SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY, 
115 
W. Lister, in a paper on the drift of Wolverhampton ; for it is evident 
that there lived, in the middle of England, the common Purpura, Winkle, 
Cockle, and other familiar forms, associated with Astarte arctica and shells 
only found in cold seas. 
The way fossil animals died, is sometimes one of their most singular 
features. Frequently chalk-fish not only preserve their natural shape, 
hut have every fin expanded. Often forests of stone-lilies, four or five 
feet high, have been overturned, like a wood by a tornado ; while in 
some rocks, both the older and more recent fish occasionally strew a 
stratum as though an entire shoal had suddenly died. With regard to 
those specimens which seem to have died rigid, the genius of the late 
Professor Forbes — noticing a fisherman dip his cup over a boat in the Irish 
Sea to drink, and finding the star-fishes brought up in the dredge were 
killed on getting into the stratum of nearly fresh water which floated over 
the salt sea — conceived that fish, when in pursuit of prey or fleeing from 
enemies, would sometimes get into this upper layer and, becoming- 
paralyzed, perish in rigid extension. The more general destruction of life 
is not so well accounted for, though the following fact, related by the 
Governor of Madras, helps in its explanation : — 
“ An immense mass of fresh water having been poured into the sea 
during the season of the south-west monsoon, the fish were thereby killed, 
and rendered the sea offensive with the smell for some time after, ‘ The 
very deep did rot.’ ” 
Probably many of the old local exterminations were due to a like 
cause. 
Ethnologists and antiquaries have long been aware of facts indicating a 
very recent uplifting of central Scotland. And Mr. Geikie, putting toge- 
ther antiquities, traditions, and geological facts, has endeavoured to show 
that it has occurred since the occupation of Britain by the Romans. His 
facts are chiefly these : — Round the coast are old sea-margins, now raised 
from twenty to twenty-five feet, and, were the land depressed to that 
amount, the sea overflowing, it would convert into islands a number of 
low hills having the old Celtic word inch (island) incorporated in their 
names. Then there are traditions that some of these had rings attached 
to which boats could be moored, and one old man asserted that, when a 
boy, he saw one of these still hanging to the inland cliff. Moreover, near 
them, under seven or eight feet of stratified gravel and silt, small rude 
iron anchors have been found, and, in one instance, an iron boat-hook in 
no way differing from those now in use. Boats, too, have been found in 
various places considerably above high-water mark and under several feet 
of marine deposit. Some of these are the common rude canoe formed by 
burning out a single tree ; but one built with planks showed considerable 
skill and somewhat resembled a'Roman galley; and, singularly, this, found 
at Glasgow, was associated with the ruder forms, as though belonging to 
conqueror and conquered. 
Further, three skeletons of whales have been found, at a height of 
twenty-five feet, under stiff clay or silt, and -with two of these occm red 
the remains of deer-horn harpoons, one being eight miles inland. And, 
besides, an examination of the old Roman walls shows that they were not 
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