KAMBL
 
 UNDERGROUND, 
 
 BY 
 
 J. E. TAYLOR, F.L.S., F.G.S., 
 
 EDITOR OF "SCIENCE-GOSSIP," ETC. 
 
 PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF 
 
 THE COMMITTEE OF GENERAL LITERATURE AND EDUCATION, 
 
 APPOINTED BY THE SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING 
 
 CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE 
 
 LONDON: 77, GREAT QUEEN ST., LINCOLN'S-INN FIELDS; 
 
 4, ROYAL EXCHANGE ; 48, PICCADILLY J 
 
 AND ALL BOOKSELLERS. 
 NEW YORK : POTT, YOUNG, & CO. 
 
 I8 79 .
 
 WVMAN AND SONS, PRINTERS, 
 
 GREAT Qb'EKN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS, 
 LONDON, W.C.
 
 CONTENTS, 
 
 I. INTRODUCTION 5 
 
 II. TENANTS FOR LIFE 7 
 
 III. INVERTEBRATE DWELLERS UNDERGROUND .. 43 
 
 IV. UNDERGROUND SOCIETIES .. 67 
 
 V. EARTH-WORMS 94 
 
 PART II. OUR GEOLOGICAL RECORDS. 
 
 VI. THE GENERAL STORY OF THE ROCKS ... io& 
 VII. HEAT-FORMED ROCKS 117 
 
 VIII. PROOFS OF UNDERGROUND MOVEMENTS AND 
 
 CHANGES 129 
 
 IX. ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE ROCKS 
 
 UNDERGROUND .. 140 
 
 X. THE PRIMEVAL LIFE OF THE GLOBE 147 
 
 XL NATURE'S COAL-CELLARS 166 
 
 XII. THE MIDDLE-AGE OF OUR GLOBE 181 
 
 XIII. THE WHITE CHALK OF ENGLAND 197 
 
 XIV. THE LATER LIFE OF THE WORLD 210 
 
 XV. THE "GREAT ICE AGE" 222 
 
 XVI. FOSSILIFEROUS LOCALITIES 233 
 
 XVII. CONCLUSION 253 
 
 2090944
 
 UNDERGROUND, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 IF we had not been long familiarized with the fact, 
 nothing would have seemed more strange than that the 
 ground beneath us should have its peculiar set of in- 
 habitants. We are accustomed to speak of the fish 
 of the sea and the fowls of the air, but we rarely 
 refer to the dwellers underground. And yet to many 
 creatures the soil is their habitual home, just as the 
 water is to fish, or the atmosphere to birds. If we 
 removed them from it they would sicken or die. 
 
 Nor is this underground habitation confined to par- 
 ticular kinds of animals. Both vertebrate and inver- 
 tebrate creatures make it their home ; and although 
 the latter are more abundant, they are not more won- 
 derfully adapted to their subterranean existence than 
 the former. The soil, like the atmosphere and the sea, 
 receives into its bosom as tenants animals of various 
 classes. The wonderful modification of the finger- 
 bones, covered with skin, which enables a bat to fly, 
 is not a more striking adaptation of means to ends 
 than the peculiar structure of the bones of a mole's 
 forelegs which enables that animal to burrow. Aerial
 
 6 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 and aquatic animals have their skeletons and members 
 so constructed that we can tell at a glance the nature 
 of the medium they are intended to live in. The 
 same is true of the structures of worms, mole-crickets, 
 and moles. So that we no longer need regard these 
 underground dwellers as deserving of our pity. On the 
 contrary, we ought to see in their special adaptation 
 to subterranean existence, the operation of the same 
 Wisdom which fits the bird for the air and the fish 
 for the water. 
 
 This fitness of animals for a life underground may 
 be found in all degrees. Some of them could not 
 long live anywhere else, as the earthworm and the 
 mole. Others seek a refuge, rather than a continual 
 existence, underground, as the shrew, vole, rabbit, 
 the fox, and the badger. Some creatures are assigned 
 subterranean habits only for part of their lives, as the 
 wireworms, and various other larvae of insects. 
 Numerous species of ants excavate their remarkable 
 galleries, and conduct their well-arranged republics, 
 underground. The humble-bee burrows in the 
 hedge-banks, in order to lay there the foundation of 
 its singular nest, at no small expenditure of skill and 
 labour. Mason and other bees and wasps seek both 
 underground shelter and convenience ; and there can 
 be little doubt that since these various creatures first 
 appeared in the earth, in distant geological epochs, 
 some have acquired many of the habits which it will 
 now be our purpose to describe.
 
 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 TENANTS FOR LIFE. 
 
 AMONG the vertebrates, the Mole (Talpa vulgaris) 
 may be taken as the type of underground animals. 
 Whether we consider the structure of its fore-limbs, 
 so admirably adapted for travelling beneath the soil, 
 or the peculiarity of its silky fur, so arranged that 
 it will lie smoothly whether we stroke it to or fro, 
 and thus calculated not to harbour dirt or interfere 
 by its friction with the Mole's subterranean move- 
 ments, we cannot but feel that it is peculiarly con- 
 structed to live where we find it. Those who are apt 
 to apologize for an animal " doomed," as they call it, to 
 dwell amid perpetual darkness, might take a hint from 
 Waterton's remarks on the sloth, which had been 
 pitied by Buffon and other early naturalists for being 
 fashioned in such an apparently clumsy and uncom- 
 fortable fashion. Nature needs no human apology 
 she asks only to be understood. But if men prefer 
 to proffer pity where they should attentively study and 
 observe, we cannot be surprised if their remarks 
 appear frivolous to those who fully understand the 
 subject. The insects which gambol in the sunshine, 
 the minnows which sport in the village brooks, are not 
 one whit happier than the Mole. Its very unlikeness 
 to other animals is a proof of the highest wisdom. 
 Just regard it for a moment its long, round body,
 
 8 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 covered with fur capable of lying smooth any way, 
 its pointed snout, short stout limbs, and small eyes 
 nearly hidden in the head for the Mole is not 
 "blind," as many careless observers have imagined, 
 although its eyes are rudimentary and small com- 
 pared with those of its own order which live above- 
 ground. But this apparent deprivation is benevolent. 
 We have heard of men who have been imprisoned in 
 complete darkness, and who complained of the acute 
 pain caused by their aching eyeballs unconsciously 
 straining after the absent light. The defective 
 sight in the Mole, therefore, ought to be accepted 
 as proof of its special underground adaptation. 
 When caught, its bewildered habits in the sunlight per- 
 haps cause it to appear stupid and awkward ; but a 
 fish is equally so when taken out of the water, and, 
 indeed, so is any animal when we change its usual 
 habitat. Now, examine first the peculiar structure of 
 its forearms. The bones are short and strong, and 
 the palms are directed outwards. The terminal joints 
 of the toes are genuine diggers, and we have uncon- 
 sciously imitated them in the steel instruments of 
 gouge-shape which we use for rooting-up living ferns, 
 and for garden purposes ; that is to say, the terminal 
 joints or claws are convex on the outside, and concave 
 inside, and they taper to a point, as is usual in animals' 
 claws. Each of the five digits is so fashioned that 
 when they lie close together the entire hand becomes 
 a strong shovel for excavatory purposes, actually con 
 trived on the same principle as the individual toes. 
 When at work the Mole thus excavates in front of 
 itself, and is enabled easily to throw the soil behind it. 
 Meantime its hind feet are not idle, and the observer
 
 TENANTS FOR LIFE. 9 
 
 may see that they are quite as remarkably adapted for 
 burrowing underground as the fore-limbs. And as 
 the Mole can use its body as a kind of fulcrum, it 
 follows that the hind limbs can scoop away and cast 
 behind the advancing miner all the material it hoes 
 away in front. Notice also the cylindrical shape of 
 the Mole's body how well it agrees with other 
 points in. its anatomy, all of which plainly indicate 
 a direct adaptation to a subterranean life. We 
 know of no other vertebrate animal possessing so 
 round a body. And it is evident that this shape, 
 combined with the silky fur, must facilitate the pro- 
 gress of moles in excavation. Even the manner in 
 which the hair is inserted in the skin of the Mole 
 calls for special remark. In other animals the hairs 
 are inserted at an angle to the surface, but in the 
 Mole they are perpendicular. Hence the fur can lie 
 backwards or forwards with the same silky ease, the 
 friction of the animal's underground movements are 
 reduced to a minimum, and no soil can lodge in its 
 velvety coat whichever way it may turn in its burrows. 
 The great strength exerted by the Mole's fore-limbs 
 requires equally powerful muscles to work them, and 
 strong points of attachment in that part of the skeleton 
 of the body with which they are connected. This is the 
 case with birds, whose wings are their most muscular 
 members. Their wings are worked by muscles fastened 
 to the sternum or breast-bone, and the latter has a 
 ridge or keel which is always developed in proportion 
 to the bird's habits of flight, being high and strong in 
 eagles, and scarcely visible in those birds which run 
 instead of fly, and so use their legs instead of their 
 wings, as is the case with the ostriches. Now, owing
 
 10 
 
 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 to the fact that the Mole resembles a flying bird in the 
 great work performed by its fore-limbs, it follows that 
 its breast-bone should be different from that of mam- 
 mals in general (except bats), and we therefore find 
 that it is thus fashioned on the plan of a bird, having 
 a strong keel for the attachment of the muscles em- 
 ployed in excavating beneath the soil. ' 
 
 THE MOLE ( Talpa vulgaris}. 
 
 .Some naturalists are of opinion that the Mole uses 
 its snout in digging. It is certain that this organ is 
 always first brought into use, as if to detect which 
 part of the ground is softest and best adapted for 
 excavation. Its nose is extremely sensitive, both to 
 touch and smell, and its peculiar conformation appears 
 intended to render it of the greatest use to its owner. 
 As soon as the Mole has smelled or felt out a likely 
 spot for work, it commences to dig, and this so rapidly
 
 TENANTS FOR LIFE, II 
 
 that its body seems to sink into the ground with a 
 ghost-like disappearance. Whilst excavating its galleries 
 the delicate sense of smell distributed over the inner 
 surface of the long muzzle or nose soon perceives 
 the presence of food. And there can be little doubt 
 that the high development of this sense is compensa- 
 tory for the low development of that of sight. As 
 we have already remarked, keen sight would be worse 
 than useless in the perpetually dark tunnels where the 
 life of the Mole is passed. It has been frequently 
 noticed that blind people seem in some degree to be 
 compensated for their great affliction by the marvellous 
 improvement in the delicacy of their sense of touch. 
 Just so with the Mole. Its rudimentary and almost 
 needless eyesight is more than atoned forby its powerful 
 sense of smell, which appears to be to the animal 
 nearly all the senses rolled into one. Its sense of 
 touch also is notably great, for it can perceive the 
 faintest tread or tremor of the ground in which it 
 is burrowing, and can thus perhaps detect the presence 
 of its food when the latter is moving about. Shake- 
 speare, who in his boyhood must have often noticed 
 the habits of the Mole in the meadows of the Avon, 
 mentions its quick detection of a stranger, although 
 he refers it to its sense of hearing : 
 
 " Pray you, tread softly, that the blind mole may not 
 Hear a foot fall ! " 
 
 And Mr. Bell tells us that mole-catchers prefer windy 
 nights for setting their traps, so that the Moles may 
 not hear their tread. 
 
 The chief food of the Mole is the common earth- 
 worm, and it is in pursuit of its prey that it leads an 
 underground life. But whether it was the habitual
 
 12 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 preference for the earthworm as food which caused 
 the Mole to adopt its peculiar mode of existence, and 
 led it to invent its system of tunnelling and burrowing 
 or whether the latter habits caused it to frequently 
 come into contact with the earthworms, which are 
 always so plentiful in the rich black soils where mole- 
 runs are most abundant, and so to select them as its 
 principal because most easily obtained kind of food, 
 at first seems difficult to say. A little reflection, how- 
 ever, induces us to believe that it was in hunting and 
 following the earthworms that its engineering instincts 
 were developed. And seeing that this mode of exist- 
 ence affords protection from numerous enemies above 
 ground, which cannot reach it down below, we need 
 not wonder that the Mole enjoys so extensive a geogra- 
 phical distribution, and is so numerous. Moreover, 
 the peculiar rank odour diffused by its flesh appears to 
 render it an unpalatable morsel to even hungry 
 enemies ; for no dog or cat will eat it, unless actually 
 starving, and then they show every sign of disgust at 
 the food. 
 
 The system of underground galleries, " runs," " for- 
 tresses, "&c., which the Mole constructs is very wonder- 
 ful. Each animal has its own domain, or " encamp- 
 ment," as Professor Bell aptly terms it The chief 
 place is the "fortress," so called because of the 
 circular tunnels around it, and the numerous short 
 cuts by which these tunnels can be speedily approached 
 from any side in case of danger. This important 
 habitation is usually the object of much thought, and 
 is selected if possible at the foot of some tree, or 
 near a high bank. Thence radiate the underground
 
 TENANTS FOR LIFE. 13 
 
 " runs," which we may regard as the hunting-grounds 
 of the Mole, its worm-preserves. These " runs " or 
 galleries are continually being extended, either in search 
 of food or water ; for, like all gormandizers, especially 
 carnivorous ones, the Mole is habitually thirsty. 
 Its engineering invention not only enables it to extend 
 its galleries to the neighbourhood of streams, but 
 even to excavate pits or wells into which the rain- 
 water can drain, so that it can depend on the supplies 
 provided by its own ingenuity. The Mole is a hard 
 worker. The pursuit of its food is at the expenditure 
 of much physical energy, and so it is a voracious 
 feeder. It follows the movements of the earthworm, 
 as the North American Indians do those of the 
 herds of wild buffaloes. When the rains have 
 softened the soils, and the earthworms come near the 
 surface, the Mole follows them like fate, and then 
 excavates its runs so near the surface that we can 
 trace them by the breaking in of the grassy roof. 
 
 Is there anything in the mere possession of land 
 which makes animals quarrelsome ? Land has been a 
 fruitful source of wars among human kind in all gene- 
 rations, and of no small amount of litigation now 
 that tribal wars are abolished in civilized countries. 
 Among the lower animals the same spirit is ex- 
 hibited. Each mole, for instance, has its own " do- 
 main " and worm-hunting ground. Should one mole 
 trespass, in the ardour of its hunting instincts, or even 
 impelled by hunger, on the territory of another, a cruel 
 duel is the result ; for the Mole is a most virulent 
 enemy, and will attack its antagonist with a fury and 
 tenacity we should not give the sleek-skinned animal
 
 14 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 credit for. When two moles meet in fight, whether 
 for the favour of some female or to dispute possession 
 of a hunting-ground, the battle rages so fiercely that 
 not unfrequently it is continued on the surface of the 
 ground, in spite of mutual danger. The victor nearly 
 always turns cannibal, tearing its defeated foe in mali- 
 cious triumph, and burying its long snout in the 
 quivering entrails, as if sucking its enemy's blood 
 were the crowning reward of successful valour. 
 
 The chief underground galleries and " runs " of the 
 Moles are so well trodden that Professor Bell speaks 
 of them as " highways." The rapidity with which the 
 creatures move to and fro in these subterranean 
 retreats is truly marvellous ; for, at the slightest an- 
 nouncement of danger, they dart away from the points 
 where it is threatened nearly as fast as a horse can trot. 
 To dig a mole out of its burrows, therefore, is no slight 
 task, and in the Eastern Counties it requires men who 
 have specially devoted themselves to mole-catching 
 as a profession, in order to fully understand the ani- 
 mal's underground movements and habits. So wily 
 is the creature that, when these men have baited their 
 traps, they have to rub the parts they have handled 
 with a dead mole, in order to efface the smell which 
 it would otherwise immediately detect. In the rich 
 loamy meadows we may see the bent sticks set as 
 traps over the " fortress " ; or behold the trophies of 
 the mole-catcher's victories slung from the branches 
 of an adjoining tree, to indicate to the farmer that he 
 has carried out his contract The breeding-place of 
 the female is not in the " fortress," but in mounds 
 raised for the purpose, and lined with leaves, etc.
 
 TENANTS FOR LIFE. 15 
 
 Mr. Dallas speaks as follows of the pairing instincts 
 of this interesting creature : " Very early in the year 
 the Mole feels strange emotions stirring within him, 
 and "then he goes off gallantly, in his velvet coat, in 
 search of a partner in his lonely encampment. That 
 he will not be allowed to bring home his bride with- 
 out many an appeal to his weapons is almost a matter 
 of necessity, for by some singular dispensation the 
 number of male moles is very much greater than that 
 of the opposite sex, a disproportion which, as might 
 be expected, gives rise to a good deal of jealousy 
 and its natural consequences among such fierce and 
 untamed spirits. As the Mole goes on his wooing 
 he makes numerous but very shallow tracks in all 
 directions. These have received the elegant name of 
 traces d 1 amour from the French naturalists. The lady 
 having been found, the next business is to secure pos- 
 session of her, and this is attended with considerable 
 difficulties, both from the impertinent intrusions of 
 other males, and from a tendency on the part of the 
 lady herself to run away from the proffered happiness. 
 The intending bridegroom must have rather a hard 
 time of it But at length the bride's coyness and the 
 assiduities of rivals are got rid of, and the pair settle 
 down to inhabit, for a time, the same encampment, 
 and to bring up their little family." It would appear 
 that the affection of the male for his mate is of a very 
 warm kind, for instances have been known of females 
 being found in traps, with their devoted males lying 
 dead beside them. Moreover, it is stated by good 
 authorities that on occasions when their nest has been 
 invaded by some sudden flood, both male and female
 
 1 6 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 have been seen struggling bravely and risking their 
 own lives in order to save their helpless young. 
 
 The Mole has a tolerably high geological antiquity, 
 for the fossil remains of one species (Palczospalax 
 magnus), as large as a hedgehog, have been found in 
 the Norfolk forest-bed, a formation which is geologi- 
 cally older than the Great Ice age. Fossil remains 
 of allied species have also been found abundantly in 
 the Miocene strata of France ; but in all these cases 
 the identification has been based on the peculiar 
 character of the teeth and jaws. To know for certain 
 whether the Palaospalax of the Norfolk forest-bed 
 was an underground animal, we should require to ex- 
 amine the breast-bones, and those of the forelegs. 
 These would at once enable us to decide whether it 
 had acquired any or all of the subterranean habits 
 which we have briefly sketched as distinguishing the 
 common Mole. 
 
 Nearly allied to the Mole in many respects, but 
 chiefly in their dentition, and therefore food, are 
 those well-known and much maligned animals the 
 SHREWS. Their habits are perhaps not so subterra- 
 nean as those of the Moles, and in one instance we 
 have a special adaptation to a semi-aquatic life. 
 Still, all the species are burrowers, and one digs away 
 galleries after the fashion of its relative. The common 
 Shrew (Sorex vulgaris) is undoubtedly better known 
 than even the Mole, for it is more frequently met 
 with in country lanes. The only exception to its 
 mouse-like shape is in the long taper snout, which at 
 once indicates its relationship to the Moles, and the 
 fact that it is intended to be an underground feeder.
 
 TENANTS FOR LIFE. 17 
 
 Its dietary is purely insectivorous worms, slugs, larvse 
 of beetles, and insects being all greedily devoured. 
 Like its kinsman the Mole, it is very pugnacious, and 
 two males rarely meet without a fight, which is usually 
 to the death. Then follows the cannibalistic repast 
 of the victor upon his fallen foe. The subterranean 
 galleries which the Shrew excavates serve it both for 
 worm and grub-hunting grounds and a home. Its 
 taper snout here becomes a most useful plough in the 
 soft and yielding soil, and at the same time enables it 
 to root out its prey from their hiding-places. 
 
 Many natural history writers have noted the sin- 
 gular fact, well known to all dwellers in the country, 
 that about autumn-time great numbers of dead 
 shrews are found lying above ground, as if they were 
 the victims of some annual epidemic. And it has 
 been suggested, that as shrews are exceedingly vora- 
 cious animals, and cannot subsist long without feed- 
 ing, this sudden death may be due to starvation, as 
 the worms generally sink down lower in the earth 
 than usual during the dry months for the sake of 
 moisture. The Shrews lack the powerful digging- 
 limbs of the Moles, and therefore cannot follow them 
 downwards ; for their only or chief burrowing imple- 
 ment is their long, taper snout. It seems strange, 
 however, that such annual destruction of shrew life 
 should constantly occur. Those who regard " natural 
 selection " as an actual law, would argue that the 
 annual famines would ultimately have been provided 
 against by the survivors, and the danger have 
 been met. A little more observation is required to 
 clear up the mysteries of these autumn visitations. 
 
 C
 
 1 3 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 May they not be due to actual epidemics, brought on 
 perhaps by lowered nutrition, due to decrease in their 
 food supplies ? It would be an interesting study on 
 the part of any country naturalist to microscopically 
 examine the blood and stomachs of some of these 
 dead shrews, with a view to discovering the actual 
 causes of death. 
 
 Perhaps there is not a creature in all our British 
 fauna which has been more maligned than the 
 pretty and harmless little Shrew. Its history in this 
 respect plainly shows us what a savage and cruel 
 thing ignorance is. Genuine humanity and kindness 
 towards the lower animals have been developed in 
 proportion as the habits and general natural history 
 of those very creatures have been studied. Interest 
 in them thus supplants prejudices against them. We 
 soon find out how little we have understood them. 
 In many cases we learn that we have been perse- 
 cuting our own friends, and then self-interest impels 
 us to desist. In other instances we learn to love 
 them, as fellow-creatures sharing the same Divine 
 compassion and care ! And this latter is the right 
 feeling, 
 
 " For the great God who loveth us, 
 He made and loveth all. " 
 
 There is no need for us to dwell upon the injury 
 which even the unconscious infliction of pain and 
 cruelty exercised upon the lower animals reflects on 
 man himself. It stunts the growth of the finer feel- 
 ings of his nature, and develops those of intense 
 selfishness. Whereas a kindly love of animals, an
 
 TENANTS FOR LIFE. 19 
 
 interest taken in the habits and ways of every object 
 that enjoys the breath of life, will lift a man outside 
 himself, and allow him to note the true relationships 
 of the animal creation. 
 
 Even to this very day, in the more distant and less 
 opened-out parts of the country, the Shrew is regarded 
 with mistrust and actual dread. The most absurd 
 malpractices are alleged against it, and in not a few 
 places it is killed without mercy. The time is not 
 very distant when this ignorant superstition was be- 
 lieved in by all people, even by those professing 
 themselves educated beyond the common. Thus we 
 find a clergyman named Topsell, in a book written 
 in 1658 on " Four-footed Beasts," speaking of the 
 Shrew as follows : " It is a roving beast, feigning 
 itself gentle and tame, but being touched, it biteth 
 deep, and poyseneth deadly. It beareth a cruel 
 minde, desiring to hurt anything, neither is there any 
 creature that it loveth, or it loveth him, because it 
 is feared of all. . . . They go very slowly ; they are 
 fraudulent, and take their prey by deceit. Many 
 times they gnaw the oxes' hoofs in the stable " and 
 so on ! 
 
 Poor little Shrew, whose savagest bite will not 
 endow it with strength enough to break the skin of 
 the human hand ! But it was further reported con- 
 cerning it, that if it walked over the limbs of reposing 
 cattle, they would be smitten with paralysis. More- 
 over, even men and women and children could be 
 "shrew-struck," whatever that vague terror might 
 imply in those days of supposed witchcraft. Children 
 were particularly liable to this malady, perhaps be- 
 c 2
 
 20 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 cause they could not speak and tell what ailed them. 
 But the remedies for these evils were as false as 
 themselves, and frequently implied acts of cruelty 
 from which, we are thankful to say, most people 
 would now shrink. The chief cure for a " shrew- 
 stroke " was to catch a living shrew, and place it in a 
 hole which had been bored in an ash-tree specially 
 for its reception. The hole was then plugged, and 
 the creature allowed to die of starvation. "Shrew- 
 ashes," as these trees were called, are still pointed 
 out in some country places. Another remedy for the 
 supposed " poysonous bite " of this animal was to 
 get a shrew, burn it, and mix it with grease into an 
 ointment wherewith to anoint the affected or " bitten " 
 part. This, Topsell tells us, " doth bring a wonderful 
 and most admirable cure and remedy." To monopo- 
 lize such a remedy solely for shrew-bites hardly 
 seemed logical, and so we find it, under another 
 form, extended to the healing of bites of other 
 animals. Thus we are informed that " the tail of a 
 shrew being cut off and burned, and afterwards 
 beaten into dust, and applied or anointed upon the 
 sore of any man, which came by the bite of a greedy 
 and ravenous dog, will in very short space make them 
 both whole and sound, so that the tail be cut off from 
 the Shrew when she is ative, and not dead, for then it 
 have neither good operation nor efficacy in it." The 
 Rev. J. G. Wood very pertinently suggests that this 
 association by bad observers of the Shrew with cattle 
 might be caused by the little animals visiting them 
 for the sake of the insects which abound around them, 
 and possibly torment them.
 
 TENANTS FOR LIFE. 21 
 
 Another genus of Shrews is that called by natura- 
 lists Crassopus fodiens, but better known to anglers, 
 and those who have wandered by river and brook-sides, 
 by the name of the Water-Shrew. Like its terrestrial 
 namesake, it has the peculiar pointed snout of burrow- 
 ing animals, and, indeed, for a long time it was 
 believed to be identical with the former animal. But 
 we know it now to be both generically and specifically 
 distinct. Its fringed tail and feet proclaim its aquatic 
 habits, for the fringe enables the feet to act as oars, 
 and the tail to be used as a rudder. The Water-Shrew 
 is more abundant along the banks of streams in hilly 
 districts than in plains, although it is not rare in the 
 latter localities. Perhaps the reason it prefers rapidly- 
 running streams is because the bottoms there are 
 sandier and more free from mud, and also because 
 underneath the stones and pebbles lie the insect larvae 
 and crustaceans which serve it for food. It does not 
 restrict itself to the water-side, however, for it often 
 wanders about the fields in search of worms, grubs, 
 and insects. Still, it appears to enjoy an aquatic 
 existence, and we have seen that by the peculiarity of 
 its feet and tail it is evidently adapted for the habitat 
 it prefers. It is an excellent diver, and loves to sub- 
 merge its pretty little body beneath the water. The 
 short, silken fur, dark on the back and nearly pure 
 white on the belly, has the ppwer of entangling a film 
 of air, which keeps the water from damping the skin, 
 so that the Water-Shrew when submerged appears as 
 if coated with a thin layer of beady quicksilver. Other 
 aquatic animals possess this habit, notably the large 
 water-spider (Argyroneta}.
 
 22 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 Although so largely aquatic, the Water- Vole is 
 nevertheless an underground dweller. It burrows 
 galleries in the banks of the streams it frequents, and 
 is wise enough to have several openings, in case of 
 danger or attack, and always to have one which is 
 beneath the water. It can thus gain admission to or 
 exit from its subterranean dwelling either by land or 
 water, and it is evident that such a sagacious arrange- 
 ment must be an advantage to the contriver. It is a 
 frisky, joyous little animal, and in early May it is 
 most interesting to see the male and female chasing 
 each other through the water, feigning attack and 
 pursuit, and sometimes performing all the mimicry of 
 war. 
 
 Although the character of its teeth shows us that the 
 Water-Shrew is insectivorous, it does not refuse other 
 diet Small fish, tadpoles, and young frogs all con- 
 tribute to its larder, and it can even make a hearty meal 
 of such dead carcases as the streams may wash down. 
 We are afraid, also, that it is not altogether innocent 
 of devouring fish-spawn, and, what is worse, this habit 
 has caused the innocent Water- Vole (Arvicola amphi- 
 bius) to be included in the list of offenders in this 
 respect. Mr. Wood draws attention to one very strik- 
 ing adaptation to its semi-aquatic life which the Water- 
 Shrew possesses. Its ears are peculiarly formed, " so 
 that as soon as the animal is wholly submerged the 
 pressure of the water acts upon three small valves, 
 which fold together, and effectually prevent the en- 
 trance of a single drop of water into the cavity of 
 the ear. As soon as the animal rises from the water 
 the pressure is removed, and the ears unfold like
 
 TENANTS FOR LIFE. 23 
 
 the petals of a flower when the sun shines warmly 
 upon them." 
 
 The differences in the colour and fur of some varie- 
 ties of Water-Shrews have caused naturalists to believe 
 that another species exists, to which the name cf 
 Sorex remifer has been given. But intermediate 
 varieties between this and the common Water-Shrew 
 have proved that the former is the same species. A 
 good deal of the differences in the coloration of fur 
 depends upon the seasons, and the ages of in- 
 dividuals. 
 
