Numerous as the icebergs of the antarctic regions are, they have as yet afforded few examples of transported materials. One, however, of very considerable interest, is thus recorded in a Journal of Discoveries in the Antarctic Ocean in 1839, by Mr John Balleny, communicated to the Geographical Society by Mr Enderby, the ship-owner. “March 13. Light variable winds from the eastward; surrounded by icebergs. In latitude 61 degrees, longitude 103 degrees 40 minutes, passed within a quarter of a mile of an iceberg about 300 feet high, with a block of rock attached to it.” The rock is described as about 12 feet in height and about one-third up the berg. The nearest certainly known land (Enderby’s Land) was distant from the spot 1400 miles; Sabrina Land, if such exists, was distant 450 miles; and it is very improbable that any land will be discovered within 100 miles. Mr Darwin, in an interesting note on this Journal, mentions a preceding case of an iceberg with a considerable block lying on it, seen east of South Shetland by Mr Sorrell, when in a sealing vessel; and though another voyager, Captain Briscoe, during several cruises in the antarctic seas, had never once seen a piece of rock in the ice, he remarks, that if but one iceberg in a thousand or in ten thousand transports its fragment, the bottom of the antarctic sea and the shores of its islands must already be scattered with masses of foreign rock, the counterpart of the erratic boulders of the northern hemisphere.
Such, then, are the facts on which modern geologists, and more especially Mr Lyell, have founded the theory of ice-transported boulders, appealing to the experience of that which is now occurring in existing seas as evidence of that which did occur in seas not now existing—seas which once covered or at least rose to the level of places which exhibit these relics of their presence. Presuming, then, for an instant, that the fact is conceded, that at some ancient epoch the low lands of a large portion of the northern and southern hemispheres were under water, whilst the higher hills and mountains were covered with snow, and their gorges and valleys filled with glaciers, which on descending to the ocean carried with them fragments of rocks, and became as icebergs their carriers to distant regions, do we not obtain an explanation of the phenomena of boulders more simple and rational than any of those previously advanced? For example, Kirwan in his Essays tells us that the Bay of Galway must have been occupied by a granitic mountain, which in a great catastrophe was shattered and swallowed up, because he found a mass of granite called “the Gregory” on one of the isles of Arran, 100 feet above the sea, and 8 or 10 miles from the nearest granitic locality, the islands themselves being limestone. But such a mass, though 20 feet long, 10 high, and 11 broad, if floated across on an iceberg, could have been deposited at its destined place by machinery more simple than such a catastrophe. In like manner, how easily the granitic blocks of Scandinavia could by similar means have been transported across the Baltic!—and at the same time many of the phenomena of drift (a name now given by many geologists to what was formerly called diluvian) might be explained, as shown by Mr Lyell in his account of the Norfolk drift, by the action of floating fields of ice carrying with them sand and gravel, or grating and heaping up the sand and gravel of shoals on which they were beginning to ground, as shown in the examples cited. The long lines of drift and boulders extending from north to south in northern Europe were indeed in all probability the result of the joint operation of the marine current which moved onwards the floating ice, and of the ice itself. In these lines or trainées, two sets have been discovered—one crossing the other at a very acute angle, a circumstance which may possibly be explained by supposing two currents simultaneously running from the north being inflected by local peculiarities into slightly differing directions, and then, on meeting, proceeding in a direction the resultant of the two; the direction of the resultant varying at different epochs according as one or the other current, from varying local causes, possessed the greater or less velocity; if so, the natural result of such meeting currents would be to deposit along their resulting direction lines of drift, to form in this manner shoals on which the floating ice would occasionally ground, and by its load of gravel and boulders assist the work of detritic accumulation.
