1 OK BODIES. 



Xatthew Hale'* /Twtorv o/rtr Oommtm lav, chap- *' : 2 Block. Com., 

 chap, xiv. ; Cruise's Diyat, v..|. iii : Watkins on Ikxtoli. principally 

 treats of curious point*, many of which have oeased to be unporUnt. 

 As to the rattans for the new alteration, we /'* A/>ort </ .KruJ 

 fropartf OommuMun.) 



I BODIES. [FALL or BODIIS.] 



DKSEKTKK.an officer or soldier who, either in time ..f |>eaoe or 

 war, abandons the regiment, battalion, or corps to which ho In-long*, 

 without baring obtained leave, and with the intention not to return. 



As the tart-mentioned circumstance distinguishes the crime of 

 Jliuii from the low grave offence of being absent without leave, it 

 become* neoeasvry, before the conviction of the offender, that evidence 

 ahould be apparent of such intention. The evidence may be obtained 

 generally from the circumstances under which the deerter ia appre- 

 hended ; for example, he may have been found in a carriage or vowel 

 proceeding to a place BO distant an to preclude the possibility of a 

 return to hi* corps in a reasonable time; or letters may have been 

 found in which an intention to desert U expressed ; or aome offer may 

 have been made by him of enlisting in another corps, or of entering 

 into aome other branch of the nervice. 



The civil courts of law, in this country, have ever had authority to 

 try offenders accused of desertion ; but they have long since ceased to 

 exercise such authority, and they now interfere only in the rare case of 

 an appeal from the decision of the court-martial which is held for the 

 purpose of investigating the charge and awarding the punishment. 

 The latter courts are permitted the exercise, to a certain extent, of a 

 discretionary power in proportioning the punishment* to the degrees 

 of criminality in the accused; and such a discretionary power is 

 generally considered more likely to promote the ends of justice than 

 the stern rule pursued in civil courts, where, as the jury see no 

 middle course between a certain degree of punishment and entire 

 Ml, the criminal frequently escapes through their compassion, 

 because the punishment appears disproportionate to the crime. 



The practice of deserting from one regiment or corps, and of enlisting 

 in another, either from caprice or for the sake of a bounty, having been 

 very frequent, a particular clause has been inserted in the Articles of 

 War, in order to prevent this abuse. It declares that any non-com- 

 missioned officer or soldier so acting shall be considered as a deserter, 

 and punished accordingly ; and that any officer who knowingly enlists 

 such offender shall be cashiered. And notwithstanding that such 

 -tment ia unlawful, the soldier who afterwards absconds from 

 the corps is pnnisli.il >le as a deserter; and upon any trial for desertion, 

 any desertion previous or subsequent to that for which the prisoner is 

 being tried, if duly stated in the charges, may be given in evidence 

 against him. Any officer or soldier who may advise or encourage 

 another to desert is also punishable by a general court-martial. 



Absconding from a recruiting party after having received the enlisting 

 money is, after the expiration of ninety-six hours, declared to be 

 desertion, although such recruit, in consequence of his absence, has 

 not been attested. And an apprentice who enlists, representing him- 

 self as free, if he afterwards quit the corps, is esteemed a deserter 

 unless he deliver himself up at the expiration of his apprenticeship. 

 Persons who fraudulently confess themselves to be deserters are liable 

 to serve in any of her Majesty's forces as her Majesty shall think lit 

 to appoint, although such persons have not been actually enlisted as 

 soldiers ; or they may be convicted and punished as rogues and vaga- 

 bonds, or charged with obtaining money under false pretences, and the 

 confession and receiving subsistence as soldiers by such persons are 

 made evidence of the false pretence. 



A non-commissioned officer or soldier who simply absents himself 

 from his corps without leave is exonerated from the graver part of the 

 charge, if any circumstances can be adduced from which it may ] 

 inferred that the absence was intended to be but for a short time. 

 Such circumstances are : goods of value being left behind ; the occu- 

 pation in which the absentee is found to be engaged being in its nature 

 temporary ; an intention of returning having been expressed ; or again, 

 the offender suffering himself to be brought back without resistance. 

 Simple absence without leave is referred to regimental courts-martial 

 merely, and these award the punishment discretionally. 



The Mutiny Act authorises general courts-martial to condemn a 

 culprit to death, should his crime be found to deserve the extreme 

 punishment ; in other cases they may sentence him to a term 

 servitude not less than four years, or to a term of imprisonment, or to 

 corporal punishment not exceeding fifty lashes with imprisonment, 

 ami, in addition thereto, the loss of additional pay, or good < 

 pay, or pension, to which he might have been entitled. 



DESERTS. This word is of very vague signification; it is used 

 generally to designate on uninhabited place, a solitude, and in tl.it 

 sense is equally applicable to the fertile plains watered by the Marafion 

 and the sandy wastes of Libya. It is, however, more exclusively appro- 

 priated to sandy and stony plains. 