 Popular zoology, which never aims at being accu- 
 rate, groups all the animals we are now considering 
 under the rough-and-ready term of "Rats and Mice." 
 We have now to notice another group of underground 
 dwellers, which belong to a different order. Their 
 dentition shows us this at once, for their teeth do not 
 interlock, as is the case with insectivorous animals, 
 and the jaws are fashioned to work to and fro, after 
 the fashion we call gnawing or nibbling ; hence the 
 name of Rodentia which is given to this order. It 
 includes animals of various sizes and habits, from the 
 Beaver to the Voles. The latter, like the Shrews, are 
 of two kinds, one of them affecting semi-aquatic habits, 
 and the other terrestrial ; but being rodents, their food 
 is almost exclusively vegetable in its character. Both 
 are extensive burrowers, but the Field-Vole (Arvicola 
 agrestis) is peculiarly so. It is its love for the sprouting 
 seed-corn which causes it to burrow underneath newly- 
 sown fields, where its subterranean galleries are visible 
 on the surface by the long furrows it casts up. Mr- 
 Bell tells us that the Field- Vole will also take posses-
 
 24 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 sion of the empty burrows of other animals, particularly 
 of those of the Mole, For a winter residence it usually 
 selects wheat-ricks and barns, where it continues its 
 depredations. Altogether, therefore, the Field- Vole 
 is one of the greatest enemies the farmer has to contend 
 against. The increase of late years of this and other 
 similar animals seems to be due to the great destruction 
 of our birds of prey, notably of the owls, which 
 would otherwise keep them down, and prevent their 
 undue increase. The late Mr. Edward Newman 
 used to say that every owl was worth ^5 a year to the 
 British nation, on account of its usefulness in destroy- 
 ing animals of this character, whose prolific fertility 
 would soon multiply them to such a degree that they 
 would soon overrun a country. At the late meeting 
 of the British Association in Dublin, Sir Walter Elliott 
 made some observations on the annual increase of the 
 Field-Vole of late years. In the spring of 1876 they 
 appeared in such numbers in the hill pasture-farms of 
 the border districts between England and Scotland as 
 to destroy the grazing ground on which the sheep 
 depended in spring, thus causing serious loss to the 
 farmers by the impoverishment and death of their 
 stock. The shepherds destroyed as many as they 
 could, but without sensibly diminishing their numbers, 
 although they were assisted by birds and beasts of 
 prey, hawks, owls, buzzards, weasels, foxes, etc. At 
 the same time that the Field- Vole was doing such 
 mischief along the borders, another species (Arvicola 
 arvalis), not known in England, made its appearance 
 in Hungary, and attacked the cornfields there. This 
 it had done to a less degree two or three years before,
 
 TENANTS FOR LIFE. 25 
 
 and in 1877 they attacked the wheat-fields of Moldavia. 
 The Field-Voles do not restrict their ravages to newly- 
 sown fields or to green pastures ; they also attack 
 plantations of young trees, and do much harm through 
 nibbling the roots and shoots of living trees and shrubs. 
 They burrow beneath the ground, and there find in 
 such plantations food ready to their taste. The 
 young woods then droop and wither as if blighted, and 
 none but those in the secret know of the subterranean 
 enemy which has caused all the mischief. Mr. Jesse, 
 in his " Gleanings," has put on record the great damage 
 which the Field- Voles dtd to the new plantations in 
 Dean Forest and the New Forest. He states that the 
 roots of the trees were always eaten through whenever 
 they obstructed the " runs " of the Voles ; but it should 
 be remembered that these very " runs " are excavated 
 in order that the burrowers may find vegetable food. 
 Mr. Jesse tells us that pits were dug, in order that the 
 Voles might fall therein, and this mode of capture 
 proved so successful that thousands were caught. 
 What with this and other methods of destruction, he 
 calculates that no fewer than two hundred thousand 
 voles were slain in the plantations of the tsvo above- 
 mentioned forests. 
 
 In the paper just referred to Sir Walter Elliott 
 expressed his opinion that it was worth the considera- 
 tion of game-preservers as to whether hawks, owls, 
 weasels, etc., should be so greatly exterminated as 
 they are by ignorant gamekeepers. For ourselves we 
 would speak more emphatically on this point. Even 
 from the sportsman's point of view the matter is worth 
 careful consideration. Our winged game has deterio-
 
 26 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 rated so much in its powers of flight, for want of 
 birds of prey picking out the worst, that sportsmen 
 complain of the insipidity of the field. We hear and 
 read of chronic epidemics taking off such myriads of 
 grouse and partridges that sometimes few are left to 
 the gun. The fact is, when nature was allowed to 
 keep up her police in the shape of birds and beasts 
 of prey, the weakly were thinned off, and none but 
 the strong left to perpetuate the race. But since we 
 stepped in, and in our greediness to raise as many 
 " birds " as possible, have indiscriminately massacred 
 their natural enemies, we have in reality protected 
 the weakly, allowed them to breed, and so deteriorated 
 the race. Neither the species we have sought to 
 protect, the birds of prey, nor the sportsmen have 
 been gainers by the disturbance of the natural balance. 
 We have succeeded in raising a race of weakly birds, 
 which cold, mildew, or internal parasitical worms, 
 such as " gapes," carry off by thousands. Moles and 
 hedgehogs, which are the natural enemies of the 
 Vole, by devouring the food which would otherwise 
 cause the Voles to multiply, are destroyed most 
 ruthlessly, and by professional slayers; whereas the 
 Voles, greatly more destructive to crops and young 
 trees, are allowed to increase unchecked, until some 
 such panic occurs as that which recently alarmed the 
 Border farmers. 
 
 We have a good deal more sympathy for the Water- 
 Vole (Arvicola amphibius). In the first place, it has 
 constantly to suffer for the faults of other animals, 
 and a false accusation is sure to beget sympathy for 
 the accused in the heart of every Englishman. It.
 
 TENANTS FOR LIFE. 27 
 
 usually goes by the name of the " Water- Rat," and 
 so all the sins of that heinous offender are laid on the 
 head of the poor Water- Vole. It is an unfortunate 
 thing for the latter animal that it so much resembles 
 the former in general appearance. The true brown 
 rat will visit river-banks and devour fish wherever it 
 can obtain them ; but the Water- Vole is a pure 
 vegetarian, as its teeth plainly indicate. It feeds on 
 aquatic plants, their stems, leaves, or seeds ; the 
 common mare's tail (Equiseluni) being evidently a 
 favourite morsel with it, notwithstanding its flinty 
 skin. Mr. Wood says he has often seen it feeding on 
 the bark of the common rush. Now, neither of these 
 plants contains much nourishment, and therefore we 
 think it is highly probable that the Water-Vole only 
 resorts to them because of their silicious cuticles, 
 gnawing which enables it to keep down the too rapid 
 growth of its incisor teeth. Many animals gnaw at 
 substances for this purpose, and it is easily conceivable 
 that the Water-Vole, whose vegetable diet is of so 
 succulent a character generally, must require dental 
 practice of such a kind. In many respects the Water- 
 Vole is nearly allied to the Beaver. It is one of the 
 commonest of our British mammals, and may be found 
 along the banks of most clear streams. The numerous 
 holes which the observer beholds in these banks are 
 due to the tunnelling propensities of the Water-Vole. 
 It excavates in the soft alluvial soil of the banks, and 
 forms galleries of some length, which serve it both as 
 a home and special breeding-place. We may there- 
 fore consider it as an underground dweller, for it 
 seeks in the bosom of mother earth that shelter which
 
 28 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 would perhaps be denied it above ground. It has 
 been complained, and perhaps with some reason, 
 that the Water- Vole does harm by weakening the 
 banks of rivers by the numerous tunnels it makes. 
 This may be true, but the Vole might allege in defence 
 that it is obliged to live somewhere ! 
 
 We are glad to add our testimony to that of 
 numerous other observers as to the harmeless charac- 
 ter of the Water- Vole. There is not the slightest 
 foundation for the accusations against it of destroying 
 fish, fish-spawn or young, or young ducks. For such 
 offences the brown rat ought to be indicted, not the 
 Water- Vole. When aquatic vegetation is scanty, it 
 will wander inland, and devour garden produce, but 
 this is very rarely. To a careless observer, its short 
 snub nose will readily distinguish it, even at a glance, 
 from the brown rat. 
 
 Turn we now to another rodent, the very type of 
 harmlessness in itself, timid, shy, and yet one of the 
 greatest enemies the industrious farmer has to cope 
 with. We allude to the RABBIT (Lepus cuniculus). 
 To see it in its jubilant and yet fearsome innocence, 
 you must get to some gorse-covered heath towards 
 evening of a summer's day. Observe how they 
 gambol in the most erratic and fantastic fashion now 
 stampeding for a score of yards as if chased by their 
 bitterest enemies, and then suddenly stopping to nibble 
 at some favourite herb ; perhaps to divert and double 
 again towards the point whence they originally started. 
 The whole group, scattered over the naked part of the 
 heath, then perhaps breaks up into frolicsome twos or 
 threes, which chase each other into their holes. The
 
 TENANTS FOR LIFE. 2<) 
 
 males endeavour to belie their harmless appearance 
 by stamping the ground angrily with their hind 
 feet, but their timid neighbours are evidently too 
 much accustomed to this innocent fiction to let it 
 frighten them. Poor gambolling creatures, there are 
 few animals which have a larger host of varied 
 enemies than they ! Hawk, eagle, owl, fox, dog, 
 weasel, and even man, delight in their destruction ; 
 and yet these persecuted creatures, so burdened with 
 the care and fear of a hunted life, give themselves 
 up to enjoyments perhaps fuller of real fun and 
 genuine humour than those indulged in by any other 
 animals ! 
 
 That the Rabbit is an underground dweller every 
 one is aware. Its excavations are visible on every 
 sandy warren, and its irregular burrows communicate 
 with each other below the soil like the streets of a 
 large town. Besides these we have the extraordinary 
 burrows, dug by the female rabbits as nurseries. At 
 the further ends of these secure retreats a large 
 quantity of dried grass is laid, and this is covered 
 over or intermixed with the soft fur from the Rabbit's 
 breast, so as to form the warm and comfortable nest 
 which will receive the seven or eight blind, naked, 
 and utterly helpless young. Their reproductive 
 powers are extraordinarily great, so much so that if 
 they were not kept down by their numerous enemies, 
 they would speedily overrun every county and eat 
 up its vegetation. No place seems unfit for their 
 development, if the soil is not too stiff or rocky 
 to forbid their excavating their burrows. The few 
 rabbits taken over to Australia, perhaps more as
 
 30 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 curiosities or home-pets than anything else, threaten 
 to become one of the greatest plagues the colonists 
 have to deal with, for there is an absence of those 
 natural foes which abound in Great Britain. And yet 
 a good rabbit warren, especially if it breed a peculiar 
 colour, such as the gray rabbits on Brandon Heath, 
 in Suffolk, is perhaps one of the most profitable of 
 undertakings. They are animals which always find a 
 market, for their flesh is the food of the people. Their 
 furs are valuable, and capable of being manipulated 
 into the semblance of those deemed more costly ; and 
 many a lady who is perhaps treasuring her furs as real 
 sable or ermine, is little aware that " rabbits " have 
 contributed the main portion of the compound ! 
 
 Unfortunately for its reputation with the farmer, the 
 Rabbit is a very wasteful feeder. It destroys much more 
 than it eats, nibbling a little bit here and there as if 
 in sheer destructiveness, and gnawing away the bark 
 of young trees. No wonder many farmers regard them 
 as " ground vermin," and are, perhaps, only compen- 
 sated for their wanton destructiveness by the few days 
 rabbit-shooting accorded them by their landlords. 
 The fact is, rabbits have no right to be encouraged 
 where good farming is carried on. In such places 
 they ought to be exterminated, and allowed to 
 develop over those numerous waste lands whereon 
 nothing else will live, but where the Rabbit finds an 
 abundance of food and accommodation. In this way 
 the rich soils would be freed from a troublesome 
 enemy, and the barren unproductive land be able to 
 contribute largely and. profitably to the food-supplies 
 of the country.
 
 TENANTS FOR LIFE. 31 
 
 Of late years a hybrid race of rabbits, bred of a 
 cross between the Hare and the Rabbit, has been 
 successfully cultivated. These hybrids, singularly 
 enough, and unlike the general rule of hybridization, 
 are able to breed among themselves. The name of 
 Lepus Darwinii has been given to this remarkable 
 zoological manufacture of a new species. In Heligo- 
 
 THE RABBIT (Lepus cuniculus). 
 
 land this kind of rabbit is bred specially for the 
 markets, where it is in high request, and its flesh 
 partakes alike of the best qualities of that of the Hare 
 and of the common Rabbit. 
 
 Few people would think that lingering about the
 
 32 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 entrances of the rabbit burrows there are certain para- 
 sites which threaten to avenge the persecutions of the 
 dog and the fox on these innocent creatures ; and 
 yet such is the case. That well-known insect the 
 dog-tick (Ixodes ririnus), or rather the female, haunts 
 these localities, and fastens itself on the first dog or 
 fox which thrusts its nose in the mouth of the tempt- 
 ing burrow. These dog-ticks may nearly always be 
 found in such situations. After once they have estab- 
 lished themselves on their new hosts, they propagate 
 their kind at the expense of its [comfort, not un- 
 frequently causing it much suffering. Rabbits are 
 also liable to a disease, caused by an internal parasite, 
 which, singularly enough, never advances within their 
 bodies beyond the stage in which we there always find 
 it. But should a dog, fox, or wolf devour such a suf- 
 fering rabbit, then the parasite is transferred to the 
 stomach of the devourer. There it undergoes a mar- 
 vellous change, advancing beyond the stage in which 
 we knew it in the Rabbit, and taking up a different 
 position in the body of its second host. It is now the 
 well-known tapeworm of the dog, and attaches it- 
 self by means of hooks and suckers to the mucous 
 membrane of the intestines. 
 
 One almost naturally associates the name of one 
 underground dweller with another, the Fox with the 
 Rabbit. Yet what a difference in their habits and 
 natures ! One the very type of animal innocence, the 
 other of carnivorous cunning and cruelty; and still 
 there are some traits in the character of the Fox which 
 are admirable. Its devotion to its young and courage 
 manifested in their defence are well known ; and if a
 
 TENANTS FOR LIFE. 33 
 
 cub be taken young, we have known it to become 
 almost as much attached to its master as a dog. All 
 its good qualities, however, are completely absorbed 
 in its proverbial cunning. The traditions of all peoples, 
 wherever the Fox is found, have expressed this fact ; 
 and some of the oldest fables in the old and new 
 worlds make the Fox their central figure. 
 
 Can we forget that He " who had not where to lay 
 His head," adverted to the underground habits of this 
 animal ? " The Foxes have holes," all the world over, 
 whatever species we may select, not even excepting 
 the Arctic Fox, which will burrow in the snow. Like 
 many of the animals liable to pursuit, such as the 
 Mole, Shrew, etc., the Fox has special tail-glands 
 which secrete the strong odour which characterizes 
 them. In the Fox, however, it is this odour which the 
 hounds take up and follow, and at certain times of 
 the year it appears to be very strong, insomuch that 
 we can easily tell for ourselves if a fox have crossed the 
 path a short time previously. The Fox seems to be well 
 aware of the dangerous consequences to itself of this 
 tell-tale scent, and hence the numerous dodges it 
 resorts to to throw the pursuing dogs off it. It will 
 return on its former track, or " double," as it is 
 called, and then make most extraordinary leaps so as 
 to throw the hounds off. Nay, Mr. Wood tells us 
 that it is sagacious enough even to perfume itself 
 with any odorous substance it may come across, in 
 order to deceive the keen-scented dogs. It is 
 questionable, however, whether we have not an 
 instance here of a change which has taken place in 
 the utility of a secretion. The Fox originally had this 
 D
 
 34 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 secreting power given to it either for sexual purposes, 
 so that male might find female ; or, perhaps, even to 
 disgust its natural enemies with the taste of its flesh. 
 Except just at the moment of its death, when their 
 passions are excited, dogs even now will not touch 
 the flesh of the Fox. And this nauseating odour may 
 therefore have been largely protective. But now, 
 alas for the Fox, man has appeared upon the scene, 
 and in his love of sport has taken advantage of 
 that very scent (which may have been intended to 
 repel the Fox's enemies), to track and hunt the creature 
 to its death ! 
 
 The " holes " or burrows of the Fox are scooped 
 out of the earth by means of the animal's strong dig- 
 ging paws. It exhibits much craft and cunning in 
 excavating these holes, carrying the galleries in and 
 out of the roots of some large tree, or, in rocky 
 ground, in and between the interstices of the stones. 
 But it shirks such labour whenever possible, and will 
 take possession of and utilize the holes of the Badger 
 and Rabbit when it can. These underground re- 
 treats are well known to sportsmen by the name of 
 " earths." The Fox usually remains concealed in 
 them during the day, and issues thence at night on 
 its destructive foraging expeditions. No animal 
 seems more instinctively aware that it has very cun- 
 ning enemies to deal with. Its own craftiness seems 
 to make it suspicious of every creature except those 
 on which it preys. Hence the sagacious suspicion 
 with which it examines the mouth of its hole on its 
 return from a journey. Anything of the nature of a 
 trap or a gin is scented at once, and tales of the most
 
 TENANTS FOR LIFE. 
 
 35 
 
 remarkable sagacity are related by trustworthy ob- 
 servers of the various ways in which the Fox has 
 defeated all such attempts at its capture. Similarly, 
 before leaving its burrow, its first care is to examine 
 the neighbourhood of the mouth, to see that no snare 
 has been laid. A French naturalist relates that a fox 
 has been known to remain within its retreat without 
 food for fifteen days, rather than risk the danger of 
 falling into a trap which it suspected had been set for 
 it. The Fox lives as long as fourteen years, and if 
 the country be much " hunted," we may depend on it 
 that by the time it has reached such an age, its stock 
 of cunning must be very large. 
 
 It is with pleasure that we have the opportunity of 
 saying a good word for another much-maligned and 
 much-persecuted creature, the BADGER (Meles taxus). 
 Fortunately a humaner law has taken this poor crea- 
 ture under its protection, and so " Badger-baiting," as 
 the " sport " of tormenting the poor thing was called, 
 is now illegal. It is a sad reflection that the in- 
 dulgence in that brutal cruelty which comes of 
 thoughtlessness rather than from a desire to inflict 
 pain, should have at length enriched the English lan- 
 guage with an additional verb ! " To badger " is now 
 used legitimately to signify a persistent endeavour to 
 annoy and worry. What an amount of cruelty is re- 
 presented by this circumstance ! The result of this 
 "badgering" persecution is that the animal whose 
 sufferings have given us the word is now all but extinct 
 in Great Britain. 
 
 And yet we question whether there is any member 
 of our English fauna in reality more truly harmless. 
 
 D 2
 
 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 Left alone, it is thoroughly inoffensive, although its 
 strength of jaws and claws makes it a formidable 
 enemy when it is worried up to that pitch of self- 
 defence at which even a worm would turn. In former 
 
 '(* 
 
 ffZr. f ffc-. - 
 
 THE BADGER (Meles taxtts). 
 
 times the Badger was placed in a tub, and then con- 
 tinuously worried by dogs, until the " amusement " 
 not unfrequently ended in both dogs and Badger suf- 
 fering to the death. 
 
 As an underground dweller, the Badger is most ad- 
 mirably adapted to that mode of life ; and its long,
 
 TENANTS FOR LIFE. 37 
 
 taper, powerful snout, and strong digging claws are 
 equally good tools wherewith to excavate its subter- 
 ranean dwelling-place. Like its near relation the Bear, 
 it is plantigrade that is to say, the whole foot is 
 placed upon the ground at every stride. This makes 
 it a slow and somewhat clumsy walker, just as the 
 Bear is ; but these strong feet are of capital use to 
 the animal when burrowing. Its claws are peculiarly 
 curved, and strong, and the short feet which they ter- 
 minate must be very capital digging implements. 
 When engaged in excavating its burrow, the Badger 
 uses its snout to push the earth aside w ith, and mean 
 time the forefeet are engaged in digging, whilst the 
 hind feet are used to throw the earth to the rear as 
 much as possible. A good deal of pains and care 
 are taken to remove the excavated earth from near 
 the hole, and, as the Badger is a large animal, and 
 therefore requires a capacious burrow, there must be 
 a very large quantity of debris to be thus disposed of. 
 When its underground abode is thus contrived, the 
 Badger, like the Rabbit, proceeds to prepare one part 
 of it for the especial purpose of a nursery. There 
 the female makes her comfortable nest, generally of 
 well-dried grass, which must be a warm and snug 
 retreat for her three or four young when these are 
 born. Nor has it been neglected to stock this subter- 
 ranean home with necessary provisions, in the shape 
 of well-rolled balls of grass, etc. The situation chosen 
 for these burrows is generally in the gloomy depth of 
 some wood, or the coppice-planted side of a hill. 
 The entrance to the burrow is usually steep and tor- 
 tuous, and the underground home has often more
 
 38 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 than one apartment in case of danger. In these days, 
 when the " sewage nuisance " is occupying public 
 attention, and sanitary science seems helpless to deal 
 with an increasing difficulty, the devices of the Badger 
 to provide for the removal of ordure, etc., within his 
 subterranean retreat are worth a remark. It digs in- 
 geniously-designed sinks or pits, and in these all the 
 offensive refuse and faeces are thrown and covered up, 
 and thus the cleanly animal takes due care that its 
 dark and gloomy home shall at any rate be clean ! 
 The odour which the Badgers, male and female, 
 themselves evolve is, as usual, secreted by special 
 tail-glands, and this enables the male and female 
 animals to obtain traces of each other a contrivance 
 all the more necessary as Badgers are never numeri- 
 cally abundant, and must frequently roam about at 
 great distances from each other. It is this fetid se- 
 cretion which has obtained for the Badger its Scotch 
 name of the " Stinking Brock " broc being its ancient 
 Anglo-Saxon name. 
 
 In addition to its vegetable diet of grass, roots, 
 earth-nuts, beech-mast, etc., the Badger will occa- 
 sionally vary its diet with insect and animal food. It 
 is very fond of wasp-grubs, and does a great deal of 
 good in digging out wasp-nests from the banks a 
 feat for which its powerful curved claws admirably 
 adapt it Its tough hide and dense, coarse hair, mean- 
 time completely protect it from the stings of the 
 enraged wasps, which cling to it and buzz about it in 
 vain, as it destroys both their horce and their offspring. 
 
 It will be thus seen that the Badger is about as 
 inoffensive in itself, and as harmless to man, as any
 
 TENANTS FOR LIFE. 39 
 
 of our native wild animals can be. There is a popular 
 notion about it that it is a dull and stupid creature, 
 stubborn and sulky. But the almost fox-like sagacity 
 with which it scents traps and snares, and the means 
 it adopts to subvert them, at once prove that it is any- 
 thing but " stupid." And the ease with which it can 
 be tamed, and the affection it displays for those who 
 care for it, equally attest its pliant disposition. Pro- 
 fessor Bell himself gives us the following account of a 
 young badger he had tamed ; or, rather, the animal 
 had been purchased from a cottager with whose 
 children it had been seen playing as familiarly as a 
 puppy. Professor Bell tells us that he " found the 
 animal had been taken when very young, and had 
 been brought up as a playmate of the children ; it 
 had, however, become rather rough in its fondness, 
 and the poor man was willing to part with it. It thus 
 came into my possession, and soon became a great 
 favourite, showing, too, on its part, great attachment 
 to me and the household. He followed me like a dog, 
 yelping and barking with a peculiar sharp cry when he 
 found himself shut out of the room in .which I hap- 
 pened to be sitting. He was accustomed to come into 
 our dining-room during dinner, of which he was gene- 
 rally permitted to partake, and he always ate his morsels 
 in a very orderly manner. He was, in fact, an affec- 
 tionate, gentle, good-tempered fellow, and very cleanly 
 withal." That is our opinion of the Badger, wild or 
 tame ; and we hope that the spirit of humanity which 
 the modern love of natural history is so powerfully 
 helping to develop, and which has already borne good 
 fruit in the protection extended during their " close
 
 40 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 time " to most of our wild birds, will ere long protect 
 our native mammalia from that indiscriminate slaughter 
 which harms by brutalizing those who indulge in it, 
 even more than the poor creatures that are hunted to 
 extinction ! 
 
 We have several other native mammals which oc- 
 casionally resort to underground retreats, although 
 none are at the special labour and trouble of 
 excavating them. The Otter (Lutra vulgaris) will 
 occasionally excavate a kind of hollow in the softer 
 parts of the river banks which it frequents ; but it 
 prefers some deserted burrow, or natural hole or 
 crevice, to any contrivance of its own, which latter, at 
 the best, is a very sorry piece of work. The natural 
 hollow beneath the overhanging roots of a tree is one 
 of its favourite haunts, and here it usually brings up its 
 young, to which it is devoted almost beyond any other 
 of our wild animals. Our Brown and Black Rats, 
 also, although neither species is purely indigenous, 
 pass a good deal of their lives underground, 'where they 
 prefer to have their " runs " in the neighbourhood of 
 houses and buildings, and generally beneath the very 
 floors. The Black Rat ( Mus rattus), commonly called 
 the " Old English Rat," is now nearly extinct in this 
 country, having been driven out of its old haunts by 
 the Brown, or Norway Rat (Mus decumanus), just as 
 the aboriginal Britons were replaced by the ancient 
 Anglo-Saxon conquerors and settlers. Before the 
 Norway Rat came into this country, the Black Rat 
 was quite as plentiful as the former now is. Its name 
 serves to show us how long the black species has been 
 acclimatized with us, but he is only a foreigner after
 
 TENANTS FOR LIFE. 4! 
 
 all, and was probably imported into England from 
 France. Some of our species of Mice also occasion- 
 ally resort to holes underground, although they usually 
 occupy such subterranean " runs " as they find, rather 
 than construct them. The Harvest Mouse (Mus mes- 
 sorius) resorts to subterranean burrows during the 
 winter months, and there hybernates. The Field 
 Mouse ( Mus sylvaticus) has also underground retreats, 
 where, unfortunately for us, it lays up much store of 
 grain for winter use. These subterranean abodes are 
 usually in natural excavations under the roots of trees. 
 Pennant says that it is in quest of these hidden hoards 
 of food made by the Field Mouse that the hog does 
 so much harm by rooting up the ground. The 
 Common Marten (Martes fot'na), Polecat (Mtistela 
 putorius), and Weasel (Mustela vulgaris), also fre- 
 quently use holes and crevices in the ground for 
 their protection; and the Ermine (Mustela erminea) 
 has been known to utilize the deserted underground 
 galleries and citadels of the common Mole. 
 
 Nor should we omit reference to the fact that some 
 of the " birds of the air " are fain to seek abodes 
 underground. Among the most indefatigable of 
 burrowers in this respect is the Sand Martin (Hinindo 
 riparia), which exhibits great skill in the way with 
 which it excavates its tunnel in the face of a sandy 
 cliff. The Kingfisher also digs out a hollow for its 
 nest, if it cannot find one to its hand. The Puffin 
 prefers to rob the Rabbit of its burrow, but if it cannot 
 do so it will hollow one out for itself. For timid 
 although the wild Rabbit be, it does not give up 
 its subterranean home obtained at the expense of
 
 42 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 so much labour, without contention; and many 
 comical combats take place before the Puffin finally 
 vanquishes it. Jackdaws, Stockdoves, Sheldrakes, 
 and other British birds, also seek for nest-shelter in 
 underground retreats ; whilst the Stormy Petrel digs 
 out a most elaborate tunnel, leading to a capacious 
 cell, from the blown sandbanks along the coasts it 
 frequents. 
 
 Enough has been said, however, to indicate that the 
 soil beneath us affords its convenient shelter to many 
 vertebrate animals, just as the waters of our seas and 
 rivers do to the species equally adapted to an aquatic 
 existence. Modern science has brought into greater 
 prominence than ever that wonderful doctrine of 
 adaptation of animal and vegetable life to its sur- 
 roundings which, in our opinion, is one of the strongest 
 evidences supplied by natural religion -of the con- 
 stant superintendence of a Personal and Intelligent 
 Being.
 
 UNDERGROUND. 43 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 INVERTEBRATE DWELLERS UNDERGROUND. 
 
 THE complex organization of warm-blooded or verte- 
 brate animals renders it impossible for many of them 
 to live under conditions which are more favourable 
 to creatures simpler in structure and habit. Hence 
 we find a much larger number of invertebrate animals 
 living underground than of the higher group. The 
 periods during which they lead this subterranean 
 existence are varied. Some of the animals, as the 
 Mole -Cricket, Earth-worm, etc., cannot habitually 
 live elsewhere ; others adopt the habit periodically or 
 occasionally. Of the most notable of these under- 
 ground species we purpose now taking notice. We 
 shall find much to learn from some of them, and 
 perhaps be astonished that we need not go to Her- 
 culaneum or Pompeii to find buried cities, for they 
 occur beneath our own feet. And although they be 
 cities or communities of insects, instead of men, the 
 interest created by these underground habitations in- 
 creases the more we study them. 
 
 Let us turn our attention first to those animals 
 whose peculiar anatomy indicates their special adapt- 
 ation to an underground existence. Next to the 
 Mole, the MOLE-CRICKET (Gryllotalpa vulgaris) is
 
 44 
 
 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 perhaps one of the most admirably fitted for the life 
 it leads beneath the soil. Although an invertebrate 
 animal (whilst the true mole is vertebrate), one cannot 
 but be surprised at the similarity of the plan on which 
 the fore-limbs of these two creatures separated by so 
 wide a zoological division have been fashioned. 
 Popular observation has long noticed this fact ; hence 
 the English name of the insect. Its build at once 
 shows us what a muscular creature it is, in spite of its 
 lightness of weight. Notwithstanding the strong re- 
 semblance in every part and detail of the first pair of 
 
 ^-' , , :)/<;; 
 
 iSS jgg 
 
 C ^T 
 
 3^^ 
 
 THE MOLE-CRICKET (Gryllotalpa vulgarie). 
 
 legs in the Mole-Cricket to those of the Mole, the 
 likeness is only the result of modifying two different 
 sets of animal limbs to one kind of work. We have 
 the same principle exemplified in the pectoral fins of 
 fish and the paddles of the Whale or Dolphin in the 
 wings of the bird and those of the bat.
 
