300 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



column in certain fossil reptiles, analogous to that observed in many 

 fish, both living and fossil. This discovery appears to mc as important 

 in a geological as in a physiological point of view." 



M. Wencelides writes, from Hermannstadt (Transjdvania), on the 

 sand-banks of the Pacific Ocean. He thinks that many of them, 

 especially those of the Indian Archipelago, ought to be explored. "It 

 might be done," he says, " without difficult}^, and would be useful to 

 the arts, inasmuch as those sand-banks would, no doubt, be found to 

 contain the same precious metallic ores that are now observed in the 

 alluvial formations of the neighbouring coasts, of which the sand-banks 

 in question appear to be a prolongation." In a letter upon some earth- 

 quakes at the Cape of Good Hope, to which we shall refer again 

 shortly, M. de Castelnan, French Consul, says that during these 

 phenomena, " the lower animals appeared as frightened as the men." 

 This came to H. Boussingault's ears, who feels inclined, from his own 

 observations, to uphold a contrary opinion. This distinguished naturalist 

 and traveller tells us, that during the violent earthquakes he witnessed 

 in South America, he observed that certain animals showed, with 

 regard to this terrible phenomenon, the utmost indiff'erence. As M. 

 Boussingault was at that time living in a house constructed entirely of 

 bamboo-stems and the leaves of palm-trees, he was not threatened with 

 being crushed to death by the falling-in of his establishment, had such 

 an event taken place. He v/as, therefore, perfectly at liberty to observe 

 the most awful phenomena of this kind at his ease. The following 

 lines, written during his stay in South America, are taken from one of 

 his MS. note-books : — "At six o'clock in the evening I was sitting in 

 my chamber, when I suddenly felt a violent shock ; it appeared to me 

 that some one was trying to force open the door of my habitation, but, 

 as the shaking movement continued, I went out, and found my servants 

 on their knees praying in the utmost consternation. The earth oscillated 

 horizontally without ceasing, and in a north-west and south-east 

 direction. This lasted for five or six minutes. . . . During the phenomena 

 two goats that were in my field remained quietly reposing on the 

 ground. Two mules which were standing at a little distance con- 

 tinued to graze, as if nothing remarkable were taking place, and as if 

 the ground had been perfectly still. My cat, profiting by the disorder 

 into which our kitchen was thrown, actually committed a theft by 

 running off with a piece of meat. . . .When the earth had ceased moving, 

 we heard sixteen detonations, at intervals of thirty seconds. The noise 

 of each was instantaneous, or without rumbling, and resembled the 

 report of distant cannon in a south-easterly direction." 



