Chapter XXIV: Part 24

In France, where it is well known that living elephants have been much less frequent, at least in times of which we have any record, than either in Italy or Greece, their fossil remains have been found in a great number of places, and in situations which prove their deposition at a very remote period. The whole valley through which the Rhine passes, yields fragments of this animal, and perhaps more numerously on the side of Germany than on that of France. Not only in its course, but in the alluvia of the several streams which empty themselves into it, are these fossil remains also found. Thus Holland abounds with them, and even the most elevated parts of the Batavian kingdom are not exempt from them. Germany and Switzerland appear particularly to abound in these wonderful relics. The greater number found in these parts, is, perhaps, as is observed by M. Cuvier, not attributable to their greater abundance, but to the number of well-informed men, capable of making the necessary researches, and of reporting the interesting facts they discover. As in the banks of the Rhine, so in those of the Danube, these fossils abound. In the valley of Altmuhl is a grand deposit of these remains. The bones which have been found at Krembs, in Sweden; at Baden, near Vienna; in Moravia; in different parts of Hungary and of Transylvania; at the foot of the Hartz; in Hesse; at Hildesheim—all appear to be referable to this animal. So also are those which are found on the Elbe, the Oder, and the Vistula. Different parts of the British empire are not less productive of these remains. In London, Brentford, Harwich, Norwich, Gloucestershire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Salisbury, and, indeed, in several other parts of Great Britain, different remains of these animals have been found. When we add to those places which have been already enumerated, Scandinavia, Norway, Iceland, Russia, Siberia, Tunis, parts of North America, and Ibarra, in the northern part of Equador, it will appear that there is hardly a part in the known world, whose subterranean productions are known to us, in which these animal remains have not been discovered. M. Cuvier is satisfied, from the actual comparison of several skulls of the East-Indian and African elephants, that different specific characters exist in them respectively. In the Indian elephant, the top of the skull is raised in a kind of double pyramid; but in the African it is nearly rounded. In the Indian the forehead is concave, and in the African it is rather convex. Several other differences exist, not necessary to be here particularized, which seem to be fully sufficient to mark a difference of species. A cursory view is sufficient to enable us to determine that the ordinary fossil teeth of elephants are not those of the African species, and it may be further said, that the greater number of these teeth bear a close resemblance to those of the East-Indian species, showing, on their masticating surface, bands of an equal thickness through their whole length, and rudely crenulated. So great, indeed, is the resemblance, that Pallas, and most other writers, have considered the fossil elephant as being of the same species with the Asiatic. M. Cuvier, anxious to discover the degree of accordance of the fossil elephant’s skeleton with that of the living species, compared the fossil skull, found in Siberia by Messerschmidt, with those of the African and Asiatic elephants. The result of his comparison was, that in the fossil species the alveoli of the tusks are much longer; the zygomatic arch is of a different figure; the post-orbital apophysis of the frontal bone is longer, more pointed, and more crooked; and the tubercle of the os lachrymalis is considerably larger, and more projecting. To these peculiarities of the fossil skull, M. Cuvier thinks, may be added the parallelism of the molares. Comparing together the bones of the Asiatic and of the African elephant, he was able to discover some differences between them, as well as between those and some of the fossil bones which he possessed. These latter he found, in general, approached nearest to those of the Asiatic elephant. He concludes with supposing that the fossil remains are of a species differing more widely from the Asiatic elephant than the horse does from the ass, and therefore does not think it impossible but that it might have existed in a climate that would have destroyed the elephant of India.

It may, therefore, be assumed as certain, from the observations of M. Cuvier, that at least one species of elephants has existed, of which none are now known to be living; and, should the difference of structure which has been pointed out in some of the fossil teeth, be admitted as sufficient to designate a difference of species, it may be then said, that there exist the fossil remains of, at least, two species of elephants, which were different from those with which we are acquainted. From the preceding observations it appears, then, that the fossil elephantine remains, notwithstanding their resemblance in some respects to the bones of the Asiatic elephant, have belonged to one or more species, different from those which are now known. This circumstance agrees with the facts of the fossil remains of the tapir and rhinoceros, which appear to have differed materially from the living animals of the same genera. The remains of elephants obtained from Essex, Middlesex, Kent, and other parts of England, confirm the observation of Cuvier, that these remains are generally found in the looser and more superficial parts of the earth, and most frequently in the alluvia which fill the bottoms of the valleys, or which border the beds of rivers. They are generally found mingled with the bones of other quadrupeds of known genera, such as those of the rhinoceros, ox, horse, &c., and frequently, also, with the remains of marine animals.

FOSSIL REMAINS OF THE MASTODON.