 INVERTEBRATE DWELLERS UNDERGROUND. 45 
 
 We kept some mole-crickets obtained from a rich 
 loamy field at Beccles, in Suffolk, for a long time. It 
 was quite amusing to observe how they used their 
 front legs for burrowing, exactly after the manner of 
 the Mole certainly the resemblance was quite as 
 striking as the method of swimming of fish is to that 
 of cetaceans. They were domesticated in the soil 
 of a flower-pot, and when placed on the surface, they 
 disappeared beneath with the same kind of ghost-like 
 motion that we noticed in the Moles. Like its struc- 
 tural prototype, the Mole-Cricket burrows under- 
 ground, although it is rather herbivorous than carni- 
 vorous in its diet, so that it is anything but a welcome 
 habitant in the market-gardens where it frequently 
 takes up its abode. Whilst burrowing beneath the soil, 
 it attacks the roots of all kinds of plants, so that the 
 latter gradually die, and their decay will perhaps be 
 assigned to "worms." Still the Mole-Cricket does not 
 seem averse to insect food, especially worms, of which 
 it is very fond, and devours a good many. Like all 
 animals which are fond of fighting, it is occasionally 
 a cannibal. This cannibal habit seems always to have 
 been formed from revengeful feelings, rather than 
 dearth of food. If two mole-crickets (especially two 
 males) be placed in a box, the result will be an ap- 
 proximation to the melancholy end of the Kilkenny 
 Cats ! The stronger will be the victor ; and, although 
 he may have lost a limb or two in the fearful duel, he 
 will inevitably feast upon his vanquished foe. Nay, 
 it is on record that when a mole-cricket had been cut 
 in two by a spade the forepart has been seen devour- 
 ing its severed hinder part !
 
 46 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 The male insect differs from the female in the 
 position of the wing-covers, or elytra. In the former 
 the right elytron wraps over the left, whereas in the 
 female the left folds over the right. There is also a 
 difference in^ the measures of the wings of the two 
 sexes. The females appear to be the most abun- 
 dantly represented, and they lay an immense num- 
 ber of eggs during the summer months. When 
 hatched, the young remain underground, and during 
 the winter repose in a dormant condition. They do 
 not appear above the surface until they have under- 
 gone their changes of skin, or metamorphoses, and 
 their wings have been fully grown. This does not 
 take place until the succeeding summer, so that a 
 newly-fledged mole-cricket is a year old. The eggs 
 are usually deposited at so shallow a depth under- 
 ground that the sun's heat can penetrate to them, 
 and hatch them into life. The nest-burrows of the 
 Mole-Cricket, therefore, are different from its ordinary 
 subterranean tunnels, and are intended for a special 
 purpose, which speaks much for the instinct of these 
 singular insects. In its ordinary habits the Mole- 
 Cricket constructs, like its namesake, a neatly-finished 
 chamber, which is approached by winding galleries. 
 Like the Mole, also, its course under ground may 
 frequently be traced by the ridges of earth it throws 
 up to the surface. The passages it forms are not 
 sufficiently wide to allow the insect to turn about ; 
 but this difficulty is got over by the adroitness with 
 which (thanks to the very sensitive bristles at the end 
 of its body, which act like the antennae in front) it 
 can move backwards or forwards with equal ease.
 
 INVERTEBRATE DWELLERS UNDERGROUND. 47 
 
 These remarkable bristles also serve to communicate 
 to their possessor warning of danger that may 
 threaten it at the rear, when it is engaged in employ- 
 ing its powerful front legs in burrowing. 
 
 The possession of wings shows us plainly that the 
 underground habits of the Mole-Cricket have been 
 acquired. In proportion as its fore-limbs have been 
 so remarkably modified and adapted for subterranean 
 uses, its wings have lost their power of extensive 
 flight, and are now so small in proportion to the size 
 and weight of the insect's body, that they can only carry 
 it in a series of dips or jerky flights. Sight, however, 
 does not appear to have been much affected, possibly 
 from the fact that in the summer months both males 
 and females pass much time above ground, when the 
 use of sight is constantly required. The male is said 
 to be sometimes luminous, or phosphorescent ; so 
 that it has been mistaken, when flying at night, for 
 the Will-o'-the-wisp. 
 
 Whilst speaking of the Mole-Cricket, we may as 
 well here allude to the partially underground habits 
 of its cousin, the FIELD-CRICKET (Acheta campestris). 
 Although it resorts to subterranean shelter less than 
 the former, still it makes use of the soil beneath us 
 for protective purposes. It excavates burrows in 
 banks where the soil is looser than usual, and here 
 it lodges all day, only issuing forth at night, when it 
 pipes its well-known shrilly notes. These under- 
 ground burrows are excavated by the insects in a 
 tortuous manner, and occasionally the observer may 
 see them sitting within the entrances to their habita- 
 tions even in the daytime, after the manner of Giant
 
 4 8 
 
 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 Pope in the " Pilgrim's Progress." The Field- 
 Cricket is an odd-tempered, irascible little creature, 
 and allows its angry passions to get the better of its 
 judgment. Hence it is an easy matter to draw it 
 forth from the bottom of its hole by simply inserting 
 
 -- 
 
 FIELD CRICKETS (one emerging from its burrou) . 
 
 a long stalk of grass. The irritable insect fastens on 
 the end at once, and foolishly suffers itself to be 
 dragged out of its retreat rather than let go. As a 
 rule, each field-cricket has a separate burrow, but this 
 single-blessedness is only of diurnal practice, for, in
 
 INVERTEBRATE DWELLERS UNDERGROUND. 49 
 
 the evening, the insects gather together at a general 
 nocturnal meeting. 
 
 Nearly allied to the Field-Cricket is the beautiful 
 GREEN GRASSHOPPER, so frequently to be seen on the 
 dewy hedgerows in September. Its grass -green 
 colour is a great protection to it, as every one must 
 see at a glance. The long, formidable-looking organ 
 at the end of the body is the ovipositor, and by its 
 means the eggs of this insect can be laid on the 
 ground, after the ovipositor has first acted as a boring 
 instrument to dig a hole for their reception. Ten or 
 twelve eggs are placed in one hole, and then another 
 is bored, and this goes on until all the eggs are 
 deposited. The eggs hatch in the ground, and at 
 first are as small as a gnat's. 
 
 Mother Earth affords home and shelter for the 
 living as well as for the dead. Many species of Bees 
 and Wasps live in useful knowledge of the fact ; but 
 among them none more so than the now highly 
 appreciated HUMBLE-BEE, well named by naturalists, 
 on account of its underground habits, Bombus 
 terrestris. Its English name is almost common pro- 
 perty both with us and the Germans, the latter term- 
 ing it Huinmel-Biene. In both instances it is doubt- 
 less derived from the loud, humming sound made by 
 this insect. Speaking personally, there are few British 
 insects for which we have a greater respect than the 
 Humble-Bee. It is the very type of a business-like 
 body, attending only to its own affairs, more in- 
 dustrious even than the Ant, more devoted to its 
 young than even the Spider. Its life, if not one of 
 anxiety, is one of continual labour and care. By 
 E
 
 50 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 what singular arrangement is it that the Humble- 
 Bees die off so strangely at the close of summer, but 
 first depute, as it were, one or two of their number 
 to live ! This is actually the case. The male bees 
 nearly always die, and generally only one or two of 
 the females survive. These pass the cold months of 
 winter in a state of torpidity, hiding away wherever 
 they can obtain necessary shelter, but stimulated into 
 active life by the reviving warmth of spring days. 
 Then they issue forth to a new existence, seeking 
 some loamy hedge-bank, where perhaps a field-mouse 
 has burrowed a hole. Should the Humble-Bee be 
 fortunate enough to meet with one, much labour of 
 excavation will be saved to it. No small amount of 
 surveying instinct is displayed in the spring, whilst 
 these insects are looking for the proper soils and 
 sites ; and nothing can exceed the care taken lest 
 they are watched during the process. Having finally 
 fixed upon a suitable spot, the Humble-Bee sets to 
 work to excavate a hollow in the earth to contain her 
 nest. Her fore-legs loosen the soil, grain by grain, 
 and transfer the particles to the middle legs, which 
 in turn pass them on to the hind-legs, and the 
 latter then push the earth as far away as possible. 
 A winding gallery or tunnel, one or two feet long, 
 is thus made wide enough to allow two bees to pass, 
 and the further end is hollowed into a smaller cham- 
 ber. This is lined with leaves, and then a few waxen 
 cells are built for the young. The latter belong to 
 the Worker class, and their first duties are to enlarge 
 the chamber in which they were born, for the purpose 
 of enabling it to receive other and more numerous
 
 INVERTEBRATE DWELLERS UNDERGROUND. 51 
 
 occupants. When completed, the underground colony 
 founded by the original female Humble-Bee consists 
 of males, females (large and small kinds), and 
 workers. The total number of colonists thus com- 
 
 CELI.S OF THE HUMBLE-BEE. 
 
 posed, when the underground republic is complete, 
 will range to about two hundred. Sometimes, how- 
 
 HUMBLE-BEES supporting a brood comb. 
 
 ever, it is much lower than this. The male and 
 female humble-bees usually make their appearance 
 late in the summer, by which time their elder 
 worker brethren have enlarged the home sufficiently 
 E 2
 
 52 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 to properly house them. The female is the largest- 
 sized of these insects, and the worker is the smallest 
 In shape, size, and colour-markings, we might readily 
 mistake these three typical members of one under- 
 ground commonwealth for so many distinct species of 
 insects.. Late in autumn, as we have seen, all die off 
 except the one or two females intended to perpetuate 
 the race and to found a new colony the following 
 year. 
 
 The Humble-Bee is one of the most useful of in- 
 sects, as well as one of the most rational. Its visits 
 to flowers must produce considerable crossing, on 
 account of the ease with which the pollen-grains 
 adhere to its hairy body. It is rational, because it 
 has been observed, after endeavouring to penetrate 
 to the interior of many exotic flowers to which it 
 was unaccustomed (in order to get at the honey in 
 the nectar)'), and found no way therein, to bite a hole 
 in the corollas at their base, and thus get at the coveted 
 sweets from the outside. Nay, there is sufficient 
 reason to believe that this habit, once indulged in, is 
 practised as a shorter method for obtaining honey 
 generally. We may nearly always find the flowers of 
 the Gorse and the Broom perforated by round holes, 
 which the Humble-Bees have cut in this way. More- 
 over, the habit is not universal. Some Humble-Bees 
 practise it more than others. 
 
 But of all useful plants to which the Humble-Bee 
 is necessary, the common Red Clover is perhaps the 
 most important. The flowers of this plant cannot 
 fertilize themselves, and of all insects the common 
 Humble-Bee and the Red-tailed Humble-Bee can
 
 INVERTEBRATE DWELLERS UNDERGROUND. 53 
 
 cross them best. Clover grows splendidly in New 
 Zealand, and is there a most useful crop ; but it cannot 
 produce seed, for New Zealand has no native Humble- 
 Bees, and so the colonists have to send for fresh 
 clover-seed every year to Europe at considerable 
 expense. The attempt has therefore been made, 
 but so far without success, to convey Humble-Bees 
 to New Zealand for the purpose of there acclimatiz- 
 ing them with a view to crossing the clover flowers. 
 There can be no doubt that ere long the dormant 
 females will be carried over successfully, perhaps 
 packed in moss and enclosed in an ice-chest, so that 
 the heat of the equator, which has to be traversed, 
 does not wake them up too soon. At any rate the 
 attempted experiment is a plain proof of the import- 
 ance which modern natural history has taught us to 
 attach to the operations of these industrious little 
 insects. 
 
 In the opinion of some naturalists, the Red-tipped 
 Humble-Bee (Bojnbus lapidarins) is even more 
 useful to clover fertilization than the common species 
 above mentioned. It always goes to the natural 
 openings of flowers, and does not surreptitiously snip 
 out holes in order to get at the nectar from the outside. 
 Having a longer proboscis, it is also enabled to get 
 down to the bottom of flowers which the common 
 Humble-Bee cannot reach. It is a more beautiful 
 insect to look at than the latter, and derives its name 
 from its habit of making its nest among heaps of 
 stone, generally among the hillocks gathered for road- 
 mending. It sometimes burrows in the ground, how- 
 ever, and makes its nest there. The females and the
 
 54 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 workers are coloured alike, but different in size : 
 whilst the males are variable in colour, and are 
 usually black. 
 
 In addition to the Bees which found underground 
 colonies, such as those above mentioned, we have 
 others preferring a solitary life under similar con- 
 ditions, and some which are of intermediate habits. 
 The genus Andrena, for instance, are well known for 
 their use in crossing numerous wild flowers, and 
 remarkable for their tunnelling abilities. Although 
 these insects are small, they make considerable exca- 
 vations. A colony of Andrena Bees makes the 
 ground look as if riddled with holes, in and out of 
 which the busy, pollen- covered insects are perpetually 
 passing. These holes descend to as much as six or 
 eight inches from the surface, and terminate in a 
 rounded chamber, where the pollen is stored in the 
 shape and size of a pea. All the work of excavating 
 this subterranean storehouse falls to the lot of the 
 females, for the males are unable to burrow on 
 account of the weakness of their fore-legs. 
 
 Another genus of the British burrowing Bees is 
 that known as Eucera. The males have very long 
 antennas and are very beautiful insects. But they 
 deserve to rank low in insect civilization, if only for 
 the manner with which they treat their females. Like 
 savages and other men degraded in the scale of 
 morality, the weaker sex is here made to bear the 
 heaviest burdens. The deep burrows of the Eucera, 
 generally made in a stiff, clayey soil, the oval bottom 
 of which is beaten hard in order to enable it to store 
 safely both honey and pollen, are all excavated by
 
 INVERTEBRATE DWELLERS UNDERGROUND. 
 
 55 
 
 the female insects. In addition, they have also to 
 keep the larder well filled after they have dug it out 
 and prepared it ; whilst the males hover about in 
 lazy carelessness. 
 
 Mr. Wood tells us that the boldest of these British 
 underground burrowers is a bee known by the name 
 
 Poppy, with petals cut by 
 
 TAPESTRY-BEE. 
 
 Section of Cell of 
 
 TAPESTRY-BEE. 
 
 of Philanthus triangulum. It actually provisions its 
 nest, after the latter has been excavated, with both 
 Humble-Bees and Andrenas, which it will carry off 
 bodily. Another genus of burrowing bees (Cerceris) 
 stores its subterranean den with a variety of insect 
 prey, including even hard beetles. As the latter prey
 
 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 on many which are injurious to vegetation, Cerceres 
 are friends of the farmer, rather than foes, and should 
 therefore be protected. 
 
 Lovers of gardens have no doubt noticed that the 
 leaves of the Lilac and other 
 plants, and especially such large- 
 petalled flowers as those of the 
 Poppy, frequently have 
 almost circular pieces 
 cut out of them. This 
 is the work of the 
 Tapestry Bee (Osmia 
 papavetis), also an un- TAPESTRV - 
 
 TJTJ-p 
 
 derground dweller ; for 
 it burrows holes in the ground to 
 the depth of three inches, and 
 lines them throughout with these 
 fragments of leaves and flowers. 
 The bottom of the burrow is hol- 
 lowed out into a small chamber, 
 in which the " bee-bread " and other food is stored, 
 and herein its single egg is laid. The lower part 
 is then neatly folded over with the remains of the 
 vegetable tapestry, and the upper part of the burrow 
 filled in with earth. The hard paths in our corn- 
 fields seem to be favourable sites with the Tapcstry- 
 Bees, although we may also find their nests in holes 
 in wells ; and we have ourselves dislodged them 
 from an old and disused padlock. Two or three days 
 give sufficient time for this industrious little insect 
 to tunnel away the earth from its burrow, as well as 
 to upholster it with its coloured and dainty vegetable 
 
 Finis/ted Cell of 
 
 TAPESTRY-BEE, OS 
 
 seen in section.
 
 INVERTEBRATE DWELLERS UNDERGROUND. 57 
 
 hangings. The eggs are soon hatched, and the 
 young grubs find sufficient stores of food for them 
 in their subterranean retreat. Here they speedily grow 
 strong enough to push the earth aside and appear 
 above ground. 
 This bee is little 
 larger than the 
 common House- 
 fly, and is of a ' 
 blackish colour, 
 
 . . OUTER CASE OF NEST OF LEAF-CUTTER BEE. 
 
 the belly being 
 
 grey and silky; so that the young naturalist may 
 
 readily identify it by the latter characters. 
 
 There is a family of hymenopterous insects termed 
 fossorial because of their digging or burrowing. The 
 name given to this family is Pompilidiz. One genus 
 (Ponipiliiis) is most abundant on our sandy heaths, 
 although it is common everywhere in this country. 
 Its burrow is dug out more especially as a safe 
 nursery for its young, and it would appear as if only 
 one egg were deposited in each of such underground 
 abodes. It is then stocked with spiders, stung by the 
 mother-insect so as to paralyze them and prevent 
 their decomposing before the egg hatches, as they 
 would do if they had been killed. When the grub 
 emerges, it falls to and demolishes this prepared feast, 
 and by the time the last spider has been eaten, 
 the larva is ready to pass into the pupal state in the 
 safe security which the instinct of its mother pre- 
 pared for it. Astata is the name given by entomo- 
 logists to a large-eyed insect frequent in sandpits and 
 about sand-hills, where it can easily tunnel a subter-
 
 58 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 ranean nursery, about five inches long, for its young. 
 This is then stocked as a larder with various kinds of 
 insects. Mellinnrus is another fossorial or burrowing 
 bee, which can be readily identified by its yellow feet 
 and the three yellow bands on its abdomen. It is 
 very abundant in England, and its devices to catch 
 flies for the purpose of storing its pantry are very 
 remarkable. Mr. F. Smith, of the British Museum, 
 tells us that as many as four or five females will lie 
 in wait upon a patch of cow-dung until some luckless 
 fly settles on it. When this happens, a cunning and 
 gradual approach is made. A sudden attempt would 
 not succeed, for the fly is the more rapid of flight, and 
 therefore a degree of artifice is required. This is ar- 
 ranged by the Mellinurus running past the victim 
 slowly, and apparently in an unconcerned manner, 
 until the poor fly is caught unawares. As soon as the 
 first fly is caught, the Mellinurus deposits its egg, and 
 then proceeds to catch the necessary number of in- 
 sects to serve as food for the voracious grub which 
 will soon emerge from it. In Mr. Smith's "Catalogue" 
 there may be found an account of other and less 
 abundant species of Hymenoptera which lead 
 partially underground lives in burrows excavated by 
 themselves. 
 
 In many respects the manner with which another 
 well-known insect, the COMMON WASP ( Vespa rulga- 
 ris) surveys the ground for the site of the colony it 
 intends to found reminds us of the procedure of the 
 Humble-Bee. Like the latter, some hybernating 
 female awakes from her winter's sleep in the sunshine,
 
 INVERTEBRATE DWELLERS UNDERGROUND. 
 
 59 
 
 and begins to search for the proper situation in a 
 hedge-bank. She also is not too proud to avail herself 
 of the previous labours of some rat or mouse, and will 
 commence on their deserted runs if necessary, and 
 excavate a dome-shaped chamber. The Wasp is the 
 
 WASPS' NEST. 
 
 world's original paper-maker, and what is more, adopts 
 a method which human paper-manufacturers have 
 only recently discovered she uses wood-pulp. The 
 latter is the material, light and strong, which the 
 female founder of a "nest" employs to build up 
 the wonderful structure she now proceeds to rear 
 within the spacious hollow her own industry has dug 
 out ! To some root she has come across in her ex- 
 cavations, she attaches a short pillar made of this mas- 
 ticated pulp. At its lower portion there will be formed
 
 60 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 small cells, in which certain eggs are first laid, and 
 each cell is then carefully covered with a roof made 
 of the same material as the walls. Cells continue to 
 be added one by one, and eggs deposited in them as 
 they are made, so that the indefatigable industry of 
 the foundress is marvellous. For, not only has the 
 work of construction to go on thus rapidly, but the 
 builder has to fetch and prepare her own materials. 
 Before long another claim will be made on her anxiety 
 the first deposited eggs will have hatched into hungry 
 grubs requiring to be constantly fed ! There is only 
 the original founder as yet to attend to all this work. 
 But presently the earlier larva? change into the pupal 
 state, and after a rest, bite their way out of the co- 
 coons they had formed over the mouth of their cells, 
 and issue forth into the nest as perfect insects. 
 These first-fledged wasps, as in the economy of the 
 Humble-Bee, are working insects, capable of relieving 
 her to whose labour they are indebted for life and 
 shelter. Worker -insects are usually undei'cloped 
 females, and therefore cannot lay eggs; but by feeding 
 them on special food the Hive-Bees can develop 
 worker-grubs into fruitful or fully developed females. 
 The latter are called "Queens," and such we find 
 among the Wasps as well as Bees. The worker-wasps 
 masticate the material for constructing fresh cells, and 
 also excavate the earth around to make the original 
 chamber capacious enough to receive them. Tier 
 after tier of cells is thus elaborately constructed, 
 each tier supported by strong taper pillars. The 
 entire colony is also encased with numerous layers of 
 specially masticated paper, which thus upholsters the
 
 INVERTEBRATE DWELLERS UNDERGROUND. 6 1 
 
 earthen walls of the chamber, and prevents the soil 
 from falling in. As with the Humble-Bees so here, 
 at the close of the year all the members of this won- 
 derful colony die off, except the few females so 
 strangely selected to continue the race, and preserve 
 it from extinction. 
 
 Another species of Wasp is very abundant, and may 
 be distinguished from that just described by the three 
 spots which occur on the first ring of the yellow abdo- 
 men. This species usually selects sound wood for 
 masticating into the paper of its cell and walls, whilst 
 the common Wasp prefers that which is decaying and 
 therefore softer. The former is known to naturalists 
 by the name of Vespa gerinanica, A third species, also 
 devoted to burrowing habits, may be identified by a 
 black anchor-like mark on the top of its head, as well 
 as by its orange-coloured legs. This is the Red Wasp 
 ( Vespa nifa). 
 
 " Solitary " Wasps, as the members of this group are 
 called which do not live in communities, are perhaps 
 not so numerous in species as the Bees in England, 
 at least. The best-known of them is called Odynerus 
 muratia a species which excavates an underground 
 dwelling, and, with the connected particles of sand or 
 soil excavated, builds a vertical, tubular entrance to it 
 as' well. This tubular anteroom is always curved. 
 When the subterranean chamber is finished, the wasp 
 lays an egg at the further end, and then crams the bur- 
 row with little fat caterpillars she has carefully selected 
 for the purpose. The anteroom is then taken down, 
 and the mouth of the burrow filled up with earth ; 
 whilst within its darksome cavity the young grub feeds
 
 62 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 on its store of food, and passes through its necessary 
 metamorphoses. 
 
 The soil beneath our feet is likewise a shelter and a 
 retreat for the larva? of many species of beetles, and 
 even of some moths and dipterous flies. In some 
 instances even the perfect insect resorts to subterra- 
 nean habits. Perhaps the most lovely of all our 
 British Coleoptera, although one of them of so fierce 
 a nature that it has earned for itself the popular name 
 of the Tiger- Beetle (Cidtidela campestris], belongs 
 to these occasional "Cave Dwellers." On sunny 
 sand-banks we may find the vertical burrows of the 
 Tiger-Beetles, excavated however by the larvae to the 
 depth of as much as a foot. There, with bulldog-like 
 courage and tiger-like fierceness, we may see the head 
 of the larva, armed with its fatal sickle-like jaws, lying 
 flush with the mouth of its cave, waiting for some silly 
 fly, or indeed any other entomological victim, to come 
 within its deadly grasp. Its head is of enormous size 
 compared with that of the perfect insect; and uncouth, 
 shapeless grub though it look, out of all proportions 
 of symmetry (for it seems to be hump-backed), it can 
 ascend its vertical sand excavated tunnel with consi- 
 derable alacrity, and maintain itself for hours at the 
 mouth by means of peculiar hooks which proceed from 
 the hump-like projection. These are used as sand- 
 anchors, and are fixed firmly in the side of the hollow 
 whilst the larva watches for its prey. Nothing can 
 exceed the beauty, either of shape or colour, of the 
 fully developed beetle, with its fine crimson-spotted, 
 shining, emerald-green wing-cases and burnished belly. 
 Unlike beetles in general, it is rapid of flight as well
 
 INVERTEBRATE DWELLERS UNDERGROUND. 63 
 
 as fleet of foot, habits which peculiarly fit it to be so 
 successfully carnivorous. It is peculiarly fond of sun- 
 shine, and may be seen running about in the neigh- 
 bourhood of the burrows of the larvae. Possibly the 
 idle but interested observer, who is reclining in such a 
 place, may become aware of the presence of this in- 
 sect by the fragrant perfume of sweet-briar which it 
 emits. The adult beetle has not put off, in its final 
 metamorphosis, the ferocity of its youth. Rather it 
 has intensified it. Mr. Staveley tells us that the 
 female has often been known to dismember and 
 eat her husband ! And Mr. Holmes relates that in 
 captivity the Tiger-Beetles will fight most savagely, and 
 actually rear themselves up against each other whilst 
 combating like two bulldogs. One beetle will often 
 decapitate its antagonist by a single stroke of its 
 jaws. 
 
 We have five British species of Cicindela^ the larvae 
 of most of which are underground dwellers ; digging 
 pits and lying in wait for their prey, and after cap- 
 turing it sinking down to the bottoms of their dark 
 abodes, there to devour it. These burrows are dug 
 out by the jaws and front legs of the grub, and the 
 sand is jerked backwards and out of the hole by its 
 broad flat head. Sea-side visitors may find one 
 species of this genus whose burrows are made in the 
 soft blown sand-hills. 
 
 In competition with the quick run and rapid flight 
 of the Tiger-Beetles is the swift, straight flight of the 
 Dor-Beetles (Geotrupes). They are, perhaps, the most 
 noticeable for our purpose. One of the many species 
 of this genus is the "Shard-borne Beetle, with his drowsy
 
 64 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 hum," of Shakespere ; how clumsy and powerless it is 
 to direct its too rapid flight aright is proved by the 
 uncomfortable way with which it will sometimes strike 
 against people when out for an evening walk. Their 
 bodies are of that beautiful metallic lustre which, in 
 England at least, seems to be almost limited to the 
 adornment of the Coleoptera. It is of a blue, steely 
 tint, beautiful to behold. Unlike the Tiger-Beetles, 
 the fully developed Dor performs the task of excavat- 
 ing the burrow. The hole is dug perpendicularly to 
 the depth of six or eight inches. When completed, 
 the diligent mother carries the dung of some animal 
 to the bottom, and deposits an egg within pellets 
 made of the ordure. This process is continued until 
 all her eggs are laid. Sometimes the Dor-Beetles will 
 commence their underground excavations under or 
 near some cattle-droppings, for the sake of being near 
 the substance in which their eggs are enveloped. 
 When the latter hatch, the young grubs thus find 
 themselves surrounded by what nature has selected 
 as their food. In most of these subterranean toils, 
 the work of excavation, as well as of preparation for 
 the future progeny, falls upon the females. The 
 scientific name of the Dor-Beetles (Geotrupcs) is 
 derived from the Greek, and signifies " earth-diggers." 
 They also go by the name of " Dung-Beetles," from 
 their habit of burying that material. That they do 
 much good thereby, not only by clearing away ordure, 
 but also by manuring and enriching the soil at some 
 depth from the surface, is self-evident. 
 
 Scarcely less useful are the " Burying - Beetles" 
 (Necrop/iaga}, which bury the carcases of any dead
 
 INVERTEBRATE DWELLERS UNDERGROUND. 65 
 
 animal or bird beneath the soil. This they do by 
 excavating the soil from underneath the body, until a 
 pit is made sufficiently deep for it to sink into below 
 the level of the surface. In the carcase the eggs of the 
 beetle are deposited, or rather those of several beetles, 
 
 KURYIXG-BEETLES AT WORK. 
 
 for the excavation has been a combined operation. 
 It is then covered over, and the larvae, when hatched, 
 find themselves in the very midst of abundant food. 
 It is astonishing to find how soon one of these Bury-
 
 66 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 ing or Sexton Beetles, as they are also called, will 
 scent out a dead and decaying body. What the keen 
 nostril of the Vulture does for garbage of a more pro- 
 nounced kind, that of the Sexton Beetle does for the 
 numerous dead bodies of moles, mice, rats, birds, etc. 
 That a very large number of the latter animals must 
 die every year is very evident, yet how seldom we see 
 their carcases lying about. This is because the Sexton 
 Beetles clear them away and bury them out of sight 
 almost as soon as they are dead. " Dust to dust " 
 is the ultimate end of the bodies of animals as 
 well as of men. How laborious is the self-imposed 
 toil of these insects may be seen from the following 
 incident. M. Gleiditsch watched four of these 
 beetles, which buried the bodies of four frogs, three 
 birds, two fishes, one mole, two grasshoppers, the 
 entrails of a fish, and two pieces of meat in one small 
 area of earth ! 
 
 The larvae of several species of beetles are only too 
 well known to farmers and graziers by the name of 
 " Wire-Worms." This name, however, is made to 
 include the grubs of other insects than beetles, for 
 those of the common Crane-Fly, or " Daddy Long- 
 legs," also go by this name. The true Wire- Worms, 
 however, are the larva? of a family of beetles called 
 Elaterida, or " Leapers." In the adult state the in- 
 sect is known by the popular name of " Skip-Jack," 
 from the power of jerking itself up several inches in 
 the air when it happens to fall on its back. When 
 suddenly overtaken by supposed danger, it resorts to 
 a very cunning stratagem, employed by various kinds
 
 INVERTEBRATE DWELLERS UNDERGROUND. 67 
 
 of insects, and shams death. Its eggs are laid in the 
 ground, and there hatch into long, narrow, eyeless 
 grubs, called, on account of the toughness of their 
 skins, " Wire- Worms." Even when trodden upon and 
 rolled over by a grass roller, they are uninjured, and 
 are, perhaps, only pressed deeper into the soil. These 
 worms feed on potato and other roots of vegetables, 
 and are especially abundant on lawns and in grass 
 meadows, where they injure the herbage by destroying 
 the white thread-like roots which so greatly resemble 
 their own bodies. Indeed few roots are free from 
 their attacks. Here comes in the usefulness of many 
 of our wild birds, and of some of our underground 
 mammalia. The Mole is a keen and ruthless destroyer 
 of the Wire-Worm, hunting for it even in preference 
 to the common earth-worm. The Rook, Starling, and 
 other birds pick them out and devour them by count- 
 less millions. No other larva of beetle takes so long 
 a time to pass into the adult stages as this notorious 
 grub. A single summer with other species is usually 
 sufficient. Not so with the Wire- Worm. As if well 
 aware that its larval life is surrounded by abundance 
 and variety of food, it does not hurry to pass on to an 
 advanced stage of development ; and hence it remains 
 a Wire- Worm for as long as four or five summers in 
 succession, so that one individual thus devours as 
 much as four or five grubs of other species of beetles, 
 of different habits, would do. 
 
