172 



LYELL'S ELEMENTS OF GEOLOGY. 



Recent and Newer Pliocene Strata. 



human skeletons. The stone is extremely hard, and chiefly com- 

 posed of comminuted shell and coral, with here and there some 

 entire corals and shells, of species now living in the adjacent 

 sea. With them are included arrow-heads, fragments of pottery, 

 and other fabricated articles. A limestone with similar contents 

 has been formed, and is still forming, in St. Domingo and other 

 islands. But there are also more ancient rocks in the West 

 Indian Archipelago, as in Cuba, near the Havanna, and in other 

 islands in which are shells identical with those now living in 

 corresponding latitudes ; some well preserved, others in casts, all 

 referable to a period which, if we can depend on negative evi- 

 dence, was anterior to the introduction of man into the New 

 World. 



The history of Holland, during the last 2000 years, makes 

 us acquainted with a vast accession of Recent strata, by which 

 parts of the sea near the mouths of the Rhine have been filled 

 up and converted into dry land. But, if we ascend the Rhine, 

 we find throughout its course, from Cologne to the frontiers of 

 Switzerland, a yellow calcareous loam, called loess by the Ger- 

 mans, in which are fossil shells, both freshwater and terrestrial, 

 of common European species. The entire thickness of this loam, 

 amounts in some places to 200 or 300 feet, and it rises from the 

 height of 300 to 1200 feet above the sea. Bones of the mam- 

 moth or extinct elephant, together with those of the horse, and 

 some other quadrupeds, have been met with in this Newer Plio- 

 cene formation, but no remains or signs of man ; and it can be 

 proved that the physical geography of the whole valley of the 

 Rhine has undergone enormous changes since the deposition of 

 this loam. 



No marine strata of the Recent period have yet been brought 

 to light in England which rise to such a height above the level 

 of the sea as the highest tides may not once have reached. 

 Buried ships have been found in the former channels of the 

 Rother in Sussex, of the Mersey in Kent, and Thames near 

 London. Canoes and stone-hatches have been dug up, in almost 

 all parts of the kingdom, in peat and shell-marl ; but there is no 

 evidence, as in Sweden, Italy, Peru, Chih, and other parts of the 

 world, of the bed of the sea, and the adjoining coast, having 

 been uplifted bodily in modern times, so that Recent formations 

 have become land. There are, however, in various parts of 

 Great Britain and Ireland, Newer Pliocene deposits of marine 

 origin, consisting of sand and clay, usually of small thickness ; 

 as, for example, in Cornwall, and near the borders of the great 

 estuaries of the Clyde and Forth, in Scotland, and in that of 

 the Shannon, in Ireland. These are found usually near the 



