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were specially marked out by the noble founder tables are piled into stupendous monuments of the opera of the work, as the subjects from which he de-stions of life and death, during almost immeasurable periods sires that proofs should be sought of the power, of past time. wisdom, and goodness of the Creator, it is emi- • The most prolific source of organic remains has been nently in accordance with this object that the the accumulation of the shelly coverings of animals which Professor proceeds to demonstrate how the ex-occupied the bottom of the sea during a long series of continct species of animals and vegetables which secutive generations. A large proportion of the entire have in former periods occupied our planet af- substance of many strata is composed of myriads of these ford in their fossil remains the same evidences shells reduced to a comminuted state by the long-continued of contrivance and design that have been shown movements of water. In other strata, the presence of by Ray, Derham, and Paley to pervade the struc- countless multitudes of unbroken corallines, and of fragile ture of existing genera and species of organized shells

, having their most delicate spines still attached and beings.

undisturbed, shows that the animals which formed them The ability with which Dr. Buckland has per- lived and died upon or near the spot where these remains formed this task-the powerful interest with are found. which he has endowed his subject-we must "Strata thus loaded with the exuviæ of innumerable despair of conveying to our readers by any com-generations of organic beings afford strong proof of the ments we can make, or by such extracts as we lapse of long periods of time, wherein the animals from can find room for. 'Those who have listened which they have been derived lived and multiplied and spell-bound to that conversational eloquence died, at the bottom of seas which once occupied the site of which the Professor is so peculiarly gifted-an elo- our present continents and islands. Repeated changes in quence which, when dilating on such subjects, species, both of animals and vegetables, in succeeding mem. absolutely calls up before his audience- bers of different formations, give further evidence, not only

of the lapse of time, but also of important changes in the • The monstrous shapes that one time walk'd the earth, physical condition and climate of the ancient earth.'—pp. of which ours is the wreck,"

112-116. will, however, imagine the vivid and fascinating The study of these remains is, in fact, the manner in which he brings out from the abund- great master-key whereby we unlock the secret ant stores of his favourite Palæontology illustra- history of the earth, and obtain the evidence of tions of the great truths of Natural religion- revolutions and catastrophes long antecedent to showing that animals which lived and died mil- the creation of the human race—the records of lions of years ago-creatures utterly swept many successive series of animal and vegetable away as entities from the face of the earth generations, of which the creation and extincwhose very forms have been • blotted from the tion would have been equally unknown to us things that be,' are pregnant with valuable evi- but for recent discoveries in the science of gedence-that every bone, nay, every particle of ology. their frames was constructed with the utmost Natural history and natural theology had been care and the most perfect design by the Omnipo- hitherto confined to but one volume of nature's tent hand that fashioned them; and that all the works—that which relates to the present order fossil species, whether extinet or not, however of existences. Geology has discovered in the enormous, however minute, from the colossal bowels of the earth, and published a series of megatherium to the microscopic cypris, bear tes- preceding volumes—more or less injured and timony to the wisdom and goodness of the imperfect, it is true, through their great age, and Great Artificer.

containing gaps not yet filled up—but all written Some idea of the immense mass of materials in the same hand, bearing the manifest impress with which the author has had to deal may be of the same mighty mind, and equally aboundderived from the following statement:

ing in new and vivid proofs of the wisdom and * The secrets of nature, that are revealed to us by the his. goodness of their Author. tory of fossil organic remains, form perhaps the most

Before he enters into particular instances of striking results at which we arrive from the study of ge takes a general view of what he designates as

design, the Doctor, in his thirteenth chapter, ology. It must appear almost incredible to those who the police of ancient nature' (a term already ap, have not minutely attended to natural phenomena, that the microscopic examination of a mass of rude and lifeless plied by Wilcke and others to modern natural

history). In the world of our day, no observer limestone should often disclose the curious fact, that large

can look around him without seeing the conflictproportions of its substance have once formed parts of living bodies. Ii is surprising to consider that the walls of our tion. The greatest amount of general happi

ing principles of life and death in constant achonses are sometimes composed of little else than commi. nuted siells, that were once the domicile of other animals, aimed at; the extinction of individuals is essen

ness in a given space appears to be the object at the bottom of ancient seas and lakes.

