Page:Hardwicke's Science-Gossip - Volume 1.pdf/203

In how little lies the Past.—History tells us of populous nations, now extinct, that flourished for ages: do we not find their remains crowded into a few streets of sepulchres? 'Tis but a thin layer of soil that covers the ancient plain of Marathon. I have stood on Bannockburn, and seen no trace of the battle. In what lower stratum shall we set ourselves to discover the skeletons of the wolves and bears that once infested our forests? Where shall we find accumulations of the remains of the wild bisons and gigantic elks, their contemporaries? They must have existed for but comparatively a short period, or they would surely have left more marked traces behind them.—Miller's "Old Red Sandstone."

Relations between the Present and Past.—In the collection brought to Europe from the caves of Brazil by MM. Lund and Clausen there are extinct species of all the thirty-two genera, excepting four, of the terrestrial quadrupeds now inhabiting the provinces in which the caves occur; and the extinct species are much more numerous than those now living. There are fossil ant-eaters, armadillos, tapirs, peccaries, guanacoes, opossums, and numerous South American gnawers and monkeys, and other animals. This wonderful relationship in the same continent between the dead and the living will, I do not doubt, hereafter through more light on the appearance of organic beings on our earth, and their disappearance from it, than any other class of facts.—Darwin's "Journal of Researches."

Sponges and Corals.—While the green sand, the upper chalk, and the Kentish rag were forming, corals and sponges grew in every sea. One beautiful variety, shaped like a toadstool, is found in the upper chalk of Sussex. The Kentish rag is so full of them that the hands of the quarrymen are often fretted with their fossil flint splinters. At Warminster, cup-shaped sponged swarmed in myriads, and a peculiarly find pear-shaped sponge is found in the green sand of Blackdown. The Brighton pebbles and the Wiltshire flints are principally petrified sponges. At the first glance it seems as though it must have required ages on ages fro the climate to have so changed from the times when the sponges of tropic seas grew in our blue lagoons, fringed with coral reefs; yet so brief is the space in the history of the crust of our earth, that in the fields about Steeple Ashton every stone turned up by the plough is a coral, and the structure of coral banks may be studied in the lofty cliffs of Cheddar as well as in the upheaved islands of southern seas.—Milton's "Stream of Life."

Foraminifera.—Plancus collected 6,000 shells of Foraminifera from an ounce of sand from the shore of the Adriatic. Soldani collected from less than an ounce and a half of rock from the hills of Casciana, in Tuscany, 10,454 fossil shells. Several of these were so minute that 500 weighed only a grain. And D'Orbingy found 3,840,000 specimens in an ounce of sand from the shores of the Antilles.

Abnormal Fossil Ferns.—I have a partiality for "bad specimens," just as I have for abnormal plants, and I believe they are much more likely than good ones to reveal something not previously noticed—to bring to light some little peculiarity which in better specimens might not be observed. It would bring to light another link between the past and the present, if we could prove that the ferns of the carboniferous period shared this propensity to become crested with the plants which still exist. I confidently believe, that with care in searching for examples this will be found to be the case.—Mackie's "Geological Repertory."

Mountain Limestone of Shropshire.—At the May meeting of the Severn Valley Field Club, a paper was read by G. Maw, F.R.S., on "the relation of the mountain limestone of Shropshire to its development in other parts of the kingdom." The points noticed were, 1, the total absence of the limestone from large areas in the Midland counties; 2, its exceptional thinness in the Wrekin district and South Shropshire as compared with other districts; 3, the prevalence of mountain limestone fossils in the lower coal-measures of Shropshire, and the synchronism of these deposits with the mountain limestone of other districts; and 4, whether the carboniferous rocks rest directly on the north-west line of basalt, or whether they are separated by beds of the Devonian age, After reviewing the existing evidence on these points, Mr. Maw said they must be still considered as questions in suspense, lithological character being not always reliable as indicative of age, and only of importance when existing in connection with the surer testimony of organic remains.

Rhinoceros at Ilford.—A very fine skull of the Rhinoceros leptorhinus, Cuv., has recently been found in the Uphall brickfield, Ilford, and in close proximity to the spot where the skull and tusks of the Mammoth were discovered.

The memories of some men are like the buckets of the daughters of Danae, and retain nothing others have recollections like the bolters of a mill, retaining the chaff, and letting the flour escape.

Many minds keep tavern; they entertain every though that chances to come along; like the promise of the old road-side signs, they make welcome man and beast.