THE SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
23 
a highly silicious clay, which though sole when 
moist, exhibits a conchoidal Iracture when dry, 
and resembles flint ; in some spots the clay atso 
passes into a kind of menlite. 
In conclusion, Mr. Lyell offers the following 
general observations : The part ot South Caro- 
lina and Georgia which lies between the moun- 
tains and the Atlantic, and of which he exami- 
ned a portion near the Santee and Savannah 
rivers, has a foundation of cretaceous rocks con- 
taining Belemnites, Exogyrae, &c., overlaid first 
by the eocene limestone and marls, and secondly 
by the burr-stone formation with the associated 
red loam, mottled clay, and yellow sand. Ac- 
cording to Mr. Vanuxem’s observations, a ter- 
tiary lignite deposit sometimes intervenes be- 
tween the cretaceous and eocene series. The 
remarkable difference in the tossils of the eocene 
strata at different points, as the Grove on Coo- 
per river, the Santee canal, Vance’s Ferry, 
Shell Bluff, Jacksonborough, and Wilmington, 
might lead, Mr. Lyell states, to the suspicion of 
a considerable succession of minor divisions of 
the eocene period. That the whole are not pre- 
cisely of the same age he is willing to believe,but 
he is inclined to ascribe the difference princi- 
pally to two causes ; 1st, that the number pro- 
cured at each place is small and therefore repre- 
sents only a fractional portion of the entire fau- 
na of the period, so that variations in each lo- 
cality may have arisen from original geogra- 
phical circumstances; and 2ndly, no great 
eocene collection has been made from any part 
of the United States, 
Some of the burr-stone fossils occur in the 
limestone, and Mr. Lyell thinks the former may 
bear to the latter a relation analogous to that 
which the upper marine sands of the Paris ba- 
sin bear to the calcaire grosser. 
With respect to the conclusion stated in the 
beginning ot the paper, that he had been unable 
to find any beds containing an intermixture of 
cretaceous and tertiary fossils, Mr. Lyell says, 
it would require far more extended investiga- 
tions to enable a geologist to declare whether 
there exist in the Southern States any beds of 
passage, but he affirms that the facts at present 
ascertained will not bear out such a conclu- 
sion. 
The generic affinity of the cretaceous fossils 
of the United States to those of Europe, is stated 
to be most striking, and Mr. Lyell observed in 
Mr. Conrad’s collection from Alabama a large 
Hippurite, a point of analogy not previously 
recorded. 
The proportion of recent shells in the eocene 
strata of the United States appears to be as mi- 
nute as in Europe, and the distinctness of the 
eocene and miocene testaceo hitherto observed 
to be as great. Mr. Lyell says, it is also worthy 
of re mark, that the recent shells found in the 
American miocene beds are not only in the same 
proportion to the extinct as those of the Suffolk 
crag, or the Faluns of Touraine, but that they 
also agree specifically in mo&t cases with mo- 
lusca inhabiting the neighboring sea; in the 
same manner as the recent miocene species of 
Touraine agree for the greater part with species 
now living on the Western coast of Prance or in 
the Mediterranean, and as the recent testaeea oj 
the crag are identifiable with species belonging 
to the British seas. This result appears to Mr. 
Lyell to confirm the accuracy of conchological 
determinations ; for if, on the contrary, it should 
be maintained, that the number of recent species 
is so enormous, and different species resemble 
each other so closely as to have produced iden- 
tifications from the mere difficulty of effecting 
discriminations, he would suggest that in that 
case, according to a fair calculation of chances, 
nine-tenths of the American miocene species 
hitherto identified ought to have been assimila- 
ted to exotic shells, instead of havingbeen found 
to agree with some portions of the limited fauna 
at present known on the American shores. The 
same argument, he adds, is clearly applicable to 
the identifications which have been made of fos- 
sil and recent shells in the European tertiary 
formations. — Philadelphia, Magazine. 
The great step to greatness is to be honest. 
KEEPING UATTLE WARM. 
If we look abroad at the habits or necessities 
of people, we find that as we advance from south 
to north, the consumption of animal food in- 
creases. In hot climates, under the tropics lor 
instance, the diet is almost exclusively a vege- 
table one. Under a latitude of forty or fifty de- 
grees, we require considerable animal food— if 
we advance to the frozen regions of the north, 
whale oil and bears’ fat, are found among ffie 
luxuries of the board. These gross materials, 
almost to the exclusion of vegetables, are there 
found indispensable to keep up the necessary 
supply of nutrition and warmth. It has been 
long known both to chemists and observing men, 
that a cold atmosphere requires an extra quan- 
tity of food to sustain life and health; and this 
observation is just as applicable to the cattle 
and horses whose home is at our barns, as it is 
to our own species. If they are kept warm — 
housed fiom the storm, and shielded from un- 
necessary exposure, they will need less food 
than if left unprotected through the winter in the 
open yard. In point of economy, then, as well 
as from kindliness of feeling, it is our interest 
to look to the comfort of our stock. The winter 
profit to be realized from milch eows,is unques- 
tionably much affected by their treatment in this 
respect, and every one who would make the 
most of his cattle in this latitude, must carefully 
attend to their comfort. I copy the following 
remarks from the fourth part of Johnston’s Agri- 
cultural lectures, as particularly in point. There 
is much practical matter in them, that may be 
made available by every intelligent farmer. The 
extracts now forwarded for the Cabinet, will, I 
think, confirm this assertion.— F’ar. Cab. n. s. 
