A Manual of Elementary Geology: or, The Ancient Changes of the Earth and its Inhabitants as Illustrated by Geological MonumentsLyell, Charles, Sir
Science
A Manual of Elementary Geology: or, The Ancient Changes of the Earth and its Inhabitants as Illustrated by Geological Monuments
Lyell, Charles, Sir
Geology
In England, buried ships have been found in the ancient and now deserted
channels of the Rother in Sussex, of the Mersey in Kent, and the Thames
near London. Canoes and stone hatchets have been dug up, in almost all
parts of the kingdom, from peat and shell-marl; but there is no evidence,
as in Sweden, Italy, and many other parts of the world, of the bed of the
sea, and the adjoining coast, having been uplifted bodily to considerable
heights within the human period. Recent strata have been traced along the
coasts of Peru and Chili, inclosing shells in abundance, all agreeing
specifically with those now swarming in the Pacific. In one bed of this
kind, in the island of San Lorenzo, near Lima, Mr. Darwin found, at the
altitude of 85 feet above the sea, pieces of cotton-thread, plaited rush,
and the head of a stalk of Indian corn, the whole of which had evidently
been imbedded with the shells. At the same height on the neighbouring
mainland, he found other signs corroborating the opinion that the ancient
bed of the sea had there also been uplifted 85 feet, since the region was
first peopled by the Peruvian race.[115-A] But similar shelly masses are
also met with at much higher elevations, at innumerable points between the
Chilian and Peruvian Andes and the sea-coast, in which no human remains
were ever, or in all probability ever will be, discovered.
In the West Indies, also, in the island of Guadaloupe, a solid limestone
occurs, at the level of the sea-beach, enveloping human skeletons. The
stone is extremely hard, and chiefly composed of comminuted shell and
coral, with here and there some entire corals and shells, of species now
living in the adjacent ocean. With them are included arrow-heads, fragments
of pottery, and other articles of human workmanship. A limestone with
similar contents has been formed, and is still forming, in St. Domingo. But
there are also more ancient rocks in the West Indian Archipelago, as in
Cuba, near the Havanna, and in other islands, in which are shells identical
with those now living in corresponding latitudes; some well-preserved,
others in the state of casts, all referable to the post-pliocene period.
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