inhabitant of that part of Europe before the rhinoceros, hyæna, tiger, and many fossil species disappeared. I may first mention the cavern of Bize, in the department of Aude, where M. Marcel de Serres met with a small number of human bones mixed with those of extinct animals and with land shells. They occur in a calcareous stony mass, bound together by a cement of stalagmite. On examining the same caverns, M. Tournal found not only in these calcareous beds, but also in a black mud which overlies a red osseous mud, several human teeth, together with broken angular fragments of a rude kind of pottery, and also recent marine and terrestrial shells. The teeth preserve their enamel; but the fangs are so much altered as to adhere strongly when applied to the tongue. Of the terrestrial shells thus associated with the bones and pottery, the most common are Cyclostoma elegans, Bulimus decollatus, Helix nemoralis, and H. nitida. Among the marine are found Pecten jacobæus, Mytilus edulis, and Natica mille-punctata, all of them eatable kinds, and which may have been brought there for food. Bones were found in the same mass belonging to three new species of deer, the brown bear (Ursus arctoïdeus), and the wild bull (Bos urus), formerly a native of Germany.* In the same parts of France, M. de Christol has found in caverns in a tertiary limestone at Pondres and Souvignargues, two leagues north of Lunel-viel, in the department of Herault, human bones and pottery confusedly mixed with remains of the rhinoceros, bear, hyæna, and other terrestrial mammifers. They were imbedded in alluvial mud, of the solidity of calcareous tufa, and containing some flint pebbles and fragments of the limestone of the country. Beneath this mixed accumulation, which sometimes attained a thickness of thirteen feet, is the original floor of the cavern, about a foot thick, covered with bones and the dung of animals (album græcum), in a sandy and tufaceous cement. The human bones in these caverns of Pondres and Souvignargues were found, upon a careful analysis, to have parted with their animal matter to as great a degree as those of the hyæna which accompany them, and are equally brittle, and adhere as strongly to the tongue. In order to compare the degree of alteration of these bones with those known to be of high antiquity, M. Marcel de Serres and M. Ballard, chemists of Montpelier, procured some from a Gaulish sarcophagus, in the plain of Lunel, supposed to have been buried for fourteen or fifteen centuries at least. In these the cellular tissue was empty, but they were more solid than fresh bones. They did not adhere to the tongue in the same manner as those of the caverns of Bize and Pondres, yet they had lost at least three fourths of their original animal matter. The superior solidity of the Gaulish bones to those in a fresh skeleton is a fact in perfect accordance with the observations made by Dr. Mantell on bones taken from a Saxon tumulus near Lewes. M. Tessier has also described a cavern near Mialet, in the department ❤ M. Marcel de Serres, Géognosie des Terrains Tertiaires, p. 64. Introduction. of Gard, where the remains of the bear and other animals were mingled confusedly with human bones, coarse pottery, teeth pierced for amulets, pointed fragments of bone, bracelets of bronze, and a Roman urn. Part of this deposit reached to the roof of the cavity, and adhered firmly to it. The author suggests that the exterior portion of the grotto may at one period have been a den of bears, and that afterwards the aboriginal inhabitants of the country took possession of it either for a dwelling or a burialplace, and left there the coarse pottery, amulets, and pointed pieces of bone. At a third period the Romans may have used the cavern as a place of sepulture or concealment, and to them may have belonged the urn and bracelets of metal. If we then suppose the course of the neighboring river to be impeded by some temporary cause, a flood would be occasioned, which, rushing into the open grotto, may have washed all the remains into the interior caves and tunnels, heaping the whole confusedly together.* In the controversy which has arisen on this subject, MM. Marcel de Serres, De Christol, Tournal, and others, have contended, that the phenomena of this and other caverns in the south of France prove that the fossil rhinoceros, hyæna, bear, and several other lost species, were once contemporaneous inhabitants of the country, together with man; while M. Desnoyers has supported the opposite opinion. The flint hatchets and arrow-heads, he says, and the pointed bones and coarse pottery of many French and English caves, agree precisely in character with those found in the tumuli, and under the dolmens (rude altars of unhewn stone) of the primitive inhabitants of Gaul, Britain, and Germany. The human bones, therefore, in the caves which are associated with such fabricated objects, must belong not to antediluvian periods, but to a people in the same stage of civilization as those who constructed the tumuli and altars. In the Gaulish monuments we find, together with the objects of industry above mentioned, the bones of wild and domestic animals of species now inhabiting Europe, particularly of deer, sheep, wild-boars, dogs, horses, and oxen. This fact has been ascertained in Quercy, and other provinces; and it is supposed by antiquaries that the animals in question were placed beneath the Celtic altars in memory of sacrifices offered to the Gaulish divinity Hesus, and in the tombs to commemorate funeral repasts, and also from a supposition prevalent among savage nations, which induces them to lay up provisions for the manes of the dead in a future life. But in none of these ancient monuments have any bones been found of the elephant, rhinoceros, hyæna, tiger, and other quadrupeds, such as are found in caves, as might certainly have been expected had these species continued to flourish at the time that this part of Gaul was inhabited by man.† We are also reminded by M. Desnoyers of a passage in Florus, in which it is related that Cæsar ordered the caves into which the Aquitanian Bull. de la Soc. Géol. de France, tom. ii. pp. 56-63. Gauls had retreated to be closed up.