 The larvae of the common Cockchafer (Melolontha 
 vulgaris) are sometimes erroneously called " Wire- 
 Worms." That matters little, however, for they have, 
 F 2
 
 68 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 in many respects, similar habits. The female beetle 
 lays her eggs in the soil, and these, when hatched, 
 commence immediately to feed on any succulent roots 
 in their neighbourhood. At first they are small, and 
 then are mistaken for Wire- Worms, but ere long they 
 grow large and fat almost to bursting. So voracious 
 are they in their feeding, as we are told by the Rev. 
 J. G. Wood, that sometimes they so completely de- 
 stroy the grass that the turf will become detached, 
 and may be rolled up by the hand as easily as if the 
 turf-cutter's spade had passed under it. Not only 
 grass roots, but those of any other vegetable, are 
 attacked and devoured by these voracious Cockchafer 
 grubs, potatoes being especially held in favour by 
 them as an article of diet. Were it not for those 
 beneficial friends of the farmer, the Rooks, the damage 
 done to vegetable crops of all kinds by these larva? 
 would be enormous. 
 
 In September we may see the dewy grass of our 
 meadows swarming with "Daddy Longlegs" (Tipula 
 longicornis). They are only females, however, which 
 we see so abundantly, and they are engaged in the 
 work of piercing the ground to receive their eggs. 
 Only one egg is laid in each hole, so that a good 
 deal of labour has to be expended before it is fin- 
 ished. The young are hatched in the ground, and 
 begin to feed on the tender roots of the grass. They 
 soon become as tough-skinned grubs as the true 
 wire-worms for which they are often mistaken. The 
 thousands of Daddy Longlegs to be seen in every 
 field engaged in the work of ovipositing, plainly 
 shows us what an innumerable host of larvae would
 
 INVERTEBRATE DWELLERS UNDERGROUND. 69 
 
 destroy our grass if they were not kept down. The 
 Starling is unquestionably the bitterest foe of these 
 underground pests, and destroys thousands of them. 
 Therefore we ought to encourage these pretty birds 
 
 CRANE-FLY (Tipula longicornis). 
 
 when they appear on our lawns, or crowd our fields 
 in flocks, for they are then engaged in the friendly 
 and useful occupation of destroying foes which all 
 our own ingenuity does not enable us to get at. The 
 ungainly legs of the Crane-Fly, or "Daddy-long- 
 legs," are only seen to advantage when we watch the 
 female stalking about in the grass, and looking for a 
 place wherein to lay her eggs. 
 
 The pupae of some species of moths are fain to 
 creep for shelter to the bosom of mother Earth, and 
 to find underground a protection from their numerous 
 enemies. The largest of our British moths is the 
 " Death's Head " (Acherontia atropos), and its huge, 
 full-fed larvae burrow into the soil, and, there undergo
 
 70 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 their final transformations. The pupae of numerous 
 other species have to be "dug" out of the earth by 
 the collector, attached underground to the bark or 
 roots of trees. The same subterranean abode fur- 
 nishes a retreat for earwigs, centipedes, and a host 
 of other creatures which come under the popular de- 
 nomination of " crawling."
 
 UNDERGROUND. 7 1 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 UNDERGROUND SOCIETIES. 
 
 WE have waited, however, for a special opportunity 
 of speaking more fully of perhaps the most interesting 
 animals in the world, from whatever point of view 
 we study them, small though they are. Long before 
 human civilization had begun to spread, or the latest 
 doctrine of political economy had been taught (that 
 of "division of labour"), there had been existing 
 underground communities both monarchical, as in the 
 case of the bees and wasps, and partly republican, as 
 with the ants. The naturalist takes no heed of the 
 distinctions which have so much influence with the 
 ignorant those of mere bigness and littleness. The 
 habits of ants, therefore, have always been the most 
 interesting among entomological pursuits " Our six- 
 legged competitors," Sir John Lubbock, their modern 
 historian, designates them ; and certainly it is won- 
 derful into how small a body so much sense and 
 wisdom can be condensed ! If men were as wise, in 
 proportion to their greater size and bulk, as the Ants, 
 the highest flights of modern science would appear 
 but as the fairy-tales which amuse our children. 
 
 Perhaps not even Huber has more carefully studied 
 the habits of insects than Sir John Lubbock, and his
 
 72 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 papers contributed to and published in the Transac- 
 tions of the Linnean Society of London are marvels 
 of amusing, patient research and observation. At 
 the recent meeting of the British Association (1878), 
 in an address on this subject, Sir John stated that he 
 had kept about thirty species of ants in confinement. 
 They throve well there, and he had some then living 
 which he had kept four years, and these were probably 
 bred the year before, so that they were then five years 
 old. It is well known, and was first remarked by 
 Huber, that one species of ant collects the eggs of 
 plant-lice (Aphides) and takes them to its nests. There 
 the ants watch them with the greatest care until 
 they are hatched. The ants are very fond of sweets, 
 and plant-lice have the power of secreting a sweet 
 juice sometimes found on the surface of leaves, and 
 called "honey-dew." This the ants lap up with 
 amazing greed, and will wander on and about the 
 shrubs which are supporting such desirable animals. 
 In short, the ants regard these aphides as we do 
 cows, and can actually excite them to secrete the 
 much-desired nectar by stroking them with their 
 antennae. Some species of ants are content with 
 obtaining their nectar in this fashion ; but those to 
 which we have referred actually carry off the eggs, 
 hatch them, and keep the aphides in confinement, as 
 we keep cattle, for the sake of the liquid sweetness 
 they can be induced to emit ! The ants will even 
 tend these plant-lice in their underground retreats 
 throughout the whole winter, although they cannot 
 be of the slightest service to them during that period.
 
 UNDERGROUND SOCIETIES. 73 
 
 The sense of smell possessed by ants is remark- 
 ably delicate, although it differs in intensity in various 
 species. No observations, however, have as yet 
 indicated that they possess any sense of hearing. 
 They are capable of distinguishing colours, and 
 appear to be very sensitive to that of violet. Sir 
 John Lubbock has proved not only that the ants of 
 one nest or republic know each other, but that they 
 actually remembered each other after a year's separa- 
 
 MALE RED ANT 
 {Formica ntfa). 
 
 FEMALE RED ANT 
 (Formica riifa). 
 
 tion ! This he has proved by experiment, and has 
 shown the various signs of gladness exhibited on their 
 meeting after these long lapses of time. 
 
 As Mr. Staveley has remarked, "it is possible to 
 believe almost anything of the Ants ! " Not only are 
 they the most skilful ot architects in the construction 
 of their underground cities, but as statesmen, landed
 
 74 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 proprietors, herdsmen, slave-owners, and even agri- 
 culturists, they stand prominently at the head of 
 the insect world. No other class of insects is so 
 amenable to the self-appointed laws of its commu- 
 nities. We have already referred to ants which 
 
 
 WORKER OF RED ANT (Formica rufa). 
 
 are herdsmen, in that they rear, keep, and tend 
 aphides as we do milch kine. We have now to 
 refer to several species which actually go forth on 
 marauding expeditions, and bring home the defeated 
 members of another species whose colony has been 
 surprised, as slaves ! One of the most notable of these 
 slave-making species is the Blood-red Ant (Formica 
 sanguinea), so called from the blood-red colour of the 
 females. No fewer than four different species of ant 
 are liable to be attacked and brought home as slaves 
 by this kind. Such an unlooked-for habit is worthy 
 of a brief notice, and nobody has described it better 
 than the late Mr. Edward Newman. He says, " The 
 time for capturing slaves extends over a period ot 
 about ten weeks, and never commences until the 
 males and females are about emerging from the pupa 
 state, and then the ruthless marauders never inter-
 
 UNDERGROUND SOCIETIES. 75 
 
 fere with the continuance of a species. This instinct 
 seems specially provided, for were the Slave Ants 
 created for no other end than to fill the station of 
 slavery to which they appear to be doomed, still even 
 that service must fail were the attacks to be made on 
 their nests before the winged multitudes have de- 
 parted, or are departing, charged with the duty of 
 continuing their kind. 
 
 "When the Red Ants are about to sally forth on a 
 marauding expedition, they send scouts to ascertain 
 the exact position in which a colony of negroes are 
 to be found. These scouts, having discovered the 
 object of their search, return to the nest and report 
 their success. Shortly afterwards the army of Red 
 Ants marches forth, headed by a vanguard, which is 
 perpetually changing ; the individuals which constitute 
 it, when they have advanced a little beyond the main 
 body, halting, falling into the rear, and being replaced 
 by others. This vanguard consists of eight or ten 
 ants only. When they have arrived near the negro 
 colony, they disperse, wandering through the herbage, 
 and hunting about as if aware of the propinquity of 
 the object of their search, yet ignorant of its exact 
 position. At last they discover the settlement, and 
 the foremost of the invaders, rushing impetuously to 
 the attack, are met, grappled with, and frequently 
 killed by the negroes on guard. The alarm is quickly 
 communicated to the interior of the nest ; the negroes 
 sally forth by thousands, and, the Red Ants rushing 
 to the rescue, a desperate conflict ensues, which, how- 
 ever, always terminates in the defeat of the negroes,
 
 7 6 
 
 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 who retire to the inmost recesses of their habitations. 
 Now follows the scene of pillage. The Red Ants, 
 with their powerful mandibles, tear open the sides of 
 the negro ant-hill, and rush into the heart of the 
 
 ii 
 
 THE ANTS' BATTLE-FIELD. 
 
 citadel. In a few minutes each of the invaders 
 emerges, carrying in its mouth the pupa of a working 
 negro, which it has obtained in spite of the vigilance 
 and valour of its natural guardians. The Red Ants 
 return in perfect order to their nest, bearing with them 
 their living burdens. On reaching the nest, the pupa?
 
 UNDERGROUND SOCIETIES. 77 
 
 appear to be treated precisely as their own, and the 
 workers, when they emerge, perform the various duties 
 of the community with the greatest energy and appa- 
 rent goodwill. They prepare the nest, take the pupae 
 into the sunshine, and perform every office which the 
 welfare of the community seems to require. In fact, 
 they conduct themselves as if fulfilling their original 
 destination !" 
 
 Sir John Lubbock tells us that in one species of ant 
 this habit of kidnapping has begotten such an entire 
 dependence of the captors on their slaves that they 
 would perish even in the midst of plenty if left to 
 themselves ! The vile practice seems to have brought 
 with it its own punishment. Sir John Lubbock re- 
 cords how he kept some of these ants alive for 
 months by giving them a slave for one hour every 
 day to clean and feed them ! The same careful ob- 
 server expresses it as his opinion that the various 
 communities of ants offer numerous analogies to 
 those of men. He thinks the slave-making ants 
 represent an abnormal, and perhaps only a temporary 
 state of things, and that the slave-making species will 
 eventually find it impossible to compete with those 
 which are more self-dependent and have reached a 
 higher phase of ant-civilization. 
 
 Sir John Lubbock has also ingeniously drawn a 
 comparison between the various conditions of life 
 exemplified by different species of ants, and the 
 earlier stages in the development of human civiliza- 
 tion. Thus we have hunting, pastoral, and even 
 agricultural ants. Some species, such as Formica
 
 78 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 fusca, live principally on the produce of the chase, 
 for, though they feed partly on the honey-dew of 
 aphides, they have not domesticated these insects. 
 Such species probably retain the habits once common 
 to all kinds of ants ; and it is evident they offer a 
 parallel to the lower races of mankind, who live 
 mainly by hunting. Like the latter, this species of 
 ant live in comparatively small communities, and the 
 instincts of collective action are little developed 
 among them. They hunt singly, and their battles are 
 single combats, like those of early history. Such 
 other species of ants as Lasius flavus, however, 
 represent a distinctly higher type of social life. They 
 may literally be said to have domesticated certain 
 species of aphides, and can be compared to the 
 pastoral stage of human progress to the races 
 which live on the produce of their flocks and herds. 
 Their communities are more numerous, they act more 
 in concert, their battles are no longer mere duels or 
 single combats, for they know how to act in combina- 
 tion. Sir John Lubbock hazards the conjecture that 
 the latter species will gradually exterminate the mere 
 hunting species, just as savages disappear before 
 more advanced races. Lastly, the agricultural nations 
 may be compared with the Harvesting Ants (which 
 are not British species, however). The life-history of 
 the Agricultural Ants of Texas a species which 
 actually cultivates a particular kind of grass around its 
 dwellings, and weeds away all others that would inter- 
 fere with its growth is the crowning point of our 
 account of these " six-legged competitors " of ours.
 
 UNDERGROUND SOCIETIES. 79 
 
 Let us now direct our attention to the mode of 
 constructing their underground cities. From the 
 loose appearance of an ant-hill we should little 
 imagine there extended beneath a well and architec- 
 turally arranged dwelling-place, capable of sheltering 
 the different kinds of these insects. We see only an 
 apparently loose heap, with hosts of ants appearing 
 to glide purposelessly about it. Each colony consists 
 of males, females, and workers, although the entire 
 labour falls on the latter. Not even among the bees 
 and wasps have we an illustration of greater industry 
 than is exhibited by these much smaller insects. The 
 Brown Ants (Formica brunnea) form their nest or 
 colony in a series of stories, each about the third of 
 an inch in height. The partitions are exceedingly 
 thin, but they are so well finished that the inner walls 
 present a smooth and unbroken surface. These 
 storied chambers lie upon one another to the ground 
 floor. The latter communicates with subterranean 
 chambers and passages. 
 
 Like other species, the common Brown Ants do 
 not follow an invariable plan in the construction of 
 their nests, but modify them according to circum- 
 stances. As a rule, however, they are formed of con- 
 centric suites of chambers. In each suite there are a 
 number of these chambers or halls, lodges of narrow 
 dimensions, and long galleries for general accommo- 
 dation. The arched ceilings, covering the most 
 spacious places, are supported either by little 
 columns, slender walls, or regular buttresses. There 
 are also chambers which have but one entrance,
 
 So UNDERGROUND. 
 
 which communicate with the lower story, as well as 
 large open spaces which serve as a kind of cross- 
 roads, and into these all the streets or passages of the 
 underground city terminate. An ant-hill often con- 
 tains more than twenty stories in that upper portion 
 which usually rises above the ground, and quite as 
 many beneath the surface. It is owing to this con- 
 struction of the nest that the ants can regulate the 
 heat so as to suit their purpose. When the sun is too 
 hot and overheats the upper floors or stories, they 
 withdraw the pupse stored in the nurseries there to 
 the cooler and moister chambers below ground : and 
 when these lower suites of rooms become uninhabit- 
 able during a rainy season, the ants then transfer their 
 charge to the higher stories. 
 
 M. Huber has related his personal observation of 
 the construction of an ant's nest. He noticed that as 
 the nest proceeded in its development the ants kept 
 within during the day, or only went forth by subter- 
 ranean galleries, which opened some feet away from 
 the nest. There were two or three openings at the 
 surface of the latter, but none of the workers were seen 
 to pass out that way, on account of its being so much 
 exposed to the sun. The ants' nest then gradually 
 rose in the midst of the grass to a roundish form. 
 The ants worked most in the early morning, when 
 the dew was not as yet evaporated. They then began 
 to make fresh apertures ; by-and-by a gentle rain fell, 
 and the ants began to build in earnest, and soon, 
 says M. Huber, all their architectural talents were 
 brought into full play. When the rain commenced, 
 great numbers of ants quitted their underground abode,
 
 UNDERGROUND SOCIETIES. 8 1 
 
 re-entered it almost immediately, and then returned, 
 bearing between their jaws little pellets of earth, which 
 they deposited on the roof of their nest. These 
 pellets were the foundations of little walls, which soon 
 started upon all sides, having spaces left between 
 them. In several places columns were ranged at 
 regular distances, and in this way the rough beginning 
 of a new story was commenced. Each ant formed 
 the pellet of earth by scraping with its mandibles the 
 bottom of its abode. A little mass of earth was then 
 kneaded and moulded at will, and could be easily 
 applied to the spot where it had to remain. There it 
 was pressed so as to fill up any inequalities of the 
 surface of the wall. Whilst thus engaged, the ants 
 work their antennae, or feelers, over and about every 
 particle of earth as soon as the latter is placed in its 
 proper position, and the whole was then pressed down 
 by their fore-feet. After having traced out the place 
 of their masonry, in laying here and there foundations 
 for the pillars and partitions they were about to erect, 
 the insects gradually raised them higher by the addi- 
 tion of fresh materials. In constructing a gallery, 
 two little walls would be raised opposite to each other, 
 and when at the height of nearly half an inch the 
 space between them would be covered in with vaulted 
 ceiling. 
 
 Having made the partitions of a sufficient height, 
 the ants quitted their labours in the upper part of the 
 building, and then affixed to the upper and interior 
 part of each wall fragments of moistened earth in an 
 almost horizontal direction, and in such a way as to 
 form a ledge, which, by being extended, could be 
 G
 
 82 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 made to join a similar ledge coming from the opposite 
 wall. On one side several vertical partitions were 
 seen to form the scaffolding of a ledge, which com- 
 municated with several corridors by apertures formed 
 in the masonry. On another side a regular formed 
 hall was erected, the vaulted ceiling of which was 
 sustained by numerous pillars. Further off might be 
 recognized the rudiments of one of the cross-roads 
 already mentioned. These parts of the ants' nest 
 were the most spacious, but the ants never appeared 
 embarrassed in constructing the ceilings as to how to 
 cover them in, although they were often more than 
 two inches in breadth ! They laid the foundations of 
 this ceiling in the upper part of the angles formed by 
 the different walls, and from the tops of the pillars, as 
 from so many centres, layers of earth, horizontal 
 and slightly convex, were carried forward to meet the 
 several portions coming from different points of what 
 M. Huber called the large public thoroughfare. It 
 might be thought that these ceilings, supported only 
 by a few pillars, must decrepitate and fall to ruin 
 under the rain which continually dropped upon them. 
 Not so, however, for the earth adhered on the slightest 
 contact, and the rain, instead of loosening the par- 
 ticles, seemed to bind them together. Indeed rain is 
 actually necessary to these underground workers, both 
 to cement their work together, and to smooth down 
 its inequalities. Of course, we are here speaking of 
 an ordinary shower, for very violent rains often do the 
 nests much harm. So hard do the ants toil that M. 
 Huber says it took them only seven or eight hours to 
 construct one tier or story, and that the moment they
 
 UNDERGROUND SOCIETIES. 
 
 had finished this they untiringly began upon another ! 
 As with human builders, mistakes are frequently made 
 during the progress of these subterranean excavations, 
 and then we find the mistake is corrected, for a piece 
 of work will be taken down, and put up again in the 
 right fashion. 
 
 A writer in Science-Gossip for 1870, who had for 
 some time kept ants in what he calls a " Formicary," 
 gives the following very interesting account of the 
 way of life underground of the Black Ants : " The 
 curiosity they exhibit about any fresh object is great. 
 One day when they were very quiet, and few above 
 ground, I took the 
 opportunity to re- 
 paper the platform, 
 to pump the water 
 from the trough, 
 and to clean it out. 
 Though it was dry 
 about half an hour, 
 only one ant came 
 down to it, yet 
 when all was com- 
 pleted, and the 
 moat refilled, in 
 about ten minutes 
 there was a con- 
 stant stream of 
 ants 
 to 
 alterations, which 
 
 descending GLASS FORMICARY FOR OBSERVING THE 
 
 HABITS OF ANTS. 
 
 look at the 
 
 they had so rapidly detected. 
 Whenever one ant meets another, they cross antennse, 
 c 2
 
 84 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 and pass on, and I have never seen two ants actually 
 meet without giving this salutation. 
 
 " Ants are of three kinds, males or drones, females, 
 and workers. The first two appear to have only to 
 do with the production of eggs, and apparently take 
 no share in the nursing. The males are hardly so 
 big as an ordinary neuter, but are of a darker colour, 
 and possess large and spreading wings. The females 
 are nearly as large as an ordinary wasp, and have very 
 lengthy wings indeed. When I stocked my formicary 
 I put in neither males nor females, trusting to some of 
 both kinds appearing in the cocoons, and as several 
 of these were half as large again as others, I do not 
 doubt that it was from them that some of my females 
 were hatched. My first female appeared on the 2nd 
 of August, and my first male on the i3th, and in the 
 end I had over a dozen of the former, and still more 
 of the latter. In fine weather the males and females 
 might often be seen poking their heads out of the 
 openings by the grass, and occasionally walking a few 
 steps out, but they always appeared dazed at the sight 
 of the outer world ; and it was evidently the object of 
 the workers to prevent them from straying, for I have 
 many times seen them, when a female has thus emerged, , 
 give her a push in front, or a kind of bite behind, 
 upon which she would turn round and quietly dis- 
 appear. They once even dragged bodily below one 
 of the males which had wandered away, and who 
 would not obey their usual signals. The males and 
 females might often be seen lying in a burrow, per- 
 fectly motionless, and enjoying the warmth, whilst the 
 neuters were hard at work all around them. Once
 
 UNDERGROUND SOCIETIES. 85 
 
 when I touched with my spatula the antennae of a 
 female which was looking out, it was wonderful to see 
 the rage with which one of the neuters wished to 
 attack the assailant ! 
 
 " The great instinct of an ant, and that which over- 
 comes all others, is care for its cocoons. Turn over 
 an ant-hill, and the first thing you see are excited 
 ants running in all directions carrying them into 
 shelter. Once I added about thirty cocoons from 
 another nest. It was wonderful to see the eaters of 
 any introduced morsel forsake their meat, the workers 
 leave their burrows, and the stragglers their amuse- 
 ment, and one and all setting to work with a will. In 
 ten minutes not a cocoon was left above ground. 
 That they take them down deeper in the nest in the 
 evening, or in cold weather, I have repeated instances 
 of. I have often turned over an ant-hill at both of 
 these seasons, and not a cocoon was to be seen. I 
 have gone deep, however, and have found numbers ; 
 but when I have opened an ant-hill on a warm day, I 
 have always seen them in clusters close to the surface. 
 Heat is evidently necessary for the due hatching of 
 ants' cocoons. It was on the 2oth of July that they 
 first brought out a few cocoons, and laid them in the 
 passages against the glass of my formicary. When 
 the time for removal came, this office was told off to 
 a single ant, although many others were swarming in 
 all the passages. The ant carried the cocoons about 
 half the length of the formicary, and depositing them 
 just inside a hole, went for its next load. I always 
 knew him by the unusual pace at which he hurried 
 along. From this time until they were all hatched,
 
 86 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 the cocoons appeared whenever the sun shone upon 
 the formicary, numbers of ants helping in the opera- 
 tion. Some were kept out an hour or more ; and 
 others only five or ten minutes. 
 
 " Once when it was a very cloudy day, I took a 
 candle and fastened it close to that portion of the glass 
 at which the ants generally put their cocoons. They 
 felt the heat directly, and in ten minutes more cocoons 
 were out than I ever saw before. Males, females, and 
 neuters were abundant ; and, at one time, the passages 
 behind the candle were quite black with the clusters 
 of ants swarming to the warmth. On the 8th of 
 September, when the colony was very lively from the 
 warmth of a candle, I had the good fortune to see a 
 young ant actually leave its cocoon. When I first 
 saw it it was half out of the case, and had there stuck. 
 One neuter had fast hold of it, whilst another pulled 
 at the remainder of its covering. But it was a difficult 
 matter, and it was a long time before they got by 
 degrees the young one out A kind of stringy piece, 
 however, still remained joined to one end of the 
 cocoon, and entangled in the legs of the embryo. 
 After much trouble this was cut through, and the 
 young ant was at last safely and completely freed." 
 
 The males and females of all our species of Social 
 Ants leave the nest when they have arrived at perfec- 
 tion, and associate together in large numbers in the 
 atmosphere for a short time. After this the males die, 
 and only the females return to the nest. There they 
 cut off, or have cut off for them, their gauzy but no 
 longer required wings, and set to work, to labour dili- 
 gently until there is a sufficient number of the
 
 UNDERGROUND SOCIETIES. 87 
 
 " workers " hatched to relieve them of their toil. In 
 this respect there is a great similarity between the 
 bees, wasps, and ants. After the workers have 
 appeared on the scene, the principal business of the 
 females is to lay eggs. Dr. Staveley says of these 
 eggs that " they are tended with the greatest care by 
 
 ANTS PREPARING FOR FLIGHT. 
 
 tne workers, who carry them from the place where 
 they are dropped, and carefully deposit them in suit- 
 able chambers, moistening them, it is said, from their 
 own mouths, and thus probably affording that nourish- 
 ment which must be essential to their growth, the 
 eggs of ants growing larger after they are laid. Ac- 
 cording to the observations of M. Huber, the nurses 
 then bestow the most assiduous attention upon the 
 eggs, daily removing them to those parts of the nest
 
 88 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 where the temperature is most suitable. The eggs 
 hatched, still further labours devolve upon the careful 
 and busy nurses, who to the daily removal of their 
 little charges (creatures which before long are equal 
 to themselves in size) now add the task of supplying 
 them with food ; or rather, of feeding them. Nor 
 does their care end here. When the time for its 
 perfection arrives, the larva, having spun its own 
 cocoon (the only act which it is ever allowed to do for 
 itself), is not only extricated by the workers from its 
 silken shroud, but even receives their assistance in 
 divesting itself of the delicate membrane which still 
 has to be stripped from its body ! " Well might the 
 wise man advise the sluggard to " Go to the ant ; con- 
 sider her ways and be wise ;" for in comparison with 
 its size its indefatigable industry is unequalled in the 
 entire animal world. Moreover, one is obliged not 
 only to assent to the " division of labour " which it 
 has been the highest glory of political economy to 
 have discovered, but to the existence among these 
 social communities of a principle more lofty and sacred 
 still that of self-denial and devotion to the welfare 
 of others. These little sexless insects, incapable of 
 bringing forth young on which their own care and 
 affection may be bestowed, nevertheless devote them- 
 selves to the welfare of the community to which they 
 belong, and labour for its goodwill and perpetuity with 
 an ardour and zeal and devotion which equal the 
 loftiest efforts of human patriotism ! 
 
 During the winter the remaining ants lie torpid in 
 the lower stories of their nests. We say " remaining," 
 for immense numbers both of the males and females,
 
 UNDERGROUND SOCIETIES. 89 
 
 when they resort to the winged state in August, are 
 consumed by birds, or blown in masses into the sea. 
 Were it not so, the marvellous fecundity of the tribe 
 is such that we should be completely overrun by 
 them. 
 
 The Wood Ant, or Pismire (Formica rttfa) is the 
 largest of our native species. From its size it is 
 frequently called the " Horse " Ant, and from its large 
 nests, the " Hill " Ant Every one who has wandered 
 in fir-woods must have noticed the large hillocks 
 which these insects contrive to raise. In order to 
 form this enormous nest, Mr. Wood tells us, the ants 
 travel to great distances, always following some definite 
 track which in course of time will be plainly evident 
 to the eye. When once these ants have taken to a 
 track, they adhere to it, and many successive genera- 
 tions continue to use it. Mr. Wood further states 
 that he has been shown ant-roads by old men who 
 said they had themselves been familiar with them from 
 their earliest recollection ! The outside of the nest of 
 the Wood Ant is composed of whatever materials the 
 insects can most easily find, although the needle-shaped 
 leaves of the pine-trees and sticks appear to be most 
 common. Pieces of wood, small pebbles, shells, 
 grains of wheat, oats, or barley, &c., may also be found 
 on these often huge heaps, which rise in a conical 
 fashion so that the rain can easily run off them. The 
 Wood Ants do not construct long covered or under- 
 ground ways, as it appears they have fewer enemies to 
 guard against than the Yellow or Brown Ants. The 
 nest of the Wood Ants is at first simply a hollow in 
 the earth, excavated in part by themselves, although
 
 9 o 
 
 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 they do not object to take advantage of any favourable 
 site prepared for them. Some of the insects taking 
 possession may then be seen roaming about in 
 search of materials for the outside work, whilst others 
 are employed in mixing the earth which has been dug 
 out with fragments of wood, leaves, &c. Another 
 company of ants are acting as labourers to the latter, 
 and are constantly bringing them materials. In this 
 
 *,..- < 
 
 THE ANT-HILL. 
 
 way the edifice increases in size and complexity daily. 
 Here and there small openings are left, which will be 
 made into galleries leading to the exterior by-and-by. 
 The roof now becomes convex, to keep off the rain, 
 which rarely penetrates to more than half an inch in 
 depth. The under portion of the nest is excavated 
 into spacious halls, for the purpose of receiving the
 
 UNDERGROUND SOCIETIES. QI 
 
 larvae. These halls communicate with various 
 galleries. Even the rain assists in the work, and 
 helps to bind the entire colony into a strong edifice. 
 During the day, the Wood Ants go out foraging, 
 bringing home flies, caterpillars, or grubs of any sort, 
 At night, before going to their short rest, every door 
 or opening leading to the nest is carefully closed, and 
 at no small expenditure of labour. Similarly during 
 wet days these ants rarely go out, or take down their 
 shutters, or unbar their doors ! 
 