We now come to the examination of one of the most stupendous animals known, either in a recent or a fossil state; one which, whether we contemplate its original mode of existence, or the period at which it lived, can not but fill our minds with astonishment. The first traces of this animal are sketched in a letter from Dr. Mather, of Boston, to Dr. Woodward, in 1712, and are transcribed from a work in manuscript, entitled _Biblia Americana_. In this work, teeth and bones of prodigious size, supposed to be human, are said to have been found near what is now Albany, in the state of New York. About the year 1740, numerous similar bones were found in Kentucky, on the Ohio, and were dispersed among the European virtuosi. Many bones of this animal were found, in 1799, in the state of New York, in a large plain, bounded on every side by immense mountains, in the vicinity of Newburg, situated on the Hudson or North river. These remains have also been found on the side of the Alleghany mountains, in the interior parts of Pennsylvania and Carolina, and in New Jersey, not far from Philadelphia. And quite lately (1854) the tusks of a mastodon, apparently of enormous size, were discovered protruding from the inclined side of a marshy declivity, a few miles from the city of Poughkeepsie. Measures were immediately taken to excavate the place and exhume the skeleton. We are informed that the work thus far has been remarkably successful, and the condition of the skeleton such as to promise the security of the most perfect specimen of the mastodon ever found. The location is extremely favorable. The excavation, which is prosecuted under the direction of Professor Morse, the discoverer of the magnetic telegraph, who resides at Poughkeepsie, has succeeded as far as the head and shoulders of the mammoth. The bones are partially petrified as far as the exhumation has extended, and this promises the recovery of the entire skeleton in a more perfect state than any yet discovered. If our information is correct, and it emanates from an entirely responsible source, an object of great interest will be added to the science and study of natural history.

From a careful attendance to every circumstance, M. Cuvier conceives we have a right to conclude, that this great mastodon, or animal of the Ohio, did not surpass the elephant in hight, but was a little longer in proportion, its limbs rather thicker, and its belly smaller. It seems to have very much resembled the elephant in its tusks, and, indeed, in the whole of its osteology; and it also appears to have had a trunk. But, notwithstanding its resemblance to the elephant, in so many particulars, the form and structure of the grinders are sufficiently different from those of the elephant, to demand its being placed in a distinct genus. From the later discoveries respecting this animal, M. Cuvier is also inclined to suppose that its food must have been similar to that of the hippopotamus and the boar, but preferring the roots and fleshy parts of vegetables; in the search of which species of food it would, of course, be led to such soft and marshy spots as it appears to have inhabited. It does not, however, appear to have been at all formed for swimming, or for living much in the waters, like the hippopotamus, but rather seems to have been entirely a terrestrial animal.

FOSSIL REMAINS OF THE RHINOCEROS.

There appear to be three living species of rhinoceros: 1. That of India, a unicorn, with a rugose coat, and with incisors, separated, by a space, from the grinders. 2. That of the Cape, a bicorn, the skin without rugæ, and having twenty eight grinders, and no incisors. 3. That of Sumatra, a bicorn, the skin but slightly rugose, thus far resembling that of the Cape, but having incisive teeth, like that of India. The fossil remains of the rhinoceros have been generally found in the same countries where the remains of elephants have been found; but they do not appear to have so generally excited attention; and, perhaps, but few of those who discovered them were able to determine to what animal they belonged. Thus a tooth of this animal is described by Grew merely as the tooth of a terrestrial animal; and the remains of this animal, found in the neighborhood of Canterbury, were supposed to have belonged to the hippopotamus. The first remains of this species, of which positive mention is made, were collected in England, in 1668, near Canterbury, in the course of digging a well. In 1751, a large number of bones of this kind were disinterred in the chain of the Hartz, and their form caused them at first to be taken for those of elephants; but the celebrated anatomist, Meckel, having compared one of the teeth found in this heap with the teeth of the living rhinoceros he had observed at Paris, proved, in an explicit manner, and by the same method which has yielded us such knowledge of lost species, that the bones found in the Hartz were the bones of the rhinoceros. Thence the path was clearly opened for all the paleontological researches on this kind of fossil. Twenty years after the discovery made on the slopes of the Hartz, a much more extraordinary discovery, of which Siberia was the scene, threw a truly striking light upon the question. A fossil rhinoceros, not reduced to bones alone, but entire, with its skin, was found in the month of December, 1771, on the borders of the Wiluji, a river which flows into the Lena, below Yakoutsk, in Siberia, in the forty-fourth degree of latitude. What characterized this individual, which was covered with hair, proves that the species to which it belonged, differing from that of warm countries, the only one we now know, was created to inhabit cold and temperate regions. Unfortunately, the skin of this precious animal has not been preserved. Since that time, constant attempts have been made to discover the bones of the rhinoceros, in a multitude of countries of northern Europe and Asia; and M. Cuvier, in his “Researches on Fossil Bones,” has given minute descriptions of them; but unfortunately, no individual as complete as that of Wiluji has since been discovered.

FOSSIL REMAINS OF THE SIBERIAN MAMMOTH.

It has been demonstrated by Cuvier, that this animal was of a different species from the mastodon, or American mammoth. Its bones have been found in the alluvial soil near London, Northampton, Gloucester, Harwich, Norwich, in Salisbury plain, and in other places in England; they also occur in the north of Ireland; and in Sweden, Iceland, Russia, Poland, Germany, France, Holland, and Hungary, the bones and teeth have been met with in abundance. Its teeth have also been found in North and South America, and abundantly in Asiatic Russia. Pallas says, that from the Don to the Tchutskoiness, there is scarcely a river that does not afford the remains of the mammoth, and that they are frequently imbedded in _alluvial soil, containing marine productions_. The skeletons, a view of one of which is given in the cut below, are seldom complete; but the following interesting narrative will show that, in one instance, the animal has been found in an entire state.

