Natural-Historical Collectiotis. 55 



be believed that there was, afra certain epoch in the colleges of priests, not only 

 the knowledge of philosophical and religious doctrines, but also that of particu- 

 lar scientific theories. These theories are no doubt lost in consequence of the 

 oppression to which the sacerdotal caste was subjected at the time of the conquest 

 of Cambyses. 



The heads of the colonies which went forth from Egypt, possessed in general 

 but a small part of the knowledge of which this privileged caste was the deposi- 

 tory. They only carried with them the practical results. This was not the case 

 with the legislator of the Hebrews. He had been educated by the Egyptian 

 priests, and knew not only their arts, but also their philosophical doctrines. His 

 books show us that he had very correct ideas respecting several of the highest to- 

 pics of natural philosophy. His cosmogony especially, considered merely in a 

 scientific point of view, is extremely remarkable, inasmuch as the order which lie 

 assigns to the diiferent epochs of creation, is precisely the same as that deduced 

 from geological considerations. According to Genesis, after the earth and the 

 sky had been formed and animated by light, the aquatic animals were created, 

 then plants, afterwards land animals, and lastly man. Now this is precisely what 

 geology teaches us. In the oldest formed deposits, those which are consequently 

 deepest seated, no organic remains are found. The earth was then without inha- 

 bitants. As we come nearer the beds at the surface, we see appearing first shells 

 and remains of fishes, then remains of large reptiles, and lastly the bones of quad- 

 rupeds. As to human bones, they have never been found excepting in alluvial 

 deposits, in caves, and in the fissures of rocks, which shows that man has appear- 

 ed last of aU the other classes of animals. 



( To be continued.) 



On the formation of ice at the bottom of running water. — The people every 

 where differ from the philosophers in their ideas of the formation of the ice of rivers 

 and streams. They think that it comes from the bottom of the water, and in 

 Germany they call it grundeis, ground-ice. Naturalists, who have long been 

 aware of this popular opinion, have however treated it with contempt. According 

 to them, it was altogether contradictory to that which we learn from theory and 

 from the most exact obser\'ations. Nevertheless the watermen and all those ac- 

 customed to work upon the rivers, have not altered their opinion : they persist in 

 declaring that they see ice rising from the bottom of rivers every year, that they 

 detach it often with their oars from the deepest parts, and find it lined on the 

 under surface with soil. 



In the last century, two men belonging to the class of philosophers, Hales, a 

 fellow of the Royal Society of London, in his Vegetable Statics, and Plot, in his 

 Natural History of Oxfordshire, supported the opinion of the formation of ice 

 at the bottom of running water, principally on the evidence of unscientific men, 

 who stated that they were every year convinced of the fact, beyond the possibility 

 of doubt. Hales, moreover, stated that he had seen at tlie same time in a river, 

 both ice on its surface a third of an inch thick, and, through it, other ice adher- 

 ing to the bottom, which, on breaking it, he found to be nearly half an inch in 

 thickness. This ice at the bottom, he adds, was joined to that at the surface, 

 the two plates becoming more and more separated as the water became deeper. 



The publication of the writings of Hales and Plot made little impression on 

 the scientific world : it however excited the attention of Nollet, who, in his Me- 

 teorologie, on coming to the question whether ice wa^ formed at the bottom of 

 rivers, answered it positively in the negative, after having conducted observations 

 and experiments, though with all the prejudice of a man who thought himself 

 sure of the fact. He even commenced by declaring he should have hesitated to 

 discuss such a question, if it had not been authorized by statements contained in 

 the works of two learned men, (viz. Hales and Plot.) Slairan, in his Disserta. 

 iion sur la glace, reproduced and approved of the ideas of Nollet, and the ques» 

 tion seemed to be definitively settled until the year 1825. 