tial to this end-one generation must disappear • It is marrellous that mankind should have gone on for

to afford room for another. Thus we see so many centuries in ignorance of the fact, which is now so fully demonstrated, that no small part of the present sur swallows dash through and annihilate myriads

swarms of gnats dancing in the sunbeamsface of the earth is derived from the remains of animals,

-but still that constituted the population of ancient scas. Many ex. tensive plains and massive mountains form, as it were, the

• Through the peopled air great charnal houses of preceding generations, in which

The busy murmur glows:the petrified exuviæ of extinct races of animals and vege in spite of all the devastation committed on them,

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p. 203.

estuaries, and to have breathed air like the ichthyosauri, mirabili quadam varietatum simplicitate, conciliat." —PP and our modern cetacea. We are already acquainted with 213, 214. five or six species, some of which attained a prodigious size and length; but our present observations will be chiefly mososaurus, or great marine animal of Maes

After a concise but well-digested history of the limited to that which is the best known, and perhaps the

tricht, most nearly allied to the monitors (monimost remarkable of them all, viz: the P. Dolichodeirus.'

tory lizards) of modern times, though infinitely

gigantic in comparison ;-an animal which apWe cannot have a better account of its habits pears to have been introduced during the deposithan that which Conybeare, who first discovered tion of the chalk to take the places of the then the genus, has put on record in the Transactions extinct ichthyosauri and plesiosauri that, from of the Geological society of London :

the lias upwards, held their sway over the ocean,

and to have been destined in its turn to make room " That it was aquatic is evident from the form of its for the cetacea (whales) of the tertiary period; paddles ; that it was marine is almost equally so, from we are thus introduced to the pterodactyle :the remains with which it is universally associated; that it may have occasionally visited the shore, the resemblance • Among the most remarkable disclosures made by the of its extremities to those of the turtle may lead us to con researches of geology, we may rank the flying reptiles, jecture; its motion, however, must have been very awk- which have been ranged by Cuvier under the genus pteroward on land; its long neek must have impeded its pro- dactyle; a genus presenting more singular combinations of gress through the water; presenting a striking contrast to form than we find in any other creatures yet discovered the organization which so admirably fits the ichthyosau- amid the ruins of the ancient earth. The structure of rus to cut through the waves. May it not, therefore, be these aniinals is so exceedingly anomalous that the first concluded, (since, in addition to these circumstances, its discovered pterodactyle was considered by one naturalist to respiration must have required frequent access of air,) that be a bird, by another as a species of bat, and by a third as it swam upon, or near the surface; arching back its long a flying reptile

. This extraordinary discordance of opinneck like the swan, and occasionally darting it down at ion respecting a creature whose skeleton was almost entire, the fish which happened to float within its reach? It may, arose from the presence of characters apparently belong. perhaps, have lurked in shoal water along the coast, con- ing to each of the three classes to which it was referred; cealed among the sea-wced, and raising its nostrils to a le- the form of its head, and length of neck, resembling that vel with the surface from a considerable depth, may have of birds, its wings approaching to the proportion and form found a secure retreat from the assaults of dangerous ene. of bats, and the body and tail approximating to those of mies; while the length and flexibility of its neck may have ordinary mammalia. These characters connected with a compensated for the want of strength in its jaws, and its small skull, as is usual among reptiles, and a beak furnished incapacity for swift motion through the water, by the sud. with not less than sixty pointed teeth, presented a combidenness and agility of the attack which they enabled it to nation of apparent arcmalies which it was reserved for the make on every animal fitted for its prey, which came with. genius of Cuvier to reconcile. In his hand, this apparently in its reach.'—pp. 211, 212.

