Ai-RiL 1, 1886.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE 



171 



pleased with such sacrifices, is in itself an idea about as 

 near to blasphemy as any imagination of man's could well 

 come — a truth which was very clearly perceived by the 

 later teachers of the Jewish people, who speak with appi-o- 

 priate warmth of the insult to God which the idea of His 

 being pleased with sacritice assuredly involves. 



Regarded in their natural sense, such ptissages as are 

 emphasised in the following would be almost revolting; but, 

 regarded a-s symbolical, they apj)ropriately suggest recog- 

 nition of the glory, might, and beneticence of the sun as 

 emblems of the qualities men ascribe to Deity : — 



" And in the fii-st month, on the fourteenth day of the 

 month, is the Lord's Passover ; and on the fifteenth day of 

 this month shall be a feast : seven days shall unleavened 

 bread be eaten. On the first day shall be an holy convoca- 

 tion, ye sltaU do no servile work ; but ye shall offer an 

 offering made by fire, a burnt offering unto the Lord ; two 

 youn/j bullocks, and one ram and seven he-lambs oj' the first 

 year; they shall be unto you without blemish: and their 

 mejil offering finejlour mingled vjith oil : three-tenth parts 

 shall ye offer for a bullock, and two-tenth parts for the ram : 

 a several tenth part shalt thou offer for every lamb of the 

 seven lambs : and 07ie he goat for a sin offering to make 

 atonement for you. Ye shall offer these beside the burnt 

 offerings of the morning " (the risings of the Day God and 

 Year God were combined at this season), " which is for a 

 continual burnt offering. After this manner shall ye offer 

 daily, for seven days, the food of the offering made by fire, of 

 a sweet savour unto the Lord ; it shall be offered beside the 

 continual burnt offering, and the drink offering thereof 

 And in the seventh day he shall have an holy convocation ; 

 ye shall do no servile work." 



All this would be very suit;ible at the return of a Sun 

 God, who, if not welcomed with due rejoicings, and by 

 such cessation from labour as only such a God can be 

 supposed to desire, might go back again ; precisely as the 

 f;ist of the atonement six months later was very suitiible at 

 the seeming decay of the same God's power, who unless 

 helped by lamentations and mourning might go out al- 

 together. But all such observances have no fitter reference 

 to the worship of an Almighty Omnipresent Being than the 

 battering of pots and pans with which lower savages strive 

 to anest the departure of the sun in eclipse, or welcome his 

 return soon afterwards (in response, as they believe, to their 

 disturbances). 



It is, however, when we consider the planets that we find 

 the most curious evidence in regard to the old forms of 

 worship. 



COAL 



By W. Mattieu Williajis. 



THE ORIGIN OF COAL SEAMS. 



N the summer of 1855 I took a walk from 

 Munich to Venice, and on mj' way through 

 the Tyrol came upon a lake practicalh' un- 

 known to tourists, the Achen See, which lies 

 nearly due north of Schwaz, about thirty 

 miles from Innsjiruck, quite away from any 

 of the main roads usually followed. It is an 

 oblong basin, a depression of the Achen Thai, bounded by 

 steep and densely-wooded mountain slopes. The water is 

 unusually colourless and cl&ar — so clear that taking a 

 header from a steep bank into its depths was quite a sen.sa- 

 tional exploit ; it appeared like a suicidal plunge over a 

 precipice into thin air. 



It was a hot day in Jul}', and I accordingly revelled in a 

 long swim. Looking down into the clear transparent water 



below me, I was surprised to see a subaqueous forest 

 incre;ising in density as I proceeded farther and farther 

 fi-om the shore. There were trees standing quite upright, 

 trees lying down, and trees leaning at every angle between 

 the perpendicular and horizontal. I was alone, and my 

 only means of further exploration was by diving. ^Vhere 

 the trees were thickest it was too deep for this, but nearer 

 the shore I was able to reach the bottom and bring up some 

 of the soil, which proved to be a loamy powder of grey 

 colour speckled with black particles of vegetable matter, 

 apparently consisting of saily fragments of bark and leaves. 

 I brought up several twigs and small branches, and finally, 

 after a few struggles, succeeded in raising a branch nearly 

 as thick as my arm and about 8 feet long. The difficulty 

 of raising it was caused by the greater part of its length 

 being buried. This I brought ashore to examine at 

 leisure. 



The bark was entirely gone, the wood very dark, and the 

 annular layers curiously loosened and separable from each 

 other, like the layers of an onion. This looseness gradually 

 diminished as I stripped off successive rings, and when the 

 stick was thus reduced to about half its original thickness 

 the wood became so compact that I could strip it no further. 

 It appeared to be a branch of oak, and had become so com- 

 pletely saturated with water that it sank rapidlv. 



My walk from the north end of the lake to its southern 

 extremity — i.e., along its greatest length, about five miles — 

 was always near to the water's edge, thus affording a com- 

 plete panoramic view of its surroundings. This supplied a 

 satisfactory explanation of the source of the great accumu- 

 lation of trees in the lake. Here and there were long bare 

 gaps breaking the continuity of the steep wooded slopes. 

 These long alleys of denuded ground extended from above 

 downwards, and had evidently been stripped of their trees 

 by torrents, or landslips, or some such action. They were 

 the tracks of vegetable avalanches," as shown by the uprooted 

 trees that had escaped the general down-sweep, and were 

 lying by the sides of the tracks. This theory of vegetable 

 avalanches was confirmed by inquiries I made at the village 

 near the southern end of the lake. 



In 1856 I walked through a large part of Norway, and 

 there was reuiinded of the Achen See bj' observing on some 

 of the more precipitins shores of the fjords the ti-acks of tree 

 avalanches. They are well seen in such parts of the great 

 Sognefjord, the main trunk of which runs 120 miles inland, 

 and its branches collectively add about another 1 20 mQes 

 to this. They are still more remarkable on some of the 

 fjords further north, such as the Storfjord and its magni- 

 ficent branches, the Slyngsfjord, the Sunelvsfjord, the 

 Nordalstjord, and the Geirangei-Qord, now made easily 

 accessible to toui-ists by the excursion steam-packet from 

 Stavanger. 



When I visited these in 1874 the tracks of vegetable 

 avalanches were very numerous : two had come down 

 during the last winter, and one in the previous October. 

 The latter destroyed a boathouse and boat, and one of the 

 others came within twenty )-ards of some farm biiildiucrs. 

 As we passed, seeing it from the middle of the fjord, the 

 track appeared nearly in contact with the house. T'hey are 

 so frequent hereabouts that the hardy mountaineers, who 

 cultivate their little freeholds with that pertinacity and 

 productiveness only known where the worker is the free- 

 holder, display very sound dynamical foresight in selecting 

 the sites of their houses. They build them on protrusions 

 of the rock, which deflect the torrent when it descends 

 against it. On rare occasions the shock is too much for the 

 knob of rock, and it is swept down also. Such was the case 

 I in 1735, when the chm-ch of Slyngstad and many houses 

 were destroyed. 



