Inquiries as to Changes in Domestic Animals, fyc. ,271 



sandy deserts and plains, before the face of the country 

 becomes mountainous, or assumes the appearance of karroo 

 tabular hills. 



The first specimen of fossil shells which I received was in the 

 year 1814, a kind of cockle or muscle, with a slit in both valves 

 extending: across nearly half through, — different from any now 

 found in a liviner state. It was given to me as having been 

 found in Cold Bokkeveld. Upwards of twenty specimens I 

 have since gathered near Cedar Mountains. \t the same time 

 I met with a siliceous pebble, evidently fossil coral, tr m the 

 Orange liiver: in 1816, a trilobite and many entrochi of the 

 encrinite, or stone lily, when travelling through the little Karoo 

 in Swellendam district; and since that period I have met with 

 endless numbers of specimens of shells, trilobites, and encrinites, 

 and some nondescript fossil insects or animals, whose original 

 element would appear to have been water Some of th se are 

 very imperfect: some found loose; others in regular deposited 

 beds, as if the waters had gently subsided; others, as if local 

 waters had thrown the original mud or detritus into contused 

 and mixed lumps, now hard rock, containing all kinds together, 

 perfect and imperfect; while others are found as if roundel by 

 the force of a river, chiefly oval as pebbles: on breaking 

 which, beautiful shells and crustaceous animals are found in 

 the centre. I think many of these appear to have existed at, or 

 near the spots in which they are now found ; others must have 

 been carried by some aqueous force, different from any rivers 

 or waters arising from heavy rains now operating on the face of 

 the country from time to time; because, near their periodical 

 beds, along their banks, they are discovered, though sometimes 

 in the courses of the periodical mountain rivulets themselves, but 

 enveloped in hard schist; while on the banks the others are in 

 the soil which is only affected by rains on the surface, and thus 

 here and there arrest the attention of the Geological inquirer. 

 (To be continued.) 



Inquiries respecting certain Changes observed to have 

 taken place in Domestic Animals transported from 

 the old to the new Continent. By M. Roulen, M. D. 

 Abridged from the more full details contained in the 

 Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal for October, 

 1829, p. 326, &c. 



Dn. Rouxen, after a residence of six years in Columbia, states, 

 that of the large quadrupeds which at present occur in that 

 country, the most numerous are those which have been trans- 

 ported from the old continent. His observations were made 



