1013 



TKKRAPENE. 



TERTIARY STRATA. 



10H 



part* of their Bower* being 6 and it* multiple ; in the calyx being 

 distinct from the corolla ; in their twisted activation, and in their 

 thin ina Ihereut cotyledon*. They nave also relations with Ifyptrica- 

 cttt and Martyraariacta. The plants of this order are principally 

 inhabitants of Asia and America ; one species only is a native of 

 Africa. [THEA ; CAMELLIA; COCHLOSPERXUM.] 



TERRAPE'XE, or TERAPIN. [CiUttOMA.] 



TKKRICOLA. [AXKELIDA.] 



TERRIER (Oana familiarit Terraritu), a variety of the Dog 

 remarkable for the eagerness and courage with which it goes to earth, 

 and attacks all those quadrupeds which come under the gamekeeper's 

 denomination of Vermin, from the Fox to the Rat. 



The breed of Terriers recommended in the old times when the 

 huntsman went on foot, was from a Beagle and Mongrel Mastiff, or 

 from any small thick-skinned dog that had courage. Thus the coat 

 and courage were supposed to come from the Cur, and the giving 

 tongue from the Beagle. The time for entering the young terriers at 

 a fox or badger was when their age was ten or twelve months, with 

 an old terrier to lead them on. When entered at a fox, and the old 

 one was taken, the young terriers were set to attack the cubs unas- 

 sisted, and when they killed them, both young and old terriers were 

 rewarded with the blood and livers fried with cheese, with fox's or 

 badger's grease: at the same time the dogs were shown the heads 

 and skins to encourage them. There were other ceremonies recom- 

 mended, too cruel to be repeated, and which could have been of little 

 or no service. Honest Dandie Dinmont's mode of entering his Pepper 

 and Mustard generations is as good as can be practised. 



A cross of the Terrier with the Bull-Dog for the purposes of badger- 

 baiting, tc., was at one time much in vogue. Of this breed was the 

 celebrated dog Billy, famous for the destruction of rats. He was 

 often turned into a room with 100 of those animals, and he frequently 

 killed every one of them in less than seven minute*. 



TERTIARY STRATA, the title given by almost universal consent 

 of geologists to the uppermost great group of strata. Previous to the 

 publication of the ' Essay on the Geology of the Basin of Paris," by 

 Messrs. Cuvier and Brongniart, in 1810, but little attention had been 

 awakened to this great mass of deposits, though the familiar use of 

 the terms primary and secondary, and the acknowledged dissimilitude 

 between the latest of these strata and modern accumulations from 

 water, in respect of mineral aggregation and organic exuviae, seemed 

 to be prophetic of the discovery of a newer type more in harmony 

 with existing nature. 



The extent to which, over great tracts in all quarters of the globe, 

 this type has been found to prevail, is exceedingly great : most of the 

 capital cities of Europe are built upon tertiary strata ; many of the 

 broadest plains and widest valleys in the New and the Old 1 World are 

 nothing but the dried beds of seas and lakes of the tertiary period : 

 and some considerable mountain ranges bear on their high summits, 

 and still more abundantly on their flanks, portions of the shelly 

 tertiary strata which were uplifted from their original horizontally 

 and subjected to the convulsive movements of which the mountain 

 range* are the result. In almost every part of the globe strata of this 

 tertiary series prevail, and yield astonishing numbers of shells, corals, 

 (,'nutacta, and other remains of marine, fresh-water, and terrestrial 

 Interttbrata, and more locally abundant layers of fishes, and rich 

 de]>osiU of bones of Mammalia, ic. Possessing so many attractions, 

 and affording such unusual facilities for study, the tertiary strata of 

 Italy, France, England, Northern Europe, the eastern states of North 

 America, the great tract* of Brazil, Patagonia, Ac., have been the 

 theatre of great and laborious investigations, which have brought 

 forward our knowledge of these deposit* to at least an equal advance 

 with that of the older strata. 



More than this can hardly be said with justice ; for though, in 

 consequence of the gnat similitude between the agencies concerned 

 ic producing modern accumulations of sediment* and organic exuviae, 

 and those which produced the tertiary strata, the minute history of 

 particular portions of these is almost completely known, their general 

 history is imperfectly comprehended, because the original formation 

 of those strata was performed under as great a variety of local con- 

 ditions as the accumulations of sands and shells on the actual sea-bed, 

 and because, since their production and elevation from seas or lake* 

 t<> form dry land, they have, from their surface position and inferior 

 induration, been more subject to superficial waste and destruction 

 than the older, more sheltered, and more consolidated strata. The 

 in* ompletenew of our knowledge of the general history of the tertiary 

 trata is evident by the incompleteness of the clas.ific.Uiou which 

 npmrnti that history, and on this point, the only one which it appear* 

 necessary here to discuss, we shall oner a few remarks. Among the 

 primary and secondary strata [OioLour] subdivision* corresponding 

 to /"ow*"** tim<>< of P r<Klu <*on have been found practicable and 

 definable, and traceable over immense areas by means of a combina- 

 tion of mineral, structural, and organic characters. Limestones of 

 certain kinds, a* chalk, oolite, magnesiaa-limestone, accompanied with 

 green, brown, or red arenaceous and argillaceous beds, and holding 

 Xixitangi, A/nvcrmila, or J'altonitci, mark and distinguish cretaceous, 

 oolitic, and magnesian formations and systems of secondary strata 

 corresponding to the carboniferous and other older system* of rocks. 