 Speaking of the industry of these wonderful insects, 
 the Rev. J. G. Wood very aptly says : " Compare the 
 size of an ant with that of a man, and then see how 
 vast are the powers of so small a creature. Taking 
 all the calculations in round numbers, and very much 
 to the disadvantage of the Ant, we find that a single 
 man, who would have achieved a similar work in a 
 single day, must have acted as follows : 
 
 "He must have excavated two parallel trenches, 
 each of seventy-two feet in length and four feet six 
 inches in depth ; he must have made bricks from the 
 clay he dug out, and with them built a wall along each 
 side the trenches, from two to three feet in height and 
 fourteen or fifteen inches in thickness ; and lastly, he 
 must have gone over the whole of his work again, 
 and smoothed the interior until it was exactly true, 
 straight, and level. All this work must also have 
 been done without the least assistance, and the ground 
 must be supposed to be filled with huge boulders, and 
 covered with tree-trunks, broken logs, and other im- 
 pediments !" 
 
 Various kinds of beetles, and one peculiar kind,
 
 92 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 known to entomologists as Qucdius brevis, is fre- 
 quently found living in the burrows and galleries of 
 the Wood Ant, as a kind of "messmates." These 
 insects appear to have adopted these underground 
 shelters for protection's sake, and the ants kindly 
 tolerate them, although they could so readily destroy 
 them, and are so strongly carnivorous in their diet, 
 notwithstanding their fondness for sweets. Sir John 
 Lubbock has shown that the habit of some of our 
 wild flowers to close early in the day, may be as a 
 defence against the depredations of the ants, when 
 the evaporation of the dews enables them to roam over 
 the vegetation. The presence of woolly hairs on 
 flower-stems and leaves he also thinks may act 'as a 
 chevaux-de-frise against the climbing of ants, which 
 would otherwise suck the nectar of the flowers without 
 being able to cross them by carrying away pollen, as 
 winged insects do. 
 
 Just as there are solitary wasps and bees as dis- 
 tinguished from the social communities, where the 
 highest degree of insect civilization is to be seen, so 
 there are a few species of solitary ants. The latter 
 belong to the family Mutillida. As might be expected 
 from the non-requirement of " division of labour " so 
 necessary to communities, these solitary ants are not 
 distinguished by possessing workers or neuters. The 
 females are wingless, but the males winged. The 
 former have legs specially adapted for excavating 
 the sand where they live, and for defence have a 
 powerful sting. We may see them about sand-banks, 
 where the female of one species, M. Eurcjxea, is a
 
 UNDERGROUND SOCIETIES. 93 
 
 stout, smooth-bodied, wingless, red and black ant, 
 about two-thirds of an inch long. The winged male 
 is of much smaller size. The larvae are hatched and 
 brought up underground, so that they are among the 
 numerous creatures which, even in our own country, 
 Mother Earth takes into her capacious bosom for 
 shelter and protection !
 
 94 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 EARTH-WORMS. 
 
 BUT perhaps of all the myriad animal forms which 
 at some period or another of their lives inhabit the 
 soil beneath us, none can be regarded as so entirely 
 and thoroughly adapted to an underground existence 
 as those creatures which, for this very reason, we term 
 the " Earth-worms." How familiar we are all with its 
 appearance, although few of us are so acutely intimate 
 with its general habits and life-history. For ages it 
 has been regarded as the very type of a degraded, 
 humiliated being its life a curse, its whole existence 
 at once a punishment and a warning ! But we have 
 now learned better. We have seen that the soils of 
 the earth, like the waters of the earth, have their 
 special and more or less adapted sets of inhabitants 
 which not only find in their adaptations the happiness 
 of an existence, but at the same time testify to the 
 Wisdom and Goodness which has placed them where 
 we find them ! In spite of its subterranean, crawling 
 habits, the earth-worm is as perfect and happy, 
 because as admirably fitted to the surroundings of the 
 life it leads, as the joyous skylark or the frolicsome 
 squirrel. It needs no apology from any one rather, 
 the life-history of the Earth-worm teaches a lesson 
 to those who ignorantly pity or despise it.
 
 EARTH-WORMS. 95 
 
 The ringed body of the common Lob or Earth- 
 worm (Lumbricus terrcstris) has rows of bristles on 
 the underside. The possession of these has .given 
 the name to the order of which it is a member, OH- 
 gochceta. These rows of bristles take the place of the 
 foot-tubercles to be seen in the higher members of 
 the Annelida, and, like the latter, they are organs of 
 locomotion. Therefore, although the Earth-worm 
 has no feet in the ordinary acceptation of the term, 
 it has other special organs of locomotion which serve 
 it quite as admirably as legs would. On account of 
 these locomotive bristles of the Earth-worm being few 
 in number, the name of the order, which signifies 
 " few bristles," has been given. Altogether the worm 
 has eight rows of these bristles. The mouth of this 
 animal has no teeth, and it opens into a gullet 
 which leads to a muscular crop, which latter is suc- 
 ceeded by a second dilatation or gizzard. Hence 
 a complete physiological arrangement is made for 
 whatever food passes through the body to have its 
 entire nutriment absorbed from it. The intestjine is 
 continued straight to the anus, although it is some- 
 what hindered in its free course by the numerous 
 transverse partitions which partly cross it. The blood 
 circulation (or rather that which answers to it) is 
 called pseudo-hamal. It is aerated from outside the 
 Earth-worm's body by means of a series of pouches, 
 where it is exposed. These pouches allow the air to 
 pass into the body by means of pores, which may be 
 seen on the outside of each ring or segment of the 
 worm's body. The locomotive bristles of which we 
 have spoken are arranged in rows not only under-
 
 96 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 neath each segment but along the sides as well. A 
 full-grown earth-worm has about one hundred and 
 twenty of such rings or segments. The body is highly 
 elastic, as well as extremely muscular. Hence it can 
 extend itself, or contract itself, in the most wonderful 
 manner. 
 
 Of course, all this detail of structure can only be 
 verified by much closer observation than popular 
 notice takes of the creature. To people generally 
 the Earth-worm appears as an object possessing 
 neither head nor tail. It is regarded as a harmless, 
 wriggling, slimy, and disagreeable thing ; and is even 
 supposed to prey upon the carcases of animals and 
 men when placed in the ground. It is quite im- 
 possible the Earth-worm should devour anything of 
 the sort. One of the best accounts of this very 
 common, and in spite of popular prejudice, most 
 useful creature, has appeared in Science-Gossip for 
 1878, from the pen of Professor Paley. He there 
 speaks of the false estimate which people have igno- 
 rantly formed of the Earth-worm, and says : " The 
 lob-worm may almost be called a clever and intelli- 
 gent creature ; very sly indeed of letting its mode of 
 action be seen, but showing by certain results, which 
 readily come under our observation, that it has in- 
 stincts which fall very little short of reasoning and 
 design !" And all this can be said of a lowly or- 
 ganized animal which, as Huxley says, has " no eyes, 
 nor any other organs of special sense that are 
 known !" 
 
 Professor Paley's remarks on the Earth-worm were 
 supplemented and enlarged by the observations of
 
 EARTH-WORMS. 97 
 
 Mr. W. Budden, who has also devoted much time to 
 the study of its habits. Both agree in ascribing to 
 this hitherto much-despised creature instincts of any- 
 thing but a low order. There are many difficulties 
 in the way of ascertaining its habits, on account of 
 its timidity and watchfulness; and also because it 
 seldom habitually appears above the surface of the 
 ground except at night. Again, as we have already 
 said, it is one of the most permanent underground 
 dwellers, and so passes the greater part of its life 
 where we cannot see it. If we thrust a spade into 
 the soil where worms abound, we may see several of 
 them crawling out of the ground even at the distance 
 of a yard or more, having been alarmed by the 
 motion suddenly communicated to the earth in 
 which they burrow. Then the Earth-worm may be 
 seen stretched out to more than twice its ordinary 
 length, whilst it grasps the earth with its bristle- 
 armed joints, as with anchors, and so frees the fore 
 part of its body to allow it to extend itself. As soon 
 as this has been done, the segments or joints of this 
 fore part anchor themselves by their bristles to the 
 earth in their turn. The hinder part of the body is 
 now set free, to contract and pull itself up to the 
 advancing part. In this way locomotion takes place, 
 after the simplest but still very admirably contrived 
 fashion. 
 
 Although the Earth-worm has no eyes, people speak 
 of their " seeing you." This is because of the re- 
 markable power they have of detecting a footstep by 
 the tremor communicated to the earth. Hence, if 
 you are walking out some summer's evening, and sec 
 
 H
 
 98 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 a worm extending half out of its hole, if you continue 
 to advance you will notice that it withdraws itself - 
 within its burrow quite suddenly. Birds are well 
 aware of the delicate sense of touch possessed by 
 earth-worms, as we may see by the light manner in 
 which blackbirds and thrushes will hop to worm- 
 holes, so as to extract the dainty morsel before it is 
 aware of its foes. 
 
 We take advantage of Professor Paley's most ad- 
 mirable observations to reproduce some of the best of 
 them. He says : 
 
 " The Lob-worm has a singular habit of filling up 
 the entrance of its hole with fallen leaves, bits of 
 stick or straw, feathers, or any small and light objects 
 it is rather fond of bits of string that it finds 
 near. If it cannot get these, it piles up a little hillock 
 of pebbles, or small bits of lime, cinder, &c. Why 
 it does this, it is not easy to make out. Possibly it 
 is to allow the passage of air into the hole, and yet to 
 prevent the intrusion of insects, such as beetles or 
 ants, which would give it as much trouble and annoy- 
 ance as a ferret gives to a rabbit in its burrow. For 
 if it were solely for purposes of food, which fallen 
 leaves or seeds of trees might be, and apparently are, 
 the worm would not draw in such indigestible deli- 
 cacies as string or feathers. Perhaps they pull in 
 anything that they find soft and yielding, and make 
 trial of its edible qualities at their leisure. Whatever 
 be the reason, the holes are carefully stopped up in 
 the way I have described. This seems, indeed, rather 
 stupid ; because a knowing bird may regard the tufts 
 upon worm-holes as so many points for attack ; but
 
 EARTH-WORMS. 99 
 
 this is the habit of the creature, and as I once, and 
 once only, caught a lob-worm actually at work, I 
 shall describe what I saw, which I thought extremely 
 curious. 
 
 " My attention was directed to the fact that if the 
 small heaps of pebbles were cleared away from a 
 worm-hole, they were sure to be replaced next morn- 
 ing. Suspecting they worked only at night, I went 
 late one summer evening, after a shower of rain, to 
 a bed in the garden which was very full of earth- 
 worms. Walking up to it on tip-toe, and with extreme 
 care (for I was well aware that if it felt the footstep 
 two or three yards off, it would retire into the hole), 
 I was lucky enough to see one very big worm with its 
 body about half out of the hole. I then stood for 
 some time perfectly still, and watched it as it reached 
 out its elastic head to a small pebble, and by a clever 
 jerk, or possibly by its slimy moisture adhering to 
 it, it drew the pebble to its hole and left it close to 
 the edge. Thus it took another and another, and 
 now I was able to explain what I had often noticed, 
 that every pebble within a circle of about six inches 
 was moved away and piled up over the hole. The 
 worm took the circle, elongating its body, and moving 
 east or west and to every point of the compass, so to 
 say, till not a pebble was left within its reach. This 
 I saw, and the reader may believe that it is a strictly 
 accurate account, though it may seem to credit the 
 creature with more intelligence then it has any right 
 to possess." 
 
 Prof. Paley expresses it as his opinion that any 
 one might see the Earth-worm perform this feat, any 
 H 2
 
 100 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 summer night, by the light of a lantern or candle. 
 Mr. W. Budden, writing in the same magazine as that 
 in which the above article appears, confirms and adds 
 to the writer's experience. Mr. Badden's observa- 
 tions were carried on during the wet evenings of June 
 1878, generally in the dusk, his object being to dis- 
 cover by what means earth-worms dragged string, 
 leaves, twigs, &c., along the ground to their holes. 
 He says : 
 
 " Very carefully and quietly placing a candle on the 
 earth where a number of large worms were foraging 
 round their holes, I took care to place decayed leaves, 
 &c., within the radius of the circle swept by their 
 operations. The objects placed within their reach 
 being, however, too much the colour of the soil ac- 
 curately and distinctly to be sure of the modus 
 operandi, the thought suddenly occurred to me to try 
 white paper. Tearing up little strips about three 
 inches long, I gave them a single fold, and placed one 
 within the reach of a foraging worm. Very soon its 
 elongated head came in contact with the paper, and 
 instead of twining its head round the paper I saw it 
 put its head underneath. Carefully watching, I saw 
 a lip on each side of the paper, which, being com- 
 pressed between the two, the paper was held firmly as 
 in a vice, and so dragged to its hole. Continuing 
 the experiments with my paper bait, I saw distinctly 
 that the worm can compress and almost flatten its 
 head as easily as it can elongate it. When the head 
 is rendered obtuse, it can extend it on each side of 
 the mouth so as to form two large distinct lips, be- 
 tween which it took hold of the papers and dragged
 
 EARTH-WORMS. IOI 
 
 them to the hole; but this is only method No. 2. 
 There is yet another, which at first I could scarcely 
 understand. Observing a worm place its head under 
 the white paper, so that its operation was invisible, I 
 saw the paper, without any apparent means of motion, 
 slowly, ghost-like moving along the dark ground to 
 the hole of the worm. Its head was not round it, nor 
 did its lips enclose any part of the paper, and yet it 
 moved. Quietly and carefully, by candle-light, con- 
 tinuing for hours my observations, I saw that when it 
 suited the creature's purpose best, it had yet a third 
 method of attaching itself to its baits. The worm 
 having retracted its head in the same way as when 
 forming its lips, firmly pressed it for a moment on to 
 the paper, and then apparently forming a sucker of its 
 mouth, the paper was firmly attached to it, and so, 
 without being held, except as the leathern toy attaches 
 itself by exhaustion of air to the stone, the paper 
 followed the retreating worm and was dragged to its 
 hole. I am perfectly satisfied as the result of my 
 patient and tiring watching, therefore, that the earth- 
 worm can secure its object just according to which 
 method best suits the thing it desires to obtain, either 
 by encircling a part of it with its prehensile head, by 
 pressing it between two expansions of the head-like 
 lips, or by attaching its head and mouth in the way 
 of a sucker." 
 
 Prof. Paley further describes a habit of the earth- 
 worm not before noticed by any writer. He had 
 noticed that most of the worm-holes in his garden 
 were stopped up with leaves of the Weeping Willow, 
 which had fallen the previous autumn. On examining
 
 102 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 separately a number of the leaves placed in the holes, 
 he was astonished to find that every leaf had its stalk 
 end uppermost. The tips of the leaves appeared as 
 if they had been nibbled, or partly eaten within the 
 holes, and he believes that the worms have intelligence 
 enough to find out by touch the right and wrong ends 
 of the leaves (the stalk being too high for them), and 
 to act accordingly. 
 
 Worms feed by passing rich earth, full of organic 
 matter, through their peculiar intestinal canal, where 
 it is delayed in its passage by the partitions already 
 alluded to, and triturated by the gizzards it is ground 
 in. When all the organic matter required by worms 
 has been thus drained, the remainder is ejected 
 in those little spirally-arranged hillocks strewn so 
 abundantly on the grass which we call " worm-casts." 
 These worm-casts, however, perform really important 
 functions. Just a century ago, the Rev. Gilbert 
 White put in a plea for earth-worms, notwithstanding 
 the evil odour in which these humble creatures are 
 still held in agricultural districts. Although they are in 
 appearance a small and despicable link in the chain 
 of nature, yet, if lost, he contends they would make 
 a lamentable chasm. Apart from their affording 
 stock food for birds and many other animals, he con- 
 tends they are useful to the farmer in boring, loosen- 
 ing, and perforating the soil, and in rendering it 
 pervious to rains and the fibres of plants, from their 
 habit of dragging leaves, straws, &c., down into it. 
 We may add that the roots of plants need the circu- 
 lation of air as well as leaves, and this is most 
 effectively produced by the porosity given to the soil
 
 EARTH-WORMS. 103 
 
 burrowed by worms. The " worm-casts " form a capi- 
 tal top-dressing for all kinds of grass, and it is now 
 known that earth-worms can in this way add con- 
 siderably to the depth of soil. 
 
 Many years ago, Mr. Wedgewood, a friend and 
 relative of Dr. Charles Darwin, noticed that in a 
 field of his, in Staffordshire, the soil appeared to 
 have increased in depth. In some places as much 
 as one inch had been formed in three years, and, 
 at last, Mr. Wedgewood came to the conclusion that 
 earth-worm^ had been the chief agents in this remark- 
 able addition. This led Mr. Darwin to make some 
 investigations with a view to discovering how far 
 earth-worms were instrumental in the formation of 
 soils, and he afterwards communicated the results of 
 his observations to the Geological Society of London. 
 He found that well-nigh the whole surface of the 
 grass-field was covered with worm-castings Although 
 the casts of the larger worms were the more con- 
 spicuous, standing up as little mounds at no great 
 distance from one another, yet they had not, on the 
 whole, so great an effect as the multitude of the 
 heaps of younger and smaller worms which are 
 hidden under the herbage. Dr. Darwin says : " On 
 carefully examining between the blades of grass, I 
 found scarcely a space of two inches square without 
 a little heap of cylindrical castings." The rate at 
 which the layer of new soil is thus formed may be 
 guessed at from some of the facts produced by 
 Darwin. In one case, in a field which had been re- 
 claimed from waste land, three inches depth of mould 
 had been prepared by the worms in fifteen years ; and
 
 104 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 in another, within a period of less than eighty years, 
 the earth-worms had covered a bed of sand with 
 soil to the depth of between twelve and thirteen 
 inches ! 
 
 It has been noticed that as worms desert their old 
 burrows, the soil sinks in and fills them ; and by this 
 means a constant circulation is continued, the vege- 
 table mould extending itself downwards, while the 
 "dead," or purely mineral, soil is brought up to the 
 surface. Even in the unmoved gravel of any pit we 
 may see that the earth-worms are invading it, eating 
 out the sand between the stones, and running their 
 burrows in and out and among it Professor Paley says : 
 " Seeds of trees are dragged by worms into their 
 holes, and there germinate. This is most commonly 
 the case with the seeds of the ash and the sycamore, 
 both of which have their winged appendages set 
 slightly on one side, like the sails of a windmill, or 
 the screw-propeller of a ship, so that they are carried 
 by the wind and fall aslant at some distance from the 
 trees. I have repeatedly drawn both of these seeds 
 out of worm-holes, after they had begun to germinate. 
 The fact is established by the carrying down of seeds, 
 strewed on the surface, by worms kept in a pot. 
 There can be no doubt, therefore, that it is one of 
 the provisions of nature for the propagation of 
 vegetable life. 
 
 " Every effect that the worm leaves visible on the 
 surface seems done at a time when its enemies, the 
 birds, are not abroad. How a blind creature can tell 
 night from day seems surprising ; possibly the warmth 
 of the sun, or the dew at night, may serve it for this
 
 EARTH-WORMS. 105 
 
 end. By keeping one or two worms in a flower-pot, 
 I once or twice found one partly exposed. It was 
 passing, by peculiar jerks made, with intervals of rest, 
 from one hole into another. From this I suspected 
 that, as in a rabbit-warren, the same creature has 
 several holes communicating with each other under- 
 ground. 
 
 "To ascertain this, after keeping the worms for 
 some time in a flower-pot, I let them escape, and by 
 drying the earth I was able to dissect it so as to 
 expose all the galleries and passages. I found these 
 very numerous, and towards the bottom of the pot 
 containing portions of leaves which had been drawn 
 down for food. Grains of wheat and other seeds had 
 been carried down to the bottom, and it seemed to 
 me that the worms had fed on the tangled roots which 
 these seeds had sent out through the whole thickness 
 of the earth. The excreta in some cases were adhering 
 to the sides of the pot. I think they must have some 
 way of conveying it or pushing it out of their holes, 
 as birds are said to eject the dirt of the young nest- 
 lings. I think, also, that it is got rid of as soon as 
 deposited. For, though worms are very shy of 
 making themselves visible by day, it is common to 
 find worm-casts so moist and fresh that they have 
 evidently just been thrown up. This is the case with 
 mole-heaps ; but I never saw, and I never met with 
 any one who could say that he had seen, the earth 
 actually being thrown up. The mole, like the worm, 
 is evidently very sensitive to the tread of a foot. 
 Both remain quiet when they feel the vibration of 
 the ground.
 
 106 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 " Worms by no means invariably draw into their 
 holes leaves or bits of sticks, or cover them over with 
 pebbles. The reason of their doing so at all is there- 
 fore the more obscure, since it is not a necessity. Very 
 often the hole is marked only by the little heaps of 
 earthy excreta^ and however carefully you remove 
 these, you will find the hole itself is completely 
 stopped. They nibble off the ends first, and then 
 pull the remainder down lower, till little more than 
 the stalk and mid-rib is left. And a little observa- 
 tion will show that the leaves have really been 
 devoured, and have not rotted away in the moist 
 earth. This fact I ascertained to a positive certainty 
 by repeated supplies of dry leaves put into the flower- 
 pot, the whole being clean eaten up except short por- 
 tions of the stalks. It seems then that a very large 
 part of the decaying vegetable matter in gardens is 
 consumed by the numerous lob-worms, for they are 
 greedy eaters, though they seem to do no harm to 
 growing plants, even if they do eat some of the fibrous 
 roots. In this respect the worm resembles the mole 
 and the dung-beetle, which never leave the hole to the 
 upper surface open to the air, as most of the burrow- 
 ing animals do. 
 
 " Not only leaves were thus drawn in and devoured, 
 but grains of wheat, canary, and rape-seed, sprinkled 
 on the top of the earth in the flower-pot, were gra- 
 dually carried down, and soon entirely disappeared ; 
 so that after a few days not a single seed was to be 
 seen. I tried bits of stick, bread-crumbs, scraps of 
 gingerbread, and biscuit, but they were not much 
 noticed, though the sticks were generally moved.
 
 EARTH-WORMS. 107 
 
 After a few days the seeds came up, thus affording a 
 pretty conclusive proof that one province or function 
 of the earth-worm is to promote the growth of plants 
 by burying seed which might otherwise perish, or be 
 picked up by birds. " 
 
 This last little creature fitly closes our list of the 
 chief British animals, vertebrate and invertebrate, 
 which pass, all or some of their lives underground. 
 Enough has been educed, however, to prove to us 
 that the soil beneath our feet is no waste place, but 
 a habitation, a shelter, and a home to innumerable 
 creatures belonging to almost every type of animal 
 life. And we cannot but see, in the wonderful 
 structural adaptations of organs to a subterranean 
 life, as well as in the instincts which prompt creatures 
 to seek that shelter in the bosom of the earth denied 
 to them outside it, the presence of the creative Wis- 
 dom which is extended to the lowest as well as to the 
 highest organized of His works !
 
 108 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 PART II, 
 
 OUR GEOLOGICAL RECORDS. 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE GENERAL STORY OF THE ROCKS. 
 
 BUT if the soil beneath us is the homely shelter 
 of so many kinds of animals, what shall we say 
 when we extend our researches lower still, and 
 find traces of both animal and vegetable life, which 
 must have been in existence long before the present 
 creation began ? No matter how low down in the 
 bowels of the earth we are enabled to go in our deep 
 mines, these evidences of a former life are still present. 
 In the deepest coal-pits you will find the seam of 
 black shale, which always overlies the coal, full of the 
 remains of fossil vegetation. There are spread out (in 
 the most beautiful arrangement, and often as neatly 
 as if they had been laid out in a herbarium) ferns, 
 leaves, and flattened stems of trees. In addition, 
 you will not unfrequently get the remains, or, indeed, 
 the entire bodies, of fossil fishes, although not more 
 than a few inches in length, as in the North Stafford- 
 shire coal-fields. Every scale, fin, etc., of these fossil 
 fishes is preserved ; or you may find bands of iron- 
 stone full of fossil mussels or other shells, which, as
 
 THE GENERAL STORY OF THE ROCKS. 109 
 
 you study them, give you every indication a reasonable 
 mind can require that they were really once alive ! 
 
 Amazed with your discovery of the proofs of former 
 life so abundantly brought before your notice at such 
 a depth underground, you, perhaps, change the scene 
 of your investigations for the hills and mountains. 
 Here you are as high above the sea-level as formerly 
 in the mines you were beneath it. You scale the 
 rocks to get to the summit, but as you slowly ascend 
 you are obliged to notice that these rocks also are 
 full of fossil shells, or corals, or some other remains of 
 life which you cannot identify ! How is this ? Is 
 the earth's crust a mere sepulchre of extinct and dead 
 types of forms of life ? Is it possible that we should 
 actually have no platform for the life of the period in 
 which we ourselves live including our own physical 
 life if creatures had not lived and died before us, 
 and out of their living parts formed the limestone 
 rocks of our hills and the chalk downs and plains 
 whereon our cattle graze ? What strange mystery is 
 this, that underneath our feet, as above us [in the 
 blue midnight canopy, bespangled with unnumbered 
 crowds of suns and worlds, there are accumulated 
 evidences of Creative Power we have never before 
 dreamt of ? 
 
 Let us settle ourselves to the careful study of these 
 " Rock-records/' as, fortunately for us, brave and intel- 
 ligent men have already done. It will not be long 
 before we discover that the fossils are not of the same 
 kind in all the rocks ; that, in short, many formations 
 of rock have suites of fossils of their own. We are 
 almost afraid to trust to the importance of this dis-
 
 110 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 covery, because the value of the inference is so great. 
 If each rock-formation has its own set of fossils, then 
 if we but acquaint ourselves with the leading kinds 
 of the latter, we may be able to identify any formation 
 of rock wherever we see it, the whole world over ! 
 Are rocks like trees ? Do they bear each their peculiar 
 kind of fruit ? The analogy seems very instructive. 
 
 Thanks to the generalized results of geology one 
 of the youngest and yet the most masculine of 
 modern sciences it can now be safely affirmed that 
 the simple and logical inferences just alluded to 
 may be accepted. There are zones of rock-formation 
 which have fossils, shells, corals, plants, etc., not 
 found in any other, so that we may recognize their 
 age the whole world over ! Such rocks, no matter 
 where they form part of the earth's crust, belong to 
 the same period. The result of this simple inference 
 is most important, as well as exceedingly interesting. 
 
 The rocks of the British islands alone have yielded 
 nearly fourteen thousand different kinds of fossils ! 
 All these have been figured and described by skilled 
 and competent naturalists. The rocks of other parts 
 of the world have been nearly as well examined by 
 foreign geologists, and the results are in many instances 
 very striking. In conclusion we have been able to 
 prove that, before man appeared upon the earth, our 
 old planet had for long ages been the abode of 
 life ! Man is simply the last comer the latest tenant 
 of a very old house. The fossils of which we have 
 been speaking are evidences of the ancient inhabi- 
 tants which preceded him in their tenancy of the 
 globe, just as the mouldering bones of our grave-
 
 THE GENERAL STORY OF THE ROCKS. Ill 
 
 yards are the remains of people who lived before we 
 were born. Moreover, from a careful comparison of 
 the various kinds of fossils found in the rocks of all 
 parts, the important conclusion has been drawn that 
 this past life of the globe was not a purposeless crea- 
 tion, but the development of a Divine plan. We dis- 
 cover that the first kinds of life which appeared on the 
 earth were of simple structure and lowly organization, 
 just as at the last Man is anatomically and physio- 
 logically highly endowed. Between these two extremes, 
 the former dating backwards in the geological history 
 of the globe to when the earliest rocks were formed, 
 there is an intervening series of animal and vegetable 
 forms connecting them, thus making the life-history of 
 the world the working-out of one harmonious and 
 Divinely-ordained plan ! For not only have the rock- 
 formations their own sets of fossils, but there is the 
 plainest proofs that these formations are of different 
 ages. Some were formed at a very remote period, and 
 others, comparatively speaking, quite recently. Both 
 the rocks and the fossils they contain afford the most 
 conclusive evidence to those who study them of the 
 high antiquity of the globe. 
 
 The life-plan which can thus be studied tells us 
 plainly that there have been times when animals of 
 lower organization than man have been successively 
 at the head of creation. Thus, as Hugh Miller 
 pointed out, there have been an " Age of Fish," an 
 " Age of Reptiles," and an " Age of Mammals," or 
 warm-blooded animals. Similarly with the vegetable 
 world : there was a time when club-mosses and ferns 
 were the highest plant-forms ; then came an " Age of
 
 112 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 Pines," of "Cycads," of " Palms," etc. ; whilst the trees 
 and flowers which now beautify and gladden the earth 
 are the latest introduced. In short, man has been 
 brought upon the stage of this planet just when it has 
 attained its highest degree of organic beauty, when 
 its flowers, shrubs, and trees have reached their highest 
 development, the insects and birds their most gorgeous 
 colouring and sweetest song, and all nature has been 
 prepared as an Eden for the new comer ! 
 
 These abundant remains of ancient life with which 
 many of our rocks are so stored that we may say they 
 actually owe their existence to them are not lusus 
 natures. They are natural hieroglyphics, by means 
 of which we can read off the life-history of our world. 
 These stony records are "written within and with- 
 out " by the very hand of God ! Every one of these 
 petrifactions once breathed the breath of life. They 
 "have had their day, and ceased to be"; and now 
 their very remains compose the solid rocks, and are 
 the platform on which the present forms of animals 
 and plants can exist. As we examine the various 
 rocks, we soon learn how they have been formed. 
 We find they are of two kinds one which contains 
 fossils, and bears unequivocal proofs of having been 
 originally formed as sediment ; and another set which 
 contains none of these traces of former life, but on 
 the contrary presents us with decided proofs that they 
 acquired their present characters by the agency of heat. 
 