monstrous production of the ancient world has been con

verted into one of the most beautiful examples yet afforded Dr. Buckland thus concludes his notice of these by comparative anatomy, of the harmony that pervades all most interesting animals:

nature, in the adaptation of the same parts of the frame lo 'Pursuing the analogies of construction that connect the infinitely varied conditions of existence. existing inhabitants of the earth with those extinct genera

• We are already acquainted with eight species of this and species which preceded the creation of our race, we genus, varying from the size of a snipe to that of a cor.

morant. In external form these animals somewhat resemfind an unbroken chain of affinities pervading the entire series of organized beings, and connecting all past and pre-nose elongated, like the snout of a crocodile, and armed

ble our modern bats and vampires : most of them had the sent forms of animal existence by close and harmonious tics. Even our own bodies, and some of their most iin. with conical teeth. Their eyes were of enormous size, apportant organs, are brought into close and direct compari.parently enabling them to fly by night. From their wings son with those of reptiles, which, at first sight, appear the projected fingers

, terminated by long hooks, like the curved

claw on the thumb of the bat. These must have forined most monstrous productions of crcation; and in the very hand and fingers with which we write their history we re.

a powerful paw, wherewith the animal was enabled to creep

It is probable, also, cognise the type of the paddles of the ichthyosaurus and or climb, or suspend itself from trecs. plesiosaurus.

that the pterodactyles had the power of swimming, which

is so common in reptiles, and which is now possessed by • Extending a similar comparison through the four great the vampire bat of the island of Bonin. Thus, like Mil. classes of vertebral animals, we find in each species a va-ton's fiend, qualified for all services and all elements, the ried adaptation of analogous parts to the different circum. creature was a fit companion for the kindred reptiles that stances and conditions in which it was intended to be placed. swarmed in the seas, or crawled on the shores of a turbu. Ascending from the lower orders, we trace a gradual ad- lent planet. vancement in structure and office, till we arrive at those whose functions are the most exalted; thus, the fin of the

The fiend, fish becomes the paddle of the reptile plesiosaurus and ich.

O'er bog, or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare,
With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues

his thyosaurus; the same organ is converted into the wing of

way, the pterodactyle, the bird and bat; it becomes the fore foot,

And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies." or paw, in quadrupeds that move upon the land, and at With flocks of such-like creatures flying in the air, and tains its highest consummation in the arm and hand of ra- shoals of no less monstrous ichthyosauri and plesiosauri tional man.... " Usque adeo natura, una endem semper swarming in the ocean, and gigantic crocodiles and toratque multiplex, disparibus etiam formis effectus parcs, ad-toi ses crawling on the shores of the primeval lakes and ri.

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vers, air, sea and land must have been strangely tenanted covered with a further deposit of earthy matter before they in these early periods of our infant world. ...

were obliterated by any succeeding agitations of the water. • In the case of the pterodactyle we have an extinct ge. The impressions in Dumfries-shire traverse the rock in a nus of the order Saurians, in the class of reptiles, (a class direction either up or down, and not across the surfaces of that now moves only on land or in the water,) adapted by a the strata, which are now inclined at an angle of 38o. On peculiarity of structure to fly in the air. It will be inter- one slab there are twenty-four continuous impressions of esting to see how the anterior extremity, which in the fore. fect, forming a regular track, with six distinct repetitions leg of the modern lizard and crocodiles is an organ of lo- of the mark of each foot, the fore-foot being differently comotion on land, became converted into a membraniser- shaped from the hind-fool ; the marks of the claws are also ous wing; and how far the other parts of the body are very distinct.'—pp. 258–261. modified so as to fit the entire animal machine for the func- • The strata which bear these impressions lie on each tions of flight.'-pp. 221-225.

