250 Natural History in Foreign Countries. 



advanced age, when it puts on the plumage of an old male, of which change 

 M. Payrandeau possesses a specimen. M. Temminck, again, whose autho- 

 rity is very high, regards the red cuckoo as the young of the grey cuckoo 

 of one year old ; but Vieillot, the father of the French ornithologists, as 

 well as Meyer, Jules, Delamothe, and Baillon of Abbeville, agree with M. 

 Payrandeau. {Bulletin des Sciences.') 



Submergence of the Continents. — M. Constant Prevost has just published 

 an interesting memoir on the geological question, whether our continents 

 have been submerged oftener than once. He attempts to prove that there 

 do not exist, under alluvial formations, any beds or strata which can be 

 regarded as having formed the surface of an ancient continent, covered 

 for a considerable time with land vegetables, and inhabited by land animals, 

 before it was enveloped in marine deposits. The debris of vegetables and 

 of land animals, sometimes found in vertical positions in sandstone, in 

 diluvial strata, or in caverns, he supposes to be wholly accidental, and 

 originating in the sea invading a country previously inhabited. He thence 

 proceeds to explain the formation of the basins of London, Paris, and the 

 Isle of Wight, according to the following series of epochs : — 



1 . A deep tranquil sea deposited the two varieties of chalk which com- 

 pose the bottom and the sides of the great tertiary basins. 



2. Then, by the ocean becoming shallower, the great basin would be 

 formed into a gulf, in which chalk-breccias and plastic clay would be 

 deposited, and covered by the marine remains of the first coarse limestone. 



5. The deposition was next interrupted by some commotion, which sen- 

 sibly broke and displaced the strata. The basin then became a salt-water 

 lake, traversed by copious streams of water, flowing alternately from the sea 

 and from the continents, and producing a mixture, presenting the second 

 coarse limestone, siliceous limestone, and gypsum. 



4. A large volume of fresh water, charged with clay and marl, burst into 

 the basin, still forming in the middle a deposit of marine bivalve shells, the 

 basin becoming a lake of brackish water. 



5. The lake now ceased to communicate with the ocean, the level of the 

 waters going on to decrease, and the muddy deposits from the continental 

 waters continuing. 



6. The ocean burst in accidentally, whence beds of sand and the upper 

 marine sandstone were deposited ; and, soon after, the basin being drained, 

 continued only fresh water, of little depth. There was now much less 

 influx of water ; animals and vegetables made their appearance, and mill- 

 stone grit and fresh-water limestone were deposited. 



7. The succession of these different epochs was terminated by the dilu- 

 vian cataclysm. 



GERMANY. 



Natural History in Wurtemberg. — The Society denominated the Natur- 

 historische Reiseverein (Natural History Travelling Society), " under the 

 direction of the Landwirthschaftliche Verein, last year seht out two travel- 

 lers, whose researches were highly successful : Fleischer, who made collec- 

 tions of specimens of natural history in the environs of Smyrna; and 

 Mijller, who was employed to examine the productions of Sardinia. The 

 latter passed the winter at Cagliari, and will continue there this summer. 

 Both ( ravellers have paid particular attention to botany, and have also col- 

 lected a considerable number of insects, conchylia, &c. This year the So- 

 ciety have provided for making mineralogical researches, and have sent out 

 to Norway two other travellers ; one for botany, especially algology, mus- 

 cology, and lichnology; the other for oryctognosy and geology. The 

 former is Huber of Hamburg ; the latter, Kurr of Wurtemberg, an excellent 

 mineralogist. It is intended that they should extend their researches as 

 far as Lapland. Several friends of the Society at the Cape have under- 



