disregard of the important fact that the reproductive effects of the principal agents of change are confined to another element to that larger portion of the globe from which by our very organization we are almost entirely excluded embedding of terrestrial plants when a tree falls into a river from the undermining of the banks or from being washed in by a torrent or flood, it floats on the surface, not because the woody portion is specifically lighter than water but because it is full of pores containing air when soaked for a considerable time the water makes its way into these pores and the wood becomes waterlogged and sinks the time required for this process varies in different woods but several kinds may be drifted to great distances sometimes across the ocean before they lose their buoyancy wood sunk to a great depth in the sea if wood be sunk to vast depths in the sea it may be impregnated with water suddenly captain Scoresby informs us in his account of the arctic regions that on one occasion a whale on being harpooned ran out all the lines in the boat which it then dragged underwater to a depth of several thousand feet the men having just time to escape to a piece of ice when the fish returned to the surface to blow it was struck a second time and soon afterwards killed the moment it expired it began to sink in unusual circumstance which was found to be caused by the weight of the sunken boat which still remained attached to it by means of harpoons and ropes the fish was prevented from sinking until it was released from the weight by connecting a rope to the lines of the attached boat which was no sooner done than the fish rose again to the surface the sunken boat was then hauled up with great labor for so heavy was it that although before the accident it would have been buoyant when full of water yet it now required a boat at each end to keep it from sinking when it was hoisted into the ship the paint came off the wood in large sheets and the planks which were of wainscot were as completely soaked in every pore as if they had lain at the bottom of the sea since the flood a wooden apparatus that accompanied the boat in its progress through the deep consisting chiefly of a piece of thick deal about fifteen inches square happened to fall overboard and though it originally consisted of the lightest fur sank in the water like a stone the boat was rendered useless even the wood of which it was built on being offered to the cook for fuel was tried and rejected as captain scores be found that by sinking pieces of fur elm ash etc to a depth of four thousand and sometimes six thousand feet they became impregnated with seawater and when drawn up again after immersion for an hour would no longer float the effect of this impregnation was to increase the dimensions as well as the specific gravity of the wood every solid inch having increased one twentieth in size and twenty one twenty fifths in weight driftwood of the Mackenzie River when timber is drifted down by a river it is often arrested by lakes and becoming waterlogged it may sink and be embedded in La Custron strata if any be their forming sometimes a portion floats on until it reaches the sea in the course of the Mackenzie River we have an example of vast accumulations of vegetable matter now in progress under both the circumstances in slave lake in particular which buys in dimensions with some of the great freshwater seas of Canada the quantity of drift timber brought down annually is enormous as the trees says doctor Richardson retain their roots which are often loaded with earth and stones they readily sink especially when water soaked and accumulating in the eddies form shoals which ultimately augment into islands a thicket of small willows covers the new formed island as soon as it appears above water and their fibrous roots serve to bind the whole firmly together sections of these islands are annually made by the river assisted by the frost and it is interesting to study the diversity of appearances they present according to their different ages the trunks of the trees gradually decay until they are converted into a blackish brown substance resembling Pete but which still retains more or less of the fibrous nature of the wood and layers of this often alternate with layers of clay and sand the whole being penetrated to the depth of four or five yards or more by the long fibrous roots of the willows a deposition of this kind with the aid of a little infiltration of bituminous matter would produce an excellent imitation of coal with vegetable impressions of the willow roots what appeared most remarkable was the horizontal slaty structure that the old alluvial banks presented or the regular curve that the strata assumed from unequal subsidence it was in the rivers only that we could observe sections of these deposits but the same operation goes on on a much more significant scale in the lakes a shoal of many miles in extent is formed on the south side of Athabasca Lake by the drift timber and vegetable debris brought down by the Elk River and the slave lake itself must in process of time be filled up by matters daily conveyed into it from slave river vast quantities of drift timber are buried under the sand at the mouth of the river and enormous piles of it are accumulated on the shores of every part of the lake the banks of the Mackenzie display almost everywhere horizontal beds of wood coal alternating with bituminous clay gravel sand and friable sandstone sections in short of such deposits as are now evidently forming at the bottom of the lakes which it traverses not withstanding the vast forests intercepted by the lakes a still greater mass of driftwood is found where the Mackenzie reaches the sea in a latitude where no wood grows at present except a few stunted willows at the mouths of the river the alluvial matter has formed a barrier of islands and shoals where we may expect a great formation of coal at some distant period the abundance of floating timber on the Mackenzie is owing as Dr. Richardson informs me to the direction and to the length of the course of this river which runs from south to north so that the sources of the stream lie in much warmer latitudes than its mouths in the country therefore where the sources are situated the frost breaks up at an earlier season while yet the rivers in the lower part of its course are ice bound hence the current of water rushing down northward reaches a point where the thaw has not begun and finding the channel of the river blocked up with ice it overflows the banks sweeping through forests of pines and carrying away thousands of uprooted trees drift timber on coasts of Iceland Spitzbergen etc. the ancient forests of Iceland observes Malta Brun have been improvidently exhausted but although the Icelander can obtain no timber from the land he is supplied with it abundantly by the ocean an immense quantity of thick trunks of pines furs and other trees are thrown upon the northern coast of the island especially upon the North Cape and Cape Longaness and are then carried by the waves along these two promontories to other parts of the coast so as to afford sufficiency of wood for fuel and for constructing boats timber is also carried to the shores of Labrador and Greenland and Kranz assures us that the masses of floating wood thrown by the waves upon the island of John de Maien often equal the whole of that island in extent in a similar manner the bays of Spitzbergen are filled with driftwood which accumulates also upon those parts of the coast of Siberia that are exposed to the east consisting of large trees pines Siberian cedars furs and Pernambuco and Campeche woods these trunks appear to have been swept away by the great rivers of Asia and America some of them are brought from the Gulf of Mexico by the Bahama stream while others are hurried forward by the current which to the north of Siberia constantly sets in from east to west some of these trees have been deprived of their bark by friction but are in such a state of preservation as to form excellent building timber parts of the branches and almost all of the roots remain fixed to the pines which have been drifted into the North Sea into latitudes too cold for the growth of such timber but the trunks are usually barked the leaves and lighter parts of plants are seldom carried out to sea in any part of the globe except during tropical hurricanes among islands and during the agitations of the atmosphere which sometimes accompany earthquakes and volcanic eruptions comparative number of living and fossilized species of plants it will appear from these observations that although the remains of terrestrial vegetation born down by aqueous causes from the land are chiefly deposited at the bottom of lakes or at the mouths of rivers yet a considerable quantity is drifted about in all directions by currents and may become embedded in any marine formation or may sink down when water logged to the bottom of unfathomable abysses and there accumulate without inter mixture with other substances it may be asked whether we have any data for inferring that the remains of a considerable proportion of the existing species of plants will be permanently preserved so as to be here after recognizable supposing the strata now in progress to be at some future period upraised to this inquiry it may be answered that there are no reasons for expecting that more than a small number of the plants now flourishing on the globe will become fossilized since the entire habitations of a great number of them are remote from lakes and seas and even where they grow near to large bodies of water the circumstances are quite accidental and partial which favor the embedding and conservation of vegetable remains suppose for example that the species of plants inhabiting the hydrographical basin of the Rhine or that region extending from the Alps to the sea which is watered by the Rhine and its numerous tributaries to be about 2500 in number exclusive of the cryptogamic class this estimate is by no means exaggerated yet if a geologist could explore the deposits which have resulted from the sediment of the Rhine in the Lake of Constance and off the coast of Holland he could scarcely expect to obtain from the recent strata the leaves wood and seeds of 50 species in such a state of preservation as to enable a botanist to determine their specific characters with certain tea those naturalists therefore who infer that the ancient flora of the globe was at certain periods less varied than now merely because they have as yet discovered only a few hundred fossil species of a particular epoch while they can enumerate more than 100,000 living ones are reasoning on a false basis and their standard of comparison is not the same in the two cases submarine forests on coast of haunts we have already seen that the submarine position of several forests or the remains of trees