Part 54

There appear to be three living species of rhinoceros: 1. That of India, a unicorn, with a rugose coat, and with incisors, separated, by a space, from the grinders. 2. That of the Cape, a bicorn, the skin without rugæ, and having twenty eight grinders, and no incisors. 3. That of Sumatra, a bicorn, the skin but slightly rugose, thus far resembling that of the Cape, but having incisive teeth, like that of India. The fossil remains of the rhinoceros have been generally found in the same countries where the remains of elephants have been found; but they do not appear to have so generally excited attention; and, perhaps, but few of those who discovered them were able to determine to what animal they belonged. Thus a tooth of this animal is described by Grew merely as the tooth of a terrestrial animal; and the remains of this animal, found in the neighborhood of Canterbury, were supposed to have belonged to the hippopotamus. The first remains of this species, of which positive mention is made, were collected in England, in 1668, near Canterbury, in the course of digging a well. In 1751, a large number of bones of this kind were disinterred in the chain of the Hartz, and their form caused them at first to be taken for those of elephants; but the celebrated anatomist, Meckel, having compared one of the teeth found in this heap with the teeth of the living rhinoceros he had observed at Paris, proved, in an explicit manner, and by the same method which has yielded us such knowledge of lost species, that the bones found in the Hartz were the bones of the rhinoceros. Thence the path was clearly opened for all the paleontological researches on this kind of fossil. Twenty years after the discovery made on the slopes of the Hartz, a much more extraordinary discovery, of which Siberia was the scene, threw a truly striking light upon the question. A fossil rhinoceros, not reduced to bones alone, but entire, with its skin, was found in the month of December, 1771, on the borders of the Wiluji, a river which flows into the Lena, below Yakoutsk, in Siberia, in the forty-fourth degree of latitude. What characterized this individual, which was covered with hair, proves that the species to which it belonged, differing from that of warm countries, the only one we now know, was created to inhabit cold and temperate regions. Unfortunately, the skin of this precious animal has not been preserved. Since that time, constant attempts have been made to discover the bones of the rhinoceros, in a multitude of countries of northern Europe and Asia; and M. Cuvier, in his “Researches on Fossil Bones,” has given minute descriptions of them; but unfortunately, no individual as complete as that of Wiluji has since been discovered.

FOSSIL REMAINS OF THE SIBERIAN MAMMOTH.

It has been demonstrated by Cuvier, that this animal was of a different species from the mastodon, or American mammoth. Its bones have been found in the alluvial soil near London, Northampton, Gloucester, Harwich, Norwich, in Salisbury plain, and in other places in England; they also occur in the north of Ireland; and in Sweden, Iceland, Russia, Poland, Germany, France, Holland, and Hungary, the bones and teeth have been met with in abundance. Its teeth have also been found in North and South America, and abundantly in Asiatic Russia. Pallas says, that from the Don to the Tchutskoiness, there is scarcely a river that does not afford the remains of the mammoth, and that they are frequently imbedded in _alluvial soil, containing marine productions_. The skeletons, a view of one of which is given in the cut below, are seldom complete; but the following interesting narrative will show that, in one instance, the animal has been found in an entire state.

[Illustration: SKELETON OF THE SIBERIAN MAMMOTH.]

In the year 1799, a Tungusian fisherman observed a strange shapeless mass projecting from an ice-bank, near the mouth of a river in the north of Siberia, the nature of which he did not understand, and which was so high in the bank as to be beyond his reach. The next year he observed the same object, which was then rather more disengaged from among the ice, but was still unable to conceive what it was. Toward the end of the following summer, 1801, he could distinctly see that it was the frozen carcass of a huge animal, the entire flank of which, and one of its tusks, had become disengaged from the ice. In consequence of the ice beginning to melt earlier, and to a greater degree than usual, in 1803, the fifth year of this discovery, the enormous carcass became entirely disengaged, and fell down from the ice-crag on a sand-bank forming part of the coast of the Arctic ocean. In the month of March of that year, the Tungusian carried away the two tusks, which he sold for fifty rubles, about thirty-eight dollars.