In as far, then, as the phenomenon of boulders is exhibited in the low lands of Europe (leaving other countries out of the question), it seems quite in conformity with the operations of causes such as have been here explained. But it may next be asked, How does the ice-transporting theory explain the boulders of the Alps? Had the waters been sufficiently elevated to convey icebergs over the Jura chain, the Scandinavian mountains would have been deeply submerged, and no longer, therefore, a source either of ice or of boulders. This is unquestionably a difficulty, unless it be assumed either that some great change of relative altitude has taken place by the uplifting of the Alps since the deposition of its boulders, or that the Alpine boulders have not been conveyed by marine agencies. Lyell supposed it possible that falling “hill-sides” might have dammed up the rallies of Switzerland, and have formed lakes, on which the icebergs from its uplifted glaciers might have floated across to the Jura, and have been carried down to the low country at the base of the Alps, by the sudden bursting of the barrier, and the flood following it; and Wissmann (who strangely enough ranks Lyell, manifestly his precursor in this idea, amongst the advocates of the theory of torrents) in like manner assumes the existence of a large sea extending over the low portion of Switzerland, the country now bordering on the Lake of Constance, and the greater part of Bavaria, on the waters of which the ice of falling glaciers with its cargo of boulders floated across. This sea was not however, like Lyell’s, the result of a secondary accident, but arose, encircled and walled in by mountains, on the last upheaving of the Alps. Its waters overflowing their boundary at the lowest points, according to Wissmann enlarged the passages of discharge, which giving vent to the waters, gradually lowered and finally emptied the sea, leaving the valley of the Rhone and of the Rhine as a relic. If, however, hypotheses of at least equal probability have been rejected either as depending too much on supposititious data, or as being imperfect explanations of the phenomena, there seems no greater reason for admitting these. Such accidents as those suggested by Mr Lyell have indeed occurred in the Alpine regions; rivers have been dammed up either by falling hill-sides or by falling masses of ice, and on bursting through these obstacles, have poured down in fearful destruction on the plain below. But how diminutive are such catastrophes in comparison to that which must have attended on the dispersion of the Alpine boulders! and although the lake of Wissmann’s hypothesis is sufficiently extensive to transport the boulders through a very wide space, it is insufficient to account for those in Franche-compté; whilst, if we suppose with him that the last elevation of the Alps was prior to the deposition of the Molasse, it seems improbable that all the great openings of discharge, or vallies, should have been formed since that period. Must we then turn from these explanations, and again suppose great relative changes of altitude by vast upheavings of mountain chains in comparatively recent times, giving rise to diluvial waves, or, as supposed by De Beaumont, such upheavings being accompanied by a sudden rise of temperature, to the sudden melting of huge masses of snow and ice, and to powerful torrents resulting from it? Are we in short to appeal with Kapp to the testimony of the Chinese Annals, elucidated by Edward Biot of the French Academy, for evidence of such changes? In them, mention is indeed made at dates of 2400 and 3300 years before our era, of the elevation of two mighty chains of mountains, by which an ancient sea was raised up and became the present Marsh of Gobi, having been drained by an arm of the Yellow River, or through the valley of Tsischi, and at the same time the course of the Yellow and many other rivers were greatly changed. But, truly curious as such documents undoubtedly are, and worthy of the most attentive research in order to ascertain what support can really be given to geological theories by historical evidence, they could not be received as conclusive in respect to the face of Europe, unless something like a chain of deductive reasoning from observed facts could be adduced in support of them. What, then, is the state of the case? Must we reject the ice-transporting theory as insufficient, and stand in despair of ever finding a clue to our difficulties? Far from it: the very difficulty itself points to the true explanation. The northern or Scandinavian boulders are not mixed with the Alpine on the low grounds at the base of the Jura, and this circumstance shows us that there was a limit to the space over which these boulders were transported, and that limit was, probably, the result of the elevation at which the ocean then stood. Whilst, then, this ancient ocean was conveying from the Scandinavian peaks its falling glaciers loaded with fragments of rocks, the glaciers of the Alps were conveying over the ice-covered land the fragments of its broken pinnacles. Such a union of the two modes of transport, combined with sea currents, seems at once consistent with reason and efficient in explanation; for example, it explains the difficulty experienced in understanding the ancient glaciers of the northern face of our Dublin mountains, where we see limestone gravel and fragments of red sandstone accumulated against their base up to a certain point where they end abruptly, and gravel of primitive rocks begins. The limestone gravel and fragments of sandstone may have been conveyed there, and heaped up by the pressure of drifting ice, whilst the descending glacier conveyed primitive fragments, and pushed up before it into a heap the limestone gravel. We have therefore now come to the consideration of the glacier theory, which, propounded and explained by Agassiz, has assumed not merely a character of sublimity, but of demonstration. This I shall enter upon in another article, to which I shall also defer some necessary remarks on the supposed causes of that great and general refrigeration which Agassiz assumes, and the facts support. But even now I cannot refrain from answering a question which may possibly be asked by some, Why do you place so abstruse and difficult a subject before the readers of a popular work? I do so, because, though assuredly of no easy solution, the boulder question is one replete with interest, and calculated to excite the attention of many who perhaps never before thought that in those time-worn stones was matter to exercise the deepest reflection of the philosopher. But this is not all. To follow up the theories of the astronomer, instruments, and “appliances to boot,” are necessary, which few can possess; but to seek for geological data, the inquirer needs only health, his hammer, and his bag. When, therefore, as so powerfully urged by Mr Patterson, in his beautiful address to the Natural History Society of Belfast, our national system of education shall include within it an elementary course of natural history, we may hope to see in each of its trained schoolmasters not a “village Hampden,” but a “village White” or “village Saussure,” and in each locality around him a group of young and ardent naturalists growing up with a taste and enthusiasm for scientific research which not only will infuse happiness over their own breasts, but multiply the data for correct deductions. And in what branch of geological inquiry is such a multiplication of materials more required than in the one we have been discussing? Happy times, then, for science, morality, and religion, when a taste for research shall have been budded on the earliest shoot of man’s intelligence!