“The degree of warmth in which the animal 
is kept, or the temperature of the atmosphere, in 
which it lives, affects the quantity of food which 
the animal requii es to eat. The heat of the ani- 
mal is inseparably connected with its respira- 
tion. The more frequently it breathes, the 
warmer it becomes, and the more carbon it 
throws off from its lungs. It is believed, indeed, 
by many, that the main purpose of respiration 
is to keep up the heat of the body, and that this 
heat is produced very much in the same way 
as in a common fire, by a slow combusiion of 
that carbon which escapes in the shape of car- 
bonic acid from the lungs. Place a man in a 
cold situation, and he will either starve or he 
will find some means of warming himself. He 
will probably take exercise, and by this means 
cause himself to. breathe quicker. But to do 
this for a length of time, he must be supplied 
with more food. For not only does fie give off 
more carbon from hia lungs, hut the exercise he 
takes causes a greater natural waste also of the 
substance of his body. 
“So it is with all animals. The greater the 
difference between the temperature of the body 
and that of the atmosphere in which they live, 
the more food they require to ‘feed the lamp of 
life,’ — to keep them warm, that is, and to sup- 
ply the natural waste. Hence the importance 
ot plantations as a shelter from cold winds, to 
grazing stock — of open sheds, to protect fatten- 
ing stock from the nightly dews and colds— and 
even of closer covering to quiet and gentle 
breeds of cattle or »heep, which feed without 
restlessness, and quickly fatten. 
“ A proper attention to the warmth of his cat- 
tle or sheep, therelore, is of great practical con- 
sequence to the feeder of stock. By keeping 
them warm, he diminishes the quantity of food 
which is nece.ssary to sustain them, and leaves a 
larger portion for production of beef or mutton. 
“Various experiments have been lately pub- 
lished which confirm the opinions above dedu- 
ced from theoretical considerations. Of these 
I shall only mention one by Mr. Childers, in 
which twenty sheep were folded in the open 
field, and twenty ot nearly equal weight, were 
placed under a shed in a yard'. Both lots were 
fed for three months— January, February, and 
March— upon turnips, as many as they chose fft 
eat, half a pound of linseed cake, and half a 
pint of barley each sheep, per day, wjth a little 
hay and salt. The sheep in the field consumed 
the same quantity of food, all the barley and oil 
cake, and about 19 lbs. ot turnips per day, from 
the first to last, and increased on the whole 36 
stone 8 lbs. Those under the shed consumed 
at first as much food as the others, but alter the 
third week they eat 2 lbs. ot turnips each less in 
the day, and in the ninth week, again 2 lbs. less, 
or only 15 lbs. a day. Of the linseed cake, they 
also eat about one-third less than the other lot, 
and yet they increased in weight Mstone 6 lbs., 
or 20 stone more than the others. 
“ Thus the cold and exercise in the field 
caused the one lot to convert more of their food 
into dung, and the other more of it into mutton, 
“The absence of light has also a material 
influlence upon the effects of food increasing the 
size of animals. Whatever excites attention in 
an animal, awakens, disturbs, or makes it rest- 
less, appears to increase the natural waste, and 
to dim inish the effect of food in rapidly enlarging 
the body. The rapidity with which fowls are 
fattened in the dark, is well known to rearers of 
poultry. In India, the habit prevails of sewing 
up the eyelids of the wild hog-deer, the spotted 
deer, and other wild animals, when netted in the 
jungles, with the view of taming and speedily 
fattening them. The absence of light indeed, 
however produced, seems to soothe and quiet 
all animals, to dispose them to rest, to make 
less food necessary, and to induce them to store 
up more of what they eat, in the form of fat and 
muscle. 
“ An experiment made by Mr. Morton, on the 
feeding of sheep shows the effect at once of 
shelter, of quiet, and of the absence of light upon 
the quantity of food eaten, and or mutton pro- 
duced from it. ^ . vi 
“Five sheep of nearly equal weights, were 
fed each with a pound of oats a day, and as 
much turnips as they chose to eat. One was fed 
in the open air, two in an open shed — one of 
them being confined in a crib — two more were 
fed in a close shed in the dark, and one of these 
also was confined in a erib, so as to lessen as 
much as possible the quantity of exercise it 
should take. The increase of live weight in 
each of the five, and the quantity of turnips they 
respectively consumed, appear in the following 
table; 
Live Weight. 
Nov. ISlMar 9 
Increase 
Turneps 
eaten. 
Incr. loi 
each lUl 
lbs. 
lbs. 
lbs. 
lbs. lbs. 
lbs. 
Unsheltered ........... 
108 
131 7 
23.7 1912 
1.2 
In open sheds... 
102 
129.8 
27.8 1394 
2.0 
do. but confined in cribs 
108 
130.2 
22.2 
1238 
1 8 
In close shed in the dark 
104 
132.4 
28.4 
886 
3.1 
do. butconfined in cribs 
111 
131 3 
20 3 
SS6 
2.4 
“ From this table it appears, as we should 
have expected — 
“That much less— one-third less— turnips 
were eaten by the animal which was sheltered 
by the open shed, than by that which was with- 
out shelter, while in live weight it gained four 
pounds more. 
“That in the dark the quantity cf turneps 
eaten was one half less, and the increase of 
weight a little greater still. But that when con- 
fined in cribs— though the food eaten might be 
a little less — the increase in weight was not so 
great. The animal, in tact, was fretful, and 
restless in confinement, and whatever produces 
this effect upon an animal, prevents or retards 
its fattening. 
“That the most profitable return of mutton 
from the food consumed, is wbeq the animal is 
kept under shelter and in the dark. 
“Such a mode of keeping animals, however, 
must not be entered upon hastily, or without 
due consideration. The habits of the breed 
must be taken into account; the effect of con- 
finement upon their health must he frequently 
attended to, and above all the ready admission 
of fresh air and a good ventilation must not be 
forgotten. By a neglect of the proper precau- 
tions, unfortunate results have frequentlj!- been 
obtained, and a sound practice brought into dis- 
repute.’" 
