240 Notice of Active mid Extinct Volcanos. 



its very existence to one of the most modern volcanos ; and 

 that he was aware of the nature of such phenomena, appears 

 from a letter extant of his addressed to the Bishop of Vienne, 

 in which, under the apprehension of an attack from the Goths, 

 he informs him that he is going to enjoin public prayers, similar 

 to those which the bishop had established, at the time when 

 earthquakes demolished the walls of Vienne, when the mountains 

 opened and vomited forth torrents of inflamed materials, and the 

 wild beasts, driven from the woods by fire and terror, retired into 

 the town, where they made great ravages.'''' 



Although the formation of these volcanic regions was an- 

 terior to the records of history, it was evidently in the most 

 recent portions, posterior to the existence of organized beings, 

 which are found imbedded in the volcanic tufa. 



" The tuff in some places, as at Salers, is composed of minute 

 fragments so highly charged with oxide of iron, that it has 

 much the appearance of a ferruginous sandstone. In this state 

 it sometimes contains impression of leaves and branches of trees, 

 which appear in no respect mineralized, but carbonized and re- 

 duced to an impalpable powder by the ordinary process of de- 

 cay. In other cases, where the tree has wholly disappeared, the 

 hollow which it occupied in the midst of the tuff still remains. 

 This circumstance tends in a still greater degree to identify the 

 tuff of Auvergne with the trass of the Rhine volcanos. 



" The shells that are found at Gergovia near Clermont, and at 

 Aurillac in Cantal, both belong to the fresh water formation, and 

 the recent discovery of bones belonging to the Mastodon, and 

 to extinct species of several existing genera of animals, in the 

 volcanic tuff of Mount Perrier, near Issoire, completes the re- 

 semblance with the rocks of the Paris basin. 



" This discovery is announced in the Bulletin des Sciences for 

 November 1824, p. 328, in an extract from a memoir read by 

 M. le Comte Laizer at the annual meeting of the Philosophical 

 Society of Clermont in Auvergne. Between Champeix and Is- 

 sore, an elevated platform of basalt and tuff occurs, the latter 

 composed of fragments of pumice and trachyte cemented by the 

 usual argillaceous paste. In this aggregate, are the bones of no 

 less than twenty extinct species of Mammalia, several of which 

 have been pronounced by Cuvier to be new. 



" Among the Pachydermata are, the Mastodon, Elephant, Rhi- 

 noceros, Hippotamus, Tapir. 



" Ruminantia — two species of Ox, like the Auroch, two spe- 

 cies of Stag, : — all four extinct. 



" Rodentia — a Beaver. 