In the year 1799, a Tungusian fisherman observed a strange shapeless mass projecting from an ice-bank, near the mouth of a river in the north of Siberia, the nature of which he did not understand, and which was so high in the bank as to be beyond his reach. The next year he observed the same object, which was then rather more disengaged from among the ice, but was still unable to conceive what it was. Toward the end of the following summer, 1801, he could distinctly see that it was the frozen carcass of a huge animal, the entire flank of which, and one of its tusks, had become disengaged from the ice. In consequence of the ice beginning to melt earlier, and to a greater degree than usual, in 1803, the fifth year of this discovery, the enormous carcass became entirely disengaged, and fell down from the ice-crag on a sand-bank forming part of the coast of the Arctic ocean. In the month of March of that year, the Tungusian carried away the two tusks, which he sold for fifty rubles, about thirty-eight dollars.

Two years afterward this animal still remained on the sand-bank, where it had fallen from the ice; but its body was then greatly mutilated. The peasants had taken away considerable quantities of its flesh to feed their dogs; and the wild animals, particularly the white bears, had also feasted on the carcass; yet the skeleton remained quite entire, except that one of the fore legs was gone. The entire spine, the pelvis, one shoulder-blade, and three legs, were still held together by their ligaments, and by some remains of the skin; and the other shoulder-blade was found at a short distance. The head remained, covered by the dried skin, and the pupil of the eyes was still distinguishable. The brain also remained within the skull, but a good deal shrunk and dried up; and one of the ears was in excellent preservation, still retaining a tuft of strong bristly hair. The upper lip was a good deal eaten away, and the under lip was entirely gone, so that the teeth were distinctly seen. The animal was a male, and had a long mane on its neck.

The skin was extremely thick and heavy, and as much of it remained as required the exertions of ten men to carry away, which they did with considerable difficulty. More than thirty pounds of the hair and bristles of this animal were gathered from the wet sand-bank, having been trampled into the sand by the white bears, while devouring the carcass. The hair was of three distinct kinds: one consisting of stiff black bristles, a foot or more in length; another of thinner bristles, or coarse flexible hair, of a reddish-brown color; and the third of coarse reddish-brown wool, which grew among the roots of the hair. These afford an undeniable proof that this animal had belonged to a race of elephants inhabiting a cold region, with which we are unacquainted, and by no means fitted to dwell in the torrid zone. It is also evident that this enormous animal must have been frozen up by the ice at the moment of its death.

FOSSIL SHELLS.

At whatever elevations these shells may have been found, and however remote from the parts of the globe now occupied by water, it is certain that they were once generated in the sea, by which they were deposited. The Altain chain of primitive mountains in Siberia is flanked on each side by a chain of hills inclosing marine shells. On a comparison of the forms, contexture and composition of these shells, as they have been found imbedded in rocks, not the slightest difference can be detected between several varieties of them and those which still inhabit the sea. At Touraine, in France, a hundred miles from the ocean, and about nine feet beneath the surface, a bed of fossil shells has been found nine leagues in length, and about twenty feet in thickness. Such beds are known to exist in every part of Europe; and in South America, according to Ulloa, they are very frequent.

Great Britain abounds in these fossil productions. In the cliffs of the isle of Sheppey, bordering on the Thames, several varieties of the crab, and lobsters nearly whole, have been found in a petrified state. Within the elevated lands in the vicinity of Reading, in Berkshire, an abundance of oyster-shells has been found, many of them entire, and having both their valves united. At Broughton, in Lincolnshire, there are two quarries abounding in fresh-water shells, which are found in a blue stone, supposed to have been formerly clay, and to have been gradually indurated. A bed of shells, twelve feet thick, and lying in a greenish sand, has been found about a mile from Reculver, in Kent. At Harwich, at the entrance of the river, a sandy cliff, fifty feet in hight, contains shells, of which there are no less than twenty-eight varieties. On digging a moorish pasture, in Northamptonshire, many snails and river shells were found; and these were the more abundant in proportion as the workmen proceeded to a greater depth. And, lastly, the petrifactions known by the name of _belemnites_, have been found in chalk pits, in different parts of the kingdom: they are usually cylindrical, or conical, and sometimes contain a hollow nucleus. They are supposed to constitute a species of nautilus, and very frequently occur in the coarser kinds of marble.

SUBTERRANEAN FORESTS.

In the year 1708, a breach made by the Thames, at an extraordinary high tide, inundated the marshes of Dagenham and Havering, in Essex. Such was the impetuous rush of the water, that a large passage or channel was torn up, three hundred feet in width, and in some parts twenty feet in depth. In this way, a great number of trees, that had been buried there many ages before, were exposed to view. With one exception, that of a large oak, having the greatest part of its bark, and some of its heads and roots in a perfect state, these trees bore a greater resemblance to alder than to any other description of wood. They were black and hard, and their fibers were extremely tough. No doubt was entertained of their having grown on the spot where they lay; and they were so numerous, that in many places they afforded steps to the passengers. They were imbedded in a black oozy soil, on the surface of which they lay prostrate, with a covering of grey mold.