standing in a vertical position on the British shores has been due in some instances to the subsidence of land there are some cases which require a different explanation my friend Mr. Charles Harris discovered in 1831 evident traces of a firwood beneath the mean level of the sea at Barnmouth in Hampshire the formation having been laid open during a low spring tide it is composed of peat and wood and is situated between the beach and a bar of sand about 200 yards off and extends 50 yards along the shore it also lies in the direct line of the Bournemouth Valley from the termination of which it is separated by 200 yards of shingle and drift sand down the valley flows a large brook traversing near its mouth a considerable tract of rough, boggy and heathy ground which produces a few birch trees and a great abundance of the Myrica Gale 76 rings of annual growth were counted in a transverse section of one of the buried fir trees which was 14 inches in diameter besides the stumps and roots of fir pieces of alder and birch are found in the peat and it is a curious fact that a part of many of the trees have been converted into iron pie rites the peat rests on pebbly strata precisely similar to the sand and pebbles occurring on the adjoining heaths as the sea is encroaching on this shore we may suppose that at some former period the Bournemouth Valley extended farther and that its extremity consisted as at present of boggy ground partly clothed with fir trees the bog rested on that bed of pebbles which we now see below the peat and the sea in its progressive encroachments eventually laid bare at low water the sandy foundations upon which a stream of fresh water rushing through the sand at the fall of the tides carried out loose sand with it the super stratum of vegetable matter being matted and bound together by the roots of trees remained but being undermined sank down below the level of the sea and then the waves washed sand and shingle over it in support of this hypothesis it may be observed that small streams of fresh water often pass under the sands of the sea beach so that they may be crossed dry shod and the water is seen at the point where it issues to carry out sand and even pebbles mineralization of plants although the botanist and chemist have as yet been unable to explain fully the manner in which wood becomes petrified it is nevertheless ascertained that under favorable circumstances the lapidifying process is now continually going on a piece of wood was lately procured by Mr. Stokes from an ancient Roman aqueduct in Westphalia in which some portions were converted into spindle-shaped bodies consisting of carbonate of lime while the rest of the wood remained in a comparatively unchanged state it appears that in some cases the most perishable in others the most durable portions of plants are preserved variations which doubtless depend on the time when the mineral matter was supplied if introduced immediately on the first commencement of decomposition then the most destructible parts are lapidified while the more durable do not waste away till afterwards when the supply has failed and so never become petrified the converse of these circumstances gives rise to exactly opposite results Professor Gopert of Breslau has instituted a series of curious experiments in which he has succeeded in producing some very remarkable imitations of fossil petrifactions he placed recent ferns between soft layers of clay, dried these in the shade and then slowly and gradually heated them till they were red hot the result was the production of so perfect a counterpart of fossil plants as might have deceived an experienced geologist according to the different degrees of heat applied the plants were obtained in a brown or perfectly carbonized condition and sometimes but more rarely they were in a black shining state adhering closely to the layer of clay if the red heat was sustained until all the organic matter was burnt up only an impression of the plant remained the same chemist steeped plants in a moderately strong solution of sulfate of iron and left them immersed in it for several days until they were thoroughly soaked in the liquid they were then dried and kept heated until they could no longer shrink in volume and until every trace of organic matter had disappeared on cooling them he found that the oxide formed by this process had taken the form of the plants a variety of other experiments were made by steeping animal and vegetable substances in Celesius, Chelsarius and metallic solutions and all tended to prove that the mineralization of organic bodies can be carried much farther in a short time than had been previously supposed embedding of the remains of insects I have observed the elytra and other parts of beetles in a band of fissile clay separating two beds of recent shell marl in the lock of canordi in forfeiture amongst these Mr. Curtis recognized elator lineatus and atopa servina species still living in Scotland these as well as other remains which accompanied them appear to belong to terrestrial not aquatic species and must have been carried down in muddy water during an inundation in the lacustrine peat of the same locality the elytra of beetles were not uncommon but in the deposits of drained lakes generally and in the silt of our estuaries the relics of this class of the animal kingdom are rare in the blue clay of very modern origin of Lewis levels Dr. Mantell has found the inducia or cases of the larvae of Phrygenia in abundance with minute shells belonging to the genera planorbis limnea etc adhering to them when speaking of the migrations of insects I pointed out that an immense number are floated into lakes and seas by rivers or blown by winds far from the land but they are so buoyant that we can only suppose them under very peculiar circumstances to sink to the bottom before they are either devoured by insectivorous animals or decomposed remains of reptiles as the bodies of several crocodiles were found in the mud brought down to the sea by the river inundation which attended an earthquake in Java in the year 1699 we may imagine that extraordinary floods of mud may stifle many individuals of the shoals of alligators and other reptiles which frequent lakes and the deltas of rivers in tropical climates thousands of frogs were found leaping about among the wreck carried into the sea by the inundations in Morayshire in 1829 and it is evident that whenever a sea cliff is undermined or land is swept by other violent causes into the sea land reptiles may be carried in remains of birds we might have anticipated that the embedding of the remains of birds in new strata would be a very rare occurrence for their powers of flight ensure them against perishing by numerous casualties to which quadrupeds are exposed during floods and if they chance to be drowned or to die when swimming on the water it will scarcely ever happen that they will be submerged so as to become preserved in sedimentary deposits in consequence of the hollow tubular structure of their bones and the quantity of their feathers they are extremely light in proportion to their volume so that when first killed they do not sink to the bottom like quadrupeds but float on the surface until the carcass either rots away or is devoured by predacious animals to these causes we may ascribe the absence of any vestige of the bones of birds in the recent moral formations of Scotland although these lakes until the moment when they were artificially drained were frequented by a great abundance of waterfowl embedding of terrestrial quadrupeds river inundations recur in most climates at very irregular intervals and expend their fury on those rich alluvial planes where herds of herbivorous quadrupeds congregate together these animals are often surprised and being unable to stem the current are hurried along until they are drowned when they sink at first immediately to the bottom here their bodies are drifted along together with sediment into lakes or seas and may then be covered by a mass of mud sand and pebbles thrown down upon them if there be no sediment superimposed the gases generated by putrefaction usually cause the bodies to rise again to the surface about the ninth or at latest the fourteenth day the pressure of the thin covering of mud would not be sufficient to retain them at the bottom for we see the putrid carcasses of dogs and cats even in rivers floating with considerable weights attached to them and in seawater they would be still more buoyant where the body is so buried in drift sand or mud accumulated upon it as never to rise again the skeleton may be preserved entire but if it comes again to the surface while in the process of putrefaction the bones commonly fall piecemeal from the floating carcass and may in that case be scattered at random over the bottom of the lake, estuary, or sea so that a jaw may afterwards be found in one place a rib in another, a humerus in a third all included perhaps in a matrix of fine materials where there may be evidence of slight transporting power in the current or even of none but simply of some chemical precipitate a large number of the bodies of drowned animals if they float into the sea or a lake especially in hot climates are instantly devoured by sharks, alligators, and other carnivorous beasts which may have power to digest even the bones but during extraordinary floods when the greatest number of land animals are destroyed the waters are commonly so turbid especially at the bottom of the channel that even aquatic species are compelled to escape into some retreat where there is clearer water lest they should be stifled for this reason as well as the rapidity of sedimentary deposition at such seasons the probability of carcasses becoming permanently embedded is considerable flood in the Solway Firth 1794 one of the most remarkable floods of modern date in our island is that which visited part of the southern borders of Scotland on the 24th of January 1794 and which spread particular devastation over the country adjoining the Solway Firth we learn from the account of Captain Napier that the heavy rains had swollen every stream which entered the Firth of Solway so that the inundation not only carried away a great number of cattle and sheep but many of the herdsmen and shepherds washing down their bodies into the estuary after the storm when the flood subsided an extraordinary spectacle was seen on a large sand bank called the Beds of Esk where there is a meeting of the tidal waters and where heavy bodies are usually left stranded after great floods on this single bank were found collected together the bodies of nine black cattle, three horses, 1,840 sheep, 45 dogs, 180 hares besides a great number of smaller animals and mingled with the rest the corpses of two men and one woman floods in Scotland 1829 in these more recent floods in Scotland in August 1829 whereby a fertile