* It is also on record, that so late as the eighth century, the Aquitanians defended themselves in caverns against King Pepin. As many of these caverns, therefore, may have served in succession as temples and habitations, as places of sepulture, concealment, or defence, it is easy to conceive that human bones, and those of animals, in osseous breccias of much older date, may have been swept away together, by inundations, and then buried in one promiscuous heap. It is not on the evidence of such intermixtures that we ought readily to admit either the high antiquity of the human race, or the recent date of certain lost species of quadrupeds. Among the various modes in which the bones of animals become preserved, independently of the agency of land floods and engulfed rivers, I may mention that open fissures often serve as natural pitfalls in which herbivorous animals perish. This may happen the more readily when they are chased by beasts of prey, or when surprised while carelessly browsing on the shrubs which so often overgrow and conceal the edges of fissures.t During the excavations recently made near Behat in India, the bones of two deer were found at the bottom of an ancient well which had been filled up with alluvial loam. Their horns were broken to pieces, but the jaw bones and other parts of the skeleton remained tolerably perfect. "Their presence," says Captain Cautley, "is easily accounted for, as a great number of these and other animals are constantly lost in galloping over the jungles and among the high grass by falling into deserted wells." Above the village of Selside, near Ingleborough in Yorkshire, a chasm of enormous but unknown depth occurs in the scar-limestone, a member of the carboniferous series. "The chasm," says Professor Sedgwick, "is surrounded by grassy shelving banks, and many animals, tempted towards its brink, have fallen down and perished in it. The approach of cattle is now prevented by a strong lofty wall; but there can be no doubt that, during the last two or three thousand years, great masses of bony breccia must have accumulated in the lower parts of the great fissure, which probably descends through the whole thickness of the scar-limestone, to the depth of perhaps five or six hundred feet."§ When any of these natural pit-falls happen to communicate with lines of subterranean caverns, the bones, earth, and breccia, may sink by their own weight, or be washed into the vaults below. At the north extremity of the rock of Gibraltar are perpendicular fissures, on the ledges of which a number of hawks nestle and rear their young in the breeding season. They throw down from their nests the bones of small birds, mice, and other animals, on which they feed, and *Hist. Rom. Epit., lib. iii. c. 10. Buckland, Reliquiæ Diluvianæ, p. 25. See above, pp. 730, 731. On the Lake Mountains of North of England, Geol. Soc. Jan. 5, 1831. these are gradually united into a breccia of angular fragments of the decomposing limestone with a cement of red earth. At the pass of Escrinet in France, on the northern escarpment of the Coiron hills, near Aubenas, I have seen a breccia in the act of forming. Small pieces of disintegrating limestone are transported, during heavy rains, by a streamlet, to the foot of the declivity, where land shells are very abundant. The shells and pieces of stone soon become cemented together by stalagmite into a compact mass, and the talus thus formed is in one place fifty feet deep, and five hundred yards wide. So firmly is the lowest portion consolidated, that it is quarried for mill-stenes. Recent stalagmitic limestone of Cuba.-One of the most singular examples of the recent growth of stalagmitic limestone in caves and fissures is that described by Mr. R. C. Taylor, as observable on the north-east part of the island of Cuba.* The country there is composed of a white marble, in which are numerous cavities, partially filled with a calcareous deposit of a brick-red color. In this red deposit are shells, or often the hollow casts of shells, chiefly referable to eight or nine species of land snails, a few scattered bones of quadrupeds, and, what is still more singular, marine univalve shells, often at the height of many hundred, or even one thousand feet above the sea. The following explanation is given of the gradual increase of this deposit. Land snails of the genera Helix, Cyclostoma, Pupa, and Clausilia, retire into the caves, the floors of which are strewed with myriads of their dead and unoccupied shells, at the same time that water infiltered through the mountain throws down carbonate of lime, enveloping the shells, together with fragments of the white limestone which occasionally falls from the roof. Multitudes of bats resort to the caves; and their dung, which is of a bright red color, (probably derived from the berries on which they feed,) imparts its red hue to the mass. Sometimes also the Hutia, or great Indian rat of the island, dies and leaves its bones in the "At certain seasons the soldier-crabs resort to the sea-shore, and then return from their pilgrimage, each carrying with them, or rather dragging, the shell of some marine univalve for many a weary mile. They may be traced even at the distance of eight or ten miles from the shore, on the summit of mountains 1200 feet high, like the pilgrims of the olden times, each bearing his shell to denote the character and extent of his wanderings." By this means several species of marine testacea of the genera Trochus, Turbo, Littorina, and Monodonta, are conveyed into inland caverns, and enter into the composition of the newly formed rock. caves. *Notes on Geol. of Cuba, 1836, Phil. Mag., July, 1837. CHAPTER XLVII. IMBEDDING OF ORGANIC REMAINS IN SUBAQUEOUS DEPOSITS. Division of the subject-Imbedding of terrestrial animals and plants-Increased specific gravity of wood sunk to great depths in the sea-Drift-timber of the Mackenzie in Slave Lake and Polar Sea-Floating trees in the Mississippi-in the Gulf Stream—on the coast of Iceland, Spitzbergen, and Labrador-Submarine forests-Example on coast of Hampshire-Mineralization of plantsImbedding of marine plants-of insects-of reptiles-Bones of birds why rare -Imbedding of terrestrial quadrupeds by river floods-Skeletons in retent shell marl-Imbedding of mammiferous remains in marine strata. Division of the subject.-HAVING treated of the imbedding of organic remains in deposits formed upon the land, I shall next consider the including of the same in deposits formed under water. 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 fresh water may be só entombed; thirdly, how marine species may become preserved in new 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.* Imbedding 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. See above, p. 67. |