Two years afterward this animal still remained on the sand-bank, where it had fallen from the ice; but its body was then greatly mutilated. The peasants had taken away considerable quantities of its flesh to feed their dogs; and the wild animals, particularly the white bears, had also feasted on the carcass; yet the skeleton remained quite entire, except that one of the fore legs was gone. The entire spine, the pelvis, one shoulder-blade, and three legs, were still held together by their ligaments, and by some remains of the skin; and the other shoulder-blade was found at a short distance. The head remained, covered by the dried skin, and the pupil of the eyes was still distinguishable. The brain also remained within the skull, but a good deal shrunk and dried up; and one of the ears was in excellent preservation, still retaining a tuft of strong bristly hair. The upper lip was a good deal eaten away, and the under lip was entirely gone, so that the teeth were distinctly seen. The animal was a male, and had a long mane on its neck.

The skin was extremely thick and heavy, and as much of it remained as required the exertions of ten men to carry away, which they did with considerable difficulty. More than thirty pounds of the hair and bristles of this animal were gathered from the wet sand-bank, having been trampled into the sand by the white bears, while devouring the carcass. The hair was of three distinct kinds: one consisting of stiff black bristles, a foot or more in length; another of thinner bristles, or coarse flexible hair, of a reddish-brown color; and the third of coarse reddish-brown wool, which grew among the roots of the hair. These afford an undeniable proof that this animal had belonged to a race of elephants inhabiting a cold region, with which we are unacquainted, and by no means fitted to dwell in the torrid zone. It is also evident that this enormous animal must have been frozen up by the ice at the moment of its death.

FOSSIL SHELLS.

At whatever elevations these shells may have been found, and however remote from the parts of the globe now occupied by water, it is certain that they were once generated in the sea, by which they were deposited. The Altain chain of primitive mountains in Siberia is flanked on each side by a chain of hills inclosing marine shells. On a comparison of the forms, contexture and composition of these shells, as they have been found imbedded in rocks, not the slightest difference can be detected between several varieties of them and those which still inhabit the sea. At Touraine, in France, a hundred miles from the ocean, and about nine feet beneath the surface, a bed of fossil shells has been found nine leagues in length, and about twenty feet in thickness. Such beds are known to exist in every part of Europe; and in South America, according to Ulloa, they are very frequent.

Great Britain abounds in these fossil productions. In the cliffs of the isle of Sheppey, bordering on the Thames, several varieties of the crab, and lobsters nearly whole, have been found in a petrified state. Within the elevated lands in the vicinity of Reading, in Berkshire, an abundance of oyster-shells has been found, many of them entire, and having both their valves united. At Broughton, in Lincolnshire, there are two quarries abounding in fresh-water shells, which are found in a blue stone, supposed to have been formerly clay, and to have been gradually indurated. A bed of shells, twelve feet thick, and lying in a greenish sand, has been found about a mile from Reculver, in Kent. At Harwich, at the entrance of the river, a sandy cliff, fifty feet in hight, contains shells, of which there are no less than twenty-eight varieties. On digging a moorish pasture, in Northamptonshire, many snails and river shells were found; and these were the more abundant in proportion as the workmen proceeded to a greater depth. And, lastly, the petrifactions known by the name of _belemnites_, have been found in chalk pits, in different parts of the kingdom: they are usually cylindrical, or conical, and sometimes contain a hollow nucleus. They are supposed to constitute a species of nautilus, and very frequently occur in the coarser kinds of marble.

SUBTERRANEAN FORESTS.

In the year 1708, a breach made by the Thames, at an extraordinary high tide, inundated the marshes of Dagenham and Havering, in Essex. Such was the impetuous rush of the water, that a large passage or channel was torn up, three hundred feet in width, and in some parts twenty feet in depth. In this way, a great number of trees, that had been buried there many ages before, were exposed to view. With one exception, that of a large oak, having the greatest part of its bark, and some of its heads and roots in a perfect state, these trees bore a greater resemblance to alder than to any other description of wood. They were black and hard, and their fibers were extremely tough. No doubt was entertained of their having grown on the spot where they lay; and they were so numerous, that in many places they afforded steps to the passengers. They were imbedded in a black oozy soil, on the surface of which they lay prostrate, with a covering of grey mold.