district on the east coast became a scene of dreadful desolation a vast number of animals and plants were washed from the land and found scattered about after the storm around the mouths of the principal rivers an eyewitness thus describes the scene which presented itself at the mouth of the spay in Morayshire for several miles along the beach crowds were employed in endeavouring to save the wood and other wreck with which the heavy rolling tide was loaded whilst the margin of the sea was strewed with the carcasses of domestic animals and with millions of dead hares and rabbits savannas of South America we are informed by Humboldt that during the periodical swellings of the large rivers in South America great numbers of quadrupeds are annually drowned the wild horses for example which graze in immense troops in the savannas thousands are said to perish when the river Apure a tributary of the Orinoco is swollen before they have time to reach the rising ground of the Yanos the mayors during the season of high water may be seen followed by their colts swimming about and feeding on the grass of which the top alone waves above the waters in this state they are pursued by crocodiles and their thighs frequently bear the prints of the teeth of these carnivorous reptiles such is the pliability, observes the celebrated traveller of the organization of the animals which man has subjected to his sway that horses, cows and other species of European origin lead for a time an amphibious life surrounded by crocodiles, water serpents and manatees when the rivers return again into their beds they roam in the savanna which is then spread over with a fine odiferous grass and enjoy as in their native climate the renewed vegetation of spring floods of the Paraná the great number of animals which are drowned in seasons of drought in the tributaries of the Plata was before mentioned Sir W. Parrish states that the Paraná flowing from the mountains of Brazil to the estuary of the Plata is liable to great floods and during one of these in the year 1812 vast quantities of cattle were carried away and when the waters began to subside and the islands which they had covered became again visible the whole atmosphere for a time was poisoned by the effluvia from the innumerable carcasses of skunks capybaras, tigers and other wild beasts which had been drowned and quote floods of the Ganges we find it continually stated by those who describe the Ganges and Burrum Puder that these rivers carry before them during the flood season not only floats of reeds and timber but dead bodies of men, deer and oxen in Java 1699 I have already referred to the effects of a flood which attended an earthquake in Java in 1699 when the turbid waters of the Batavian River destroyed all the fish except the carp and when drowned buffaloes, tigers, rhinoceroses, deer, apes and other wild beasts were brought down to the sea coast by the current with several crocodiles which had been stifled in the mud on the western side of the same island in the territory of Galangun in the Regencies a more recent volcanic eruption that of 1822 before described was attended by a flood during which the river Tandoy bore down hundreds of carcasses of rhinoceroses and buffaloes and swept away more than a hundred men and women from a multitude assembled on its banks to celebrate a festival whether the bodies reached the sea or were deposited with drift matter in some large intervening alluvial plains we are not informed Sumatra on the coast of Orissa says Haines I have seen tigers and whole herds of black cattle carried along by what are called freshes and trees of immense size in Virginia 1771 I might enumerate a great number of local deluges that have swept through the fertile lands bordering on large rivers especially in tropical countries but I should surpass the limits assigned to this work I may observe however that the destruction of the islands in rivers is often attended with great loss of lives thus when the principal river in Virginia rose in 1771 to the height of 25 feet above its ordinary level it swept entirely away Elk Island on which were 700 head of quadrupeds, horses, oxen, sheep and hogs and nearly 100 houses the reader will gather from what was before said respecting the deposition of sediment by aqueous causes that the greater number of the remains of quadrupeds drifted away by rivers must be intercepted by lakes before they reach the sea or buried in freshwater formations near the mouths of rivers if they are carried still farther the probabilities are increased of their rising to the surface in a state of putrefaction and in that case of being there devoured by aquatic beasts of prey or of subsiding into some spots where there no sediment is conveyed and consequently where every vestige of them will in the course of time disappear Skeletons of Animals in Recent Shell Marl, Scotland In some instances the skeletons of quadrupeds are met with abundantly in recent shell marls in Scotland where we cannot suppose them to have been embedded by the action of rivers or floods they all belong to species which now inhabit or are known to have been indigenous in Scotland the remains of several hundred skeletons have been procured within the last century from five or six small lakes in Forfisher where shell marl has been worked those of the stag, service elifas, are most numerous and if the others be arranged in the order of their relative abundance they will nearly follow thus the ox, the boar, the horse, the sheep, the dog, the hare, the fox the wolf and the cat the beaver seems extremely rare but it has been found in the shell marl of Loch Marley in Perthshire and in the parish of Edrum in Berwickshire in the greater part of these lake deposits there are no signs of floods and the expanse of water was originally so confined that the smallest of the above mentioned quadrupeds could have crossed by swimming from one shore to the other deer and such species as take readily to the water may often have been mired in trying to land where the bottom was soft and quaggy and in their efforts to escape may have plunged deeper into the marley bottom some individuals I suspect of different species have fallen in when crossing the frozen surface in winter for nothing can be more treacherous than the ice when covered with snow in consequence of the springs which are numerous and which retaining always an equal temperature cause the ice in certain spots to be extremely thin while in every other part of the lake it is strong enough to bear the heaviest weights mammiferous remains in marine strata as the bones of mammalia are often so abundantly preserved in peat and such lakes as have just been described the encroachments of a sea upon a coast may sometimes throw down the embedded skeletons so that they may be carried away by tides and currents and entombed in submarine formations some of the smaller quadrupeds also which burrow in the ground as well as reptiles and every species of plant are liable to be cast down into the waves by this cause which must not be overlooked although probably of comparatively small importance amongst the numerous agents whereby terrestrial organic remains are included in submarine strata during the great earthquake of conception in 1835 some cattle which were standing on the steep sides of the island of Kirikina were rolled by the shock into the sea while on a low island at the head of the bay of conception seventy animals were washed off by a great wave and drowned End of Chapter 47 Chapter 48 of Principles of Geology this is a LibriVox recording a LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Dionne Giants, Salt Lake City, Utah Principles of Geology by Charles Lyle Chapter 48, Part 1 embedding of the remains of man and his works in sub-aqua strata drifting of human bodies to the sea by river inundations destruction of bridges and houses loss of lives by shipwreck how human corpses may be preserved in recent deposits number of wrecked vessels fossil skeletons of men fossil canoes, ships and works of art chemical changes which metallic articles have undergone after long submergence embedding of cities and forests in sub-aqua strata by subsidence earthquake of Kutch in 1819 buried temples of Kashmir Berkeley's arguments for the recent date of the creation of man concluding remarks I shall now proceed to inquire in what manner the mortal remains of man and the works of his hands may be permanently preserved in sub-aqua strata of the many hundred million human beings which perish in the course of every century on the land every vestige is usually destroyed in the course of a few thousand years but of the smaller number that perish in the waters a certain proportion must be entombed under circumstances that may enable parts of them to endure throughout entire geological epics the bodies of men together with those of the inferior animals are occasionally washed down during river inundations into seas and lakes Belzoni witnessed a flood on the Nile in September 1818 where although the river rose only three feet and a half above its ordinary level several villages with some hundreds of men women and children were swept away it was before mentioned that a rise of six feet of water in the Ganges in 1763 was attended with a much greater loss of lives in the year 1771 when the inundations in the north of England appeared to have equaled the floods of Mooreshire in 1829 a great number of houses and their inhabitants were swept away by the river's tine, can, ware, tees, and Greta and no less than twenty one bridges were destroyed in the courses of these rivers at the village of Biwell the flood tore the dead bodies and coffins out of the churchyard and bore them away together with many of the living inhabitants during the same tempest an immense number of cattle, horses, and sheep were also transported to the sea while the whole coast was covered with the wreck of ships four centuries before in 1338 the same district had been visited by a similar continuance of heavy rains followed by disastrous floods and it is not improbable that these catastrophes may recur periodically though at uncertain intervals as the population increases and buildings and bridges are multiplied we must expect the loss of lives and property to augment fossilization of human bodies in the bed of the sea if to the hundreds of human bodies committed to the deep in the way of ordinary burial we add those of individuals lost by shipwrecks we shall find that in the course of a single year a great number of human remains are consigned to these sub-aquias regions I shall hereafter advert to a calculation by which it appears that more than five hundred British vessels alone averaging each a berthin of about 120 tons are wrecked and sink to the bottom annually of these the crews for the most part escape although it sometimes happens that all perish in one great