508 



ENCLOSING OF FOSSILS IN PEAT, 



[Ch. XLIV. 



waft away the Libyan sands as gradually as tliey once brought 



them 



Whole 



informs 



ing the Akaba near the head of the Eed Sea, the bones of 



im 



wastes of sands.' 



We did not see,' says Captain Lyon, 



mountains 



Africa, 'the least appearance of vegetation; but observed 



many skeletons oi anim 



desert, and occasionally the grave of some human being. 

 All these bodies were so dried by the heat of the sun, that 

 putrefaction appears not to have taken place after death. 



animals 



smell 



J. C3 



and in those long dead, tlie skin with the 

 hair on it remained unbroken and perfect, although so brittle 

 as to break with a slight blow. The sand- winds never cause 

 these carcasses to change their places ; for, in a short time, 



round them, and they become 



„... mound 



formed 



stationary. 



I floods. — The burying of several 



towns and villages in England, France, and Jutland, 

 blown sand is on record ; thus, for example, near St. Pol de 

 Leon, in Brittany, a whole 



beneath drift sand, so that nothing was seen but the spire of 

 the church.f In Jutland 



village was completely buried 



sometimes 



marine shells adhering to sea- 



height of 100 feet and buried in similar hills of sand. 



Downham 



whelmed by sands which had broken loose about 100 years 



from 



miles 



south-west. This 



sand had, in the course of a century, travelled five miles, and 

 covered more than 100 acres of land.J A considerable tract 

 of cultivated land on the north coast of Cornwall has been 

 inundated by drift sand, forming hills several hundred feet 

 above the level of the sea, and 



com 



of comminuted 



<• 



Travels in North Africa in the 1772. See also the case of the buried 



Years 1818, 1819, and 1820, p. 83. 

 t Mem. de I'Aead. des Sci. de Paris, 



church of Eccles, Vol. I. p. 513. 

 X Phil. Trans, vol. ii. p. 722. 



^ 



■^ 