 These two sets of rocks are respectively called 
 Aqueous and Igneous. They are connected by a 
 third and different kind, having all the stratification 
 and other evidences of aquatic origin of one set, with
 
 THE GENERAL STORY OF THE ROCKS. 113 
 
 equally strong proofs that they have been altered since 
 they were first formed, by heat or pressure, or by both. 
 Such rocks as these are usually very much contorted 
 or otherwise disturbed ; and they go by the name of 
 metamorphic. Throughout the entire world the rocky 
 crust is made up of one or another, or of all of 
 these three kinds. In Great Britain we have all of 
 them, and in every possible variety ; so that in this 
 respect few similar areas of dry land are so geolo- 
 gically rich and varied as our own country. The 
 aqueous rocks are of almost every degree of hardness 
 and softness, down to mere beds of soft and shifting 
 sands. Nobody can long examine them without 
 seeing that geologists are right in coming to the con- 
 clusion they have, in every country, that such rocks 
 must originally have been formed as sediments. That 
 is to say, the wear and tear of ancient dry land by 
 ordinary weather-action would cause the rivers to 
 carry ofif large quantities of dust washed into them 
 by rains, so that the waters would be muddy in con- 
 sequence. Such is the case with rivers in our own 
 day, and we have no reason to think they ever acted 
 differently in this respect to what they are doing now. 
 We know that " all rivers run to the sea," and carry 
 thither mud which discolours their waters. This 
 muddy matter after a time settles to the bottom, and 
 there accumulates, year after year, century after cen- 
 tury, as an ever-increasing bed of sediment. Mean- 
 time, all the marine animals which have died have 
 sunk down to rest in this soft mud, and as fast as it 
 has increased, the dead marine shells and remains 
 of other creatures have been covered up. 
 i
 
 114 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 Now let this process go on for ages. We should 
 then have a bed of sediment whose thickness would 
 depend upon the time it had been forming, and the rate 
 at which it had been formed. But we have seen that 
 it has been composed of the matter brought down by 
 rivers, which matter was worn by weather-action from 
 off the surface of the dry land, so that the rate of 
 sedimentary deposition cannot be greater than that 
 at which an equal area of dry land has been denuded 
 by weather-action. 
 
 Is it not evident that if such a sedimentary deposit 
 as that we have been speaking of were to become dry 
 land by an elevation of the sea-bed a phenomenon 
 which frequently takes place we should have a rock, 
 more or less hard, full of what we should now call fossils? 
 We have seen how these fossils got into such a rock, 
 and we can therefore further rely on them as actually 
 representing the marine life of the period when such 
 a stratum of rock was deposited. And thus we note 
 how it is that rocks of different geological ages have 
 different kinds of fossils, and how trustworthy are 
 such "records." 
 
 What a new interest is thus given to the most com- 
 monplace objects ! Every pebble or stone which we 
 accidentally kick before us in the street is a detached 
 fragment of a rock^formation which has been elabo- 
 rated in the manner above mentioned. The soil we 
 cultivate is but the weather-decomposed particles of 
 ancient geological deposits, each of which has the 
 most wonderful history of its own ! And as the 
 formation of one deposit means the wear and tear 
 of others to supply the materials, it follows that de-
 
 THE GENERAL STORY OF THE ROCKS. 115 
 
 position and denudation must go on together. We 
 have areas of Great Britain whose solid rocks have 
 thus been denuded, atom by atom, to the extent 
 of three miles ! But the aqueous or sedimentary 
 rocks of Great Britain sandstones, slates, shales, 
 chalk, limestones, clays, etc. if they were piled one 
 above another, formation above formation, would 
 attain a thickness of at least twenty miles ! And yet 
 we have not the slightest reason for believing that 
 these formations obtained their materials from any 
 other source than the decomposition and weathering 
 of the dry lands by meteorological agencies. 
 
 For the land has always been separated from the 
 sea ever since the "waters were gathered into one 
 place." Their relative areas have been constantly 
 changing, for the earth's crust has never been in a 
 state of absolute rest; and so sea-beds (with their 
 accumulated deposits) have been upheaved into dry 
 land ; and parts of the dry land have sunk below the 
 sea-level. The reflections of our Poet Laureate are 
 scientifically true : 
 
 " Now rolls the deep where grew the tree : 
 Oh earth, what changes hast thou seen ! 
 There, where the long street roars, hath been 
 The stillness of a central sea. " 
 
 It is very evident that enormous periods of time 
 must have passed to bring about all the changes 
 to which the rocks beneath us testify. But to the 
 reverent investigator there is sufficient allowance in 
 the opening verse of the first chapter of Genesis 
 " In the beginning God created the Heavens and fijae 
 Earth." That verse elicited the admiration of even such 
 
 I 2
 
 Il6 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 heathen philosophers as Longinus it comes to us 
 now charged with a fuller meaning than ever, when 
 studied in the light of geology ! For who dare cir- 
 cumscribe the boundless periods which may be in- 
 cluded in this wonderful passage? Enough, surely, 
 to allow of all the changes geology has recorded, to 
 their fullest and mightiest results, without needing to 
 shake the trust of one believer in the Book which he 
 treasures beyond any other record ! We do not like 
 so-called " Reconciliations," for they must be untrust- 
 worthy until we know all that geology can reveal. 
 But, meantime, this first sentence affords us certain 
 ground for calm trust that no actual disagreement can 
 ever take place between the two records, seeing they 
 are equally due to the same Divine Author !
 
 UNDERGROUND. 1 1 7 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 HEAT-FORMED ROCKS. 
 
 WE have already alluded to a group of rocks forming 
 a large portion of the ground beneath us, which never 
 contain fossils, but on the other hand are fruitful in 
 evidences of their having assumed their present con- 
 dition through the agency of heat. Geologists know 
 these rocks by the name of igneous. Their history is 
 scarcely less wonderful than the story of the ancient 
 life of our globe which the fossils enable us to read 
 off. Moreover, the great antiquity of the earth, 
 which we can infer from the study of the latter, is 
 supplemented in the most astonishing manner by the 
 conclusions drawn from the study of the nature and 
 mode of occurrence of the igneous rocks. 
 
 Down beneath our feet, in the interior of the earth, 
 "there is turned up as it wereyfo?/" That is to say, 
 we have the most abundant proofs of the existence of 
 a high temperature existing in the bowels of the earth. 
 It is known for a fact that the heat increases one 
 degree Fahrenheit for every twenty yards as we de- 
 scend in deep mines. And there is every reason for 
 believing that it goes on increasing. Hence, as we 
 know the melting-point of even the hardest metals, it 
 is a very easy arithmetical calculation to ascertain to 
 what depth we should have to go, to reach a point
 
 1 1 8 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 where the increasing heat would be hot enough to 
 fuze or melt them. Platinum is the metal which 
 requires most heat to melt it ; but at a depth of thirty- 
 five miles from the surface of the earth there would 
 be a temperature high enough to reduce it to the 
 molten state. Hence some have imagined that within 
 the earth all matter is in a molten state, and that the 
 encircling crust alone is solid. 
 
 But the melting-point of all bodies is considerably 
 raised when they are submitted to great pressure. 
 And we have every reason for believing that in the 
 interior of the earth the pressure exercised is so in- 
 tense that substances are thus able to withstand the 
 influence of the great heat that would otherwise melt 
 them, and so the earth as a whole is even more rigid 
 than if it were made of solid steel. It has been 
 proved that if this molten interior were protected only 
 by a crust, although the latter might be very thick, the 
 earth would long ago have been pulled out of shape 
 by the disturbing attraction of the moon and other 
 externally interfering planets. For all practical pur- 
 poses, therefore, we may regard our globe as a solid 
 mass. 
 
 Still, we know, from the fact that modern volcanoes 
 during eruption cast forth great volumes of the 
 molten rock called lava, that there must be places 
 where matter is in a melted state, owing to the great 
 heat which prevails there. Now, it may be the case 
 that the fusion of this rock is owing to other causes 
 than the great central heat of the earth. Indeed, 
 there are many conflicting views about it, and nothing 
 seems to be clearly determined. But whatever be the
 
 HEAT-FORMED ROCKS. 119 
 
 explanation, we know that there are certain areas 
 underground occupied by areas of melted rock, and 
 that these communicate with volcanoes ; so that we 
 may regard the latter as " safety-valves." Volcanoes 
 in active operation are always situated near the sea, 
 and large volumes of steam are thrown out of volcanic 
 craters during eruptions. There can be no doubt, 
 therefore, that the sea-water by some means often 
 finds its way down to the seat of disturbance ; and 
 by being converted into steam, assists perhaps the 
 explosive force manifested by volcanoes. Anyhow, 
 there remains this remarkable fact, that active vol- 
 canoes are always to be found near the shores of 
 great oceans. The only exception to this rule is 
 Demavend, and it will be noticed that it stands on 
 the shores of that great depression occupied by the 
 waters of the Caspian Sea. 
 
 This fact throws great light on the geographical 
 distribution of extinct volcanoes. For it shows us 
 that, when they were in active operation, they must 
 have been situated near great and deep lakes, or by 
 the sea-shores. In the very centre of France, about 
 Clermont, there are still standing the conical hills, 
 each with its crater, of more than one hundred vol- 
 canoes. At Keswick, in Cumberland, we may still see 
 the old core of the volcano which threw out vast 
 quantities of lava and ash during the Silurian period 
 of geology. Near Llanberis are the lava and ash-beds 
 vomited by a sub-marine volcano during the Silurian 
 epoch. Cornwall and Devon have each remains of 
 extinct volcanoes ; so has Derbyshire, Leicestershire 
 (at Mount Sorrel), Westmoreland, Cumberland, and
 
 120 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 other places. Arthur's Seat at Edinburgh is the boss 
 of an old volcano ; the of isles of Mull, Rum, &c., are 
 simply the weathered and denuded bases of volcanic 
 mountains, some of which rose as lofty as fifteen 
 thousand feet, and that during a period so geolo- 
 gically recent as the Miocene. In the Isle of Man, 
 at places north of Dublin, and elsewhere in Ireland, 
 but particularly near the Giant's Causeway, we have 
 the most abundant and overwhelming evidence of 
 volcanic action ; and the neighbourhoods of the places 
 we have mentioned are underlaid by rocks, formed by 
 such agencies, and therefore termed igneous, 
 
 It is only by patient and careful observation, and 
 comparison of one place with another, that we can 
 understand a tithe of the great physical changes which 
 have taken place in the land we live in. We are so 
 accustomed to the enjoyment of immunity from the 
 dreadful ravages of earthquakes and volcanoes, that 
 we have come to regard them as exotic ; as in some 
 measure appertaining to other countries and not to 
 " Merrie England"! Consequently, when we learn 
 that that part of the crust of the earth now called 
 Great Britain is as full, if not fuller, of earthquake 
 and volcanic records as South America, we have 
 great cause for wonder. But so it is. If you take up 
 any ordinary geological map of the British Isles, such 
 as those published by the Geological Survey (which 
 are on the scale of one inch to the mile), you will 
 observe that part of the country underlaid by the 
 older wt primary rocks to be in places perfectly inter- 
 crossed with white lines. Those white lines are " faults," 
 or places where the strata have been cracked through,
 
 HEAT-FORMED ROCKS. 121 
 
 and either let down or lifted up anyhow dislocated. 
 The surface hardly ever shows any indications of these 
 great disturbances, for denudation has long ago pared 
 down all inequalities. We have these dislocations in 
 every variety and degree of disturbance, from only a few 
 inches to as much as three miles. There is a "fault," 
 or dislocation of the solid rock, which crosses Scot- 
 land from Dunbar, on the east coast, to Ayrshire, on 
 the west, where one side of the "fault" shows us that 
 the rocks have been let down to a depth of more than 
 three miles below the level of the other ! It must not 
 be imagined that these mighty dislocations have oc- 
 curred suddenly, or all at once. If that had been the 
 case, the heat which would have been elicited from so 
 immense a mechanical disturbance would have been 
 enough to have often locally fused or otherwise have 
 altered the rocks most exposed to it. But beyond a. 
 little polishing and scratchings of the walls of the 
 faults, we have little trace of the mechanical disturb- 
 ance. And so we arrive at the conclusion that all these 
 dislocations were of seldom occurrence, taking place 
 along the same lines of weakness, perhaps only a few 
 inches, or at the most a few feet at a time, and so ex- 
 tending over myriads of years before such a result was 
 completed, as is manifested by the Great Fault in 
 Scotland. It is evident that, if such were the case, the 
 w r eather action upon the dry land, in eating it away, 
 would be nearly if not quite as great as the amount of 
 dislocation, and thus all surface traces of the latter 
 would be rubbed out as fast as they were made. 
 
 The different kinds of igneous rocks, much as they 
 may be unlike each other, have had pretty much the
 
 122 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 same origin. A great deal of their external difference 
 depends upon the rates at which they have cooled 
 down, or the pressure that may have been exercised 
 upon them when they passed from the molten to the 
 solid condition. For instance, suppose we take the 
 case of a volcano like Mount Etna, about 10,000 feet 
 high. And let us further suppose that, on some oc- 
 casion when this mountain was in one of its most vio- 
 lent acts of eruption, we could, as by an enchanter's 
 wand, suddenly cool down the entire column of mol- 
 ten rock that was rising from much beneath the level 
 of the volcano, and discharging itself in lava-streams 
 from the crater at the top. Is it not evident that the 
 whole of the molten mass would be nearly of the same 
 chemical composition ? But how different would be 
 the physical conditions of pressure, etc., under which the 
 various parts of this column of igneous rock cooled ! 
 The lowest part would have borne the pressure of all 
 that lay above it ; whilst the uppermost part would 
 have had only that of the atmosphere. 
 
 The lowest parts of such a cooled mass of rock as 
 that we have supposed would be some variety or ano- 
 ther of Granite, and, according to the degree of pres- 
 sure, further up our imagined column in the throat of 
 the volcano, we should have formed such other well- 
 known varieties of igneous rocks as Porphyry, Green- 
 stone, Basalt, Trap, and Lava. Recent researches 
 have proved that all granite rocks have become solid 
 and cool beneath great pressure of overlying rock. 
 Consequently, whenever we find granite coming to the 
 surface as it does on Dartmoor, at various places in 
 Cornwall, at Mount Sorrel in Leicestershire, in the
 
 HEAT- FORMED ROCKS. 123 
 
 Isle of Man, at Ravenglass and Shap Fells in Cum- 
 berland, at Skiddaw, and at Aberdeen, Mull, and 
 Rannock Moor in Scotland we know that in such 
 localities great denudations have taken place, and 
 that an immense thickness of solid rocks has been 
 removed ; for few, if any, kinds of real granite can 
 have been formed under a less pressure than forty or 
 fifty thousand feet of overlying formations. The mind 
 has a difficulty in grasping the idea of operations on 
 so vast a scale, especially when we cannot call to our 
 aid more powerful agencies to strip off and denude, 
 than weather-action similar to that which we see going 
 on around us every day of our lives. When we see 
 natural phenomena on a large scale, as, for instance, 
 mountain-gorges and passes, we are apt to imagine 
 that the agencies which produced them were corre- 
 spondingly mighty in their operations. Not so ; for 
 here we find that the most overlooked operations are 
 just those which effect the most important changes. 
 The most powerful agent is Time. It seems fitting 
 that we should ascribe the origin of deep gorges and 
 canons to earthquakes riving and splitting the solid 
 rocks in twain ; and people instinctively imagine that 
 such forces have been at work when they see natural 
 scenery of such a character. But in reality, earth- 
 quakes are utterly incompetent to perform such a task. 
 The mechanical erosion of little mountain-streams and 
 torrents can do more for gorge-making ( if only we 
 allow the element of Time for them to work in ) than 
 all the earthquake waves that ever shattered our 
 planet's crust. The power is not in the earthquake, but 
 in the continuous action of a much more gentle force.
 
 124 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 The strata of the British Islands are abundantly 
 stored with every variety of igneous rock. In Corn- 
 wall, the sea-cliffs and inland mountains testify gene- 
 rally to their presence. The very scenery of this 
 charming region owes its character to the unequal rate 
 at which the harder and softer rocks have weathered, 
 so as to produce the surface diversity which forms the 
 base of all lovely landscape scenery. All around 
 Dartmoor, where the mountain-streams have laid bare 
 the veins of once molten rock which radiate from the 
 main granitic mass, you can see numerous mineral 
 changes of the most interesting character. In Derby- 
 shire, where the thick strata of carboniferous lime- 
 stone are crowded with fossil shells and corals, we 
 may see here and there, as in the neighbourhood of 
 Matlock, Castleton. or Buxton, beds of a different 
 colour intercalated among them. These are locally 
 denominated " Toadstone," and they are sheets of 
 ancient lava which were poured forth from submarine 
 volcanoes, and strewn out along the ancient sea-floors 
 where the limestones were accumulating as calcareous 
 ooze. In the neighbourhood of Llanberis in particular, 
 but also in many other parts of North Wales, we have 
 the greenstone-porphyry which was ejected also from 
 an ancient submarine volcano, but much older than 
 those which disturbed the quiet of Carboniferous seas, 
 for the Welsh igneous rocks are of Silurian age. The 
 Lake district of Cumberland has entire mountains 
 formed of the ejectamenta of a land volcano which 
 was active where Keswick now stands, during the Silu- 
 rian period. Green slates, formed of volcanic ash, 
 are plentifully seen ; for they have been squeezed
 
 HEAT-FORMED ROCKS. 125 
 
 until they exhibit the cleavage structure seen in slate 
 rocks which are undoubtedly of sedimentary origin. 
 The Green Porphyries of the Lake district are of a 
 most remarkable character, and cannot be mistaken 
 for other than igneous'rocks. At Shap Fell we find a 
 peculiar kind of granite of a reddish tint, full of large, 
 long crystals, which people in London may easily ex- 
 amine in the polished, thick, low pillars which sup- 
 port the chain-work in front of St. Paul's Cathedral. 
 Ravenglass granite is quite of another texture, but as 
 peculiar as the Shap variety ; and these facts have 
 been of much importance to geologists, for they can 
 thus trace to these two sources many large granitic 
 boulders which were wrenched off the parent masses 
 during the Glacial period, and carried far away by 
 glacial agency, to be strewn over the Northern and 
 Midland counties. Northumberland, also, is rich in 
 dykes of igneous rock. This name is given to molten 
 rock which has welled up from beneath, and filled 
 pre-existing cracks and fissures, or which has even 
 been intruded, like wedges, between loose horizontal 
 strata. " Dykes " of this kind are very abundant in 
 the neighbourhood of Glasgow, and the railway 
 cuttings to Greenock from the former place con- 
 stantly lay them open to the view of the geologist. 
 But the geological maps of the coal-field are fuller 
 still of evidence of active igneous forces employed 
 in operations of this kind ; and the cavities of the 
 basaltic rocks are exceedingly rich in the various 
 minerals of the zeolite family. One of the most 
 interesting of these basaltic dykes is, perhaps, that 
 which extends from Durham to near York, a distance
 
 126 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 of about seventy miles. It passes through part of a 
 coal-field, cutting off seams of coal ; and wherever the 
 coal comes into contact with the basalt of the dyke, it 
 has been converted at the places of contact into soot, 
 and even at some distance has been metamorphosed 
 by the great heat into a kind of coke. In numerous 
 islands of the north-west coast of Scotland we may 
 see the dykes crossing the country like so many stone 
 walls, for, owing to the superior hardness of the igne- 
 ous rock composing them over that through which 
 they run, the action of the weather has at length eaten 
 away the softer rock, and left the harder standing in 
 the manner just described. The well-known Isle of 
 Staffa, with its peculiar columns of basalt, best seen 
 near Fingal's Cave, is a part or remnant of a once ex- 
 tensive sheet of lava which was emitted from the now 
 extinct volcano of Mull, during the Miocene period, 
 and its prismatic or columnar structure is doubtless 
 due to the contraction of the lava as it cooled. At 
 Burntisland, on the other side of the Firth of Forth, 
 we can see the ancient lava-stream which caught up 
 and entangled huge blocks of coal-measure sandstone, 
 and the latter are now embedded in it, fossils and all. 
 At Kirkcaldy we have several bold volcanic dykes 
 stretching wall-like across the country, owing to the 
 rocks they traverse having been wasted and worn 
 away by meteorological agencies faster than the basalt. 
 County Antrim, in Ireland, is covered for the most 
 part by two great sheets of lava, which were ejected 
 by local volcanoes during that last period of volcanic 
 activity in the British islands known to geologists as 
 the Miocene. On the coast-road between Portrush
 
 HEAT-FORMED ROCKS. I2f 
 
 and the Causeway we can see the throats of several 
 volcanoes passing through the chalk. These throats 
 are full of igneous rock, communicating with and pass- 
 ing into the over-lying sheets which swathe the chalk 
 all over the north of Ireland. Where the chalk has 
 been weathered, the harder rock in these throats re- 
 sists most, and so it stands out from the retreating 
 cliffs of chalk as a small promontory. Such an one 
 is the well-known and remarkable rock on which 
 Dunluce Castle stands. Wherever we note the places 
 of immediate contact of the chalk with the ancient 
 lava-sheets, we see it converted by heat from its 
 characteristic earthy appearance into a white crystal- 
 line marble, hard enough to be polished. In the 
 Isle of Anglesey, North Wales, we have basaltic dykes 
 traversing carboniferous limestone, and for a distance 
 of thirty feet away so affecting it by the heat which 
 was given out by the injected rock, that all traces of 
 fossils are obliterated. Similarly in Shropshire, at 
 Bartestree, Lugwardine, a dyke of greenstone may be 
 seen crossing the lower old red sandstone, and the 
 heat has literally roasted the beds into hornstone. At 
 Malvern, Charnwood Forest, the Mendip Hills, Tavi- 
 stock, and elsewhere, we have the most abundant 
 proofs of former igneous action recurring at different 
 geological periods. Enough has been said, however, 
 to show what plentiful evidence of volcanic action is 
 preserved in the rocks beneath us ; and to indicate 
 that nearly every geological period has its own set of 
 records of this kind. Our " old and crazy earth " 
 (as Cowper called it) has passed through some strange 
 phases of existence ; and it would not be difficult to-
 
 128 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 show that the soluble minerals richly contained in 
 most igneous rocks, on being slowly set free by 
 denudation, have enriched soils and stimulated and 
 promoted vegetable growth in subsequent ages. The 
 very soils which are strewn over the solid crust, and 
 which mask all the rocks, aqueous and igneous alike, 
 owe much of their fertility to the decomposition of 
 many of the heat-formed rocks at whose origin we 
 have just glanced.
 
 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 129 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 PROOFS OF UNDERGROUND MOVEMENTS AND 
 CHANGES. 
 
 BUT the mere presence of rocks once subject to 
 great heat, and which doubtless have cooled down 
 from the molten state, is not the only evidence 
 
 Denuded outlines of mountains, showing h<nu they arc composed 
 of contorted strata. 
 
 we have of igneous action. To them, however, we 
 
 may ascribe a purely volcanic or similar origin. In 
 
 addition, the sedimentary rocks abound in proofs of 
 
 K
 
 130 
 
 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 the great changes to which they have been subjected 
 since they were deposited. Not only are they fractured 
 and dislocated by faults (as we have already seen), 
 but they bear witness to numerous other disturbances 
 of a similar nature. The " faults " are of every degree 
 of dislocation, from more than three miles to only a 
 few inches. But we are not to consider these large 
 fractures as the result of violent and sudden manifes- 
 tations of force. Indeed, the fact that they occur in 
 every conceivable degree of difference, from inches to 
 miles, and that we can almost intercalate a perfect 
 
 Vertical fault, with fissure. 
 
 series, so as to establish a continuity, is against such 
 a conclusion. Moreover, it has been shown that if the 
 more important dislocations had taken place suddenly 
 and at once, there would have been so much heat 
 
 given out by friction 
 as would actually 
 have altered or 
 metamorphosed the 
 
 adjacent masses of 
 Vertical (A, B) and diagonal ( C, D) faults. 
 
 rock. But, beyond 
 
 the faintest polish or scratches on the walls of rock
 
 UNDERGROUND MOVEMENTS AND CHANGES. 131 
 
 on each side such faults, there is no evidence of 
 such a kind forthcoming. From this and other proofs 
 it is concluded, therefore, that these dislocations 
 have only attained their enormous proportions by 
 the gradual accumulations of successive disturbances, 
 which have taken place along the same lines of 
 weakness. Hence, as a rule, the oldest faults (those 
 traversing the most ancient strata) are also of the 
 greatest dimensions. 
 
 But the solid rocks show abundance of other kinds 
 of disturbance besides the very striking dislocations 
 we have referred to. The young geologist has not 
 long to wander among mountains before he sees that 
 the strata lie in anything rather than the horizontal 
 positions in which they were originally formed. We 
 mention mountains, not because these phenomena are 
 peculiar to them, but owing to the greater ease with 
 which the student can there observe sections. For 
 these evidences of disturbance are presented by rocks 
 of nearly every geological formation. It is true, the 
 most ancient rocks exhibit it most, just as we should 
 have expected when we remember that the more 
 modern strata cannot be disturbed without the older 
 rocks sharing in the movement. And so we conclude 
 that, as in the case of faults, one reason why these 
 very old rocks are so much disturbed is that the dis- 
 turbances have been accumulating during long periods 
 of time ; whereas the later rocks have not been in 
 existence long enough to be so much affected. In 
 some places, as in the northern part of the Isle of 
 Man, the Silurian strata stand quite on end, and 
 there are actually localities where the beds have been 
 K 2
 
 132 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 reversed. From the perfectly horizontal, because un- 
 disturbed condition, to these extremes, we have every 
 shade of inclination or " dip " (as it is called) of strata. 
 That the disturbances which have produced this 
 "dipping" of the rocks have occurred at different 
 geological epochs is plainly shown. In many places 
 we find two sets of rocks, in which the lower strata 
 are very much disturbed, and the upper beds nearly 
 horizontal. This proves that the lower formation 
 must have been uplifted to the angle at which its 
 strata now repose, before the overlying rocks had been 
 formed above them, otherwise the latter would of 
 course have been disturbed as well. 
 
 Sometimes, instead of these upheavings, faultings, 
 and dislocations of the strata, we have the latter 
 folded in curves of every degree of magnitude, from 
 basin-shaped depressions, or saddle-shaped ridges a 
 mile across, to others so small that scores of similar 
 alterations take place in the space of a yard ! Here, 
 again, we find the most ancient rocks those which dis- 
 play this phenomenon most strikingly. The hardest 
 rocks display it even more markedly than the softest. 
 For instance, nearly every part of the mountain called 
 Ben Lomond, in Scotland, is formed of rocks which 
 have so crumpled up that you may get small hand- 
 specimens which show the disturbance quite as 
 vividly as if you had cut a section across a range of 
 hills. Sometimes this crumpling is so violent, and the 
 strata seem to have been squeezed up so closely, that 
 they look as if they had been puckered up by side or 
 lateral pressure. Mere upheaving could not produce 
 phenomena of this kind ; the force which originated it
 
 UNDERGROUND MOVEMENTS AND CHANGES. 133 
 
 must have been exerted along each side of the district 
 whose strata are so disturbed. 
 
 Now, enormous and intense alterations in the posi- 
 tion of hard rocks like those in the neighbourhood 
 of Loch Lomond could not have taken place without 
 a good deal of heat being elicited during the process. 
 The force, whatever it was, which crumpled and con- 
 torted these rock-masses, was largely used up in the 
 operation. But mechanical force, when arrested in 
 this fashion, is transmuted into heat. And so we 
 find it as a rule, almost without exception, that 
 wherever strata are violently contorted and folded, 
 they are also much tnetamorphoscd. The latter term 
 implies change of structure, and this is usually pro- 
 duced by heat, although chemical action may have 
 often had much to do with it as well perhaps may 
 have even been called into operation through it. 
 Thus strata are baked into mica-schists, sandstones 
 into quartzitcs, and entire masses converted into that 
 kind of rock called Gneiss. Sometimes the heat given 
 out by these intense foldings has been enough to 
 fuse the beds in places, and thus to produce a true 
 igneous rock, which will appear strangely mixed up 
 with the rest. It is in countries where the strata are' 
 highly convoluted and metamorphosed that we usually 
 find the granitic kinds of igneous rocks most abundant. 
 Here the mountain-sides will be ribbed with quartz 
 veins, or seamed with streaks of granite. As a rule, 
 all traces of fossils have been obliterated by this meta- 
 morphism, and so we seldom or never find them in 
 strata which have been much contorted ; and if we do, 
 they can only be faintly recognized even by experts.
 
 134 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 This relation between the occurrence of fossil 
 remains and the folding and crumpling of the strata 
 where they ought to be found, but in which, as we have 
 seen, they have been obliterated by the heat, is nowhere 
 better exhibited than in the Silurian rocks of Scotland. 
 In the south they are little if at all metamorphosed, 
 and often contain quantities of fossils, as at Moffat. 
 As we trace the beds northwards we find them much 
 crumpled as they roll over through the Grampians 
 and North Highlands, so much so that they were not 
 recognized as of Silurian age until Mr. Charles Peach 
 discovered nearly obliterated traces of characteristic 
 fossils in the altered limestone beds of Durness, in 
 Sutherland. In the north-west of Ireland, in County 
 Donegal, we have a progressive increase of alteration 
 in the strata which occurs in passing from sandy 
 limestones and white sandstones to quartzite, mica- 
 schist, and highly crystalline limestones, until we 
 gradually find these metamorphosed rocks passing im- 
 perceptibly into granite just where the greatest degree 
 of disturbance appears to have taken place. The 
 crumpling and foliation of the Cambrian and Silurian 
 rocks is an alteration from their former condition of 
 soft shales, and is to be seen in strata of this geological 
 age in the Isle of Anglesey (near the new Breakwater), 
 in the Highlands of Scotland, and perhaps most dis- 
 tinctly in the Island of Arran. It will be seen, how- 
 ever, that although our oldest rocks are as a rule the 
 most metamorphosed, it does not follow that meta- 
 morphism is alone a proof of antiquity. For if strata 
 of any geological age have been subjected to sufficient 
 disturbance, and crushed, folded, and crumpled into-
 
 UNDERGROUND MOVEMENTS AND CHANGES. 135 
 
 the materials of a mountain-chain (as in the Swiss 
 Alps), we may expect to find them more or less meta- 
 morphosed. 
 