naval action several thousand individuals sometimes share a watery grave many of these corpses are instantly devoured by predacious fish sometimes before they reach the bottom still more frequently when they rise again to the surface and float in a state of putrefaction many decompose on the floor of the ocean where no sediment is thrown down upon them but if they fall upon a reef where corals and shells are becoming agglutinated into a solid rock or subside where the delta of a river is advancing they may be preserved for an incalculable series of ages often at the distance of a few hundred feet from a coral reef where wrecks are not unfrequent there are no soundings at the depth of many hundred fathoms canoes, merchant vessels and ships of war may have sunk and have been enveloped in such situations in Calceria sand and Brachia detached by the breakers from the summit of a submarine mountain should a volcanic eruption happen to cover such remains with ashes and sand and a current of lava be afterwards poured over them the ships and human skeletons might remain uninjured beneath the super incumbent mass like the houses and works of art in the subterranean cities of Campania already many human remains may have been thus preserved beneath formations more than a thousand feet in thickness for in some volcanic archipelagos a period of 30 or 40 centuries might well be supposed sufficient for such an accumulation it was stated that at the distance of about 40 miles of the delta of the Ganges there is an elliptical space about 15 miles in diameter where soundings of from 100 to 300 fathoms sometimes fail to reach the bottom as during the flood season the quantity of mud and sand poured by the great rivers into the bay of Bengal is so great that the sea only recovers its transparency at the distance of 60 miles from the coast this depression must be gradually showing especially as during the monsoons the sea loaded with mud and sand is beaten back in that direction towards the delta now if a ship or human body sink to the bottom in such a spot it is by no means improbable that it may become buried under a depth of a thousand feet of sediment in the same number of years even on that part of the floor of the ocean to which no accession of drift matter is carried apart which probably constitutes at any given period by far the larger proportion of the whole submarine area there are circumstances accompanying a wreck which favor the conservation of skeletons for when the vessel fills suddenly with water especially in the night many persons are drowned between decks and in their cabins so that their bodies are prevented from rising again to the surface the vessel often strikes upon an uneven bottom and is overturned in which case the ballast consisting of sand, shingle and rock or the cargo frequently composed of heavy materials may be thrown down upon the carcasses in the case of ships of war cannon, shot and other war-like stores may press down with their weight the timbers of the vessel as they decay and beneath these and the metallic substances the bones of man may be preserved number of wrecked vessels when we reflect on the number of curious monuments consigned to the bed of the ocean in the course of every naval war from the earliest times our conceptions are greatly raised respecting the multiplicity of lasting memorials which man is leaving of his labors during our last great struggle with France 32 of our ships of the line went to the bottom in the space of 22 years besides 7 50 gun ships and a multitude of smaller vessels the navies of the other European powers France, Holland, Spain and Denmark were almost annihilated during the same period so that the aggregate of their losses must have many times exceeded that of Great Britain in every one of these ships were batteries of cannon constructed of iron or brass whereof a great number had the dates and places of their manufacture inscribed upon them in letters cast in metal in each there were coins of copper, silver and often many of gold capable of serving as valuable historical monuments in each were an infinite variety of instruments of the arts of war and peace many formed of materials such as glass and earthenware capable of lasting for a minute ages when once removed from the mechanical action of the waves and buried under a mass of matter which may exclude the corroding action of seawater the quantity moreover of timber which is conveyed from the land to the bed of the sea by the sinking of ships of a large size is enormous for it is computed that 2000 tons of wood are required for the building of one 74 gunship and reckoning 50 oaks of 100 years growth to the acre it would require 40 acres of oak forest to build one of these vessels it would be an error to imagine that the fury of war is more conducive than the peaceful spirit of commercial enterprise to the accumulation of wrecked vessels in the bed from an examination of Lloyd's lists from the year 1793 to the commencement of 1829 captain W. H. Smith ascertained that the number of British vessels alone lost during that period amounted on an average to no less than one and a half daily an extent of loss which would hardly have been anticipated although we learned from morrow's tables that the number of merchant vessels employed at one time in the navigation of England and Scotland amounts to about 20,000 having one with another a mean burden of 120 tons my friend Mr. J. L. Prevost also informs me that on inspecting Lloyd's list for the years 1829 1830 and 1831 he finds that no less than 1,953 vessels were lost in those three years their average tonnage being about 150 tons or in all nearly 300,000 tons being at the enormous rate of 100,000 tons annually of the merchant vessels of one nation only this increased loss arises I presume from increasing activity in commerce out of 551 ships of the Royal Navy lost to the country during the period above mentioned only 160 were taken or destroyed by the enemy the rest having either stranded or foundered or having been burnt by accident a striking proof that the numbers of our naval warfare however great may be far exceeded by the storm the shoal, the lee shore and all the other perils of the deep durable nature of many of their contents millions of silver dollars and other coins have been sometimes submerged in a single ship and on these when they happen to be enveloped in a matrix capable of protecting them from chemical changes much information of historical interest will remain inscribed and endure for periods as indefinite as have the delicate markings of zoophytes or lapidified plants in some of the ancient secondary rocks in almost every large ship moreover there are some precious stones set in seals and other articles of use and ornament composed of the hardest substances in nature on which letters and various images are carved engravings which they may retain when included in subaqua strata as long as a crystal preserves its natural form it was therefore a splendid boast that the deeds of the English chivalry at aging court made Henry's chronicle as rich with praise as the ooze and bottom of the deep with sunken wreck and sumless treasuries for it is probable that a great number of monuments of the skill and industry of man will in the course of ages be collected together in the bed of the ocean then will exist at any one time on the surface of the continents if our species be of as recent a date as is generally supposed it will be vain to seek for the remains of man and the works of his hands embedded in submarine strata except in those regions where violent earthquakes are frequent and the alterations of relative level so great that the bed of the sea may have been converted into land within the historical era we need not despair however of the discovery of such monuments when those regions which have been peopled by man from the earliest ages and which are at the same time the principal theaters of volcanic action shall be examined by the joint skill of the antiquary and geologist power of human remains to resist decay there can be no doubt that human remains are capable of resisting decay as are the harder parts of the inferior animals and I have already cited the remark of Cuvier that in ancient fields of battle the bones of men have suffered as little decomposition as those of horses which were buried in the same grave in the delta of the Ganges bones of men have been found in digging a well at the depth of 90 feet but as that more frequently shifts its course and fills up its ancient channels we are not called upon to suppose that these bodies are of extremely high antiquity or that they were buried when that part of the surrounding delta where they occur was first gained from the sea fossil skeletons of men several skeletons of men more or less mutilated have been found in the Indies on the northwest coast of the mainland of Guadalupe in a kind of rock which is known to be forming daily and which consists of minute fragments of shells and corals encrusted with a calcerious cement resembling travertine by which also the different grains are bound together the lens shows that some of the fragments of coral composing this stone still retain the same red color which is seen in the reefs of living coral which surround the island the shells belong to species of the neighboring sea intermixed with some terrestrial kinds which now live on the island and among them is the bulimus Guadalupeensis of ferusac the human skeletons still retain some of their animal matter and all phosphate of lime one of them of which the head is wanting may now be seen in the British museum and another in the royal cabinet at Paris according to M. Koenig the rock in which the former is enclosed is harder under the mason's saw and chisel than statuary marble it is described as forming a kind of glosses probably an endurated beach which slants from the steep cliffs of the island to the sea and is nearly all submerged at high tide similar formations are in progress in the whole of the West Indian archipelago and they have greatly extended the plain of caves in San Domingo where fragments of vases and other human works have been found at a depth of 20 feet in digging wells also near Catania in Sicily tools have been discovered in a rock somewhat similar buried ships canoes and works of art when a vessel is stranded in shallow water it usually becomes the nucleus of a sand bank as has been exemplified in several of our harbors and this circumstance tends greatly to its preservation between the years 1780 and 1790 a vessel from Purbeck laden with 300 tons of stone struck on a shoal off the entrance of pool harbor and foundered the crew were saved but the vessel and cargo remains to this day at the bottom since that period the shoal at the entrance of the harbor has so extended itself in a westerly point in Purbeck that the navigable channel is