^72 Dr Drummond on Humanity to Animals. 



riot so great a rarity as is commonly believed. After the cessa- 

 tion of the saline and lime formation, by the obstruction or ces- 

 sation of the mineral springs, the deposits again began to par- 

 take every where of nearly the same nature ; marly oyster beds 

 and sands completed the tertiary soil of Paris, and afterwards 

 the basin became a fresh water lake, and then only it began to 

 be the Paris basin, for before that period the extent of the basin 

 was much larger, and it communicated with the present basins 

 of the Tourraine, or the Loire, of the Calvados, of England, and 

 probably even of Belgium and the north of Europe. 

 (To be concluded in next Number.) 



On Humanity to Animals. By James L. Drummond, M. D. 

 Professor of Anatomy arid Physiology in the Belfast Acade- 

 mical Institution, &c. 



{In a very agreeably written volume by the author of a popular 

 work, the " First Steps to Botany," occur the following ex- 

 cellent observations on an interesting topic, viz. Humanity 

 to Animals^ which we have much pleasure in laying before 

 our readers.] 



.1 WILL now occupy your attention for a little in making some 

 remarks on a theme which, I fear, has seldom been submitted 

 to your consideration, or impressed on your mind as being of 

 any moment ; I mean humanity to animals, — a subject to which 

 I have several times alluded before, but which I shall now more 

 particularly press upon your notice. That there are men in 

 the world whose dispositions are diabolically cruel, we have but 

 too many proofs. The newspapers contain weekly accounts of 

 outrages committed against every feeling of humanity, both as 

 regards our own species and other animals, and which are too 

 often committed without any motive save the wanton indulgence 

 of a bad and cruel mind ; though I regret to say, that if any 

 end is to be gained, however slight, and that even by the exer- 

 cise of the most severe cruelty, the latter forms, too often, no 

 bar whatever in the way : hence it was once, and I fear still is, 

 the practice, in some places, to whip pigs to death, because their 

 flesh was thought to be improved by it. In these countries, 