In passing along the channel torn up by the water, vast numbers of the stumps of these subterraneous trees, remaining in the posture in which they grew, were to be seen, some with their roots running down, and others branching and spreading about in the earth, as is observed in growing trees. That they were the ruins, not of the deluge, but of a later age, has been inferred from the existence of a bed of shells, which lies across the highway, on the descent near Stifford bridge, leading to South Okendon. At a perpendicular depth of twenty feet beneath this bed of shells, and at the distance of nearly two hundred feet, in the bottom of the valley, runs a brook which empties itself into the Thames at Purfleet. This brook is known to ebb and flow with the Thames; and, consequently, if the bed of shells, as has been conjectured, was deposited in that place by an inundation of the Thames, it must have been such as to have drowned a vast proportion of the surrounding country, and have overtopped the trees near the river, in West Horrock, Dagenham, and the other marshes, overturning them in its progress. In support of this hypothesis, it should be remarked, that the bed of earth in which the trees grew, was entire and undisturbed, and consisted of a spongy, light, oozy soil, filled with the roots of reeds, of a specific gravity much less than that of the stratum above it.

The levels of Hatfield chase were, in the reign of Charles I., the largest chase of red deer in England. They contained about one hundred and eighty thousand acres of land, about one-half of which was yearly inundated; but being sold to one Vermuiden, a Dutchman, he contrived, at a great labor and expense, to dischase, drain, and reduce these lands to arable and pasture grounds not subject to be overflowed. In every part of the soil, in the bottom of the river Ouse even, and in that of the adventitious soil of all marsh land, together with the skirts of the Lincolnshire wold, vast multitudes of the roots and trunks of trees of different sizes are found. The roots are fixed in the soil, in their natural position, as thick as they could have grown; and near to them lie the trunks. Many of these trees appear to have been burned, and others to have been chopped and squared; and this in such places, and at such depths, as could never have been opened, since the destruction of the forest, until the time of the drainage. That this was the work of the Romans, who were the destroyers of all the woods and forests which are now found underground in the bottoms of moors and bogs, is evidenced by the coins and utensils, belonging to that nation, which have been collected, as well in these levels, as in other parts of Great Britain where these subterraneous forests have been discovered.

MOORS, MOSSES AND BOGS.

It having been reported in Lincolnshire, that a large extent of islets of moor, situated along its coast, and visible only at the lowest ebbs of the tide, was chiefly composed of decayed trees, Dr. de Serra, accompanied by Sir Joseph Banks, proceeded, in the month of September, 1796, to examine their nature and extent. They landed on one of the largest of these islets, when the ebbs were at the lowest, and found its exposed surface to be about ninety feet in length, and seventy-five in width. They were enabled to ascertain, that these islets consist almost entirely of roots, trunks, branches, and leaves of trees and shrubs, intermixed with leaves of aquatic plants. The remains of many of the trees were still standing on their roots; but the trunks of the greater part of them lay scattered on the ground, in every direction. The bark of the trees and roots appeared in general as fresh as when they were growing; in that of the birches particularly, many of which were found, even the thin silvery membranes of the outer skin were discernible. The timber of all kinds, on the contrary, was decomposed and soft, in the greater part of the trees; in some it was firm, especially about the knots. Sound pieces of timber had been often found by the country people. In general, the trunks, branches and roots of the decayed trees were considerably flattened; a phenomenon which has been observed in the _surtarbrand_, or fossil wood of Iceland, and also in that found near the lake of Thun, in Switzerland. The soil was chiefly composed of rotten leaves; and, on being thrown into water, many of these were taken out in a perfect state.

These islets extended about twelve miles in length, and one in breadth, opposite the shore of Sutton, at which place, on digging a well, a moor of the same nature was found under ground, at the depth of sixteen feet, and, consequently, very nearly on the same level with that which constitutes the islets. On boring in the fields belonging to the Royal Society, in the parish of Mablethorpe, to ascertain the cause of the subterraneous stratum of decayed vegetables, a similar moor was found. The appearance of these decayed vegetables was found exactly to agree with that of the moor which was thrown up in Blankney fen, and in other parts of the east fen of Lincolnshire, in making their embankments; barks, like those of the birch-tree, being there also abundantly found. This moor has been traced as far as Peterborough, sixty miles south of Sutton. On the north side, the moory islets extend as far as Grimsby, on the south of the mouth of the Humber: and it is a remarkable circumstance, that in the large tracts of low land which lie on the south banks of that river, a little above its mouth, there is a subterraneous stratum of decayed trees and shrubs, exactly resembling those observed at Sutton. At Axholme isle, a similar stratum extends over a tract of ten miles in length, by five in breadth. The roots there also stand in the places where they grew; while the trunks lie prostrate, amid the roots of aquatic plants and reeds. Little doubt can be entertained of the moory islets of Sutton being a part of this extensive subterraneous stratum, which, by some inroad of the sea, has been there stripped of its covering of soil. The identity of the levels; that of the species of trees; the roots of these affixed, in both, to the soil where they grew; and, above all, the flattened shape of the trunks, branches, and roots, found in the islets, which can only be accounted for by the heavy pressure of a superinduced stratum, are sufficient reasons for this opinion. Such a wide-spread assemblage of vegetable ruins, lying almost in the same level, and that level generally under the common mark of low water, naturally gives rise to reflections on the epoch of this destruction, and the agency by which it was effected.

