230 
GEOLOGICAL CHANGES OF THE EAETB* 
hair. These afford an undeniable proof that this s ^ 
had belonged to a race of elephants inhabiting 
region, with which we are now unacquainted, 
means fitted to dwell in the torrid zone It is al*n l! 
that this enormous animal must have been froze’ 
tlie ice at the moment of its death. 
FOSSIL SHELLS, 
At whatever elevations these shells may have beef , (tj 
and however remote from the parts of the globe | 
cupiedby water, it is certain that they were once | 
in the sea, by which they were deposited, 
chain of primitive mountains in Siberia is flanked 
side by a chain of hills inclosing marine shells. ^g{^\;- 
parison of the forms, contexture, and composition) 
shells, as they have been found imbedded in rock*) 
slightest diftl-rence can be detected between several 
of them and those which still inhabit the s<?0. 
raine, in France, a hundred miles from the coast, 
•v' J|. 
nine feet beneath the surface, a bed of fossil 
been found, nine leagues in length, and about t"®. A 
in thickness. Such beds are known to exist in c' 
of Europe ; and in South America, agreeably If 
they are very frequent. . , 
Great Britain abounds in these fossil product' 
I»i 
the clifts of the Isle of Sheppey, bordering on ' 
several varieties 6f the crab, and lobsters near'; .^vJ' 
have been found in a petrified state. Within the ^,1 
Berkshire, . 
lands in the vicinity of Reading, m nerKsmi'.-'. 
dance of oyster-shells have been found, 
entire, and having both their valves united. At 
in Lincolnshire, there are two quarries abounding 
water shells, which are found in a blue stone, 
have been formerly clay, and to have been U 
rated. A bed of shells, twelve feet thick, and 
greenish sand, has been found about a mile front 
in Kent. At Harwich., at the entrance of tb® ^ ,rl>| . 
sandy cliff', fifty feet in height, contains shells, 
there are no le.ss than twenty-eight varieties. , ^psiy 
a moorish ptisture, in Northamptonshire, rnany^^^ jl 
river shells were found j and these were the 