 Sometimes the mechanical pressure will produce 
 other internal and external appearances, either in 
 addition to or, as is more commonly the case, distinct 
 from those phenomena of rock-changes which alter the 
 structure of the masses. One of the most remarkable 
 of these is the change called cleavage. It is most 
 abundantly seen in the slaty rocks of the Cambrian, 
 Silurian ; and Devonian periods, especially when such 
 strata have been thrown into great folds crossing the 
 country. The lateral pressure which has caused the 
 beds to assume this undulatory appearance has in- 
 fluenced every particle of the matter entering into the 
 composition of the rocks. The particles have been 
 squeezed parallel, in lines perpendicular to the direc- 
 tion in which the pressure has been exerted. The 
 finer the grain of the rock which has thus been in- 
 fluenced, the more likely it is to be affected by slaty 
 cleavage. When completed, the strata no longer split 
 up into layers along the old and natural planes of 
 bedding, as we see flagstones do, but into the thin 
 laminse we call slates. All the slates used for roofing 
 houses have been split up in this fashion. 
 
 Professor Tyndall, and also Mr. Sorby, have pro- 
 duced cleavage artificially, by causing pressure so to 
 act upon clay that it could expand only at right 
 angles to the direction of the pressure. In all cases 
 of cleavage it would appear as if the particles of the 
 rock are more or less elongated in the direction of 
 the planes. Professor Green has shown that "the
 
 136 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 direction of the planes of cleavage is always parallel 
 to the axes of the larger folds into which the rocks 
 have been thrown." As these undulating strata cross 
 a country in folds, it follows that the planes of 
 cleavage are sometimes coincident with the dip of 
 the rocks. When this is the case, the slates will split 
 up more or less in the planes as they were bedded ; 
 and then we may find fossils on the surfaces. These 
 fossils, however, are often drawn out longitudinally, 
 or diagonally, or transversely, according as the pres- 
 sure producing cleavage has been exerted, and the 
 results are the more grotesque distortions of the 
 original shapes almost as much as that produced in 
 a man's face when reflected from the surface of the 
 convex or concave mirrors which adorn the walls of 
 drawing-rooms. The dip or angle at which these im- 
 portant cleavage-planes occur is generally the same 
 for a district, and the inclination varies for different 
 districts. 
 
 Foliation is another superinduced structure in 
 rocks of this class, which may be studied in any of 
 the hilly districts where the older rocks occur. It is 
 in reality a separation of the constituents of the mass 
 of a rock into layers of different mineral composition ; 
 and it is especially marked where the metamor- 
 phism is so extreme as it is in Gneiss. Indeed, 
 very often gneiss only differs from granite in having 
 the three component minerals arranged in layers, 
 instead of being diffused unequally throughout the 
 mass. Sometimes foliation occurs along the planes 
 of cleavage, and Dr. Darwin has suggested that 
 cleavage and foliation may be only parts of the
 
 UNDERGROUND MOVEMENTS AND CHANGES. 137 
 
 same process. Joints, which are common in rocks of 
 all ages, although perhaps the phenomena are more 
 distinct in the older rocks, are not due to pressure or 
 metamorphism of any kind, but simply to the contrac- 
 tion which results from the hardening of rocks, or 
 when they pass from the soft to the hard condition. 
 When it is due to the latter cause, it will affect sedi- 
 mentary and igneous rock alike; and so we find 
 joints in granite, as well as that peculiar jointed struc- 
 ture in basalt which produces the " pillars " or 
 " columns," as in the Giant's Causeway. When the 
 joints occur in stratified rocks of value for slates, or 
 flags, or building stones, advantage is taken of them 
 to quarry the stone in huge cubical masses. 
 
 Nearly all the effects mentioned in this and the 
 last two chapters are ascribed to one common cause 
 the secular cooling of the earth. A cooling body 
 is, as every one is aware, also a contracting or shrink- 
 ing body. As it loses heat it shrinks into a smaller 
 volume. No mechanical truth is more widely or 
 generally known than this. That our planet has been 
 continually losing heat ever since it had an individual 
 existence all scientific men are agreed. If so, then 
 it must have followed the general law, and have 
 shrunk in size. What Avould result from such a con- 
 sequence ? We can see what takes place when a 
 plump, ripe apple is placed in a cupboard. As it 
 loses the contained water by drying, the external 
 skin is thrown into a series of ridges and folds, which 
 corrugate the entire superficies. A similar result must 
 accrue to the earth if it shrinks from loss of heat. Its 
 skin (or crust, as we call it) must also be thrown into
 
 138 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 folds, in order to pack away the smooth superficies into 
 a smaller space, to suit the size of the decreasing 
 planet. Thus, the great folds and the secondary con- 
 tortions of the strata, as well as the heat given out 
 during pressure, and the metamorphism, cleavage, 
 foliation, etc., which follow as a result the disloca- 
 tions, fissures, faults, etc., and perhaps also even 
 much of the melted lava and volcanic ashes ejected 
 from craters are ascribed to one certainly-known 
 cause, the cooling of our planet, and the contingent 
 shrinkage of its outer crust ! All we have to do is to 
 allow the phenomena to be spread over the im- 
 mense amount of time our little world has been in 
 existence, and we shall then see how it is that every 
 so-called geological period has been marked by its 
 own set of plutonic and volcanic phenomena, mani- 
 fested in the diverse forms of which we have men- 
 tioned some of the principal types. 
 
 We cannot but point out the issue of all this. 
 Having already noticed the wear and tear of the dry 
 land by meteorological agencies, and seen how those 
 agencies are regulated by the heat of the sun, we 
 may now perceive the counteracting phenomena 
 which so neutralize them as to perpetuate the condi- 
 tions under which life can be enjoyed on our planet. 
 The mighty energy of the sun, exerted through our 
 own atmosphere, would slowly and inevitably wear 
 down rock and mountain until every continent dis- 
 appeared, and one shallow, melancholy sea enwrapped 
 our lifeless globe. But in the agencies of the internal 
 heat of the earth, and the corrugations produced by 
 its loss, building up mountain-chains and mapping
 
 UNDERGROUND MOVEMENTS AND CHANGES. 139 
 
 out fresh continents, we have regiment after regiment, 
 division after division, of the forces provided by 
 Omnipotent Wisdom to fight the battle of preserva- 
 tion and continuity. Nay, it would not be difficult 
 to show that, in the long lapse of time, the surface of 
 the earth must be enriched by a constantly-increasing 
 variety of physical conditions, requiring as constant 
 adaptations of animal and vegetable forms to suit or 
 be fitted to their environments. Hence a progres- 
 sively higher development of animal and vegetable 
 life-forms is the necessary and natural result of accu- 
 mulating and complexer physical conditions. In the 
 shapes of the mountains as well as in the forms of 
 animals and plants, we can now recognize the bene- 
 ficial operations of Omniscient Wisdom ; not allowing 
 His works to be ruled by a mere succession of events ; 
 but everywhere brooding over and nursing them into 
 higher conditions and a higher life, so that one period 
 is but the antechamber to another and a more perfect t
 
 140 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE ROCKS 
 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 IN the last two or three chapters we have briefly 
 glanced at some of the chief characters of the rock- 
 masses underground, and seen to what causes their 
 origin is to be attributed. We have also seen some 
 of the physical characters by which strata are distin- 
 guished, and in doing so we cannot but have noticed 
 how, apart from the evidence afforded by fossil 
 remains, the earth's crust is full of records of phy- 
 sical events such as few people dream of, and yet all 
 of which may be read off with tolerable ease and 
 clearness. 
 
 Let us now endeavour to interpret the even 
 stranger and more romantic history of our earth as 
 afforded us by fossils. For our world has a double 
 history one physical, in the story of flood and fire, 
 of earthquake and volcano, with which its crust is 
 charged ; and the other a vital, testified to by millions 
 of fossils, animal and vegetable, the wreck of former 
 organized beings, and yet the platform on which 
 those which now live and breathe are enabled to 
 exist. It is a strange, eventful history, that of the 
 Life of the Globe ! For it extends so far into the 
 past that our arithmetic fails us in giving a con- 
 ceivable idea of its duration ; just as the astronomer's 
 endeavour to tell us the distance in space of twinkling
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF THE ROCKS UNDERGROUND. 141 
 
 stars only conveys a vague and awful sense of the in- 
 finitude of space which would be depressing, instead of 
 elei'ating, if we did not feel that it is all under God's 
 care and government ! For all the sedimentary or 
 stratified rocks either now contain or have contained 
 fossils ; all such rocks have been deposited along the 
 floors of ancient seas and oceans ; and, in some in- 
 stances, even on the bottoms of extensive fresh-water 
 areas. The life of sea, ocean, and lake, of all the geo- 
 logical periods from the oldest to the most modern, is 
 tolerably well preserved (as fossils) in these deposits. 
 That is to say, if we could take the rocks to pieces, we 
 should make out a fairly complete record. But seeing 
 we are indebted for our knowledge of past life to the 
 fossils exhumed from quarries, mines, railway-cuttings, 
 or anywhere else where the rocks can be got at for 
 investigation, it is evident that we have not as yet 
 done more than gain a very scanty knowledge of all 
 the animals and plants which lived and died and 
 became extinct before man was created. 
 
 Still it is really wonderful how much has been 
 discovered in all parts of the world by the patient 
 labours of geologists. From the rocks of Great 
 Britain alone no fewer than nearly fourteen thousand 
 species of fossil animals and plants, from all the geo- 
 logical formations, have been dug out, named, and 
 scientifically described and compared with those 
 found in other countries. The German, French, 
 Austrian, Russian, and American geologists have 
 examined the rocks of their several countries, and 
 catalogued the fossil remains exhumed from them, 
 so that a large mass of trustworthy information 
 has thus been accumulated under the name of
 
 142 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 Paleontology ', or the " science of the things that lived 
 of old." The distribution, succession, and gradually- 
 increasing complexity of organization of animal and 
 vegetable forms can now, therefore, be made out, if not 
 with certainty, at any rate in those bold outlines with 
 which all good pictures are commenced, and which sub- 
 sequent labours only fill up and complete. We have 
 thus learned that the history of the past and present 
 life of our globe is that of a single Divine plan. For 
 although we may speak of the different sets of fossil 
 remains in the different strata as " creations," it must 
 not be inferred that we mean the globe was newly 
 stocked after some previous depletion. The life- 
 history of the earth, as revealed by geology, more 
 resembles the physical history of a great river than 
 anything else. We know that if we follow the latter 
 up to its source, we shall find it issuing to the day- 
 light from some mountain spring, and forming a rill 
 across which an infant could stride. As it flows it 
 gathers strength. Tributary after tributary rill joins 
 it. Its volume increases as it descends seawards. 
 The rockiest of mountain barriers are sawn through 
 by its mechanical force, and a gorge sufficiently wide 
 is formed. It flings itself from plateaux and forms 
 cataracts ; it meanders through wide valleys whose 
 alluvial soil it enriches. Widening and strengthening, 
 it at length debouches into the sea, perhaps with a 
 volume powerful enough to drive back the tidal wave, 
 as the Amazons. It may have coursed from almost 
 due north to south (like the Mississippi), and have 
 passed from almost sub-arctic to sub-tropical regions, 
 and laved banks covered with the different vegetative 
 zones which mark the increase of temperature. But
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF THE ROCKS UNDERGROUND. 143 
 
 it has been the same river from first to last from the 
 time when it commenced as a spring to its ter- 
 mination in the great ocean, whence the vapours were 
 originally raised which descended as rains on the 
 mountain top, percolated underground, and thus 
 originated the spring itself. So with the life of our 
 earth, past and present. We trace it backwards to 
 the oldest period (known to geologists as the Lau- 
 rentiari), and there we find the oldest known fossil 
 animal. It is of the simplest kind of which we 
 could expect any relic in the shape of hard mineral 
 or limy parts. But from the time when this lowly- 
 organized, primeval creature, the Eozoon, existed, up 
 to and including the period in which we ourselves 
 live, we have an unbroken life-stream welling on- 
 ward, broadening and deepening as new and more 
 complex types have been created, and expanding now 
 and again into great tidal seas of being ! 
 
 The history of this life-stream we owe to the fossils 
 contained in the rocks of the different geological 
 periods : not that there ever was a broken sequence 
 in the succession of sedimentary deposits the whole 
 world over, but that we find it easier to classify geolo- 
 gical facts by arranging them in a certain order. The 
 different geological formations bear names generally 
 of those localities where the student would find strata 
 typical of the period, or some mineralogical adjective 
 or term is added which conveys some important fact. 
 In the later geological formations, whose history has 
 been more recently and perfectly made out than was 
 the case with the older strata which were investigated 
 in the earlier days of geological science, the names are 
 of a more truly scientific nature. As we shall have
 
 144 
 
 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 frequently to refer to these formations, and the periods 
 of time during which they were deposited and when 
 the forms of life by which they are distinguished were 
 in existence, it will be as well to present our readers 
 with them in their order. Beginning with the most 
 modern deposits and gradually arranging them in the 
 order of their antiquity, we find that the following is 
 the " Table of Classification of Stratified Rocks" 
 accepted by geologists more or less all over the 
 world : 
 
 1. Recent 
 
 2. Post-Pliocene 
 
 3. Pliocene 
 
 4. Miocene 
 
 5. Eocene 
 
 6. Cretaceous, or Chalk 
 
 Formation 
 
 7. Wealden 
 
 8. Oolite 
 
 9. Lias 
 
 10. Trias, or New Red Sand- 
 stone 
 
 u. Permian 
 
 12. Carboniferous, or Coal 
 
 Measures 
 
 13. Devonian, or Old Red 
 
 Sandstone 
 
 14. Silurian 
 
 15. Cambrian 
 
 1 6. Laurentian 
 
 Post-Tertiary. 
 
 } 
 
 Tertiary, or Caino- 
 zoic Division. 
 
 Secondary, or 
 Mesozoic Division. 
 
 Primary, or 
 Palaeozoic Division. 
 
 It will be seen, as above stated, that topographical 
 or mineralogical names are those most in use in the
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF THE ROCKS UNDERGROUND. 145 
 
 primary and secondary divisions. In the tertiary, the 
 names are of Greek origin, and signify " dawn of 
 recent," " middle recent," " more recent," &c., accord- 
 ing to the percentage of fossil remains which are of 
 the same species as those still in existence. 
 
 Each formation has its own set of fossils, and each 
 division is classified as above, because we find that on 
 the whole the organic remains are capable of being 
 grouped into these three collections. The oldest, or 
 Palaozoic (" ancient-life "), resembles the present fauna 
 and flora very little; the Mesozoic ("middle life") 
 fossils are intermediate in their similarity and relation- 
 ship to the older and newer divisions, hence the 
 name ; and the Cainozoic (" recent life ") rocks are 
 distinguished by the abundant presence of fossils 
 which approach in likeness living species, and that in 
 proportion as we come nearer to the existing epoch 
 through the post-tertiary strata. 
 
 But although the " stream of life " is thus charac- 
 terized, it is nowhere broken in its continuity. For- 
 merly it was imagined that at the close of the primary, 
 secondary, and tertiary divisions there had occurred 
 sudden destructions, followed by as sudden creations, 
 of animal and vegetable forms ; but we now know for 
 a certainty that the "gaps" which are found at or 
 near the close of those three great epochs are only of 
 local character. A river often bears different names 
 in different parts of its course, but this does not make 
 it into as many rivers as it bears names : we know it 
 is continuous, in spite of them. 
 
 Each of the formations is made up of a large 
 number of strata, which may, perhaps, occur in dif- 
 L
 
 146 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 ferent parts of England, or of the world, but which 
 comparative geology has now enabled us to group 
 together. Most of these subdivisions bear the local 
 names of places where such strata are to be met with, 
 and so far this fact is of value to the student, inasmuch 
 as the names indicate where'he is to go to study the 
 different deposits. Thus, we have " Llanberis slates," 
 " Wenlock limestones," " Lndlow shales," " Yoredale 
 shales," " Kelloway rock," "London clay," and a host 
 of others, which the reader will come across in any full 
 and tabulated arrangement of our British strata. The 
 same plan largely prevails in the classification of the sub- 
 divisions of geological formations in other countries ; 
 thus the rocks beneath our feet are all systematically 
 arranged. The first scientific effort in dealing with 
 any great subject is always to reduce apparent chaos 
 and confusion to something like order.
 
 UNDERGROUND. 147 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE PRIMEVAL LIFE OF THE GLOBE. 
 
 IT now remains to us to tell the story of the Animal 
 and Vegetable Life of the Globe as revealed by the 
 fossil remains included in the series of formations of 
 which we have just given a list. As there stated, the 
 oldest known is the formation termed the Laurentian. 
 The rocks of this period are not found extensively in 
 Great Britain. They are believed to occur in the 
 Malverns, at Charnwood Forest, in Carnarvonshire, 
 part of Anglesea near Holyhead, and in the Northern 
 Hebrides. They are everywhere seen overlaid by 
 Cambrian rocks. In Canada, however, they occupy 
 the greater part of the wild district watered by the 
 river St. Lawrence, and the formation takes its name 
 from this fact. No other formation is so constantly 
 or so much metamorphosed. All its rocks have been 
 altered, not only by heat, pressure, and mechanical 
 folding, but by chemical changes as well. No fossils 
 have been found in the Laurentian rocks of Great 
 Britain, but in the bands of altered limestone (some- 
 times as much as a thousand feet thick) which 
 occur along with other kinds of rock in Canada, 
 a peculiar structure has been met with, which some 
 of our most distinguished naturalists believe to be of 
 a species resembling by the limy-shelled animalculae 
 now living in the deep sea. The fact of limestone 
 L 2
 
 148 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 bands occurring in this formation is an indication that 
 life existed when the Laurentian deposits were laid 
 along the floors of the primeval seas ; for in every 
 other formation since then limestones seem to owe 
 their origin, almost, if not entirely, to organic agencies : 
 so far, therefore, the inference is in favour of expect- 
 ing fossils. But the extreme metamorphism which 
 the Laurentian strata have undergone appears to have 
 effaced all traces of them, except the foraminiferal 
 structure called Eozoon. The name is neither un- 
 poetical nor inapplicable, for it signifies the " Dawn- 
 Animalcule." And indeed as such we may regard it, 
 for we never lose traces of fossils in any of the forma- 
 tions after the Laurentian. This " Dawn-Animalcule " 
 appears to have lived in large numbers over certain 
 parts of the primeval sea-bed, and to have there formed 
 limestones by the accumulation of its dead shells, 
 just as coral reefs are now built up by the branches 
 and broken limy parts of dead corals. The Graphite 
 or " Black-lead " veins (as they are erroneously, but 
 popularly called) are believed to be evidence of the 
 existence of vegetable life at this early period of the 
 world's history ; just as coal is known to be the 
 remains of terrestrial plants. 
 
 How long very lowly organized types of life held 
 possession of the seas and dry land of our planet we 
 cannot tell. There is no reason to doubt that the 
 Laurentian rocks were accumulated as sedimentary 
 deposits ; and time enough passed away to allow above 
 thirty thousand feet of strata to be elaborated in the 
 ordinary manner. That fact gives us some faint idea 
 of the immense periods of time during which only
 
 THE PRIMEVAL LIFE OF THE GLOBE. 149 
 
 the lowliest animals and plants were the tenants of 
 the earth ! 
 
 Of the succeeding Cambrian formation we have a 
 fuller and more accurate knowledge. Here, at any 
 rate, there is no doubt either as to the fossils or their 
 zoological relationship. The Cambrian rocks, also, 
 have an extensive geographical distribution in Great 
 Britain. Besides the Principality, where their frequent 
 occurrence has originated the geological name, we 
 find them in Shropshire, Charnwood Forest, Ireland, 
 the Isle of Man, and abundantly in the Lake District, 
 as well as in Scotland. The hills of North Wales and 
 Cumberland are chiefly composed of Cambrian strata, 
 and those hills are among the oldest in the world, in- 
 finitely more ancient than the Alps, Himalayas, or 
 Andes. Their very shapes are weather-sculptured, 
 and the geologist is aware that, in many places, thou- 
 sands of feet of overlying rocks have been denuded 
 from their highest summits. In Wales, these Cam- 
 brian rocks are no less than thirty thousand feet in 
 thickness ; whilst in Cumberland they are only twenty 
 thousand feet. 
 
 Notwithstanding the immense accumulation of 
 muddy sediments required to make up the entire 
 Cambrian formation as we have it in Great Britain 
 (nearly six miles}, there is every reason to believe 
 they were deposited along the floors of a shallow, but 
 slowly-sinking sea. In some of the subdivisions, as 
 in the Longmynd group of rocks, we find the strata 
 for more than a mile in thickness, covered with 
 the holes and tracks of a fossil marine worm called 
 Arencolites ; in other places we have the surfaces of
 
 150 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 the strata impressed with ripple-marks. Even the fossil 
 remains are those of animals which delight to sport 
 in shallow waters, such as shrimps (Hymenocaris). In 
 other places we note great thicknesses of Cambrian 
 rocks made up of conglomerates, which are nothing 
 more than solidified or consolidated shingle-heaps, 
 and certain indications of such shallow-water condi- 
 tions as to enable the waves to exert a mechanical 
 influence. 
 
 Notwithstanding that our knowledge of the life of 
 this period has been considerably augmented by the 
 discoveries of such careful observers as Dr. Hicks, of 
 rich fossil localities, such as those near St. David's, 
 still it is of a generally lowly organized character. 
 Naturalists classify all animals into Vertebrate and In- 
 vertebrate ; that is, those possessing internal skeletons, 
 such as fish, amphibia, reptiles, birds, and mammals, 
 and those which have no skeletons, and in the latter 
 group we have included all sorts of animals beneath 
 the rank of true fishes. In the Cambrian we find 
 numerous representatives of many of the invertebrate 
 orders of marine animals, but not one of the higher 
 sub-kingdom. And, as a rule, the Cambrian fossils 
 are members of the lower rather than of the higher 
 orders of the zoological classes to which they belong. 
 Thus, we find large numbers of shell-fish, but they 
 belong chiefly to that very lowly-organized group 
 called Brachiopoda. Varieties of these " arm-footed " 
 shell-fish are still living, but very sparsely, both in 
 species and individuals. But in the primitive seas of 
 the globe they were populous everywhere, often com- 
 pletely covering the sea-floor, and actually forming
 
 THE PRIMEVAL LIFE OF THE GLOBE. 151 
 
 thick masses of limestone by the accumulation of their 
 dead shells ! Thus we have one well-marked sub- 
 division of the Cambrian formation at Tremadoc 
 called the " Lingula Flags," simply because the surfaces 
 of the strata are literally strewn with the remains of 
 one genus of brachiopods called Lingula. Others of 
 the same kind abound, under the names of Obolella, 
 Leptcena, Orthis, &c. Among crustaceans (the class to 
 which our lobsters and crabs belong), there were not 
 then living any creatures corresponding to the latter. 
 But during the Cambrian and Silurian periods there 
 were immense crowds of a lower order, called Trilo- 
 bites, from the three-lobed arrangement of the hard, 
 but movable segments (like an ancient coat of mail) 
 which covered their bodies. These trilobites appear 
 to have crawled about on the sea-floor, feeding in and 
 among the black mud. Some of them (found near 
 St. David's) reached as much as two feet in length, 
 but this was quite an exceptional size among trilo- 
 bites, and these big ones have been called Paradoxides. 
 Usually they were very small, many not being larger 
 than a pea, especially those most lowly organized, 
 which were usually eyeless, such as Agnostus. Other 
 trilobites, as Olenus, Calymene, Ogygia, &c., were of 
 higher organization, and possessed compound eyes, 
 which were arranged in halfmoon-shaped masses on 
 either side the large plate which covered the head. 
 Sometimes we get fossil trilobites which even show 
 the holes left in the ridged, semilunate eye masses, 
 where the eye-facets were once. The possession of 
 eyes is important evidence, as Dean Buckland long 
 ago showed in his " Bridgewater Treatise," that by this
 
 152 UNDERQROUND. 
 
 time the adjustment of light to the eye, and of the 
 eye to light, had been effected. Atmospherical condi- 
 tions of refraction, &c., must have been the same then 
 as now. Moreover, we infer that the trilobites could 
 not have lived at the bottom of a very deep sea, or 
 their eyes would have been of no use to them. For 
 where Crustacea are found living in the abysmal 
 depths of the seas at the present time, they are usually 
 found eyeless. Some of the trilobites could roll 
 themselves up into a ball (like the common " Wood 
 louse," to which they are in reality nearly related), 
 and in this condition we frequently find them fossilized 
 both in the Cambrian and Silurian formations. 
 
 Genuine fossil mollusca of even the highest types 
 are, however, found in the Cambrian rocks, notably 
 near St. David's, in the Tremadoc slates. Here 
 fossils called Orthoceras are found, and we know 
 they belong to the same class as the Nautilus of our 
 own days, the difference being in shape rather than 
 structure and organization. Univalve and bivalve 
 shell-fish, star-fish, and encrinites (stemmed and 
 jointed animals, allied to star-fish) are met with in 
 the same beds ; so that the representative list of such 
 invertebrate animals as have left behind them evi- 
 dences of their former existence, in the shape of hard, 
 durable parts, is not meagre. 
 
 At Bray Head, near Dublin, and in various places 
 in Wicklow, a remarkable and very elegantly-shaped 
 zoophyte has been abundantly found. It was named 
 Oldhamia, after a celebrated geologist recently de- 
 ceased. The Oldhamia were zoophytes perhaps 
 allied to the " Sea-firs " (Strfularia), now so plentiful
 
 THE PRIMEVAL LIFE OF THE GLOBE. 153 
 
 in the shallow parts of all modern seas. Other zoo- 
 phytes, called Dictyonema, have been met with in the 
 Cambrian rocks in the Malverns, where the latter have 
 been called "Dictyonema Shales," from the profusion 
 of this fossil. Fossil sea-weeds (Palaochorda) of 
 several species have also been found in the Cambrian 
 strata. 
 
 The Silurian formation is about six thousand feet 
 in thickness, now that Professor Sedgwick's division 
 between it and the Cambrian has been generally 
 adopted. Its strata are more diversified in mineral 
 characters than those of the latter, and are conse- 
 quently more interesting to the geologist. Besides, 
 this difference in the mineral characters of the strata 
 implies a corresponding difference in the physical 
 conditions of the ancient sea-floors along which they 
 were deposited, and therefore leads us to expect a 
 greater variety of animal life-forms. In this we are 
 not disappointed. The Silurian rocks, and especially 
 the limestones, are literally crowded with fossils ; 
 whilst the shales are frequently impressed with similar 
 organic remains. As might be expected, the different 
 strata of this formation go by the names of places 
 where they crop out and exhibit their various 
 characters. We find the chief places are in Denbigh- 
 shire, Woolhope, Coniston and Stockdale, Wenlock, 
 Dudley, Aymestry, Ludlow, Bannisdale, and Kirby 
 Moor, in Westmoreland. All the strata, grits, shales, 
 and limestones indicate that they were deposited con- 
 tinuously, but slowly, over the subsiding area of the 
 sea-bed. In the West of Ireland we have conglome- 
 rates, but they are so metamorphosed, pebbles and
 
 154 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 boulders, and the matrix in which they were im- 
 bedded all together, that it is sometimes difficult to 
 distinguish them. The limestones of the Silurian 
 formation are often nothing more than ancient coral 
 reefs, and their abundant occurrence is another proof 
 of the subsidence which was slowly going on in all 
 the oceanic areas of that period ; for it is a fact in 
 physical geography that modern Barrier and Atoll 
 reefs can only be formed where the sea-floor is sink- 
 ing. Wenlock Edge, in Shropshire, is an old Silurian 
 coral reef; and at the Wren's Nest, Dudley, you may 
 see the greater part of another. A coral reef does 
 not necessarily imply there are nothing but corals ; 
 indeed, a reef seems a gathering-ground for many 
 kinds of marine animals, shell-fish, zoophytes, sea- 
 lilies, starfish, worms, &c., and we often see them all 
 fossilized in one mass together. Both at Wenlock 
 and Dudley you get the most lovely fossil corals, 
 whose structure can be plainly seen if slices of the 
 limestone are cut properly. Most of them are reef- 
 builders, although there are frequently found other 
 corals, such as Omphyma, which were probably not 
 so. Among the commonest of the fossil reef-building 
 corals of the Silurian period are Favosites Gothlandica 
 and Polymorpha, Stauria astrceformis, Hdiolites, Haly- 
 sites catenulatus (so abundant as to be popularly 
 known as the " Chain coral "), and many others. 
 
 Now we know that reef-building corals are very 
 sensitive to cold. They cannot live where the winter 
 temperature of the sea is lower than sixty-two degrees, 
 and so we rarely find them distributed outside the 
 zones of the tropics. But during the Silurian epoch
 
 THE PRIMEVAL LIFE OF THE GLOBE. 
 
 155 
 
 they were not only abundant in our own latitudes, 
 but even in those of the Arctic regions ; for they have 
 been repeatedly found by Arctic voyagers in the lime- 
 stones which crop out from beneath the thick ice and 
 snow sheets of those desolate tracts. Hence we see 
 here an evidence of a great difference between the 
 climate of the northern hemisphere now and then. 
 