The original catastrophe which buried this immense forest must have been of very ancient date; but it is to be suspected, that the inroad of the sea which uncovered the decayed trees of the islets of Sutton, is comparatively recent. The state of the leaves, and the timber, and also the tradition of the country people, concur to strengthen this suspicion. Leaves and other delicate parts of plants, though they may be long preserved in a subterraneous situation, can not remain uninjured when exposed to the action of the waves, and of the air. The inhabitants of Sutton believe that their parish church once stood on the spot where the islets now are, and was submerged by the inroads of the sea; that, at very low water, their ancestors could even discern its ruins; and that their present church was built to supply the place of that which was washed away. So many concomitant (though weak) testimonies, render their report to a certain degree deserving of credit, and lead to a supposition, that some of the stormy inundations of the North sea, which in these last centuries have washed away such large tracts of land on its shores, may have carried away a soil resting on clay, and have finally uncovered the trees of these moory islets.

Bogs and mosses are little more than lakes filled up with vegetable matter, usually of aquatic origin. They are to be found not only in Ireland and Scotland, but also in every northern country, more especially when thinly peopled. It should be remarked, that Ireland abounds in springs, which are mostly dry in summer; and that grass and weeds grow abundantly about these spots. In the winter these springs swell and run, softening and loosening all the earth about them. Now, that sward or surface of the earth which consists of the roots of grass, being lifted up, and made fuzzy or spongy by the water in the winter, is dried in the spring, and does not fall together, but withers in a tuft. The new grass which springs through it is again lifted during the following winter; and thus the spring is still more and more stopped, and the sward grows thicker and thicker, till at length it makes what is called a quaking bog. In proportion as it rises and becomes drier, and as the grass roots and other vegetables become more putrid, together with the mud and slime of the water, it acquires a blackness, and becomes what is called a turf bog. When the vegetables rot, it is considered that the saline particles are in general carried away by the water, in which they are dissolved; but that the oily or sulphureous particles remain and float on the water; and it is thus that the turf acquires its inflammability. The highest mountains of Ireland are, as well as the plains, covered with bogs, because they abound in springs, which, on account of a defective population, are not cleared; and thus they are overrun with bogs. In that country mosses also abound; and the particular kind which grows in bogs, is remarkable on this account, that a congeries of its threads, before it is decayed, constitutes the substance of the light spongy turf, which thus becomes so tough as not to yield to the spade. This curious substance, in the north of Ireland, is called _old wives’ tow_, and is not unlike flax. The turf hardens by degrees, but is still stringy when broken, and at length becomes the red turf employed as fuel.

The production of the quaking bogs is as follows. When a stream or spring runs through a flat, it becomes filled with weeds in summer, and trees fall across and dam it up. During the winter season the water stagnates more and more every year, until the whole flat is covered. A coarse kind of grass, peculiar to these bogs, springs up in tufts, the roots of which are consolidated, and which, in a few years, grow to the hight of several feet. In the winter the grass rots, and falls with its seed on the tufts, thus adding to their growth the ensuing spring. The tops of flags and grass are sometimes interwoven on the surface of the water, and gradually becoming thicker, cover its surface. On this covering herbs grow; and by the interweaving of their roots, it is rendered so strong as to bear a man. Some of these bogs sink, where a man stands, to a considerable depth, and rise before and behind: underneath, the water is clear. Even these in time become red bogs; but may easily be converted into meadow land, by clearing a trench for the passage of the water.

Sir Hans Sloane, in his account of the bogs of Ireland, published in the “Philosophical Transactions,” notices a curious fact, namely, that when the turf-diggers, after having dug out the earth proper to make turf or peat, reached the bottom, so as to come to the clayey or other soil, by draining off the water, they met with the roots of fir-trees, with their stumps standing upright, and their branches spread out on every side horizontally. This was evidently the place of the growth of these trees, the branches of the roots of which are in some parts matted, as is seen in the roots of trees closely planted. Large pieces of wood have been found, not only in clay-pits, but likewise in quarries or stone-pits, in the blocks of stone raised out of their strata or layers. The black spongy mold employed for peat smells strongly of bitumen, or petroleum, a great proportion of the oil of which is yielded by distillation; so that, singular as it may appear, not only oil, but a material which may be used for candles, may be extracted from these peat-bogs in large quantities; and it has even been proposed that this business should be carried on on a large scale, with a view to giving prosperity to the country. In several parts of Ireland a singular phenomenon has been observed: on horses trampling with their feet on a space of soft ground, a sudden appearance of light ensued. On the mold, which agreed in color, lightness, &c., with peat earth, being examined with a microscope, the light was found to proceed from an abundance of small, semi-transparent, whitish, live worms which lay in it.