other like volumes on the shelf of a library, whon all in

clining to one side; the quarry has been worked to the We cannot afford space for the details of this depth of forty-five feet from the top of the rock; throughinquiry, which is, however, full of interest, and, out the whole of this depth similar impressions have been as in the instances already mentioned, affords found, not on a single stratum only, but on many sucstriking proofs that, even in ages incalculably cessive strata ; i. e., after removing a large slab which con. remote, the same care of a common Creator tained foot.prints they found perhaps the very next stratuin which we witness in the mechanism of our own at the distance of a few feet, or it might be less than an bodies and those of the myriads of inferior crea-inch, exhibiting a similar phenomenon. Hence it follows tures that move around us, was extended to the that the process by which the impressions were made on structure of creatures that at first sight seem the sand, and subsequently buried, were repeated at suc. made up only of monstrosities.

cessive intervals.'--Note, p. 259. Dr. Buckland next brings in review before us those gigantic terrestrial lizards, the megalosau

Dr. Buckland, by way of experiment, took soft rus, iguanodon, and hylæosaurus, reptiles extend- sand and clay, and unbaked pie-crust or paste. ing some of them to seventy feet' in length. Upon these several substances he made living Among other instances of adaptation, the inter- tortoises (Emys and Testudo Græca) walk; when nal condition of their bones is shown to differ he found the marks made by the animals suffifrom that of the aquatic saurians:

ciently close to render it quite certain that the

fossil footsteps were impressed by the feet of • In the ichthyosauri and plesiosauri, whose paddles tortoises. were calculated exclusively to move in water, even the largest bones of the arms and legs were solid throughout.

• The historian or the antiquary,' he remarks,' may have Their weight would in no way have embarrassed their ac

traversed the fields of ancient or of modern battles; and tion in the fluid medium they inhabited; but in the huge may have pursued the line of march of triumphant conmegalosaurus, and still more gigantic iguanodon, which querors, whose armies trampled down the most mighty are shown, by the character of their feet, to have been fit. kingdoms of the world. The winds and storms have ted to move on land, the larger bones of the legs were di- utterly obliterated the ephemeral impressions of their course. minished in weight, by being internally hollow, and hav. Not a track remains of a single foot or a single hoof, of all ing their cavities filled with the light material of marrow,

the countless millions of men and beasts whose progress while their cylindrical form tended also to combine this spread desolation over the earth; but the reptiles, that lightness with strength.'—pp. 235, 236.

crawled upon the half-finished surface of our infant planet,

have left memorials of their passage, enduring and indeli. The amphibious saurians, or crocodileaus of ble. No history was recorded their creation or destruction; the old world, were nearly similar in their struc- their very bones are found no more among the fossil relics ture to those of the present day. We must re- of a former world. Centuries and thousands of years fer the reader to the work itself for a very inter- may have rolled away between the time in which these esting account of them, and pass on to the tes- footsteps were impressed by tortuises upon the sands of tudinata (tortoises), which bring immediately be- their native Scotland, and the hour when they are again fore us the interesting facts of fossil footsteps:— laid bare and exposed to our curious and admiring eyes.

Yet we behold them stamped upon the rock, distinct as the • Scotland has recently afforded evidence of the exist track of the passing animal upon the recent snow; as if to ence of more than ono species of these terrestial reptiles show that thousands of years are but as nothing anidst during the period of the new red or variegated sandstone eternity,—and, as it were, in mockery of the flecting peforination. The nature of this evidence is alınost unique rishable course of the mightiest potentates among man. in the history of organic remains. It is not uncommon kind.'-pp. 262, 263. to find on the surface of sandstone tracks which mark the passage of small crustacea and other marine animals It is impossible to turn to the subject of fossil whilst this stone was in a state of loose sand at the bottom fishes without alluding to Professor Agassiz. Dr. of the sea. Laminated sandstones are also often disposed Buckland has drawn largely from that distin. in minute undulations, precisely resembling those formed guished ichthyologist; but as a sketch of his laby the ripple of agituted water upon sand.'—[Such exactly bours was introduced in our last number,* we as wc sce left by the receding tide on the sands of our pass to our author's own striking remarks in coast.]— The same causes which have so commonly pre concluding this branch of his subject :seried these undulations would equally preserve any im. • It results from the review here taken of the history pressions that might happen to have been made on beds of of fossil fishes, that this important class of vertebrated sand by the feel of animals; the only essential condition of such preservation being that they should have become

* No. CX. p. 433.

