“These bones are buried, almost everywhere, in nearly similar beds: they are often blended with some other animals resembling those of the present day. The beds are generally loose, either sandy or marly; and always neighboring, more or less, to the surface. It is, then, probable that these bones have been enveloped by the last, or by one of the last, catastrophes of this globe. In a great number of places they are accompanied by the accumulated remains of marine animals; but in some places, which are less numerous, there are none of these remains: sometimes the sand or marl, which covers them, contains only fresh-water shells. No well authenticated account proves that they have been covered by regular beds of stone, filled with sea-shells; and, consequently, that the sea has remained on them undisturbed, for a long period. The catastrophe which covered them was, therefore, a great, but transient, inundation of the sea. This inundation did not rise above the high mountains; for we find no analogous deposits covering the bones, nor are the bones themselves there met with, not even in the high valleys, unless in some of the warmer parts of America. These bones are neither rolled nor joined in a skeleton, but scattered, and in part fractured. They have not, then, been brought from afar by inundation, but found by it in places where it has covered them, as might be expected, if the animals to which they belonged had dwelt in these places, and had there successively died. Before this catastrophe, these animals lived, therefore, in the climates in which we now dig up their bones: it was this catastrophe which destroyed them there; and, as we no longer find them, it is evident that it has annihilated those species. The northern parts of the globe, therefore, nourished formerly, species belonging to the genus elephant, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, and tapir, as well as to that of the mastodon; genera of which the four first have no longer any species existing, except in the torrid zone; and the last, none in any part.”
The researches of Dr. Buckland, connected with the kind of relics of which we are speaking, have given them additional interest, especially as connected with certain points of diluvial geology, and with their assemblage in caverns. In these caverns, the bones are usually found mixed with mud, stones and fragments; and circumstances seem to show that the animals resided in them for a great length of time. The celebrated Kirkdale cavern, in Yorkshire, discovered in 1821, contains the remains of the hyena, tiger, bear, wolf, fox, weasel, elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, horse, ox, deer, hare, rabbit, rat, mouse, raven, pigeon, lark, thrush, and a species of duck. From the mode in which these remains were strewed over the bottom of the cavern, from the great proportion of hyenas’ teeth over those of other animals, and from the manner in which many of the bones were gnawed and fractured, Dr. Buckland infers that this cavern was the den of hyenas for a long succession of years; that they brought in as their prey, the animals whose remains are thus mixed with their own; and that this state of things was suddenly terminated by an irruption of turbid water into the cave, which buried the whole in the mud in which they are now intermingled. In other cases, the bones of other animals have been found, indicating the same general facts as to the existence of animals now no longer known in the same latitudes.
That every part of the dry land was once covered by the ocean, is a fact on which all geologists agree; and the discovery, noticed above, of the fossil remains of many genera of quadrupeds, once existing, but which have now disappeared from the earth, leads to another fact, not less interesting, and which is at the same time coincident with the oldest records or traditions of the human race, namely, that at the period when these great changes took place, man was not an inhabitant of the planet. These fossil remains, now about to be particularized, are among the most surprising of nature’s phenomena, and irresistibly lead to most interesting speculations respecting the past and future condition of the terrestrial globe.
FOSSIL CROCODILES.
The fossil remains of crocodiles have been collected in the neighborhood of Honfleur, on the coast of France, and were found in a bed of hard limestone, of a bluish gray color, which becomes nearly black when wet, and which is found along the shore on both sides of the mouth of the Seine, being in some places covered by the sea, and in others, above its level, even at high water. Remains of crocodiles have also been found in other parts of France; as at Angers and Mans. Some of these remains seem to show, that at least one of the fossil species above noticed is also found in other parts of France besides Honfleur.
The remains of crocodiles have been also found in different parts of England; but particularly on the coast of Dorsetshire, and of Yorkshire near Whitby, in the neighborhood of Bath, and near Newark in Nottinghamshire. Somersetshire, particularly in the neighborhood of Bath, the cliffs on the Dorsetshire, or southern coast, and on the Yorkshire, or northern coast, are the places in this island in which the remains of the animals of this tribe have been chiefly found. The matrix in which they are found is in general similar to that which has been already mentioned as containing the fossils of Honfleur, a blue limestone, becoming almost black when wet. This description exactly agrees with the limestone of Charmouth, Lime, &c., in Dorsetshire, on the opposite coast to that of France on which Honfleur is situated. At Whitby and Scarborough, where these fossils are also found, the stone is indeed somewhat darker than in the former places; but no difference is observable which can be regarded as offering any forcible opposition to the probability of the original identity of this stratum, which is observed on the northern coast of France, on the opposite southern English coast, and at the opposite northern extremity of the island. Some of these remains are also found in quarries of common coarse gray and whitish limestone. Instances of this kind of matrix, for these remains, are observable in the quarries between Bath and Bristol. The Rev. Mr. Hawker, of Woodchester, in Gloucestershire, formerly had in his possession, perhaps one of the handsomest specimens of the remains of the crocodile discovered in all England. It was found by him in the neighborhood of Bath, and contained a great part of the head and of the trunk of the animal.
LARGE FOSSIL ANIMAL OF MAESTRICHT.
The large animal, whose fossil remains are found in the quarries of Maestricht, has been deservedly a frequent object of admiration; and the beautiful appearance which its remains possess, in consequence of their excellent state of preservation, in a matrix which admits of their fair display, has occasioned every specimen of this fossil to be highly valued. The lower jaw of this animal, and some other specimens, which were presented by Dr. Peter Camper to the Royal Society, and which are now in the British museum, are among the most splendid and interesting fossils in existence. In 1770, the workmen having discovered part of an enormous head of an animal imbedded in the solid stone, in one of the subterraneous passages of the mountain, gave information to M. Hoffman, who, with the most zealous assiduity, labored until he had disengaged this astonishing fossil from its matrix. But when this was done, the fruits of his labors were wrested from him by an ecclesiastic, who claimed it as being proprietor of the land over the spot on which it was found. Hoffman defended his right in a court of justice; but through the influence employed against him, he was doomed not only to the loss of this inestimable fossil, but to the payment of heavy law expenses. But in time, justice, though tardy, at last arrived; the troops of the French republic secured this treasure, which was conveyed to the national museum.
The length of the cervical, dorsal and lumbar vertebrae, appears to have been about nine feet five inches, and that of the vertebræ of the tail about ten foot; adding to which the length of the head, which may be reckoned, considering the loss of the intermaxillary bones, at least at four feet, we may safely conclude the whole length of the skeleton of the animal to have approached very nearly to twenty-four feet. The head is a sixth of the whole length of the animal; a proportion approaching very near to that of the crocodile, but differing much from that of the monitor, the head of which animal forms hardly a twelfth part of the whole length. The tail must have been very strong, and its width, at its extremity, must have rendered it a most powerful oar, and have enabled the animal to have opposed the most agitated waters, as has been well remarked by naturalists who have examined it. From this circumstance, and from the other remains which accompany those of this animal, there can be no doubt of its having been an inhabitant of the ocean. Taking all these circumstances into consideration, M. Cuvier concludes, and certainly on fair, if not indisputable grounds, that this animal must have formed an intermediate genus between those animals of the lizard tribe which have an extensive and forked tongue, which include the monitors and the common lizards, and those which have a short tongue and the palate armed with teeth, which comprise the iguanas, marbres, and anolis. This genus, he thinks, could only have been allied to the crocodile by the general characters of the lizards.