In passing along the channel torn up by the water, vast numbers of the stumps of these subterraneous trees, remaining in the posture in which they grew, were to be seen, some with their roots running down, and others branching and spreading about in the earth, as is observed in growing trees. That they were the ruins, not of the deluge, but of a later age, has been inferred from the existence of a bed of shells, which lies across the highway, on the descent near Stifford bridge, leading to South Okendon. At a perpendicular depth of twenty feet beneath this bed of shells, and at the distance of nearly two hundred feet, in the bottom of the valley, runs a brook which empties itself into the Thames at Purfleet. This brook is known to ebb and flow with the Thames; and, consequently, if the bed of shells, as has been conjectured, was deposited in that place by an inundation of the Thames, it must have been such as to have drowned a vast proportion of the surrounding country, and have overtopped the trees near the river, in West Horrock, Dagenham, and the other marshes, overturning them in its progress. In support of this hypothesis, it should be remarked, that the bed of earth in which the trees grew, was entire and undisturbed, and consisted of a spongy, light, oozy soil, filled with the roots of reeds, of a specific gravity much less than that of the stratum above it.

The levels of Hatfield chase were, in the reign of Charles I., the largest chase of red deer in England. They contained about one hundred and eighty thousand acres of land, about one-half of which was yearly inundated; but being sold to one Vermuiden, a Dutchman, he contrived, at a great labor and expense, to dischase, drain, and reduce these lands to arable and pasture grounds not subject to be overflowed. In every part of the soil, in the bottom of the river Ouse even, and in that of the adventitious soil of all marsh land, together with the skirts of the Lincolnshire wold, vast multitudes of the roots and trunks of trees of different sizes are found. The roots are fixed in the soil, in their natural position, as thick as they could have grown; and near to them lie the trunks. Many of these trees appear to have been burned, and others to have been chopped and squared; and this in such places, and at such depths, as could never have been opened, since the destruction of the forest, until the time of the drainage. That this was the work of the Romans, who were the destroyers of all the woods and forests which are now found underground in the bottoms of moors and bogs, is evidenced by the coins and utensils, belonging to that nation, which have been collected, as well in these levels, as in other parts of Great Britain where these subterraneous forests have been discovered.

MOORS, MOSSES AND BOGS.

It having been reported in Lincolnshire, that a large extent of islets of moor, situated along its coast, and visible only at the lowest ebbs of the tide, was chiefly composed of decayed trees, Dr. de Serra, accompanied by Sir Joseph Banks, proceeded, in the month of September, 1796, to examine their nature and extent. They landed on one of the largest of these islets, when the ebbs were at the lowest, and found its exposed surface to be about ninety feet in length, and seventy-five in width. They were enabled to ascertain, that these islets consist almost entirely of roots, trunks, branches, and leaves of trees and shrubs, intermixed with leaves of aquatic plants. The remains of many of the trees were still standing on their roots; but the trunks of the greater part of them lay scattered on the ground, in every direction. The bark of the trees and roots appeared in general as fresh as when they were growing; in that of the birches particularly, many of which were found, even the thin silvery membranes of the outer skin were discernible. The timber of all kinds, on the contrary, was decomposed and soft, in the greater part of the trees; in some it was firm, especially about the knots. Sound pieces of timber had been often found by the country people. In general, the trunks, branches and roots of the decayed trees were considerably flattened; a phenomenon which has been observed in the _surtarbrand_, or fossil wood of Iceland, and also in that found near the lake of Thun, in Switzerland. The soil was chiefly composed of rotten leaves; and, on being thrown into water, many of these were taken out in a perfect state.

These islets extended about twelve miles in length, and one in breadth, opposite the shore of Sutton, at which place, on digging a well, a moor of the same nature was found under ground, at the depth of sixteen feet, and, consequently, very nearly on the same level with that which constitutes the islets. On boring in the fields belonging to the Royal Society, in the parish of Mablethorpe, to ascertain the cause of the subterraneous stratum of decayed vegetables, a similar moor was found. The appearance of these decayed vegetables was found exactly to agree with that of the moor which was thrown up in Blankney fen, and in other parts of the east fen of Lincolnshire, in making their embankments; barks, like those of the birch-tree, being there also abundantly found. This moor has been traced as far as Peterborough, sixty miles south of Sutton. On the north side, the moory islets extend as far as Grimsby, on the south of the mouth of the Humber: and it is a remarkable circumstance, that in the large tracts of low land which lie on the south banks of that river, a little above its mouth, there is a subterraneous stratum of decayed trees and shrubs, exactly resembling those observed at Sutton. At Axholme isle, a similar stratum extends over a tract of ten miles in length, by five in breadth. The roots there also stand in the places where they grew; while the trunks lie prostrate, amid the roots of aquatic plants and reeds. Little doubt can be entertained of the moory islets of Sutton being a part of this extensive subterraneous stratum, which, by some inroad of the sea, has been there stripped of its covering of soil. The identity of the levels; that of the species of trees; the roots of these affixed, in both, to the soil where they grew; and, above all, the flattened shape of the trunks, branches, and roots, found in the islets, which can only be accounted for by the heavy pressure of a superinduced stratum, are sufficient reasons for this opinion. Such a wide-spread assemblage of vegetable ruins, lying almost in the same level, and that level generally under the common mark of low water, naturally gives rise to reflections on the epoch of this destruction, and the agency by which it was effected.