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animals presented its actual gradntions of structure amongst be solable only in water, through which it diffuses itsell the earliest inhabitants of our planet; and has ever per. instantaneously; being thus remarkably adapted to its pe formed the same important functions in the general -conomy culiar service in the only fluid wherein it is naturally em. of nature as those discharged by their living representa ployed.'--p. 305. tives in our modern seas, and lakes, and rivers. The

There can be no doubt that the fossil pens' great purpose of their existence seems at all times to have been to fill the waters with the largest possible amount of ani were the internal horny bodies which, like the mal enjoyment. The sterility and solitude which have transparent pen' of the recent species, affordel sometimes been attributed to the depths of the ocean exist support to the softer parts of the ancient animal

, only in the fictions of poetic fancy. The great mass of the thus showing that the same principles of con water that covers nearly three-fourths of the globe is crowded struction now in operation, prevailed at periods with life, perhaps more abundantly than the air and the sur.

incalculably remote. face of the earth; and the bottom of the sea, within a cer.

· The petrified remains of fossil loligo, therefore, add tain depth accessible to light, swarms with countless hosts another link to the chain of argument which we are purof worms, and creeping things, which represent the kindred suing, and aid us in connecting successive systems of crefamilies of low degree which crawl upon the land.

ation which have followed each other upon our planet, as “ The common object of creation seems ever to have been

parts of one grand and uniform design ... Palcy has the infinite multiplication of life. As the basis of ani. beautifully, and with his usual felicity, described the unity mal nutrition is laid in the vegetable kingdom, the bed of and universality of providential care, as extending from the the ocean is not less beautifully clothed with submarine construction of a ring of two hundred thousand miles diame. vegetation than the surface of the dry land with verdant herbs and stately forests. In both cases the undue in. ter, to surround the body of Saturn, and be suspended, like crease of herbivorous tribes is controlled by the restraining the concerting and providing an appropriate mechanism

a magnificent arch, above the heads of bis inhabitants, to influence of those which are carnivorous; and the common for the clasping and reclasping of the filaments in the result is, and ever has been, the greatest possible amount feather of the humming-bird. The geologist describes a no of animal enjoyment to the greatest number of individuals.' less striking assemblage of curious provisions and delicate

We now arrive at the proofs of design mani- mechanisms, extending from the entire circumference of fested in the fossil remains of mollusks,—those the crust of our planet, to the minutest curl of the smallest soft-bodied animals, some of which aré naked Sbre in each component lamina of the pen of the fossil while others are protected by a shell. The great loligo. He finds these pens uniformly associated with the majority of these testaceans have their living re- same peculiar defensive provision of an internal ink-bag, presentatives, and the evidence, therefore, to be which is similarly associated with the pen of the living lo derived from the ancient species is much the ligo in our actual scas; and hence he concludes, that such same with that to be collected from the modern. a union of contrivances, so nicely adjusted to the wants and There are, however, some instances, even where weaknesses of the creatures in which they occur, could the type is still continued, well worthy of notice; never have resulted from the blindness of chance, but could while in others, where the family is utterly ex- only have originated in the will and intention of one and tinct, the proofs of consummate skill in the fa- the same Creator.'—pp. 306–310. brication of their shells, when considered in relation to the exigencies of the animals, are most mechanism of fossil chambered shells—the nau