thrown a mile nearer that point the cause is obvious the tidal current deposits the sediment with which it is charged around any object which checks its velocity matter also drifted along the bottom is arrested by any obstacle and accumulates around it just as the African sand winds foredescribed raise a small hillock over the carcass of every dead camel exposed on the surface of the desert I before alluded to an ancient Dutch vessel discovered in the deserted channel of the river Rother in Sussex of which the oak wood was much blackened but its texture unchanged the interior was filled with fluviatile silt as was also the case in regard to a vessel discovered in a former bed of the mercy and another disinterred where the St. Catherine dogs are excavated in the alluvial plane of the Thames in like manner many ships have been found preserved entire in modern strata formed by the silting up of estuaries along the southern shores of the Baltic especially Pomerania between Bromberg and Nacol for example a vessel and two anchors in a very perfect state were dug up far from the sea several vessels have been lately detected half buried in the delta of the Indus in the numerous deserted branches of that river far from where the stream now flows one of these was found near Vicar in Cindy was 400 tons in Burthen old-fashioned and pierced for 14 guns and in a region where it had been matter of dispute whether the Indus had ever been navigable by large vessels at the mouth of a river in Nova Scotia a schooner of 32 tons laden with livestock was lying with her side to the tide when the bore or tidal wave which raises there about 10 feet in perpendicular height rushed into the estuary and overturned the vessel so that it instantly disappeared after the tide had ebbed the schooner was so totally buried in the sand that the taffrel or upper rail over the stern was alone visible we are informed by Lee that on draining Martin Meir a lake 18 miles to a conference in Lancashire a bed of marl was laid dry wherein no fewer than eight canoes were found embedded in figure and dimensions they were not unlike those now used in America in Amaras about nine miles distant from this Meir a whetstone and an axe of mixed metal were dug up in Ayrshire also three canoes were found out dune some few years ago and during the year 1831 for others each hewn out of separate oak trees they were 23 feet in length two and a half in depth and nearly four feet in breadth at the stern in the mud which filled one of them was found a war club of oak and a stone battle axe a canoe of oak was also found in 1820 in peat overlying the shell marl of the lock of kinderty in for far sure end of chapter 48 part 1 chapter 48 of principles of geology this is a LibriVox recording a LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Dionne Salt Lake City, Utah principles of geology by Charles Lyle chapter 48 part 2 manner in which ships may be preserved in a deep sea it is extremely possible that the submerged woodwork of ships which have sunk where the sea is two or three miles deep has undergone greater chemical changes in an equal space of time than in the cases above mentioned for the experiments of Scorsby show that wood may at certain depths be impregnated in a single hour with salt water so that its specific gravity is entirely altered it may often happen that hot springs charged with carbonate of lime silox and other mineral ingredients may issue at great depths in which case every pore of the vegetable tissue may be injected with the lapidifying liquid whether calcarius or silicious before the smallest decay commences the conversion also of wood into lignite is probably more rapid under enormous pressure but the change of the timber into lignite or coal would not prevent the original form from being distinguished for as we find in strata of the carboniferous era the bark of the hollow reed-like trees converted into coal and the central cavity filled with sandstone so might we trace the outline of a ship in coal while in the endurated mud sandstone or limestone filling the interior we might discover instruments of human art ballast consisting of rocks foreign to the rest of the stratum and other contents of the ship submerged metallic substances many of the metallic substances which fall into the waters probably lose in the course of ages the forms artificially imparted to them but under certain circumstances these may be preserved for indefinite periods the cannon enclosed in a calcarius rock drawn up from the delta of the Rhone which is now in the museum at Montpelier might probably have endured as long as the calcarius matrix but even if the metallic matter had been removed and had entered into new combinations still a mold of its original shape would have been left corresponding to those impressions of shells which we see in rocks from which all the carbonate of lime has been subtracted about the year 1776 says Mr. King some fisherman sweeping for anchors in the Gulf stream a part of the sea near the downs drew up a very curious old swivel gun nearly eight feet in length the barrel which was about five feet long was of brass but the handle by which it was traversed was about three feet in length and the swivel and pivot on which it turned were of iron around these ladder were formed in crustaceans of sand converted into a kind of stone of exceedingly strong texture and firmness whereas around the barrel of the gun except where it was near adjoining to the iron there were no such encrustations the greater part of it being clean and in good condition just as if it had still continued in use in the encrusting stone adhering to it on the outside were a number of shells and corallines just as they are often found in a fossil state these were also strongly attached that it required as much force to separate them from the matrix as to break a fragment off any hard rock in the year 1745 continues the same writer the fox man of war was stranded on the coast of east Lothian and went to pieces about 33 years afterwards a violent storm laid bare a part of the wreck and threw up near the place several masses consisting of iron ropes and balls covered over with okria sand concreted and hardened into a kind of stone the substance of the rope was very little altered the consolidated sand retained perfect impressions of parts of an iron ring just as impressions of extraneous fossil bodies are found in various kinds of strata after a storm in the year 1824 which occasioned a considerable shifting of the sands near Saint Andrews in Scotland a gun barrel of ancient construction was found which is conjectured to have belonged to one of the wreck vessels of the Spanish Armada it is now in the museum of the antiquarian society of Scotland and is encrusted over by a thin coating of sand the grains of which are cemented by brown ferruginous matter attached to this coating are fragments of various shells as of the common cardium Maya etc. many other examples are recorded of iron instruments taken up from the bed of the sea near the British coast encased by a thick coating of conglomerate consisting of pebbles and sand cemented by oxide of iron he describes a bronze helmet of the antique Grecian form taken up in 1825 from a shallow part of the sea between the citadel of Corfu and the village of Costratus both the interior and exterior of the helmet were partially encrusted with shells and a deposit of carbonate of lime the surface generally both under the encrustation and where freed was of a variegated color modeled with spots of green dirty white and red on minute inspection with a lens the green and red patches proved to consist of crystals of the red oxide and carbonate of copper and the dirty white chiefly of oxide of tin the mineralizing process says Dr. Davy which has produced these new combinations has in general penetrated very little into the substance of the helmet the encrustation and rust removed the metal is found bright beneath in some places considerably corroded in others very slightly it proves on analysis to be copper alloyed with 18.5% of tin its color is that of our common brass and it possesses a considerable degree of flexibility it is a curious question he adds how the crystals were formed in the helmet and on the adhering calcarius deposit there being no reason to suppose deposition from solution are we not under the necessity of inferring that the mineralizing process depends on a small motion and separation of the particles of the original compound this motion may have been due to the operation of electrochemical powers which may have separated the different metals of the alloy effects of the subsidence of land in embedding cities and forests in sub-aqueous strata we have hitherto considered the transportation of plants and animals from the land by aqueous agents and their inhumation in locus stream or submarine deposits and we may now inquire what tendency the subsidence of tracts of land may have to produce analogous effects several examples of the sinking down of buildings and portions of towns near the shore to various depths beneath the level of the sea during subterranean movements were before enumerated in treating of the changes brought about by inorganic causes the events alluded to were comprised within a brief portion of the historical period and confined to a small number of the regions of active volcanoes yet these authentic facts relating merely to the last century and a half gave indications of considerable changes in the physical geography of the globe and we are not to suppose that these were the only spots throughout the surrounding land and sea which suffered similar depressions if during the short period since South America has been colonized by Europeans we have proof of alterations of level at the three principal ports on the western shores Kaleo, Valparaiso and Conception we cannot for a moment suspect that these cities so distant from each other have been selected as the peculiar points where the desolating power of the earthquake has expended its chief fury on considering how small is the area occupied by the seaports of this disturbed region points where alone each slight change of the relative level of the sea and land has been colonized and reflecting on the proofs in our possession of the local revolutions that have happened on the site of each port within the last century and a half our conceptions must be greatly exalted respecting the magnitude of the alterations which the country between the Andes and the sea may have undergone even in the course of the last century the manor in which a large extent of surface may be submerged so that the terrestrial plants and animals may be embedded in sub-aqua strata cannot be better illustrated than by the earthquake of Koch in 1819 before alluded to it is stated that for some years after that earthquake the withered tamarisks and other shrubs