102 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
"We see clearly from what lias been stated that our seas are very poor 
in whales ; we can easily count the individuals which have been stranded. 
But was it so in that ancient sea \Aliieh deposited the red and black sand 
of the province of Antwerp ? 
" We shall remark that between the seas of two distinct geological 
epochs there existed, in respect to their great inhabitants, considerable dif- 
ferences, and these differences bear at once on the number of species and 
the quantity of individuals : as rare as they are rare now, as they were 
abundant then. 
"If the chemical composition of the sea has changed like its inhabitants, 
we are still ignorant of it, but we shall not, perhaps, always be so. As 
Ehrenberg has pointed his microscope to the infusoria, and Herschel his 
telescope to the stars, Bunsen and Xirchhoff direct their scrutinizing prism 
oyer the entire world to find out its chemical nature, and they will soon 
tell us, doubtless, whether the Crag Sea contained the same chemical ele- 
ments as the present ocean. May we not expect this from the savants who 
have noted gold and silver in the sun, and have determined the absence 
there of tlie most common metals of the earth, silicium and aluminium ? 
" We have already said, on other occasions, that the Crag Sea nourished 
such a great quantity of seals, dolphins, and whales, that their debris forms, 
in different localities, veritable ossuaries.* Bones of all dimensions are 
there thrown pell-mell ; and we see clearly that tlie skeletons of these great 
cetacea have been, during a long time, the playthings of the water. At 
each tide, shreds of bones and flesh were swept backward and forward by 
the waves, until the soft parts were perfectl}" decomposed. The cetaceans 
only were thrown upon the greatest heights, during the highest tides ; 
and they were sometimes buried in their integrity. f 
" Independently of these legions of cetaceans, a great number of fishes 
frequented the same latitudes ; but there are scarcely any other remains 
than those of the Selachian fishes that have come down to us. The most 
curious is the Carcharodon megalodon, which was not less than seventy 
feet in length, and for which an ox would have been only a mouthful. 
Teeth of the Carcharodon have been left in the Crag, and a very curious 
vertebra. 
It is extraordinary that we find there so few remains of osseous fishes. 
" Perhaps we may find the explanation of the rarity of the ordinary fish 
in the fact that the ziphioid cetaceans predominated in that sea, and that 
the nutriment of these cetacea consists exclusively of cephalopodous mol- 
lusca. The great whales, as we know, feed only on the pteropodous mol- 
luscs, or on particular Crustacea, both of small size. 
"We shall not say anything of the shell-fish, nor the superb corals, 
which peopled at that epoch the basin of Antwerp. It is upon M. Nyst, 
whose conscientious labours are so justly appreciated at home and abroad, 
will devolve the task of some day entertaining you with these interesting 
animals. 
" We should not always think that these fossil bones and their high 
value in a scientific point of view may not have been already appreciated 
by naturalists. For a long time they have been known. These bones 
have often been attributed to giants. Who knows if they do not even 
enter into the legend of the origin of Antwerp ? Be that as it may, the 
* ' Les Grands et les Petits dans le Temps et dans I'Espace,' Bull, de I'Acad. Royale 
de Belgique : 2e serie, t. x. 
t The cetaceans, of which the relies are found in such abuudauce at Saint-Nicolas, 
appear to be under these conditious. ' Ossements Fossiles decouverts a Saint-Nicolas 
en 1859,' Bull, de I'Acad. Roy. de Belgique, 2e serie, t. viii. 
