Principles of Geology: Being an Attempt to Explain the Former Changes of the Earth's Surface, by Reference to Causes Now in Operation, Volume 2

Front Cover
J. Murray, 1832 - Geology - 511 pages

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 127 - seem'd In bigness to surpass earth's giant sons, Now less than smallest dwarfs. A few examples will illustrate the mode in which this force operates. It is well known that among the countless species of the insect creation, some feed on animal, others on vegetable matter, and, upon considering a catalogue of eight thousand British insects and
Page 272 - thrown up by the waves, until the ridge becomes so high, that it is covered only during some seasons of the year by the high tides. The heat of the sun often penetrates the mass of stone when it is dry, so that it splits in
Page 203 - In the Philosophical Transactions, we find an example recorded of the bodies of two persons having been buried in moist peat, in Derbyshire, in 1674, about a yard deep, which were examined twenty-eight years and nine months afterwards ; " the colour of their skin was fair and natural, their flesh soft as that of persons newly dead
Page 286 - of the earlier geologists, that all limestones have originated in organized substances. If we examine, he says, the quantity of limestone in the primary strata, it will be found to bear a much smaller proportion to the siliceous and argillaceous rocks than in the secondary, and this may have some connexion with * See Captain
Page 204 - Among other analogous facts we may mention, that in digging a pit for a well near Dulverton, in Somersetshire, many pigs were found in various postures, still entire. Their shape was well preserved, the skin, which retained the hair, having assumed a dry, membranous appearance. Their whole
Page 108 - Coni, Raconi, Susa, &c. A similar flight at the end of the last century is recorded by M. Louch, in the Memoirs of the Academy of Turin. The fact is the more worthy of notice, because the caterpillars of this butterfly are not gregarious, but solitary from the moment that they are hatched
Page 247 - The human skeletons still retain some of their animal matter, and all their 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 Mr.
Page 248 - tons, laden with live stock, was lying with her side to the tide, when the bore, or tidal wave, which rises there about ten 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
Page 139 - died, accidents which must happen alike to all men. But the death of a species is so remarkable an event in natural history, that it deserves commemoration, and it is with no small interest that we learn, from the archives of the University of Oxford, the exact
Page 225 - Ibid., P- 407. the new town is a hollow, in which ; tradition says, the river Sipparah formerly ran. It changed its course at the time the city was buried, and now runs to the westward *." The soil which covers Oujein is described as " being of an ash-grey colour, with minute specks of black sand-f.

Bibliographic information