S64 M. Marcel de Serres on the Deposition of 



The people, without exception, were unlettered backwoods- 

 men, of the class least addicted to reasoning. And it is re- 

 markable how ingeniously and conclusively they reasoned from 

 apprehension sharpened by fear. They remarked, that the 

 chasms in the earth were in direction from south-west to north- 

 east, and they were of an extent to swallow up, not only men 

 but houses, and these chasms occurred frequently within inter- 

 vals of half a mile. They felled the tallest trees at right angles 

 with the chasms, and stationed themselves upon the felled trees. 

 By this invention all were saved ; for the chasms occurred more 

 than once under these trees. 



Silliman's Journal, January 1829- 



On the Circumstances which appear to have accompanied the 

 Deposition of the Tertiary Formations. In a Letter ad- 

 dressed to M. Adolphe Brongniart, by M. Marcel de 

 Serres. 



The observations recently made by M. Elie de Beaumont, on 

 the fossil vegetables of the anthracite or glance coal deposites of 

 the Alps, and the notes which you have added to them, appear 

 to me so important, and seem to coincide so well with the facts 

 which I have observed in the South of France, that they induce 

 me to submit to you the following reflections, even before pub- 

 lishing the facts on which they are founded : — 



You observe, and, as it seems to me, with perfect reason, that 

 although, from the identity, or extreme similarity of the vege- 

 tables of the coal formation, in all parts of the globe, it is pro- 

 bable that the same kind of vegetation existed over the whole 

 earth at the period when that combustible was deposited, it 

 ought not to be inferred from this, that the same circumstance 

 existed at the periods when the lias formation, the oolites, the 

 chalk, or the Paris formations, were deposited, and that the Ve- 

 getation was then the same over all parts of the globe. 



I agree with you i)i thinking, that, in proportion as the earth 

 became covered with a greater number of vegetables, and was 

 inhabited by a greater variety of animal species, it tended more 

 and more towards the settled state at Avhich it has now arrived, 



