Scientific Intelligence. — Geology. 179 



These table lands are not longitudinal valleys between ranges of 

 mountains. The bottom of a longitudinal valley, which is from 

 1500 to 2000 toises above the sea, as is the case in the Andes, 

 is caused by the elevation of a whole mountain chain. True 

 table lands, such as those of Spain and Bavaria, were probably 

 formed by the upraising of a whole continental mass. Both 

 epochas are geognostically considered different. — Humboldt. 



6. Lake Aral. — The surface of the lake Aral is 117 feet 

 higher than that of the Caspian. — Humboldt. 



7. Fossil Shells in the Snow?/ Mountains of Thibet. — At a 

 meeting of the Asiatic Society of Calcutta, on 5th May last, ex- 

 tracts from Mr Gerard's letters, relative to the fossil shells collect- 

 ed by him in his late tour over the snowy mountains of the Thi- 

 bet frontier, were read. The loftiest altitude at which he picked 

 up some of them, was on the crest of a pass, elevated 17,000 

 feet ; and here also were fragments of rock, bearing the impres- 

 sions of shells, which must have been detached from the conti- 

 guous peaks rising far above, the elevated level. Generally, 

 however, the rocks formed of these shells are at an altitude of 

 16,000 feet, a7id one cliff' was a mile in perpendicular height 

 above the nearest level. Mr Gerard farther states, " Just before 

 crossing the boundary of Ludak into Bussahir, I was exceeding- 

 ly gratified by the discovery of a bed of fossil oysters, clinging to 

 the rock as if they had been alive." In whatever point of view 

 we are to consider the subject, it is sublime to think of millions 

 of organic remains lying at such 'an extraordinary altitude, and 

 of vast cliffs of rocks formed out of them, frowning over these 

 illimitable and desolate wastes, where the ocean once rolled. — 

 Asiatic Register. 



8. Bone Caves discovered in New Holland. — Colonel Lindsay 

 of the 39th Regiment, a very active and inteUigent inquirer, 

 informs us of the discovery of great quantities of fossil bones 

 of animals, imbedded in marl and other substances, in caves 

 in New Holland. Some of these animals (quadrupeds), judg- 

 ing from the size of the bones, must have been very large, — a 

 circumstance the more remarkable, because hitherto no large 

 quadrupeds have been found in Australia. 



9. Leonhardon the Basaltic Formation. — Professor Leonhard 

 of Heidelberg informs us, that he has now in the press a work 



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