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EURYINa OF FOSSILS IN 



[Cir. XLV. 



In the same country, several hundred cottages, with eighteen 

 of their inhabitants and a great number of cows, goats, and 

 sheep, were victims to the sudden fall of a bed of stones^ 

 thirty yards deep, which descended from the summits of the 

 Diablerets in Yallais. In the year 1618, a portion of Mount 

 Conto fell, in the county of Chiavenna, in Switzerland, and 

 buried the town of Pleurs, with all its inhabitants, to the 

 number of 2,430. 



It is unnecessary to multiply examples of similar local 

 catastrophes, which have been very numerous in mountainous 

 parts of Europe, within the historical period, more especially 

 in regions convulsed by earthquakes. It is there that enor- 

 mous masses of rock and earth, even in comparatively low 

 and level countries, are detached from the sides of valleys, 

 and cast down into the river courses, and often so unexpect- 

 edly that they overwhelm, even in the daytime, every living 

 thing upon the plains. 



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PEESEEVATIO]^ OF OEGAIVTIC EEMAIISTS IN FISSUEES AlI^D CAVES 



In the history of earthquakes it was shown that many 

 hundreds of new fissures and chasms had opened in certain 

 regions during the last 150 years, some of which are 



unfathomable 



We 



that mountain masses have been violently fractured and 

 dislocated, during their rise above the level of the sea ; and 

 thus we may account for the existence of many cavities in 

 the interior of the earth by the simple agency of earthquakes ; 

 but there are some caverns, especially in limestone rocks, 

 which, although usually, if not always, connected with rents, 

 are nevertheless of such forms, and dimensions, alternately 

 expanding into spacious chambers, and then contracting 

 again into narroAV passages, that we cannot suppose them to 

 have owed their origin exclusively to the mere fracturing and 

 displacement of solid masses. 



In the limestone of Kentucky, in the basin of Green River, 

 one of the tributaries of the Ohio, a line of underground 

 cavities has been traced in one direction for a distance of 

 ten miles, without any termination ; and one of the chambers. 



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