The commissioners appointed by parliament to inquire into the nature and extent of the bogs of Ireland, and the practicability of draining them, represent them as occupying thousands of acres, indeed, many square miles. Their nature and constituent parts are described by them as consisting of an accumulation of vegetable matter, settling in successive generations on itself, and converted by the want of ventilation and motion to a stagnant pool, which first furnished the elements of life and increase to the plants covering its surface. The progress of the accumulation may be best conceived by imagining a basin, or concave reservoir, of a certain extent and depth, formed of clay, limestone, gravel, &c., through which the water, scantily but constantly supplied, can not obtain an issue. Undisturbed in this water, a surface of bog moss grows, decays and putrefies. To this a second generation succeeds; and this is followed by others, until, at length, the bulk rises considerably above the level of its bed, forming hillocks of various hights, shapes and dimensions. The surface of a bog is not level like a lake, but undulating; and it terminates somewhat abruptly, and almost perpendicularly. The average hight of the great bogs, above the level of high-water mark in Dublin harbor, is about two hundred and fifty feet. Many acres of these bogs have been reclaimed; and the practicability of draining and cultivating the greater proportion of them has been pointed out in the reports of the commissioners.

Perthshire, in North Britain, abounds in mosses, the contents of which are computed to exceed nine thousand acres. The greatest hight of the moss, above the clay on which it lies, is fourteen feet and a half. Its surface, when viewed at a distance, seems wholly covered with heath: but when closely examined, is found to be composed of small tufts of heath, intermixed with a variety of moss-plants. Here also are found innumerable trunks of trees, lying along close to their roots, the latter being still fixed in the clay, as in the natural state.

The irruption of what is called Solway moss has greatly attracted the public attention; for, although the cause of it is obvious, still the alteration it produced on the surface of the earth, was more considerable than any known in Great Britain, as resulting from a natural cause, since the destruction of Earl Goodwin’s estate. It happened in the year 1771, after severe rains which had in many places produced great inundations of the rivers. The following is a concise description of the spot where this event happened. Along the side of the river Esk, is a vale, about a mile in breadth, bounded on the south-east by the river, and on the north-west by a steep bank, about thirty feet in hight above the level of the vale. From the top of the bank the ground rises on an easy ascent for about a quarter of a mile, where it is terminated by the moss, which extends about two miles north and south, and about a mile and a half east and west, being bounded on the north-west by the river Sark. It is probable that the solid ground, from the top of the bank above the vale, was continued in the same direction under the moss, before its irruption, for a considerable space; for the moss, at the place where the irruption happened, was inclined toward the sloping ground. From the edge of the moss there was a gully or hollow, called by the country people _the gap_, and said to be thirty yards deep where it entered the vale: down this hollow ran a small rill of water, which was often dry in summer, not having any other supply but what filtered from the moss.

The irruption happened, at the head of this gap, on the night of the sixteenth of November, between the hours of ten and eleven, when all the neighboring rivers and brooks were prodigiously swollen by the rains. A large body of the moss was forced, partly by the great fall of rain, and partly by the springs beneath, into a small beck or burn, which runs within a few yards of its border to the south-east. By the united pressure of the water behind it, and of this beck, which was then very high, it was carried down a narrow glen between two banks about three hundred feet high, into a wide and spacious plain, over a part of which it spread with great rapidity. The moss continued for some time to send off considerable quantities of its substance, which, being borne along by the torrent, on the back of the first great body, kept it for many hours in perpetual motion, and drove it still further on. During the first night, at least four hundred acres of fine arable land were covered with moss from three to twelve or fifteen feet in depth. Several houses were destroyed, much corn lost, &c.; but all the inhabitants escaped. When the waters subsided, the moss also ceased to flow; but two pretty considerable streams continued to run from the heart of it, and carried away some pieces of mossy matter to the place where it burst. They then joined the beck, already mentioned, which with this addition, resumed its former channel, and with a little assistance from the people of the neighborhood, made its way to the Esk, through the midst of that body of moss which obstructed its course. Thus, in a great measure drained, the new moss fell several feet, and when the fair weather came on at the end of November, it settled in a firmer and more solid body on the lands it had overrun. By this inundation about eight hundred acres of arable ground were overflowed before the moss stopped, and the habitations of twenty-seven families destroyed.

Tradition has preserved the memory of a similar inundation in another part of North Britain. At Monteith a moss changed its course in one night, and covered a great extent of ground. There is also an account in the “Philosophical Transactions” of a moving moss near Churchtown, in Lancashire, which greatly alarmed the neighborhood, and was regarded as a miracle. The moss was observed to rise to a surprising hight, and soon after to sink as much beneath the level, moving slowly toward the south.

CORAL REEFS AND ISLANDS.

Coral belongs to the class of those surprising productions of nature, which are named _zoöphytes_, or plant-animals, on account of their filling up the intermediate space between the animal and vegetable kingdoms; and in treating of them this curious substance will be distinctly considered. In the mean time, the production of coral reefs and islands presents one of those geological changes, by which the earth’s surface has been modified, and has received a new accession from the sea.

