COINS, &c. FOUND UNDER ELEVEN STRATA. 475 passable rivers. It is but twenty years since the present centre of CHAP. the river was the centre of the city of Selinginskt. XVII. In 1788, near Aix in Provence, in quarrying limestone of a deep grey, and soft, but which hardens in the air, the strata were separated from each other by a bed of sand mixed with clay. After the first ten beds were removed, the inferior surface of the eleventh, at forty-five feet deep, was covered with shells: the stones of this bed being removed, under a stratum of argillaceous sand, stumps of columns, and fragments of stones (like the quarry) half wrought, were found; and also coins, handles of hammers, and a board one inch thick and seven feet long, broken, but the pieces all there, and could be joined: it was like the boards used by quarry men, and worn in the same manner. The stones had not been changed, but the pieces of wood were changed into agate ‡. "There was found in the year 1714, upon sinking a well on the top of the hill, near Tobolsky, sixty-four fathoms deep in the earth, an oaken beam, quite black, not round, but shaped. It happens every year that the sea swells so high on the east side of Tartary, in the bay of Lama, near the habitations of the Koraiki and Lamuti, that whales and other great sea animals are carried up into several rivers, and, when the water falls, are left upon the shore §." + Capt. Cochrane, pp. 335, 473. Count Bournon. Phil. Mag. Vol. LVII. p. 458. § Strahlenberg, p. 405. 476 CHAP. ELEPHANTS' BONES BURIED BY AN EARTHQUAKE. During the battle gained by Hannibal at Thrasymene there was an earthquake which overthrew large portions of many cities in Italy, turned rapid rivers out of their course, and levelled mountains †. Cunusium, in Apulia, where Hannibal was defeated, and five of his elephants were killed ‡, was destroyed by an earthquake in 1694 §. Pisa is only four miles from the sea; its port was anciently at the mouth of the Arno. According to Strabo, the Ausar flowed into the Arno at Pisa, though it now falls into the sea, at the distance of at least ten miles from it. Rees's Cyc. “Pisa.” "There is no country upon the globe which is not subject to earthquakes. The histories of all times record an immense series of them. There is hardly a month, week, or perhaps a single day unmarked by their devastations. Seneca, Strabo, Callisthenes, Pausanias, Pliny, Thucydides, and others, mention a variety of stupendous effects produced by earthquakes, either preceding or during their lifetimes; such as the separation of mountains, the appearance and disappearance of islands, the destruction of a great many cities, some of which were entirely swallowed up. Under the reign of the Emperor Gallienus, A. D. 264, the greatest part of Italy was shaken; various fissures of the † Livy, B. XXII. + Livy, B. XXIII. § Rees's Cyc. "Canosa." NUMEROUS EARTHQUAKES. 477 XVII. earth repeatedly opened and closed, swallowing up a vast number of CHAP. human beings. In the year 365, the shores of the Mediterranean were left dry, but the tide soon returned with the weight of an immense and irresistible deluge, which was severely felt on the coasts of Sicily, Dalmatia, &c. During the reign of Justinian, each year is marked by earthquakes: enormous caverns were opened, the sea alternately advanced and retreated, a mountain was torn from Libanus. In the kingdom of Naples, near the Avernian lake, a hill rose and was formed by the accession of ignited matter, in one night, in height one thousand one hundred and twenty-seven English feet from the level of the sea. In the year 1783, there were, in Calabria, five hundred and one shocks, of the first degree; two hundred and thirty-six of the second; three hundred and seven of the third and fourth degrees; besides five great commotions, which shook, altered, and destroyed the whole face of the country. The interruption of rivers, in consequence of the fall of hills and the alteration of the ground, caused unappreciable damage +." There is a cause of change on the surface of the earth, which has not, as far as the writer is acquainted with the subject, been sufficiently regarded: the most obvious causes are sometimes the last which attract notice. It is dust. The operation of this agent is so slow in its progress, that it does not excite much attention: but, on reflection, it will be found a powerful one, when local circumstances favour it. In caves, meadows, marshes, ponds, rivers, &c. so situated as to retain † Rees's Cyc." Earthquakes." 478 CHAP. IMPORTANCE OF DUST AND SAND. the dust blown into them, it will be easily allowed that a sixteenth of an inch in depth may be accumulated in one year: which in a century would be six inches. Have any fossil remains been found, in caverns, like that at Kirkdale or in other places, covered with the accumulated dust of the surrounding soil? If we consider the more rapid effects of sand, we may well suppose that an oasis in Africa is the top of a hill, standing in a once fertile country. Sand, by being blown in, has probably principally contributed to fill up the branch of the Oxus, which formerly discharged its waters into the Caspian sea *; and rivulets must often change their courses from this cause. Many more instances of the mutations of the surface might be produced: but those contained in this chapter are deemed sufficient to show, how difficult and hazardous it is to judge of the cause of fossil bones having been buried in any particular place; either by their depth, or by the strata with which they are covered. * It has been said, that this branch of the Oxus was designedly impeded, from political motives. CHAPTER XVIII. Erroneous Notions respecting Giants, Mammoths, Extinct Species of Quadrupeds, and Spiral Tusks.Concluding Remarks. GIANTS AND MAMMOTHS. THE wonder and mystery connected with the discovery of large fossil bones, have existed from the earliest times, arising, no doubt, from the sciences of anatomy and osteology not having been studied by the ancients*. The merit of dissipating these errors will be due to the laborious and valuable accuracy of very modern authors, and to the Baron Cuvier in particular. The bones of whales and elephants, till within a century or two, have been imagined and believed to be the remains of giants. This notion would have been confirmed in the minds of those attached to the marvellous, if the skeleton of the child with the head of an elephant, born at Rome in the year 209 before Christ†, had been discovered in the seventeenth century, without its being known that it was a lusus * " Augustus adorned his palace at Capres with the huge limbs of sea-monsters and wild beasts, which some affect to call the bones of giants, and the arms of old herocs." Suetonius, LXXII. † Catrou, Vol. III. p. 362. CHAP. |