Natural Histot^y in foreign Countries. 445 



No part of this extraordinary deposit of marine fossils apr 

 proaches the sea nearer than from 130 to 150 miles; and, 

 between, those primitive rocks intervene v^^hich geologists 

 consider to be the oldest and the base of all other strata. 

 The department of the Indre et Loire, which comprises 

 the whole of the ancient Touraine, and parts of Poitou and 

 the Orleannois, abounds with calcareous rocks, some of 

 them mainly composed of fossil remains, and of different 

 degrees of hardness : but in the fossils of the vast district of 

 the Fahmieres there exists no principle of agglutination ; so 

 that, when exposed on the surface of the ground, they look like 

 heaps of white sand, many of the particles of which are light 

 enough to be moved by the wind. So striking a difference 

 between the fossil deposit of Les Falunieres, and those whicl^ 

 surround and probably support it, is difficult to be accounted 

 for ; the fact, however, seems well worthy of distinctive notice 

 in the geological map of France, as forming a most singular 

 feature amidst the newer members of the teirain secondaire of 

 Humboldt. 



The value of these fossil remains as manure is better 

 understood in England than in France : they are, however, 

 beginning to be used in the immediate neighbourhood of 

 Les Falunieres^ on the side of St. Maure, where the application 

 of lime to the purposes of agriculture is nearly unknown: but 

 the soil or subsoil of nearly the whole of the department being 

 compounded, in some proportion or other, of chalk marl, lime- 

 stone, or fossil remains, there is at one and the same time less 

 occasion for it, and the less inducement to use it. Touraine 

 (for centuries known by the appellation of " the garden of 

 France") offers a rich subject for the study of natural history, 

 a subject not the less inviting for having been hitherto most 

 unaccountably neglected. In the cabinet of natural history, 

 over the gallery of paintings at Tours, there is a tolerable 

 collection of the fossils of this truly extraordinary calcareous 

 district ; for which the public is chiefly indebted to the liberal 

 donations of M. Louirette, and the recent additions made to it 

 by M. Dujardin, the talented professor of chemistry in that 

 city. To both those gentlemen, but most particularly to the 

 latter, as well as to Captain Ridgeway, then resident at 

 Tours, I am much indebted, not only for some fine specimens 

 which I probably should not otherwise have obtained, but for 

 assistance and encouragement in the pursuit of a science 

 of which I previously knew little or nothing, in which I am 

 still only a learner, but from the study of which I found an 

 invaluable source of amusement, wonder, and delight, during 

 a sojourn of six months in " the garden of France ;'*. in tbe 