The common foundation of the clusters of islands discovered by modern navigators in the Pacific ocean, as well as of those belonging to New South Wales, is evidently of coral structure, immense reefs of which shoot out in all directions. There is every reason to believe that the islands which are occasionally raised by the tremendous agency of subterraneous volcanoes, do not bear any proportion to those which are perpetually forming, by the silent but persevering efforts of the sea worms by which coral is produced. Banks of coral are found at all depths, and at all distances from the shore, entirely unconnected with the land, and detached from each other. By a quick progression, they grow up toward the surface; while the winds, heaping up the coral from deeper water, rapidly accelerate the formation of these banks into shoals and islands. They become gradually shallower; and when once the sea meets with resistance, the coral is quickly thrown up by the force of the waves breaking against the bank. These coral banks have been seen in all their stages: some in deep water; others with a few rocks appearing above the surface, just formed into islands without the least appearance of vegetation; and, lastly, others covered with soil and weeds.

The loose corals, rolled inward by the billows in large pieces, strike upon the grounds, and, the reflux being unable to carry them away, become a bar to the coagulated sand with which they are always intermixed. This sand, being easiest raised, is lodged at top; and when its accumulated mass is elevated by violent storms, and no longer within the reach of common waves, it becomes a resting-place to birds whom the search of prey draws thither. Their excrement, feathers, &c., augment the soil, and prepare it for the reception of accidental roots, branches and seeds cast up by the waves, or brought thither by birds. Thus islands are formed: the leaves and rotten branches, intermixing with the sand, produce in time a light black mold, in which trees and shrubs vegetate and thrive. Cocoa-nuts, which continue long in the sea without losing their vegetative powers, having been thrown on such islands, produce trees which are particularly adapted to all soils, whether sandy, rich or rocky. The violence of the waves, within the tropics, must generally be directed to two points, according to the monsoons. Hence the islands formed from coral banks must be long and narrow, and lie nearly in a meridional direction. Even supposing the banks to be round, as they seldom are when large, the sea meeting most resistance in the middle, must heave up the matter in greater quantities there, than toward the extremities; and, by the same rule, the ends will generally be open, or at least lowest. They will also commonly have soundings there, as the remains of the banks, not accumulated, will be under water. Where the coral banks are not exposed to the common monsoon, they will alter their direction, and become either round, or extended in the parallel, or of irregular forms, according to accidental circumstances.

Captain Flinders, in his voyage to the South Pacific, gives an account of an unbroken reef of coral, three hundred and fifty miles long, on the coast of New Holland; and he states, that between that country and New Guinea, the coral formations extend through a distance of seven hundred miles, interrupted by no intervals of more than thirty miles in length. He also gives us a lively and interesting description of a coral reef on the southern coast of New South Wales. On this reef he landed, and the water being very clear round the edges, a new creation, as it were, but imitative of the old, was presented to the view. Wheat sheaves, mushrooms, stags’ horns, cabbage leaves, and a variety of other forms, were glowing under water with vivid tints of every shade betwixt green, purple, brown and white; equaling in beauty, and excelling in grandeur, the most favorite _parterre_ of the curious florist. These were different species of coral and fungus, growing, as it were, out of the solid rock, and each had its peculiar form and shade of coloring; but, whilst contemplating the richness of the scene, the destruction with which it was pregnant could not be forgotten. Different corals in a dead state, concreted into a solid mass of a dull white color, composed the stone of the reef. The negro heads were lumps which stood higher than the rest; and being generally dry, were blackened by the weather; but even in these the forms of the different corals and some shells were distinguishable. The edges of the reef, but particularly on the outside where the sea broke, were the lightest parts; within these were pools and holes containing live corals, sponges, sea-eggs and cucumbers; and many enormous cockles were scattered upon different parts of the reef. At low water, these cockles seem most commonly to lie half open, but frequently close with much noise, and the water within the shells then spouts up in a stream, three or four feet high: it is from this noise and the spouting of the water that they are discovered, for, in other respects, they are scarcely to be distinguished from the coral rock.

His description of a coral island which he afterward visited on the same coast, is truly philosophical and throws great light on these surprising productions of nature.