 Thi* ha* not been found so practicable in regard to the tertiary strata, 



which, though presenting many different sorts of strata, offer in the 

 manner of combination amongst these too many general analogic*, 

 and too much of local difference, to be conveniently ranged into 

 formation* or systems having more than a local value, by means of 

 mineral and structural characters. 



Some assistance towards the desired classification appeared to be 

 furnished by the alternation of marine and fresh-water sediment*, a* 

 in the Isle of Wight, and in the Basin of Paris, and hence the titles of 

 Upper and Lower Marine, Upper and Lower Freshwater Deposit* 

 acquired a considerable application. But the most successful and 

 probably best-founded classification of tertiary strata rests upon a 

 study of their organic contents. 



It has been long remarked that in those strata, wherever they 

 occur, the forms of animal and vegetable life make a near approach, 

 even specifically, to living types. By careful examination, a certain 

 number of species have been found in tertiary strata actually identical 

 with or undistinguuhable from living objects. The proportion in 

 which these still living species are mixed with now extinct (or 

 believed to be extinct) forms varies, so that in Sicily tertiary bed* 

 occur with above 90 per cent, of still living species of sheila, but in 

 the basins of London and Paris others are found containing only 

 about 5 per cent. 



There are reasons independent of these proportions, which leave no 

 doubt that the strata near Londou and Paris, which contain only 

 5 per cent, of living forms, are among the oldest of tertiary bed* ; 

 while the Sicilian beds, which contain only about 5 per cent of extinct 

 species, are among the most recent. 



Views of this kind generalised lead to a speculation which is 

 strongly confirmed by the general current of geological discovery, 

 that the relative antiquity of tertiary strata may be judged of by the 

 relative proportion of extinct species of shells which are found in 

 them. On this postulate M. Deshaye* and Sir Charles Lyell havo 

 founded the most prevalent modem classification of tertiary strati, 

 which may be thus briefly sketched : 



Recent Period. 



Newer Pleiocene Period, the strata containing not above 10 extinct 

 species in 100. 



Older Pleiocene Period, the strata containing about 50 or 60 extinct 

 species in 100. 



Mciocene Period, the strata containing about 80 extinct special 

 in 100. 



Eocene Period, the strata containing about 95 extinct species in 100. 

 Secondary Period. 



(These terms are taken from the Greek tccurdt, recent, combined with 

 AW, more, pttur, less, and tius, the dawn). 



The principle of per centage employed by Sir Charles Lycll iu this 

 classification should not be strongly objected to on account of it* 

 rigorous numerical results being sometimes found locally inapplicable. 

 It is impossible that this should be otherwise, for the numerical 

 proportions of organic life must always vary in proportion to local 

 conditions as well as to the general succession of physical influences ; 

 but that the great cause of the systematic variations of the forms of 

 plants and animals in successive geological periods, whether primary, 

 secondary, or tertiary, is the successive and systematic change of 

 physical circumstances influential on organic life, appears amply 

 proved. There appears no good reason to doubt that the variations 

 of individual organisations, and the numerical proportions of their 

 combinations, are in harmony with and indicative of the successive 

 physical conditions when they lived, and consequently of the successive 

 periods to which these physical conditions belonged. The comparison 

 of individual fossil and living forms is merely one mode, and that not 

 the most general or important, of manifesting the numerical con- 

 stants of organic life of the several geological periods. By some other 

 less obvious arithmetical processes, the relative analogies of ancient 

 and modern nature may be made to appear numerically, independent 

 of any such specific comparisons, and without limitation of geological 

 age or geographical region. This has been attempted in regard to 

 the I'alteoxoic fossils generally, and to the fossils of Devonshire specially, 

 and the result affords remarkable encouragement to the application of 

 rigorous calculations based on exact data representing the numbers of 

 distinctly recognisable forms of different groups of organic remains, 

 whether these be of living or extinct tribe*. 



We have only further to remark, that the tertiary strata are far more 

 distinctly defined and separated from the uppermost secondary strata 

 than from the recent deposits of water. In fact the most natural 

 classification of tertiary volcanic products, tertiary strata, and tertiary 

 organic remains, is with the living creation. In tertiary strata the 

 phenomena of mineral accumulation seem to be such a* are witnessed 

 in daily operation : they contain marine, littoral, and pelagic deposits ; 

 .estuary and fiuviatile sediment* ; lacustrine beds hardly distinguish- 

 able from such as are now in progress. In these sediments occur 

 remains of a system of terrestrial and aquatic life as complete (if 

 we except reasoning man) as that now in activity ; and if the absence 

 of man, and the animals which seem to be associated with him for his 

 comfort and advantage in the actual creation, be thought a sufficient 

 reason to remove from historic time the account of tertiary deposits, 

 and to justify the adoption of a distinct quaternary or modern period 



