[373] Ælian, Anim. lib. x. cap. xxix.
[374] Leopold de Buch, Voyage en Norwege, t. i. p. 30. of the German edition.
[375] The Sierra Parima.
[376] T. ii. p. 233, 236, 252, 273, 288, 382, 597, 627, and 633.
[377] Are there any blocks in North America to the north of the Great Lakes?
[378] In Silliman’s American Journal there are many interesting details in regard to the distribution of boulders in the northern parts of North America.
[379] By geest is understood the alluvial matter which is spread over the surface both of the hilly and low country, and appears, according to De Luc, to have been formed the last time the waters of the ocean stood over the surface of the earth.—J.
[380] By marsch, according to De Luc, is understood the new land added to the coasts since the last retiring of the water of the globe from the surface of the earth, and is formed by the sediments of rivers, mixed more or less with sand from the bottom of the sea.—J.
[381] Vol. II. p. 114, 115, 116.
[382] A remarkable fact of this kind is related by Salt, in his second journey to Abyssinia. The Bay of Amphila, in the Red Sea, is formed, he says, of twelve islands, eleven of which are in part composed of alluvial matters, consisting of corallines, madrepores, echinites, and a great variety of shells common in that sea. The height of these islands is sometimes thirty feet above high water. The small island, which differs from the eleven others, is composed of a solid limestone rock, in which veins of calcedony are observed. Does not this small island, we may ask, indicate that some cause has prevented the madrepores from covering it, while they constructed their habitations in the neighbourhood, on bases which probably must be of the same nature as those of the small island?