“This little island, or rather the surrounding reef, which is three or four miles long, affords shelter from the south-east winds. It is scarcely more than a mile in circumference, but appears to be increasing both in elevation and extent. At no very distant period of time, it was one of those banks produced by the washing up of sand and broken coral, of which most reefs afford instances, and those of Torres’ strait a great many. These banks are in different stages of progress: some, like this, are become islands, but not yet habitable; some are above high-water mark, but destitute of vegetation; whilst others are overflowed with every returning tide. It seems to me, that, when the animalcules which form the corals at the bottom of the ocean, cease to live, their structures adhere to each other, by virtue either of the glutinous remains within, or of some property in salt water; and the interstices being gradually filled up with sand and broken pieces of coral washed by the sea, which also adhere, a mass of rock is at length formed. Future races of these animalcules erect their habitations upon the rising bank, and die in their turn, to increase, but principally to elevate, this monument of their wonderful labors. The care taken to work perpendicularly in the early stages, marks a surprising instinct in these diminutive creatures. Their wall of coral is for the most part in situations where the winds are constant, and when it reaches the surface, it affords a shelter, to the leeward of which their infant colonies may be safely sent forth; and to this their instinctive foresight it seems to be owing, that the windward side of a reef exposed to the open sea, is generally, if not always, the highest part, and rises almost perpendicular, sometimes from the depth of two hundred, and perhaps many more fathoms. To be constantly covered with water, seems necessary to the existence of the animalcules, for they do not work, except in holes upon the reef, beyond low-water mark; but the coral sand and other broken remnants thrown up by the sea adhere to the rock, and form a solid mass with it, as high as the common tides reach. That elevation surpassed, the future remnants, being rarely covered, lose their adhesive property; and remaining in a loose state, form what is usually called a _key_ upon the tops of the reef. The new bank is not long in being visited by sea-birds; salt plants take root upon it, and a soil begins to be formed; a cocoa-nut is thrown on shore; land birds visit it and deposit the seeds of shrubs and trees; every high tide, and still more every gale, adds something to the bank; the form of an island is gradually assumed, and last of all comes man to take possession. This island is well advanced in the above progressive state; having been many years, probably some ages, above the reach of the highest spring-tides, or the wash of the surf in the heaviest gales. I distinguished, however, in the rock which forms its basis, the sand, coral and shells formerly thrown up, in a more or less perfect state of cohesion; small pieces of wood, pumice-stone, and other extraneous bodies, which chance had mixed with the calcareous substances when the cohesion began, were inclosed in the rock, and, in some cases, were still separable from it without much force. The upper part of the island is a mixture of the same substances in a loose state, with a little vegetable soil, and is covered with the _casuarina_ and a variety of other trees and shrubs, which give food to paroquets, pigeons, and some other birds; to whose ancestors it is probable the island was originally indebted for this vegetation.”

-------------------------------------------

WIDE AND INHOSPITABLE DESERTS.

------------------------------------

ASIATIC DESERTS.

In Africa, as well as Asia, there are immense tracts of land called deserts, which consist of vast plains composed of loose sand. Large portions of these are utterly destitute of vegetation, and sometimes, in crossing them, the traveler sees not a hill or mountain, or human dwelling, or even a tree or shrub, or blade of grass. All around is a sea of sand; and far as the eye can reach, it is one scene of lifeless solitude and desolation. These trackless wastes are traversed by caravans, which are companies of travelers usually mounted upon camels. Horses travel in these sands with difficulty. Their feet sink in the soil; they are overcome with heat, and parched with drought. The camel, on the contrary, has a large, spongy foot, which does not sink in the sand; he can bear excessive heat, and by a curious contrivance of nature, is enabled to go without water for five or six days. This valuable creature is called the ship of the desert, because it enables the merchants of Asia and Africa to transport their merchandise over the sea of sand, just as a ship carries goods from one part of the world to another, across the briny ocean. It seems really as if Providence had provided this singular animal on purpose to enable mankind to traverse the great deserts which are spread out upon the eastern continent.

The chief Asiatic deserts are in Persia and Arabia, the former of which countries contains three of considerable extent and celebrity. The first of these commences on the east of the Tigris, in latitude thirty-three, and extends to the north of Shuster. The second reaches from the vicinity of Korn very nearly to the Zurra, in a line, from east to west, of about four hundred English miles, and from north to south, of about two hundred and fifty. In the latter direction it joins the great desert of Kerman, which, alone, extends over a tract of three hundred and fifty miles. The two may, therefore, be considered as forming one common desert, stretching north-west and south-east, over a space of about seven hundred miles; thus intersecting this wide empire into two nearly equal portions. This vast region is impregnated with niter and other salts, which taint the neighboring lakes and rivers, and has, on that account, been denominated the Great Saline Desert.

ARABIAN DESERTS.

The sandy deserts of Arabia form one of the most striking objects of that country. From the hills of Omon, which appear to be a continuation of those on the other side of the Persian gulf, as far as Mecca, the greater part of Negad is one prodigious desert, interrupted, toward the frontiers of Hejaz and Yemen, or Arabia Felix, by Kirge, containing the district of Sursa, and several _oases_, or fertile spots. The north-west part of Negad presents almost a continued desert, and is considered as a prolongation of the one above mentioned.

The Beled el Haram, or Holy Land of Islam, of which Mecca is the capital, is comprehended between the Red sea, and an irregular line which, commencing at Arabog, about sixty miles to the north of Djedda, forms a bend from the north-east to the south-east, in passing by Yelemlem, two days’ journey to the north-east of Mecca. It thence continues to Karna, nearly seventy miles to the east of the same place, and twenty-four miles to the west of Taif, which is without the limit of the Holy Land; after which, turning to the south-west, it passes by Drataerk, and terminates at Mehherma upon the coast, at the port named Almarsa Ibrahim, about ninety miles to the south-east of Djedda.