348 Captain Puillon-Boblaye on the Tides, S^c. 



tincntal caverns, whether formed by erosion, or by falling in of 

 rocks. Finally, these observations will do away with the neces- 

 sity of having recourse to hazardous hypotheses for explaining 

 certain phenomena which are in great part conformable with the 

 present order of things. Notwithstanding, I shall repeat that I 

 am very far from wishing to attribute to marine and littoral 

 influences all the cavities of ancient limestones. 



I have mentioned, as a proof of the contrary, the caverns with 

 bones, of which the Morea demonstrates the mode of formation, 

 and above all of the filling up, better than any other country. 

 Indeed in each of the inclosed basins in the interior, the torren- 

 tial waters engulf themselveF, and do not again appear but at 

 a great distance, and the greater part of the time beneath tlic 

 level of the sea. Numerous caverns with bones arc filled up in 

 our times, and the gulfs or Jcatavothrons of the Plain of Tri- 

 poliiza, liave swallowed up, in these last years, thousands of 

 human bones, mixed at the same time with ochrey clay, which 

 envelopes the clysmian or diluvial bones. 



We may also cite certain cavities, partly empty and partly 

 filled with tertiary alabasters and breccias, which appear ow- 

 ing to the renewing of the same, which, in the same localities, 

 had before produced gypsums, iron-glance, and magnesian hme- 

 stones variously cracked or fissured. There arc still acid ema- 

 nations and acidulous springs, of which M. Iloff'man has shewn 

 the connection with the upraising of certain valleys, without 

 describing their effects upon the limestones which they traverse ; 

 it is a cause still producing mineralogical modifications, if not 

 geognostical, analogous to those which I have described, but 

 which doubtless ought to exhibit distinct characters. 



My observations apply, then, but to a part of the phenomenon 

 of erosion, which I have endeavoured to explain by the effects 

 produced by it on our shores. If any one should think that I 

 have not attained this end, these last observations would remain 

 susceptible of new explanations, new inquiries, and interesting 

 applications, to which I call the attention of geologists. 



