G8 
GLOSSARY. 
Spain, and other countries. Etym., dun or dune is an Anglo- 
Saxon word for hill. 
Earth's Crust. Such superficial parts of our planet as are acces- 
sible to human observation. 
Elytra. The wing-sheaths, or upper crustaceous membranes, which 
form the superior wings in the tribe of beetles, being crustaceous 
appendages which cover the body and protect the true mem- 
branous wing. Etym., eXv-pov, elytron, a sheath, 
Eocene. See explanation of this word, vol. iii. p. 55. 
Escarpment, the abrupt face of a ridge of high land. Etym., escar- 
per, French, to cut steep. 
Estuaries. Inlets of the land, which are entered both by rivers and 
the tides of the sea. Thus we have the estuaries of the Thames, 
Severn, Tay, &c. Etym. JEstus, the tide. 
Faluns. A provincial name for some tertiary strata abounding in 
shells in Touraine, which resemble in lithological characters 
the ' crag' of Norfolk and Suffolk. 
Fault, in the language of miners, is the sudden interruption of the 
continuity of strata in the same plane, accompanied by a crack 
or fissure varying in width from a mere line to several feet, 
which is generally filled with broken stone, clay, &c, and such 
a displacement that the separated portions of the once con- 
tinuous strata occupy different levels. 
No. 92. The strata o, b, c, &c, 
a ~^^^^^ must at one time have 
% ^M///Mm^_ a p ^../~y ; been continuous, but a 
' — ~_ 5l I §?« fracture having taken 
?> place at the "fault F, 
— — ^l=^^^^L4i" 0 either by the upheaving 
|^^i^£^2^Z of the portion A, or the 
^ v S sinking of the portion B, 
the strata were so displaced, that the bed a in B is many 
feet lower than the same bed a in the portion A. 
Fauna. The various kinds of animals peculiar to a country consti- 
tute its Fauna, as the various kinds of plants constitute its 
Flora. The term is derived from the Fauni, or rural deities in 
Roman Mythology. 
Felspar. A simple mineral, which constitutes the chief material of 
many of the unstratified or igneous rocks. The white angular 
portions in granite are felspar. It is originally a German 
miners' term. Etym., feld, field, and spath, a very old minera- 