The original catastrophe which buried this immense forest must have been of very ancient date; but it is to be suspected, that the inroad of the sea which uncovered the decayed trees of the islets of Sutton, is comparatively recent. The state of the leaves, and the timber, and also the tradition of the country people, concur to strengthen this suspicion. Leaves and other delicate parts of plants, though they may be long preserved in a subterraneous situation, can not remain uninjured when exposed to the action of the waves, and of the air. The inhabitants of Sutton believe that their parish church once stood on the spot where the islets now are, and was submerged by the inroads of the sea; that, at very low water, their ancestors could even discern its ruins; and that their present church was built to supply the place of that which was washed away. So many concomitant (though weak) testimonies, render their report to a certain degree deserving of credit, and lead to a supposition, that some of the stormy inundations of the North sea, which in these last centuries have washed away such large tracts of land on its shores, may have carried away a soil resting on clay, and have finally uncovered the trees of these moory islets.

Bogs and mosses are little more than lakes filled up with vegetable matter, usually of aquatic origin. They are to be found not only in Ireland and Scotland, but also in every northern country, more especially when thinly peopled. It should be remarked, that Ireland abounds in springs, which are mostly dry in summer; and that grass and weeds grow abundantly about these spots. In the winter these springs swell and run, softening and loosening all the earth about them. Now, that sward or surface of the earth which consists of the roots of grass, being lifted up, and made fuzzy or spongy by the water in the winter, is dried in the spring, and does not fall together, but withers in a tuft. The new grass which springs through it is again lifted during the following winter; and thus the spring is still more and more stopped, and the sward grows thicker and thicker, till at length it makes what is called a quaking bog. In proportion as it rises and becomes drier, and as the grass roots and other vegetables become more putrid, together with the mud and slime of the water, it acquires a blackness, and becomes what is called a turf bog. When the vegetables rot, it is considered that the saline particles are in general carried away by the water, in which they are dissolved; but that the oily or sulphureous

## particles remain and float on the water; and it is thus that the turf

acquires its inflammability. The highest mountains of Ireland are, as well as the plains, covered with bogs, because they abound in springs, which, on account of a defective population, are not cleared; and thus they are overrun with bogs. In that country mosses also abound; and the

## particular kind which grows in bogs, is remarkable on this account, that

a congeries of its threads, before it is decayed, constitutes the substance of the light spongy turf, which thus becomes so tough as not to yield to the spade. This curious substance, in the north of Ireland, is called _old wives’ tow_, and is not unlike flax. The turf hardens by degrees, but is still stringy when broken, and at length becomes the red turf employed as fuel.

The production of the quaking bogs is as follows. When a stream or spring runs through a flat, it becomes filled with weeds in summer, and trees fall across and dam it up. During the winter season the water stagnates more and more every year, until the whole flat is covered. A coarse kind of grass, peculiar to these bogs, springs up in tufts, the roots of which are consolidated, and which, in a few years, grow to the hight of several feet. In the winter the grass rots, and falls with its seed on the tufts, thus adding to their growth the ensuing spring. The tops of flags and grass are sometimes interwoven on the surface of the water, and gradually becoming thicker, cover its surface. On this covering herbs grow; and by the interweaving of their roots, it is rendered so strong as to bear a man. Some of these bogs sink, where a man stands, to a considerable depth, and rise before and behind: underneath, the water is clear. Even these in time become red bogs; but may easily be converted into meadow land, by clearing a trench for the passage of the water.