created their tops above the waves in parts of the lagoon formed by subsidence on the site of the village of Sindri and its environs but after the flood of 1826 they were seen no longer every geologist will at once perceive that forests sunk by such subterranean movements may become embedded in sub-aqua's deposits both fluvia tile and marine and the trees may still remain erect or sometimes the roots and part of the trunks may continue in their original position while the current may have broken off or leveled with the ground their upper stems and branches buildings how preserved underwater some of the buildings which have at different times subsided beneath the level of the sea have been immediately covered up to a certain extent with strata of volcanic matter showered down upon them such was the case at Tamburo in Sambawa in the present century and at the site of the temple of Serapis in the environs of Pusooli probably about the 12th century the entrance of a river charged with sediment in the vicinity may still frequently occasion the rapid envelopment of buildings in regularly stratified formations but if no foreign matter be introduced the buildings when once removed to a depth where the action of the waves is insensible and where no great current happens to flow may last for indefinite periods and be as durable as the floor of the ocean itself which may often be composed of the very same materials there is no reason to doubt the tradition mentioned by the classic writers that the submerged Grecian towns of Burra and Hellis were seen underwater and it has been already mentioned that different eyewitnesses have observed the houses of Port Royal at the bottom of the sea at intervals of 88 101 and 143 years after the convulsion of 1692 buried temples of Kashmir the celebrated valley of Kashmir or Kashmir in India situated at the southern foot of the Himalaya range is about 60 miles in length and 20 in breadth surrounded by mountains which rise abruptly from the plane to the height of about 5000 feet in the cliffs of the river Jalam and its tributaries which traverse this beautiful valley strata consisting of fine clay, sand soft sandstone, pebbles and conglomerate are exposed to view they contain freshwater shells of the genera Limneas, Paladina and Serena with land shells all of recent species and are precisely such deposits as would be formed if the whole valley were now converted into a great lake and if the numerous rivers and torrents descending from the surrounding mountains were allowed sufficient time to fill up the lake basin with fine sediment and gravel fragments of pottery met with at the depth of 40 and 50 feet in this lacustrine formation show that the upper part of it has accumulated within the human epic. Dr. Thomas Thompson who visited Kashmir in 1848 observes that several of the lakes which still exist in the great valley such as that near the town of Kashmir five miles in diameter and some others are deeper than the adjoining river channels and may have been formed by subsidence during the numerous earthquakes which have convulsed that region in the course of the last 2000 years. It is also probable that the freshwater strata seem to extend far and wide over the whole of Kashmir originated not in one continuous sheet of water once occupying the entire valley but in many lakes of limited area formed and filled in succession. Among other proofs of such lake basins of moderate dimensions having once existed and having been converted into land at different periods, Dr. Thompson mentions that the ruins of Avantapura not far from the modern village of that name stand on an older freshwater deposit at the base of the mountains and terminate abruptly towards the plain in a straight line such as admits of no other explanation than by supposing that the advance of the town in that direction was arrested by a lake now drained or represented only by a marsh in that neighborhood as very generally throughout Kashmir the rivers run in channels or alluvial flats bounded by cliffs of Lakhastrin strata horizontally stratified and these strata form low table lands from 20 to 25 by between the different water courses on a table land of this kind near Avantapura portions of two buried temples are seen which have been partially explored by major Cunningham who in 1847 discovered that in one of the buildings a magnificent colonnade of 74 pillars is preserved underground he exposed to view three of the pillars in a still open all the architectural decorations below the level of the soil are as perfect and fresh looking as when first executed the spacious quadrangle must have been silted up gradually at first for some unsightly alterations not in accordance with the general plan and style of architecture were detected evidently of subsequent date and such as could only have been required when the water and sediment had already gained a certain height in the interior of the temple this edifice is supposed to have been erected about the year 850 of our era and was certainly submerged before the year 1416 when the Mohammedan king Sikandar called Bhuchakan or the idle breaker destroyed all the images of Hindu temples in Kashmir Farishta the historian particularly alludes to Sikandar having demolished every Kashmarian temple save one dedicated to Mahadeva which escaped in consequence of its foundations being below the neighboring water the unharmed condition of the human headed birds and other images in the buried edifice near Avantapura leaves no doubt that they escaped the fury of the iconoclast by being under water and perhaps silted up before the date of his conquest Berkeley's arguments for the recent date of the creation of man I cannot conclude this chapter without recalling to the reader's mind a memorable passage written by Bishop Berkeley a century ago in which he inferred on grounds which may be termed strictly geological the recent date of the creation of man to anyone says he who considers that on digging into the earth such quantities of shells and in some places bones and horns of animals are found sound and entire after having lain there in all probability some thousands of years it should seem probable that guns, metals and implements in metal or stone might have lasted entire buried underground 40 or 50,000 years if the world had been so old how comes it then to pass that no remains are found no antiquities of those numerous ages preceding the scripture accounts of time that no fragments of buildings no public monuments no intoglios cameos statues basa reliefos metals inscriptions utensils or artificial works of any kind are ever discovered which may bear testimony to the existence of those mighty empires those successions of monarchs heroes and demigods for so many thousand years let us look forward and suppose 10 or 20,000 years to come during which time we will suppose that plagues famine wars and earthquakes shall have made great havoc in the world is it not highly probable that at the end of such a period pillars vases and statues now in being of granite or porphyry or jasper stones of such hardness as we know them to have lasted 2000 years above ground without any considerable alteration would bear record of these and past ages or that some of our current coins might then be dug up or old walls and the foundations of buildings show themselves as well as the shells and stones of the primeval world which are preserved down to our times that many signs of the agency of man would have lasted at least as long as the shells of the primeval world had our race been so ancient we may feel as fully persuaded as Berkeley and we may anticipate with confidence that many edifices and implements of human workmanship and the skeletons of men and castes of the human form will continue to exist when a great part of the present mountains continents and seas have disappeared assuming the future duration of the planet to be indefinitely protracted we can foresee no limit to the perpetuation of some of the memorials of man which are continually entombed in the bowels of the earth or in the bed of the ocean unless we carry forward our views to a period sufficient to allow the various causes of change both igneous and aqueous to remodel more than once the entire crust of the earth one complete revolution will be inadequate to efface every monument of our existence for many works of art might enter again and again into the formations of successive eras and escape obliteration even though the very rocks in which they had been for ages embedded were destroyed just as pebbles included in the conglomerates of one epic often contain the organized remains of beings which flourished during a prior era yet it is no less true as a late distinguished philosopher has declared that none of the works of a mortal being can be eternal they are in the first place rested from the hands of man and lost as far as regards their subserviency to his use by the instrumentality of those very causes which placed them in situations where they are enabled to endure for indefinite periods and even when they have been included in rocky strata when they have been made to enter as it were into the solid framework of the globe itself they must nevertheless eventually perish for every year some portion of the earth's crust is shattered by earthquakes or melted by volcanic fire or ground to dust by the moving waters on the surface the river of leth as Bacon eloquently remarks runneth as well above ground as below end of chapter 48 part 2 chapter number 49 of principle of geology this is a LibriVox recording all the LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Emanuella principle of geology by Charles Lille embedding of aquatic species in subacueus strata animation of freshwater plants and animals shell marl fossilized seed vessel and stems of Chara recent deposits in American lakes freshwater species drifted into seas and estuaries new well levels alternation of marine and freshwater strata how coast embedding of marine plants and animals cetacea stranded on our shores literal and estuary cetacea swept into the deep sea burrowing shells leaving cetacea found at considerable depths blending of organic remains of different ages having treated of the embedding of terrestrial plants and animals and of human remains in deposits now forming beneath the waters I come next to consider aquatic species maybe enthumed in strata formed in their own element freshwater plants and animals the remains of species belonging to those genera of the animal and vegetable kingdoms which are more or less exclusively confined to freshwater are for the most part preserved in the beds of lakes or estuaries but they often times swept down by rivers into the sea intermingled with the exuviae of marine races the phenomena attending their animation in lacustrine deposits are sometimes revealed to our observation by the drainage of