572 



IMBEDDING OF AQUATIC SPECIES 



[Ch. XLVIII. 



sometime 



masrnesia 



ingredients. 



Whenever larsre masses 



in contact with ferruginous clay, sulphuret of iron, or iron 

 pyrites, is formed by the union of the sulphur of the plants 

 with the iron of the clay. Many of the mineral character- 

 istics of ancient rocks, especially the alum slates, and the 

 pyrites which occur in clay slate, and the fragments of an- 

 thracite in marine strata, may be explained by the decom- 

 position of fucoids or sea-weeds."^ 



Imbedding of cetacea. — It is not uncommon for the larger 

 Cetacea, which can float only in a considerable depth of 



water, to be carried during 



ms 



or high tides into 



estuaries, or upon low shores, where, upon the retiring of 

 high water, they are stranded. Thus a narwal {Monodon 

 monoceros) was found on the beach near Boston in Lincoln- 

 shire, in the year 1800, the whole of its body buried in the 



A fisherman going to his boat saw the horn, and 

 tried to pull it out, when the animal began to stir" itself. f 

 An individual of the common whale {Balcena mysHcetus), 

 which measured 70 feet, came ashore near Peterhead, in 

 1682. Many individuals of the genus Balsenoptera have met 



mud. 



the same 



It will be sufficient 



refer to those cast 



on shore in the Firth of Forth near Burntisland, and at 



ITeill. The other individual 



mentioned 



Banffshire, was probably a razor-back. Of the genus Catodon 

 {Cachalot), Eay mentions a large one stranded on the west 

 coast of Holland in 1598, a.nd the fact is also commemorated 

 in a Dntch engraving of the time of mnch merit. Sibbald, 

 too, records that a herd of Cachalots, upwards of 100 in 

 number, were found stranded at Cairston, in Orkney. The 

 dead bodies of the larger Cetacea are sometimes found 

 floating on the surface of the waters, as was the case with 

 the immense whale exhibited in London in 1831. And the 



cast ashore near Leith. 



Lamantine {Halicora) 



* Forchhammer, Report British As 

 soc. 1844. 



f Fleming's Brit. Animals, p. 37; in 

 which work other cases are enimierated. 



I 