J. E. P.
Cruelty to Animals.—Though civilization may in some degree abate the native ferocity which prompts men to torture the brute creation, it can never quite extirpate it. The most polished are not ashamed to be pleased with scenes of barbarity, and, to the disgrace of human nature, to dignify them with the name of sports. They arm cocks with artificial weapons, which nature had kindly denied to their malevolence, and with shouts of applause and triumph see them plunge them into each other’s hearts; they view with delight the trembling deer and defenceless hare, flying for hours in the utmost agonies of terror and despair, and at last sinking under fatigue, devoured by their merciless pursuers. They see with joy the beautiful pheasant and harmless partridge drop from their flight, weltering in their blood, or perhaps perishing with wounds and hunger, under the cover of some friendly thicket to which they have in vain retreated for safety; they triumph over the unsuspecting fish, whom they have decoyed by an insidious pretence of feeding, and drag him from his native element by a hook fixed to and tearing out his entrails; and to add to all this, they spare neither labour nor expense to preserve and propagate these innocent animals, for no other, and but to multiply the objects of their persecution. What name should we bestow on a superior being whose whole endeavours were employed and whose whole pleasure consisted in terrifying, ensnaring, tormenting, and destroying mankind?—whose superior faculties were exerted in fomenting animosity amongst them, in contriving engines of destruction, and inciting them to use them in maiming and murdering each other?—whose power over them was employed in assisting the rapacious, deceiving the simple, and oppressing the innocent?—who, without provocation or advantage, should continue from day to day, void of all pity and remorse, thus to torment mankind for diversion, and at the same time endeavour with the utmost care to preserve their lives, and to propagate their species, in order to increase the number of victims devoted to his malevolence, and be delighted in proportion to the miseries which he occasioned? I say, what name detestable enough could we find for such a being? Yet if we impartially consider the case, and our intermediate situation, we must acknowledge, that, with regard to inferior animals, just such a being is a sportsman.—Disquisitions on Several Subjects, by Soame Jenyns.
HISTORY OF PAPER-HANGINGS.
Abridged from a paper by Mr Crace, read before the Royal Institute of Architects.
Paper hangings may be divided into three separate branches, the flock, the metal, and the coloured; and each of these seems to have been invented at a different time, as an imitation of a distinct material—the flock to imitate the tapestries and figured velvets, the metal in imitation of the gilt leather, and the coloured as a cheap substitute for painted decorations. Professor Beckman says that the former of these, the flock, was first manufactured in England, and invented by Jerome Langer, who carried on the art in London in the reign of Charles the First, and obtained a patent for his discovery, dated May 1st, 1634. Various French and German authors give us the credit of this invention, yet it is disputed by a Frenchman, M. Tierce, who in the Journal Æconomique says, that a man named Francois carried on this art at Rouen so early as the years 1620 and 1630, and affirms that the wooden blocks employed are still preserved with the before-mentioned dates inscribed on them. Francois was succeeded by his son, who followed the business with success for fifty years, and died at Rouen in 1748. M. Savary, in his Dictionnaire de Commerce, thus describes the manner in which the French manufactured their tonture de lane, or flock hangings:—The artist having prepared his design, drew on the cloth, with a fat oil or varnish, the subject intended to be represented; and then the flocker, from a tray containing the different tints of flocks, arranged in divisions, took the colours he required, and sprinkled them in a peculiar manner with his finger and thumb, so that the various shadows and colours were properly blended, and an imitation of the woven tapestry produced.
Of the second branch, the metal papers, I do not find much mentioned by the older writers; and of the coloured papers I almost despaired of finding any early account, till, in an old French dictionary of commerce, printed in 1723, under the head of Dominoterie, I discovered an account which seems to give the origin of the present system of paper-staining. Dominoterie is an ancient French name for marble paper, such as used by bookbinders; and the early French paper-stainers were associated with the makers of that article, as a class called dominotiers. The manufacture is thus described:—
The design having been drawn in outline, on paper pasted together of the size required, the paper was then divided into parts of a suitable size, and given to the carver or wood engraver, to cut the designs on blocks of pear-tree, much in the same manner as at present. The outline thus cut was printed in ink with a press, resembling that then used by the letter-press printers, on separate sheets of paper. When dry, they were then painted and relieved with different colours in distemper, and afterwards joined together, so as to form the required design. The author then adds, that grotesques and panels in which are intermingled flowers, fruits, animals, and small figures, have up to this time succeeded better than imitations of landscapes, or other tapestry hangings, which are sometimes attempted, and refers to article 61 of the French laws in 1686, which confirms the statutes published in 1586, 1618, and 1649, in which rules are given as to what kind of presses, &c. are to be used by the dominotiers, and prohibiting them under heavy penalties from printing with types.