small lakes such as are those in Scotland which have been laid dry for the sake of obtaining shell mar for agricultural uses in this recent formation as seen in forfarsh 2 or 3 beds of calcareous mar are sometimes observed separated from each other by layers of drift peat sand or facet clay the mar often consists almost entirely of an epigate of shells of the genera limnea lanorbis, valvata and chiclas of species now existing in Scotland a considerable proportion of the testacea appear to have died very young and few of the shells are of the sites which indicates they are having attained a state of maturity the shells are sometimes entirely decomposed forming a pulverant mar sometimes in a state of good preservation they are frequently intermixed with the stems of charry and other aquatic vegetables the whole being matted together and compressed forming lamine often as thin as paper fossilized seed vessels and stems of charra as the charra is an aquatic plant which occurs frequently fossil informations of different eras and is often of much importance to the geologist in characterizing entire groups of strata I shall describe the manner in which I have found recent species in a petrified state they occur in a mar lake in forfarshile and sometimes in a continuous stratum of a kind of travertine the seed vessel of these plants is remarkably thought and art and consists of a membranous knot covered by an integument both of which are spiroristriated rivets the integument is composed of five spiror valves of a quadrangular form in charra ispida of the lakes of forfarshile and which has become fossil in the bakey loch each of the spiral valves of the seed vessel turns rather more than twice around the circumference the whole together making between 10 and 11 rings the number of these rings differs greatly in different species but in the same appears to be very constant the stems of charra occur in a scotch mull in great abundance in some species as in charra ispida the plant, when leaving contains so much carbunate of lime in its vegetable organization independently of calcarose in crustacean that it effervesces strongly with acids when dry the stems of charra ispida are longitudinally striated with a tendency to be spiral this striae as appears to be the case with all charra turn always like the worm of a screw from right to left while those of the seed vessel wind around in a contrary direction a cross section of the stem exhibits a courier's structure for it is composed of a large tube surrounded by smaller tubes as is seen in some angstings as well as recent species in the stems of several species however there is only a single tube the valves of a small animal called cipris ciprisornata occur completely fossilized like the stems of charra in the scotch traveled in above mentioned the same cipris inhabits the lakes and ponds of england where together with many other species it is not uncommon although extremely minute they are visible to the naked eye and may be observed in great numbers swimming swiftly through the waters of our stagnant pools and ditches the antenne, at the end of which are fine pencils of air are the principal organs for swimming and are moved with great rapidity the animal resides within two small valves not unlike those of a bevalve shell and most its integuments annually which the conchiferous molluscs do not the cast-off shells resembling thin scales and occurring in countless myriads in many ancient freshwater moths impart to them a divisional structure like that so frequently derived from plates of mica the recent strata of lacustrine origin above alluded to are of very small extent and analogous deposits on the grandest scale are forming in the great canadian lakes as in lakes superior and Huron where beds of sand and clay are seen in closing shells of existing species the chara also plays the same part in the subacveous vegetation of North America as in Europe I observed along the borders of several freshwater lakes in the state of New York a luxuriant crop of this plant in clear water of moderate depth rendering the bottom as verdant as a grassy meadow here, therefore we may expect some of the totes seeds vessels to be preserved in mud just as we detect them fossil in the Eocene strata of Hampshire or in the neighborhood of Paris and many other countries embedding over freshwater species in estuary and marine deposits in US levels we have sometimes an opportunity of examining the deposits which within the historical period have silted up some of our estuaries and excavations made for wells and other purposes where the sea has been finally excluded enable us to observe the state of the organic remains in these tracts the valley of the O's between New Heaven and US is one of several estuaries from which the sea has retired within the last 7 or 8 centuries an air as appears from the researches of Dr. Mantill strata 30 feet and upwards in thickness have accumulated at the top beneath the vegetable soil is a bed of about 5 feet thick in closing many trunks of trees next below is a stratum of blue clay containing freshwater shells of about 9 species such as now he inhabits the district intermix act with this was observed the skeleton of a deer lower down the layers of blue clay contain with the above mentioned fresh water several marine species well known to our coast in the lowest beds often at the depth of 36 feet this marine testacha occur without the slightest intermixture of luviatel species and amongst them the skull of the narwhal or sea unicorn monodon monoceros has been detected underneath all these deposits is a bed of pipe clay derived from the subjection chalk if we had no historical information respecting the formal existence of an inlet of the sea in this valley and of its gradual obliteration the inspection of the section above described would show as clearly as a written chronicle the following sequence of events first there was a saltwater estuary which was re-pulled for many years by species of marine testacha identical with those now living and into which some of the largest estacia occasionally entered secondly the inlet grew shallower and the water became brackish or alternatively salt and fresh so that the remains of fresh water and marine shells were mingled in the blue sediment of its bottom thirdly the shoaling continued until the river water prevailed so that it was no longer habitable by marine testacha but fitted only for the abode of roviatil species and aquatic insects fourthly a peaty swamp or moras was formed where some trees grew or perhaps were drifted during floods and where terrestrial birds were marred finally the soil being flooded by the river only at distant intervals became a verdant meadow in delta of Ganges and Indus it was before stated that on the sea coast in the delta of the Ganges there are eight great openings each of which has evidently at some ancient period served in its turn as the principal channel of discharge as the base of the delta is to a hundred miles in length it must happen that as often as the great volume of river water is thrown into the sea by a new mouth the sea will at one point be converted from salt to fresh and as another from fresh to salt for with the exception of those parts where the principal discharge takes place the salt water not only washes the base of the delta but enters far into every creek and lagoon it is evident then that repeated alternations of beds containing fresh water shells with others filled with marine exuvia may here be formed it has also been shown by earthasian borings at Calcutta that the delta once extended much farther than now into the gulf and that the river is only recovering from the sea the ground which has been lost by a subsidence at some former period analogous phenomena must sometimes be occasioned by such alternate elevation and depression as has occurred in modern times in the delta of the Indus but the subterranean movements affect but a small number of the deltas formed at one period on the globe whereas the setting up of some of the arms of great rivers and the opening of others and the consequent variation of the points where the chief volume of their waters is discharging to the sea are phenomena common to almost every delta the variety of species of the stature contained in the recent calcareous Marl of Scotland before mention is very small but the abundance of individual extremely great as circumstance very characteristic of freshwater formations in general as compared to marine for in the latter as is seen on sea beaches, coral reefs or in the bottom of the seas examined by dredging rivers, there rarely fails to be a vast variety of species in bedding of the remains of marine plants and animals marine plants large banks of drift sea which occur on each side of the equator in the Atlantic Pacific and Indian oceans were before alluded to these when they subside may often produce considerable beds of vegetable matter in Holland submarine peat is derived from Fuji and on parts of our own coast from Zostera marina in places where algae do not generate peat they may nevertheless leave traces of their form imprinted on our gillesios and calcareous mud as they are usually very thought in their texture seaweeds are often cast up in such abundance on our shores during heavy gays that we cannot doubt that occasionally vast numbers of them are embedded in literal deposits now in progress we learn from the researches of Dr. Forkhammer that besides supplying in common with land plants the material of coal the algae must give rise to important chemical changes in the composition of strata in which they are embedded plants always contain sulfuric acid and sometimes in as large a quantity as 8.5% combined with potash Magnesia also and phosphoric acid are constant ingredients whenever large masses of seaweeds putrefy in contact with the ferruginous clay sulfuretofiron or iron pyrite is formed by the union of the sulfur with the iron of the clay while the potash released from its union with the clay it has the silicate of alumina forms with it a peculiar compound many of the mineral characteristics of ancient rocks especially the alum slates and the pyrite which are curing clay slate and the fragments of anthracite in marine silurian strata may be explained by the combination of fuccoids or seaweeds embedding of cetacean it is not uncommon for the larger cetacean which can float only in a considerable depth of water to be carried during storms or high tides into estuaries or upon low shores where upon the retiring by water they are stranded thus an arbol monodon monoceros was found on the beach near Boston in Lincolnshire in the year 1800 the hole of its body buried in the mud a fisherman going to his boat saw the horn and tried to pull it out when the animal began to steer itself an individual of the common whale balena mysticetus which measured 