Come we now to the proofs of design in the abundant. Every one has heard or read of the viscid ink- be remembered that the object was not merely

tilite and ammonite, for instance. Here it is to like substance, the nigro, succus loliginis' with which the cuttle clouds the water for the pur- but to form, at the same time, hydraulic instru

to produce defences for the bodies of the animals, pose of concealment. It was, indeed, hardly to be expected that traces of so subtle a fluid should ments of delicate adjustment constructed to act

in subordination to those universal and unbe found among the remains of extinct cephalopods, that had perished suddenly countless cen- lated the movement of Huids. We select the

changing laws which appear to have ever regu. turies ago. Yet, Miss Mary Anning, to whom ammonite; and we shall find that a more perfect geologists are so much indehted for having machine than its shell for affording resistance to brought to light the saurian and other remains of Lyme, found this substance at that locality; of lightness and buoyancy with the greatest

external pressure, combining the utmost degree and, in February, 1829, Dr. Buckland announced to the Geological Society of London, the fossil strength, could hardly be imagined: pens' and · fossil ink-bags' of the lias.

What nice hand, "So completely,' says the Doctor, “are the character and

With twenty years' apprenticeship to boot,

Will make us such another ?' qualities of the ink retained in its fossil state, that when, in 1826, I submitted a portion of it to my friend Sir Fran- • In more than two hundred known species of ammo. cis Chantrey, requesting him to try its power as a pigment, nites, the transverse plates present some beautifully varied and he had prepared a drawing with a triturated portion of modifications of this foliated expansion at their edges; the this fossil substance; the drawing was shown to a cele- effect of which, in every case, is to increase the strength of brated painter, without any information as to its origin, and the outer shell, by multiplying the subjacent points of rehe immediately pronounced i: to be tinted with sepia of cx-sistance to external pressure. We know that the pressure cellent quality, and begged to be informed by what colour of the sea at no great depth will force a cork into a bottle man it was prepared. The common sepia used in drawing filled with air, or crush hollow cylinder or sphere of thin is from the ink-bag of an oriental species of cuttle-fish. copper; and as the air chambers of ammonites were subThe ink of the cuttle-fishes, in its natural state, is said to ject to similar pressure, whilst at the bottom of the sea, they

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DR. BUCKLAND'S BRIDGEWATER TREATISE.

required some peculiar provisions to preserve shell would have been inapplicable; and as a thin shell inthem from destruction,* more especially as most closing air, would be exposed to various and often intense zoologists agree that they existed at great degrees of pressure at the bottom, we find a series of prodepths.

Here again we find the inventions of art anticipated in the works of nature, and the same principle applied to resist the inward pressure of the sea upon the shells of ammonites, that an engineer makes use of in fixing transverse stays beneath the planks of the wooden centre on which he builds his arch of stone.

visions to afford resistance to such pressure, in the mechanical construction both of the external shell, and of the internal transverse plates which formed the air-chambers. First, the shell is made up of a tube, coiled round itself, and externally convex. Secondly, it is fortified by a series of ribs and vaultings, disposed in the form of arches and domes on the convex surface of this tube, and still further The disposition of these supports assumes throughout adding to its strength. Thirdly, the transverse plates that of supports, extending their ramifications, with many methe family of ammonites a different arrangement from the form the air-chambers supply also a continuous succession more simple curvature of the edges of the transverse chanical advantages, beneath those portions of the shell plates within the shells of nautili; and we find a probable which, being weakest, were most in need of them. cause for this variation, in the comparative thinness of the outer shells of many ammonites; since this external weakness creates a need of more internal support under the pressure of deep water, than was requisite in the stronger and thicker shells of nautili.