Siliceous sand, to which the term most commonly applies, has been 

 originally jiroduccd by tin- disintegration of the crystalline rocks, or by 

 the mechanical comminution of Hint itself, each particle being a frag- 

 ment of quart* or of flint. Among geological changes always proceed- 

 ing to the re-aggregation and consolidation of these grains into na.l,i,,, lf , 

 which, under the continued action of subterranean heat, becomes meta- 

 morphosed into quartz-rock ; and this also, in the lapse of ages, may 



itself become disintegrated, and return to sand again.. Sand is of great 

 importance to man, by reason of the fertility which iU adinixtm 

 clayey soils procures, and by the innumerable usesto which it is applied 

 in the arts. Clays themselves consist of silicate of alumina mingled 

 with silica in a still more minute state of division than that of sand, 

 resulting from the chemical decomposition of felspar, and : 

 minerals altering into the constitution of rocks. Calcareous san< 1 

 uatea sometimes in the disintegration of linuwtone rocks, more rarely 

 in the chemical precipitation of carbonate of lime, but most frequently 

 and abundantly, as in much of the sand of the sea and of rivers, in the 

 comminution of corals and the broken shells of uiollusks, crustacean*, 

 ecbinoderms, and other marine or aquatic animals, the hard parts of 

 which consist of carbonate of lime, mingled with the entire shells of 

 foramiuifera and minute mollusks. Of this last description of calca- 

 reous sand, that of Bermuda is a remarkable example. In many 

 instances siliceous and calcareous sand, and the latter of sever., 

 all kinds, are mixed together. The siliceous is the most permanent, 

 calcareous sand being soluble, and in fact constantly subject t" 

 tion, in rain- and in spring-water charged with carbonic acid. The 

 .-.iii>! of deserts is characteristically (though not exclusively) siliceous, 

 such sand being the most abundant because siliceous rocks predominate 

 in the known crust of the globe, and silica is the most abundant earth 

 in nature. 



It was here remarked in this article, as originally published, tint 

 " in considering the vast seas of sand which cover such an amazing 

 proportion of the earth's surface, we are tempted to believe that 

 there is too much of it, and that it had been better if in its stead 

 mn iic.li meadows and arable land; but since deserts exist, we must 

 remain persuaded that they are necessary to the general economy of 

 the globe." 



But there may be too much of sand, and it may be true that it 

 would be butter if in its stead there was land susceptible of eiilti 

 and yet deserts may be necessary to the general economy of the globe, 

 as it at present exists. We have no d priori knowledge of the true 

 order of nature ; and, besides, deserts, as we shall presently find, con- 

 stitute merely one term of the series of forms which the actual surface 

 of the earth has to take during the ceaseless mutations which r 

 it in a fit condition for the support of organic existence, and finally of 

 man himself. 



A general view of what may be termed the geological philoso: 

 deserts was given by Dr. Ami Bou^, in his explanatory memoir of his 

 geological map of the globe, communicated to the Association of 

 German Naturalists at Gratz in 1843, aud read also to the Geological 

 Society of France in the following year, and published in that s. 

 ' Bulletin,' second series, vol. L, pp. 296-371 (Deserts, pp. 326-327). 

 With some corrections and additions, the following statement 

 view is derived from Dr. Boue's memoir, as given in a condensed form in 

 Keith Johnston's ' Physical Atlas.' 



Among the facts of physical geography of greatest importance 

 towards deciphering the geology of a country, we must rank the 

 locality of <lcerto, or of places where water is rare an : 

 almost or wholly wanting. Deserts, properly so called, infallihlv point 

 out diirtricts of the globe into which, at a comparatively recent geolo- 

 gical epoch, our present seas were prolonged in great gulfs or straits, 

 or which were occupied by actual )/ mt that hare 



peared wholly or in part, and which gradually changed into fresh 

 lakes previous to their escape or entire drying up. [Salt-water lakes, 

 however, have in most cases, if not in all", been an intervening term, 

 and in many instances the only one, as is evident from some of the 

 North African and Persian deserts, among others.] It is, in 

 physical impossibility that a true desert can expose any /. 

 tion ; for every district of that description must sooner or later li.ivc 

 'vored by a more modern deposit, more or less fit for sustaining 

 vegetation. It is undisputed that our marine sandy beaches ;. 

 only formation! now in progress at all identical with deserts ; and that 

 it is only the tertiary- formation, whether of salt or fresh water, and 

 e ipeeially the strata of the arenaceo-cretaceous system, which, by i 

 of the variety of sand.i, gritstones, limestones, and clays which they 

 include, can originate expanses of sand intmpcrtcd with fertile oatti. 

 These facto suffice to demonstrate the modern origin of des. 

 general, and fix, also, in Dr. BOIIO"H opinion, the comparative age 

 ml and white sandstones ..f Northern Africa. We deduce, further, he 

 continues, that the formation of a desert presupposes, the \icinity of 

 curtain strata or rock-masses, the presence of certain inn., 

 and especially a position between great ancient chains of 

 which the water could abrade, in order to form, with the 

 portions of their structure, cither extensive alluviums or strata of 

 sandstone easily disintegrated. To apply these c v>. lind in 



Egypt, in Nubia, in Dongola, towards the south < : ., the 



regency of Tri|wli, in Arabia Pctnca and Arabia Felix, ai 

 the inferior cretaceous formation giving rise to moving Hands . 

 rocks of friable sandstone, like those seen at Mans ami in Saxon Swit- 

 zerland; wliil-t in the rest of Sahara and of IVi.-ia. in Kgypt. in Meso- 

 potamia, on the luniks of the lower Indus, in Central Asia, and \\ 

 Australia, the tertiary strata, or even the alluviums, have the chief 

 share in the production of oceans of Kind interspersed here and there 

 with saline efflorescences. Other strata or rocks arc observed in deserts, 

 ou account of the tendency of the moving soil of the latter to invade' 



