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HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



[April 1, 1SG7. 



GEOLOGY. 



" Giants in those Days."— There is a widely- 

 spread popular tale, common to Ireland and Scot- 

 land, and told with many variations. The gist of it 

 is, that in the days of Eionn there were deer and 

 birds far larger than any which now exist. Ossian, 

 it is said, when old and blind, lived in the house of 

 his father-in-law, or in the house of St. Patrick, and 

 they were busily writing down all he had to tell them 

 of the history of the Eeinne. But no one would 

 believe what he said about the strength of the men, 

 and the size of the deer, the birds, the leaves, and 

 the rolls of butter,— that these were in the "Eeinne," 

 the country and age of Eionn. To convince the 

 unbelievers, the last of the old race prayed that he 

 might have one more day's hunting, and his 

 prayer was heard. A boy and a dog, the worst of 

 their class, came to him in the night, and with them 

 he went to some unknown glen. There, with many 

 strange incidents, it is told how they found a whistle 

 and a store of arms, and a great caldron ; and how 

 the blind hero collected deer and birds by sounding 

 his whistle, or horn, or "dord." Deer came as big 

 as houses, or birds as big as oxen. Guided by the 

 boy, his hand drew the bow and slew the quarry, and 

 when the chase was done, they dined as heroes used 

 to dine. A hind-quarter was brought home, and the 

 bone of an ox went round about in the marrow-hole 

 of the shank of the creature which Ossian had 

 brought from the "Eeinne." With endless variations 

 this story is told all over Scotland and Ireland; and 

 it is firmly believed by a very large class of her 

 Majesty's Celtic subjects in Ireland, Scotland, and 

 Wales, that there were giants and monstrous animals 

 in the days of King Arthur and of Eionn. There 

 is no geological evidence yet for gigantic men, but 

 peat-bogs, gravels, and caves, are full of the bones 

 of beasts as big as a small haystack ; and the word 

 used in the talc, " con," means " elk " as well as 

 bird.— Campbell's "Frost and Fire." 



Ancient Nuts. — I am in possession of some 

 hazel nuts (Corylus Avellana), of the filbert variety, 

 which were procured with many others, and the 

 antlers of a deer, from the remains of a forest 

 between forty and fifty feet below the bed of the 

 River Trent — this was bored through in excavating 

 for a foundation for the piers of the railway bridge 

 at Keadby. The nuts, as regards the shell, arc in a 

 perfect state of preservation, blackened of course 

 by age, and without any kernel; whether natu- 

 rally so, or as the effect of time, 1 am unable to say, 

 but in all probability the latter. Now, as it is well 

 known that at the period of the Roman invasion, 

 upwards of 1,900 years since, an immense forest 

 existed in this part of Lincolnshire (Isle of Ax- 

 holme), and the adjacent Yorkshire district, west of 

 the river Don, and that as a place of refuge for the i 



Brigantes and Coritani, it was destroyed by the 

 invaders, either by fire or the axe ; the inference 

 is tolerably certain that the date at which these 

 nuts grew, could not be posterior to that event, but 

 in fact might have been anterior to it. It is mani- 

 fest, however, that since that time, great changes 

 must have taken place in the relative level of land 

 and water, for at the depth where we now find the 

 remains of these trees, none could at present grow. 

 It is obvious, too, that the river must have altered 

 its course, and that in all probability, its channel 

 was more easterly, and at the base of that range of 

 hills of the secondary and oolitic formation, known 

 now as the cliffs, and which from the enormous 

 quantities of fossil shells, such as, Grypluea, JJnio, 

 Terebratttlce, &c. found there, must have formed the 

 bed of an ancient sea. To return, however, to the 

 nuts, I am in a position to state that many have been 

 recently found at Hull, of probably greater antiquity 

 even than those I have by me. — Henry W. T. Fills. 



Ancient Sea-makks on the coast or Sweden. 

 — At the meeting of the Geological Society, held 

 6th March, 1S67, a paper was read by the Right 

 Hon. the Earl of Selkirk, E.R.S, E.G.S., which 

 contained a detailed description of some observations 

 made in the month of July, 1866, upon certain 

 marks placed so as to show the level of the sea on 

 the coast of Sweden, which were seen by Sir Charles 

 Lyell thirty-two years ago, and which were sup- 

 posed to indicate a gradual and equable rise of the 

 land of about three feet in a century. Two of these 

 marks were off the harbour of Gefle, and one on 

 the Island of Graso, off Oregrund, on the east coast 

 of Sweden ; the rest were on the west coast, a little 

 to the north of Goteberg. The conclusion arrived 

 at was that these marks do not afford any very 

 certain proof of such rise of the land ; the fluctu- 

 ation of the level of the water being so great that 

 any difference of the level of the land in thirty-two 

 years is lost in comparison with the daily and 

 weekly changes owing to shifts of wind and other 

 causes affecting the water, not the land. The marks 

 off Gefle gave most indication of a change of level ; 

 but there were various elements of uncertainty 

 connected with them. 



The Use of Fossils in geological investigations 

 is very considerable. They tell us of time elapsed, 

 as well as mechanical changes effected, and of con- 

 ditions of existence of animals and vegetables dif- 

 ferent from the present. They are also, by their 

 specific character, by their mode of grouping, and 

 by the succession observable with regard to them, 

 characteristic of geological formations. They are, 

 in fact, the very hieroglyphics of nature, marking 

 the condition of the earth at the time and place of 

 their deposit ; and thus they are the true materials 

 from which wc deduce the earth's history. — Prof. 

 D. T. Amted. 