70 feet came ashore near Petahed in 1682 many individuals of the genus Balenoctara have met the same fate it will be sufficient to refer to those custom shore near Burnt Island and Etelua recorded by Seabald and The Nail the other individual mentioned by Seabald as having come ashore at Boine in Bentfoshire was probably a reservoir of the genus Cathodon Cachalot Ray mentions at large one stranded on the west coast of Holland in 1598 and the fact is also commemorated in the Dutch engraving of the time of much merit Seabald II records that at the head of Cachalots upwards of 100 in number were found stranded at Caeston in Ocmi the dead bodies of the larger Cetaceae are sometimes found floating on the surface of the waters as was the case with the immense whale exhibited in London in 1831 and the caches of a seaco or lamantine Halicora was in 1785 cast ashore near Leith to some accident of this kind we may refer the position of the skeleton of the whale 73 feet long which was found at on the fourth near Stirling embedded in clay 20 feet higher than the surface of the highest tide of the river forth at the present day from the situation of the Roman station and causeways at a small distance from the spot it is concluded that the whale must have been stranded there in the Christian era other fossil remains of this class have also been found in estuaries known to have been silted up in recent times one example of which has been already mentioned as Lewis in success marine reptiles some similar fossils have lately been discovered in the island of the Shansion in a stone said to be continually forming on the beach small rounded fragments of shells and coral switch in the course of time become firmly polluted together and constitute a stone used luxury for building and making lime in a quarry on the northwest side of the island about 100 yards from the sea some fossil eggs of turtles have been discovered in the hard rock thus formed the eggs must have been nearly hatched at the time when they for the bones of the young turtle are seen in the interior with their shape fully developed the interstice between the bones being entirely filled with grains of sand which are cemented together so that when the egg shells are removed perfect casts of their form remain in stone and the single specimen have featured which is only five inches in its longest diameter no less than seven eggs are preserved to explain the state in which they occur fossil it seems necessary to suppose that after the eggs were almost hatched in the warm sand a great way to throw upon them so much more sand as to prevent the rays of the sun from penetrating so that the yolk was chilled and deprived of the totality perhaps slightly broken at the same time so that small grains of sand might gradually be introduced into the interior by water as it percolated through the beach marine testacia the aquatic animals and plants which inhabited yesterday are liable like the trees and land animals which peopled the alluvial plains of a great river to be swept from time to time far into the deep four as a river is perpetually shifting its course and undermining a portion of its banks with the forest which cover them so the marine current alter its direction from time to time and thus await banks of sand and mud against which it turns its force these banks may consist in great measure of shells peculiar to shallow and sometimes brackish water which may have been accumulating for centuries until at length they are carried away and spread out along the bottom of the sea at the depth at which they could not have lived and multiplied thus, literal and estuary shells are more frequently liable even then freshwater species to be intermixed with the exuvial pelagic tribes after the storm of February the 4th 1831 when several vessels were wrecked in the estuary of the 4th the current was directed against a bed of oysters with such force that great heaps of them were thrown alive upon the beach and remained above high water mark I collected many of these oysters as also the common eatable welks Buccina, thrown up with them and observed that, although still living, their shells were worn by the long attrition of sand which had passed over them as they lay in their netted bed and which had evidently not resulted from the mere action of the tempest by which they were cast ashore from these facts we learn that the union of the two parts of a bevalve shell does not prove that it has not been transported to a distance and when we find shells worn and with all their prominent parts rubbed off, they may still have been embedded where they grew Borrowing shells it sometimes appear extraordinary when we observe the violence of the breakers on our coast and see the strength of the current in removing cliffs and sweeping out new channels that many tender and fragile shells should inhabit the sea in the immediate vicinity of this turmoil but a great number of the bevalve testacha and many also of the turbinated shells Borrow in sand or mud the solan and the cardium for example which are usually found in shallow water near the shore pierces through a soft bottom without injury to their shells and the folas can drill a cavity through mud of considerable hardness the species of these and many other tribes can sink when alarmed with considerable rapidity often to the depth of several feet and can also penetrate upwards again to the surveys if a mass of matter be heaped upon them the hurricane therefore may expand its fury in vain and may sweep away even the upper part of banks of sand or mud or may roll pebbles over them and yet this testacha may remain below secure and uninjured shells become fossil at a considerable depth however already stated that at the depth of 950 hadoms between Gibraltar and Ceuta Captain Smith found a gravelly bottom with fragments of broken shells carried tighter probably from the comparatively shallow parts of the neighboring straits through which a powerful current flows beds of shelly sand might here in the course of ages be accumulated several thousand feet thick but without the aid of the drifting power of a current shells may accumulate in the spot where they live and die at great depths from the surface if sediment be thrown down upon them for even in our own colder latitudes the depths at which living marine animals abound is very considerable Captain Vidal asserted by soundings of Tori island on the north west coast of Ireland that crustacea starfish and testacha occurred at valued depths between 50 and 100 fathoms and it drew up the intalia from the mud of Galway Bay in 230 and 240 fathoms water the same hydrographer discovered on the rock hole bank large quantities of shells at depths varying from 45 to 990 fathoms the shells were for the most part pulverized and evidently recent as they retained their colors in the same region a bed of fish bones was served extending for two miles around the bottom of the sea in 1890 fathoms water at the eastern extremity also of the rock hole bank fish bones were met with minglet with pieces of fresh shell of 235 fathoms analogous formations are in progress in the submarine tracks extending from the Shetland Isle to the north of Ireland wherever soundings can be procured a continuous deposit of sand and mud replete with broken and entire shells a kidney etc has been traced for upwards of 20 miles to the eastward of the Faroe Islands and usually at a depth of from 40 to 100 fathoms in one part of this tract latitude 61 degrees 50 longitude 6 degrees 30 fish bones occur in extraordinary profusion so that the lead cannot be drawn up without some vertebra being attached this bone bed as it was called by our surveyors is three miles and a half length and 45 fathoms under water and contains a few shells intermingled with the bones in the British seas the shells and other organic remains lying soft mud or loose sand and gravel whereas in the bed of the Adriatic Donati found them frequently enclosed in stone of recent origin this is precisely the difference in character which we might have noticed between the British marine formations now in progress and those of the Adriatic for calcareous and other mineral springs abound in the Mediterranean and land and joining why they are almost entirely wanting in our own country I have already adverted to the eight regions of different depths in the Igean sea each characterized by a peculiar semblance of shells described by Professor Forbes who explored them by dredging during his survey of the west coast of Africa Captain Sir Berker found by frequent soundings between the 23rd and 20th degrees of north latitude at the bottom of the sea at the depth of from 20 to about 50 fathoms consists of sand with a great intermixture of shells often entire but sometimes finally communicated between the 11th and 9th degrees of north latitude on the same coast at soundings varying from 20 to about 80 fathoms he brought up abundance of corals and shells mixed with sand these also were in some part entire and in others, worn and broken in all these cases it is only necessary that there should be some disposition of sedimentary matter however minute such as may be supplied by rivers draining a continent or currents preying on a line of cliffs in order that stratified formations hundreds of feet in thickness and repeat with organic remains should result in the course of ages but although some deposits made us extend continuously for a thousand miles or more near certain costs the greater part of the bed of the ocean remote from continents and islands may very probably receive at the same time no newer sessions of drift matter or sediment being intercepted by intervening hollows in which a marine current must clear its waters as throughoutly as a third with river in a lake erroneous theories in geology may be formed not only from overlooking the great extent of simultaneous deposits now in progress but also from the assumption that such formations may be universal or co-extensive with the bed of the ocean we frequently observe on the sea beach very perfect specimens of fossil shells quite detached from the matrix which have been washed out of older formations constituting the sea cliffs they may be all of extinct species like the ocean air fresh water and marine shells stir it over the shores of Ampshire yet when they become mingled with the shells of the present period and buried in the same deposits of modern sand they would appear if appraised and examined by future geologists to have been all of the same age that such inter-mixture and blending of organic remains of different ages have actually taken place in former times is unquestionable though the occurrence appears to be very local and exceptional it is however a class of accidents more likely than almost any other to lead to serious anachronism in geological chronology End of chapter 49 Recording by Emanuela