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'If the existence of contrivance proves the exercise of mind; and if higher degrees of perfection in mechanism are proof of more exalted degrees of intellect in the Author from whom they proceeded; the beautiful examples This support is effected by causing the edges of the which we find in the petrified remains of these chambered transverse plates to deviate from a simple curve into a shells afford evidence coeval and co-extensive with the variety of attenuated ramifications and undulating sutures. mountains wherein they are entombed, attesting the wis Nothing can be more beautiful than the sinuous windings dom in which such exquisite contrivances originated, and of these sutures in many species, at their union with the setting forth the providence and care of the Creator, in exterior shell; adorning it with a succession of most regulating the structure ef every creature of his hand.'graceful forms, resembling festoons of foliage, and elegant pp. 345-357. Ammonites, according to Dr. Buckland, eviembroidery. When these thin septa are converted into iron pyrites, their edges appear like golden filigrane work, without doubt, furnished with them, and they meandering amid the pellucid spar that fills the chambers dently had no ink-bags; but belemnites were, On examining the proofs of con- have been recently found in situ, in the same of the shell. trivance and design that pervade the testaceous remains of fossil loligines. Dr. Buckland had, in 1829, pubthe family of ammonites, we find, in every specics, abund. lias which gave up the buried ink-bags of the ant evidence of minute and peculiar mechanisms, adapting the shell to the double purpose of acting as a float, and of licly noticed the probable connexion of these appendages with the belemnites; but Professor Agassiz first demonstrated that connexion in a forming a protection to the body of its inhabitants.

As the animal increased in bulk, and advanced along specimen now in the cabinet of Miss Philpotts the outer chamber of the shell, the spaces left behind it at Lyme.. The author's comparison of these were successively converted into air-chambers, simulta-naked cephalopods, for such they were, with neously increasing the power of the float. This float, being the nautilus, his notice of their analogies with regulated by a pipe, passing through the whole series of the other genera of chambered shells-and, inthe chambers, formed an hydraulic instrument of extraor-deed, his whole history of this extinct race, are dinary delicacy, by which the animal could, at pleasure, admirable. control its ascent to the surface, or descent to the bottom

of the sea.

To creatures that sometimes floated, a thick and heavy

Our limits will not permit us to allow much space for the more minute chambered shells which D'Orbingy and others have considered cephalopodous; but which, the recent investiga* Captain Smyth found, on two trials, that he cylin- tions of Du Jardin, as our author is evidently drical copper air-tube, under the vane attached to Massey's aware, go far to prove of a different organizapatent log, collapsed, and was crushed quite flat under a tion. Some idea of the innumerable swarms of pressure of about three hundred fathoms. A claret bottle, these multilocular shells may be gained from filled with air, and well corked, was burst before it had de- the following notice on the nummulite, the genus scended four hundred fathoms. He also found that a bottle selected by Dr. Buckland for his observafilled with fresh water, and corked, had the cork forced at tions:about a hundred and eighty fathoms below the surface; Nummulites are so called from their resemblance to a in such cases, the fluid sent down is replaced by salt water, and the cork which had been forced in, is sometimes in- piece of money-they vary in size from that of a crown piece to microscopic littleness; and occupy an important verted. 'Captain Beaufort also informs me, that he has fre- place in the history of fossil shells, on account of the proquently sunk corked bottles in the sea more than a hundred digious extent to which they are accumulated in the latter fathoms deep, some of them empty, and others containing members of the secondary, and in many of the tertiary a fluid. The empty bottles were sometimes crushed, at strata. They are often piled on each other nearly in as other times the cork was forced in, and the bottle returned close contact as the grains in a heap of corn. full of sea-water. The cork of the bottles containing a state they form a considerable portion of the entire bulk fluid was uniformly forced in, and the fluid exchanged for of many extensive mountains, e. g. in the tertiary linestones sea-water; the cork was always returned to the neck of of Verona and Monte Bolca, and in secondary strata the bottle, sometimes, but not always, in an inverted posi- of the cretacious formation in the Alps, Carpathians, and Pyrences. Some of the pyramids, and the sphinx tion.'

VOL. XXIX, JULY, 1836.-12

In this

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