that contains so many perfect fishes around the
Hartz, seems to offer two other causes, either of
which may have produced their sudden death.*
From what has been said respecting the general
history of fossil organic Remains, it appears
that not only the relics of aquatic, but also those
of terrestrial animals and plants, are found
almost exclusively in strata that have been accumulated
by the action of water. This circumstance
is readily explained, when we consider
that the bones of all dead creatures that may be
left uncovered upon dry land, are in a few years
entirely destroyed by various animals, and the
decomposing influence of the atmosphere. If
we except the few bones that may have been
collected in caves, or buried under land slips,
or the products of volcanic Eruptions, or in sand
drifted by the winds,f it is only in strata formed
* Under the turbulent conditions of our planet, whilst stratification
was in progress, the activity of volcanic agents, then
frequent and intense, was probably attended also with atmospheric
disturbances affecting both the air and water, and
producing the same fatality among the then existing Tribes of
fishes, that is now observed to result from sudden and violent
changes in the electric condition of the atmosphere. M. Agassiz
has observed that rapid changes in the degree of atmospheric
pressure upon the water, affect the air within the swimming
bladders of fishes, sometimes causing them to be distended to a
fatal degree, and even to burst. Multitudes of dead fishes, that
have thus perished during tempests, are often seen floating on the
surface, and cast on the shores of the lakes of Switzerland.
t Captain Lyon states, that in the deserts of Africa, the
bodies of camels are often desiccated by the' heat and dryness
by water that any remains of land animals can
have been preserved.
We continually see the carcases of such animals
drifted by rivers in their seasons of flood,
into lakes, estuaries, and seas; and although it
may at first seem strange to find terrestrial
remains, imbedded in strata formed at the bottom
of the water, the difficulty vanishes on recollection
that the materials of stratified rocks are
derived in great part from the Detritus of more
of the atmosphere, and become the nucleus of a sand h ill;
which the wind accumulates around them. Beneath this sand
they remain interred like the stumps of palm trees, and the
buildings of ancient Egypt.
In a recent paper on the geology of the Bermudas (Proceedings
of Geol. Soc. Lond. Ap.-9, 1834), Lieutenant Nelson
describes these islands as composed of calcareous sand and
limestone, derived from comminuted shells and corals; he considers
great part of the materials of these strata to have been
drifted up from the shore by the action of the wind. The
surface in many parts is composed of loose sand, disposed in
all the irregular forms of drifted snow, and presents a surface
covered with undulations like those produced by the ripple of
water upon sand on the sea shore. Recent shells occur both in
the loose sand and solid limestone, and also roots of the Palmetto
now growing in the island. The N. W. coast of Cornwall
affords examples of similar invasions of many thousand acres
of land by Deluges of sand drifted from the sea shore, at the villages
of Bude, and Perran Zabulo; the latter village has been
twice destroyed, and buried under sand, drifted inland during
extraordinary tempests, at distant intervals of time. See Trans,
of Geol. Soc. of Cornwall, vol. ii. p. 140. and vol. iii. p. 12.
See also De la Beche’s Geological Manual, 3rd edit. p. 84, and
Jameson’s Translation of Cuvier’s Theory of the Earth, 5th ed.
Note G.