Scientific Intelligencs. — Geology. 391 



siibapennine deposits than with those of Paris, which con- 

 firms our idea of uniting as to age, these subapennine basins of 

 Gallicia and Poland, with those just mentioned. It is even pos- 

 sible that the inferior tertiary deposits may be rare beyond the 

 limits of Europe, the greater part of the tertiary hgnites not 

 appearing to belong to them. The ancient and modern alluvi- 

 um occurs every where in the valleys, and in the plains, on the 

 hills, and upon some plateau that have been raised up after their 

 formation ; but they are wanting on the elevated acclivities, and 

 on the high mountain chains raised before the alluvial period. 

 These alluvia contain marine fossils only when they occur on 

 the sea shore ; elsewhere, we observe only debris of land and 

 river shells, and bones of terrestrial animals. We defy the par- 

 tisans of the deluge to shew us any thing else, in all their pre- 

 tended diluvium throughout Europe, and which nevertheless ac- 

 cording to their ideas ought to be characterized by marine fos- 

 sils. We believe in local cataclysms, of great lakes of fresh 

 water, and even probably of salt water ; but there is nothing, 

 absolutely nothing in Europe, that can justify a general cata- 

 clasm during the alluvial period. As to the debris on the sides 

 of mountains, their angular form and their repository indicate 

 their origin and mode of accumulation by decomposition, sliding 

 down, carrying away by the passing rains, by avalanches and 

 the motions of glaciers. The calculations which it has been at- 

 tempted to found on the talus of debris, with the view of infer- 

 ring the age of the world, has never probably been done in earnest 

 by any practical geologist. Indeed, we do not see that the his- 

 toric times have any connection with the geological periods, even 

 the most recent of these. It is a well known fact, that deposits 

 of shells during the alluvial period occur on the coasts of the At- 

 lantic, and of the North Sea, at a considerable height above the 

 level of the sea. It is also known that the same phenomenon is 

 repeated not only in Norway, and upon the shores of Britain and 

 France, but also according to Keilhau in the islands of Spits- 

 bergen ; on some coasts in the United States of Brazil (Bahia). 

 It appears also to occur in the Pacific Ocean, at least on the 

 American co3iS,X..—rA. Boue^ Journal de Geologic, t. ii. p. 205. 



12 Submarine Forest, iiear Ctillen. — Mr Christie of Banff 

 informs us that a submarine forest exists at the mouth of the 