 The sea-lilies (Encrinites), which were rooted 
 to the bottom of the sea-bed at this time, grew there 
 
 i 2 3 
 
 FOSSILS FROM THE SILURIAN FORMATION. 
 
 I. Calymene (a Trilobite). 2. Sea-lily or Encrinite. 
 
 3. Pentamerus (a brachiopod shell). 
 
 in groves. Very beautiful and flower-like are these 
 echinoderm animals, even in the fossil state, and they 
 must therefore have been exceedingly lovely when 
 alive. We have seen numbers of them, stems, bodies, 
 and the jointed fingers or antennas, which are so petal- 
 like, fossilized in groups in the slates near Llangollen. 
 The chief of the Silurian encrinites are Periechocrinus, 
 ActinocrinuS) &c. The names of the fossil star-fishes,
 
 156 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 exhumed from the Silurian rocks of Shropshire and 
 North Wales, show their antiquity. They are Palx- 
 aster ("Ancient Star-fish"), Protaster ("First Star- 
 fish "), and the like. 
 
 Trilobites abounded more than ever, and on the 
 whole they were of higher organization. Certainly 
 there was a much greater variety in external shape 
 than during the Cambrian epoch. Although some of 
 the characteristic generic forms of the latter lived 
 on into the Silurian period, the latter was dis- 
 tinguished by well-marked genera of its own, which 
 are to be found in all or most of the true Silurian 
 rocks. Among them are Calymene Blumenbachii (so 
 abundant in the Silurian limestones at Dudley that it 
 has long gone by the name of the " Dudley Locust "), 
 Encrinurus, Homalonotus, Phacops, Illcenus, &c. 
 Heads and tails, just as they moulted, are profusely 
 scattered over the surfaces of the flags, shales, and 
 limestone slabs. 
 
 But of all the fossils the lowly-organized shell-fish 
 of the Brachiopod family are unquestionably the most 
 abundant. You find them everywhere, but particu- 
 larly in the limestones ; the univalve, bivalve, and 
 Cephalopodous (" head-footed," as Nautilus) mollusca 
 being usually most plentiful in the shales and slates. 
 Some rocks appear to be almost wholly composed 
 of brachiopods, especially of two abundant genera, 
 Pentamerus and Rhynchondla. In Shropshire the 
 former genus has given the name of "Pentamerus 
 beds " to one zone of rock ; and in the Woolhope 
 beds several species of this fossil occur by millions. 
 Besides these we have such characteristic Silurian
 
 THE PRIMEVAL LIFE OF THE GLOBE. 157 
 
 genera as Atrypa, Orthis, Strophomena, Leptcena, &c. 
 The true mollusca are commoner in the Silurian rocks 
 than in the Cambrian. Sometimes (as in the slates 
 quarried near Llangollen, and which belong to the 
 Upper Silurian period) you find incalculable numbers 
 of them covering the surfaces of the slabs or slates. 
 At the place just mentioned you meet with a bivalve 
 mollusk (Cardiold) or rather the cast of it, for all the 
 lime of the shells has been dissolved away with the 
 two valves opened out, but still in contact at the hinge. 
 A higher type of mollusk, that related to the cuttle- 
 fishes and nautilus, is abundantly present in the same 
 strata. It is called Orthoceras primcevum, and has a 
 very wide distribution in the Silurian rocks of the 
 British islands. Near Kendal we find in the upper- 
 most and latest-formed strata of the Silurian age 
 large numbers of bivalve shells, such as Avicula, 
 Orthonota, and Pterinea. 
 
 The Orthoceras^ or nautilus type of mollusk, is un- 
 questionably the most highly organized, from a zoo- 
 logical point of view, of any found in the Silurian 
 rocks. A great many external types of it had by this 
 time been introduced, such as Lituifes, Phragmoceras, 
 &c. Of single-shelled (univalve) mollusca, the most 
 characteristic perhaps is the lovely Miirchisonia (named 
 after the great geological explorer of the Silurian 
 system), and species of Euomphalus, Bdlerophon, &c. 
 
 Frequently, in the black and softer shales, in many 
 places in Shropshire, North Wales, and about Winder- 
 mere, as well as at Moffat and near Dumfries in Scot- 
 land, we find the most profuse abundance of peculiar 
 kinds of zoophytes called Graptolites. Many of them
 
 158 
 
 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 are converted into iron-pyrites, and therefore look as 
 if they had been electrotyped or gilded on the surface 
 of the shales. They are very interesting and beau- 
 tiful fossils. The beds which contain them plentifully 
 often go by the name of " Graptolite Shales." 
 
 VARIOUS SPECIES OF GRAPTOLITES. 
 
 Towards the close of this period Crustacea of other 
 types appeared on the stage of creation huge crus- 
 taceans, having lobster-like affinities. Some of them 
 were as much as five or six feet in length, and the strata 
 in which they are most abundant are found near Ludlow, 
 at Aymestry, Downton, and Ledbury. The names of 
 these huge lobster-like fossil creatures are Pterygotus, 
 Euiypterus, Slimonia, Some of the latter have been 
 met with in the upper Silurian rocks of Scotland in a 
 nearly perfect condition. 
 
 But by far the most important event towards the
 
 THE PRIMEVAL LIFE OF THE GLOBE. 159 
 
 and of the Silurian epoch was the appearance of Fishes! 
 We have not met with any trace of them before, and now 
 we come upon them under strange circumstances. 
 They are of two kinds, one group evidently preyed 
 upon by the other. Offence and defence are plainly 
 read off in their structures. The first is named 
 Onchus, and from its back-spine we know it belonged 
 to the predatory class of which the modern Dog-fish 
 is an example. Pteraspis is the name of the defended 
 fish, covered with bony plates like a stong armour, al- 
 though not a large fish. Near Ludlow is a thin bed 
 about four inches in thickness, which can, however, 
 be traced for miles, full of the remains of these early 
 fishes ; and it is known among geologists as the 
 " Bone-bed." It is about this time, also, that we get 
 the first traces of Land-vegetation, and we never lose 
 sight of it afterwards, upwards and onwards to our 
 own day. These first fossil vegetables are the spore- 
 cases of a club-moss called Pachytheca spharica. 
 
 The " Ledbury Shales " and "Downton Sandstones" 
 are regarded as Passage-beds between the Silurian and 
 Devonian formations. Through them, in the west of 
 England, they pass one into the other, apparently 
 without break of continuity. In these beds we find an 
 abundance of the remains of the gigantic crustaceans. 
 Sometimes parts of these rocks are called "Tilestones," 
 that being the local name for them, derived from their 
 use. 
 
 The Devonian, or Old Red Sandstone, is a most 
 interesting and instructive geological formation on 
 many accounts. Those who have read the late Hugh 
 Miller's charming book on it will ever afterwards turn
 
 l6o UNDERGROUND. 
 
 towards it with something of affectionate geological 
 respect. But the lessons which its fossil remains 
 teach respecting the upwards and onwards develop- 
 ment of life which was then taking place, constitute 
 its real interest. As a formation we may regard the 
 two names as being given to the marine and the lacus- 
 trine strata respectively. Devonian is used when 
 speaking of the former ; Old Red Sandstone when re- 
 ferring to the latter. Thus we have evidence not 
 only of long-continued marine deposition, but also of 
 the existence of fresh-water lakes in what is now Ire- 
 land and Scotland, as extensive as those which now 
 chequer the map of North America. The fossils in 
 these two sets of strata are quite different The 
 marine strata are found chiefly in Devonshire, North 
 and South, whence their name ; although we know 
 they are continuous with the rocks of the hills which 
 bound the river Rhine. They consist of red and 
 grey sandstones, shales, grits, limestones, purple 
 slates, conglomerates. The shales and purple slates 
 often attain great thickness and are full of fossils 
 which are unmistakably of marine habits, such as 
 trilobites and bivalve mollusca; and others allied 
 to the existing nautilus, called Clymenia, as well 
 as the straight-chambered mollusca of the same 
 class as the latter, called Orthoceratites. In North 
 Devonshire these shales attain great thickness, and 
 we find them on the opposite side of the bay as 
 well. The limestones of South Devonshire, as at 
 Newton Abbot, Torquay, Plymouth, and elsewhere, 
 are often full of fossils, especially of corals, and 
 the latter furnish abundant proof of reefs having
 
 THE PRIMEVAL LIFE OF THE GLOBE. l6l 
 
 been formed in the warm waters of the Devonian seas 
 by these now extinct members of a most ancient and 
 geologically useful set of animals. The fossils which 
 may be deemed " characteristic " of the Devonian 
 rocks are, among the brachiopods, Spirifera disjuncta, 
 Stringocephalus, Uncites, &c. ; among the bivalve 
 mollusca, Megalodon ; among trilobites ( which are 
 frequently very abundant, especially in the shales and 
 slates, being evidently marine mud-loving animals) we 
 find Homalonotits, Phacops, Bronteus, &c. A peculiar 
 fossil, believed to be a coral, called Calceola, also 
 abounds, sometimes comprising entire beds of rocks. 
 We have abundant proof, therefore, that the Devonian 
 seas were plentifully stocked with various forms of 
 marine life. 
 
 A dry-land barrier must at this time have separated 
 the marine area from that where the large lakes ex- 
 tended ; although it would almost appear as if the 
 lowermost Old Red Sandstone and the lowermost 
 Devonian strata were of identical origin. But as time 
 rolled on, and we approach the later stages of this 
 eventful geological epoch, we find the Devonian and 
 Old Red Sandstone beds more marked off from 
 each other, both in the mineralogical characters of 
 their strata and the fossils they contain. The Old 
 Red Sandstone includes no trilobites, brachiopods, 
 or other undoubtedly marine creatures. Its strata are 
 frequently stocked with fossil fishes of various kinds, 
 insomuch that poor Hugh Miller termed this "The 
 Age of Fishes." But these fish are for the most 
 part allied to those which still affect rivers and lakes, 
 as the bony-plated pike, the Polypterus of the African 
 M
 
 1 62 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 water system, and even the common Sturgeon, so 
 abundant in the Russian lakes and rivers. These 
 fish are covered with bony plates, of various sizes 
 and shapes, each plate being usually veneered with 
 enamel, so as to originate the term ganoid (which 
 signifies "glistening") for the order to which they 
 belong. The order is now but poorly represented, 
 and its members are separated by oceans and seas 
 
 Pterichthys Milleri. 
 
 geographically as widely asunder as possible, like the 
 scattered .remnants of some great nation whose coun- 
 try has been taken away and given to another. But 
 during the Old Red Sandstone period the Ganoid 
 fishes were a dominant order, differentiated into a 
 host of generic and specific types, ranging in size 
 from the huge Astcrohpis, thirty feet in length (found 
 fossilized in the rocks at Stromness, and about which
 
 THE PRIMEVAL LIFE OF THE GLOBE. 763 
 
 Hugh Miller has discoursed so eloquently), to the 
 little Osteolepis, so abundant in the dark gray flag- 
 stones of Caithness, where their consorted bodies 
 often mat the surface, and their glistening black 
 scales are seen everywhere. In other places there 
 are concretionary nodules, which have to be broken 
 open before the remains of the fossil fishes are 
 beheld. Under these conditions we find that strange 
 fish, first discovered by Hugh Miller, called Pter- 
 ichthys. Among other fossil fishes of this era, more 
 or less abundant, and of which a splendid natural 
 storehouse is to be found in the yellow flags of 
 Dura Den, near Coupar, in Fifeshire, are Glypto- 
 ponms, Jfoloptychius, Dipterus, Gyrolepis, Coccosteus, 
 Glyptolepis, Cephalaspis, &c. In the Lower Old 
 Red Sandstone beds which build up part of the 
 Grampian Hills, and also found to so large an extent 
 in Forfarshire and Perthshire, we get huge crusta- 
 cea, or "cray-fish," similar to those met with in the 
 "passage beds " at the top of the Silurian formation, 
 such as the Pterygotus, Eurypterus^ &c. Even the 
 fossil eggs of these animals have been met with, and 
 they are described under the name of Parkia. 
 
 How long these great lakes existed we cannot 
 say, but it is sufficient to know it was long enough 
 to have formed along their sinking beds more than 
 five thousand feet of strata ! The latter are for the 
 most part red or ochreous in colour, and many geo- 
 logists take that to be a confirmatory sign of fresh- 
 water deposition. This age was not without its 
 own set of volcanic disturbances, as the strata plainly 
 indicate. Sir Roderick Murchison says the grandest 
 M 2
 
 164 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 exhibition of the Old Red Sandstone of England 
 and Wales is to be seen in the escarpments of the 
 Black Mountains, and in the Fans of Brecon and 
 Caermarthen the one 2,862, and the other 2,590 feet 
 above the sea-level. The mass of red and brown 
 sandstones in these mountains is estimated at not 
 less than ten thousand feet in thickness. Here, again, 
 we find such fossil fishes as Cephalaspis and Pteraspis^ 
 and large Crustacea as Eurypterus. 
 
 The Scotch Old Red Sandstones often contain ob- 
 scure remains of fossil land-plants ; but by far the 
 best storehouses for these are the strata of the Upper 
 Old Red in the county of Kilkenny, Ireland. There 
 we meet with fine-grained green flags and sandstones, 
 containing such fossil Devonian fish as Coccosteus and 
 Glyptolepis (so common in the Scotch Old Red). 
 And what bears out incidentally the theory of the 
 deposition of the Scottish strata along the floors of 
 great lakes, we note that here in Ireland similar cha- 
 racteristic fossil fishes are found associated with an 
 undoubted fresh-water bivalve mollusk. The latter 
 occurs in great abundance, and evidently lived where 
 we now find it, for its shells are still close together as 
 when united, and you may trace every line or addi- 
 tion of growth on them. This mollusk was a near ally 
 to the large " Swan Mussels " (Anodon\ now found so 
 abundantly in our own lakes and rivers, and so it has 
 been called Anodonta. It is plentifully found at Kil- 
 torcan, in Kilkenny ; and on the same green flags 
 are impressed the remains of the most lovely ferns 
 (Palceopteris\ some of whose fossil fronds are a couple 
 of feet or more in length! Nothing can be more
 
 THE PRIMEVAL LIFE OF THE GLOBE. 165 
 
 beautiful than the manner with which this ancient 
 vegetation has been preserved. Every vein still runs 
 along the surface of the leaf even the spore-cases 
 are preserved, and the undeveloped fern-fronds are 
 coiled up ready for that expansion in the sunshine 
 which never took place ! Fossil Club Mosses of large 
 size, and Horse-tails (Catamites) of equal dimensions, 
 were also abundant ; whilst the higher grounds ap- 
 pear to have been even then covered with forests of 
 peculiar kinds of coniferous trees. Vegetation had 
 not as yet attained to a higher rank than the latter 
 type. Not a flower not even a blade of true grass 
 had as yet appeared ; whilst the highest kinds of land 
 animals were a few peculiar and very generalized types 
 of insects.
 
 1 66 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 NATURE'S COAL-CELLARS. 
 
 WE now come to a geological epoch which would 
 have been highly interesting to us, apart from the 
 great commercial debt we owe to it as a nation for 
 its enormous fuel supplies, from its abundance of 
 ancient animal and vegetable life-forms. The 
 Coal Measures, or Carboniferous formation, has had 
 more to do with the modern growth of England 
 than all the rest of the geological systems put to- 
 gether. But it is not with this fact that we have here 
 to deal. Our business is to note the chief and 
 characteristic features of each geological period, and 
 to observe what strata were deposited. The Car- 
 boniferous system of rocks in Great Britain includes 
 a vast thickness of other strata than those in which 
 coal can be found. We have, first, a great mass of 
 limestone, formerly called "mountain limestone," 
 because it forms a great part of some of the hilliest 
 districts of England, such as the Peak of Derbyshire, 
 and the elevated country between Lancashire and 
 Yorkshire, the highest point of which is Ingleborough 
 Fell. This limestone is the basement bed, and 
 now goes by the adjectival denomination of " car- 
 boniferous " instead of " mountain"; although by 
 many geologists these terms are employed synony- 
 mously. This subdivision of the Coal Measures
 
 NATURE'S COAL-CELLARS. 167 
 
 attains its greatest thickness in the Peak of Derby- 
 shire, where it forms a huge anticlinal, and is 
 believed to be more than four thousand feet in thick- 
 ness. This limestone is often very compact, and solid 
 enough to be frequently quarried for the purpose of 
 being cut into slabs and polished for mantelpieces. 
 Most of the dark-grey marble, mottled all over with 
 white fossils cut at every conceivable angle, which is 
 so often seen in English houses, is from the Car- 
 boniferous limestone. In places it is full of fossils. 
 Thus the upper part of the Eglwysyg Rocks, near 
 Llangollen, belonging to this formation, is nothing 
 but an old coral-reef, and there you may dig out fossil 
 corals, en masse, as perfect in every detail as the 
 recent specimens brought home from tropical seas by 
 sailors. The stone walls protecting the roads which 
 pass over the Denbighshire hills, near Mold, are 
 built up of masses of the most lovely fossil corals. 
 In Derbyshire we have seen the same phenomenon ; 
 and the geological student is familiar with this over- 
 whelming evidence of the organic origin of the very 
 rocks which comprise our hills in the limestone 
 gorges of the Avon at Bristol, of the Cheddar Cliffs, 
 the Lancashire and Yorkshire hills, and of those in 
 Scotland. The most characteristic of these carbonif- 
 erous reef-building corals are Lonsdalia, Lithostrotion, 
 Lithodendron, Cyathophyllum, &c. 
 
 These carboniferous limestones were deposited in 
 an extensive sea, far enough away from the dry land 
 to secure protection from the fine muds which rivers 
 usually carry down oceanwards, but which are 
 destructive to coral animals above all things. There
 
 1 68 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 are extensive areas where we do not get a visual 
 trace of a fossil in this limestone ; but slices of such a 
 rock, when polished, usually show us that it is made up 
 (like chalk) of the whole and broken shells of minute 
 animalcules (Foraminifera). Among common fossils 
 are the remains of Encrinites, or "sea-lilies," marine 
 animals allied to star-fishes. They appear to have 
 reached the climax of their development in the 
 carboniferous seas, both in variety of genera and 
 species, size, and abundance of individuals. Their 
 solid, limy stems were composed of hundreds of joints, 
 often more than an inch in diameter, and many feet 
 in length. No fossil is so abundant as this kind 
 throughout the carboniferous limestone. In many 
 places the rocks appear to be composed of nothing 
 else than its joints, as is the case near Clitheroe, in 
 Lancashire, and in several places in Derbyshire, 
 where they go by the name of " Encrinital " and 
 " Entrochal marble " on this account. 
 
 The trilobites came to the end of their existence 
 in the carboniferous seas, and we never meet with 
 them again. Those species found in the limestones 
 we are speaking of are small and peculiar, and go 
 by the name of Phillipsia. Brachiopod shells, how- 
 ever, were nearly as abundant as ever, and some 
 species now reached the greatest size they ever at- 
 tained. The carboniferous kinds of these shells are 
 different from those found in any other formation. 
 The commonest among them are Spirifera, Producta, 
 etc. Of the latter one species called gigantea is often 
 as big as a man's head, and is so common about 
 Buxton in Derbyshire, and in the island of Anglesey
 
 NATURE'S COAL-CELLARS. 
 
 169 
 
 that the limestone seems made up of nothing else. 
 Indeed the Producta are at once the most abundant 
 and the most characteristic of all carboniferous 
 
 Section of Shell of Modern Nautilus, with animal in last or 
 body-chamber, x y, chamber ; i, siphuncle or air-tube. 
 
 brachiopods. In the lower limestones of the Egl- 
 wysyg, at Llangollen, may be seen another species, 
 called Llangolliensis, which is .so abundant that
 
 1 70 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 hardly anything else can be seen. Besides these two 
 genera of brachiopods, others are common, such as 
 Terebratula, Orthts, Rhynehonella, Relzia, etc. The 
 fossil fishes, whose remains have been found in this 
 limestone, indicate, by the structure of their teeth, 
 that they probably browsed on the living branches of 
 coral, or fed on living brachiopoda, for their teeth are 
 strong and set in the palate like the stones of a pave- 
 ment Among the commonest of such fishes were 
 Psammodus and CochUodus. 
 
 Cephalopod shells also now reached their maximum 
 of development, or at least some of their leading 
 types did, notably that of which the Nautilus still 
 remains to us. Numerous species of fossil Nautilus 
 are found in the limestone, some very large, although 
 not so large as the great Orthoceras, of which we have 
 seen specimens from Ireland (where the carboni- 
 ferous limestone covers a very large area), as thick as 
 a man's thigh, and as long as his leg. A peculiar 
 species of this group of shell-fish called Goniatites, 
 was also common at this time, and frequently occurs 
 in the fossil state. Time and space do not allow us 
 to glance at the true shell-fish, univalve and bivalve, 
 which had become more abundant in the carboni- 
 ferous seas. Euomphalas, Pleurotomaria, Belle- 
 rophon, etc., among the former ; and Pecten, Posi- 
 donia, etc., among the latter. Nor can we do more 
 than refer to the numerous "Sea-mats," with limy 
 instead of horny solid parts, which festooned dead 
 shells, corals, encrinite-stems, etc., with their lace-like 
 cells. 
 
 Succeeding the carboniferous limestone is a great 
 thickness of fine black shales, often containing seams
 
 NATURE'S COAL-CELLARS. 171 
 
 of ironstone and dark-coloured limestones, called the 
 " Yoredale Series." In places they are as much as a 
 thousand feet in thickness. Many of the Derbyshire 
 'and Yorkshire valleys are excavated out of these softer 
 beds. These shales often split open like piles of card- 
 board, and their surfaces are seen crowded with the 
 impressions of flattened bivalve shells, rarely of 
 brachiopods, such as Ainculo-peden, Posidonomya, as 
 well as Goniatites, species of Nautilus, Orthoceras, etc. 
 The upper parts of these shells pass into thin flaggy 
 stone, frequently covered with marine worm-tracks 
 and holes, as may be seen in the dark-coloured flags 
 from Kirby Lonsdale, in Westmoreland, and from the 
 celebrated cliffs of Mohr, in County Clare, Ireland. 
 
 Next follow the strata of hard rocks and overlying 
 flag-stones which compose the moor-clad hills of 
 Derbyshire, Yorkshire, and Lancashire, and are 
 known as the " Millstone Grit Beds." Well do these 
 rocks deserve their name. The huge Sheffield grind- 
 stones are dug out of their compact beds ; and in 
 places we can see the large coarse grains of white 
 quartz which are cemented together to form the 
 "grit "rocks. What extensive sheets of quartz and 
 quartzite must have been denuded to collect the 
 materials out of which these newer strata were formed ! 
 In places we get zones of flags, used for paving the 
 causeways of our streets, and on which we may often 
 trace with the utmost clearness the ripple-marks left 
 by the tides of untold ages ago. Not unfrequently 
 very beautiful fossil ferns are impressed on the softer 
 kinds ; and there are places (as at Peel Delph, near 
 Bolton, Lancashire), where the rock is so full of 
 fossil fruits (Trigonocarpum}, as to look like a huge
 
 172 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 petrified plum-pudding. Towards the upper part thin 
 and impure seams of coal occur, and it is a notable 
 fact that the shales which always overlie coal, in these 
 cases are uniformly impressed with similar fossil 
 marine shells to those found in the Yoredale shales. 
 One common fossil is Goniatites Listen, 
 
 And now we pass upwards into the Upper Coal 
 Measures, that which gives the entire formation its 
 generic name ; although true coal occurs and is worked 
 in the carboniferous limestone in various places in 
 Scotland. Perhaps the Upper Coal Measures reaches 
 its greatest thickness and development in South 
 Wales, where there are about fourteen thousand feet 
 of it. In this vertical thickness there occur at least 
 one hundred different seams of coal, varying in thick- 
 ness from only a few inches to many feet. From the 
 conditions under which these coal-seams occur, there 
 can be no doubt they are each the site of an ancient 
 forest, which enjoyed a greater or less duration. 
 Of course, this also means that the long and gradual 
 subsidence of the area over which this immense 
 thickness of rock-materials was accumulated, must 
 have been checked as many times as there are seams 
 of coal. Indeed, these coal-beds are indications o 
 the fact, for the vegetation of which they were 
 composed, could not have grown and accumulated 
 otherwise. 
 
 Each of these South Welsh coal-seams rests upon 
 a peculiar kind of rock, very hard, but which was 
 once a stiff impervious clay. It is full of the fossil 
 roots and rootlets of plants, particularly of those of 
 a gigantic club-moss called Sigillaria, which was one 
 of the most abundant of all the vegetable types which
 
 NATURES COAL-CELLARS. 173 
 
 luxuriated during this epoch. This " under-day," as 
 the bed is called, was evidently once the soil on which 
 an ancient forest grew, the dead trees and plants 
 accumulated there, forming a sort of peat-bog. Year 
 after year, century after century, witnessed the accu- 
 mulation and extension of the mass of vegetable 
 matter. At length a subsidence once more brought 
 the sea over it, and the fine mud held in suspension 
 buried it all up, and hermetically sealed it. 
 
 This, in brief, has been the process through which 
 every seam of coal has passed, thick or thin. When 
 the vegetation was thus packed and pressed, chemical 
 changes set in which mineralized it; just as the de- 
 caying vegetation of Trinidad changes into the well- 
 known " Pitch " which fills the Lake. Thus every 
 trace of organic structure was destroyed, except those 
 parts of plants not composed of carbon, and these 
 may be seen under the microscope even when the 
 coal has been burned, by examining the white ashes 
 which have fallen from the grate. Sometimes, when 
 the segregation of some other mineral matter occurred 
 in the changing mass of vegetation, it rescued the 
 vegetable tissues from destruction, as in the " Bullion " 
 stones found in the coal at Oldham, in Lancashire. 
 That particular and peculiar kind of coal known as 
 Cannel is believed to have been formed wholly of 
 the spores of the club-mosses which grew in the 
 morasses. The vast abundance of their spores was 
 blown into creeks or tarns which diversified the coal 
 marshes, and it accumulated there after the manner 
 with which the pollen from the pine forests in North 
 America drifts and blows into the rivers and lakes. 
 Fish remains are always found associated with cannel,
 
 174 
 
 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 but rarely with pure coal, as if the former had been 
 deposited under peculiar, conditions. 
 
 Thus was seam after seam of coal slowly stored 
 away each bed the result of the slow cell-growth of 
 lowly-organized plants ; each growth of cell stimulated 
 into action by the light and heat of the sun, whose 
 forces were thus stored up within the vegetable tissues, 
 ultimately metamorphosed into coal, and now given 
 out as resurrectionzed sunlight and sunheat by our 
 gas-flames and coal-fires ! 
 
 The plants which flourished during this remarkable 
 geological epoch were collectively of a kind the world 
 has never seen before nor since. With the excep- 
 tion of several species of pines, a few kinds of ferns, 
 possibly a palm or two, it was for the most part com- 
 posed of gigantic club-mosses. The largest of this 
 
 kind of plant is now 
 not more than three or 
 four feet in height, but 
 during the carboniferous 
 period there were various 
 sorts which commonly 
 rose to fifty and sixty feet 
 high, and had propor- 
 tionately stout and strong 
 trunks. Some of them 
 had regularly forked 
 branches, densely clad 
 Portions of Trunks of Fossil Club- w ith grass-like leaves, 
 Mosses (Carboniferous Formation). , . , , ,,, 
 
 which left lozenge-shaped 
 
 scars on the bark when they dropped off. Others 
 rose and spread out almost like pollard willows. 
 All of them bore catkins full of spores, which
 
 NATURES COAL-CELLARS. 175 
 
 collected in enormous quantities, and formed the 
 
 Neuropteris gigantea. Sphenopteris artemisiafolia. 
 
 Pecvpteris lonchitica. Sphenopteris trifoliata. 
 
 FOSSIL FERNS FROM THE COAL MEASURES. 
 
 cannel coal. We get every trace of these remarkable 
 plants the scarred trunk and branches, leaves,
 
 176 
 
 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 fruit, and spores, all 
 the fossil state in 
 
 Portion of bark of Sigillaria, 
 showing leaf-scars. 
 
 Calamites were ! 
 
 petrified and preserved in 
 the rubbish thrown out by 
 every coal-pit. The chief of 
 these grotesque and peculiar 
 kinds of vegetation were 
 Sigillaria and Lepidoden- 
 dron. The latter was a pe- 
 culiarly elegant tree. Side 
 by side with them, in the 
 same marshy places, there 
 grew dense groves of even 
 a still more striking plant. 
 Fancy the diminutive horse- 
 tails of our ditches and 
 damp woods suddenly shoot- 
 ing up and bulging out to 
 the dimensions of forest- 
 trees, and you get a lively 
 idea of what these extinct 
 Roots, leaves, and fruit of these are 
 
 i 2 3 
 
 Fragments of (i) Lepidodendron, (2) Calamites, (3) Stigmaria, 
 the root of Sigillaria. 
 
 also found fossilized. Many species of those huge club-
 
 NATURES COAL-CELLARS. 177 
 
 mosses and horse-tails existed together. Ferns of 
 numerous kinds, some wonderfully like those which 
 are still abundant in our English green lanes, matted 
 the ground, or grew upon the trees. Here and there 
 were a few peculiar species of grasses, for as yet, and 
 for a long time afterwards, there were no flowers, 
 neither had there come into existence the insects 
 which fertilize flowers. Numerous cockroaches, man- 
 tis-like insects, and grasshoppers had the world to 
 themselves. 
 
 The waters, however, were lively with fish, large 
 and small, the preyers and the preyed-upon. The 
 former represented by their suggestive teeth, and 
 also by their fluted or thorn-armed spines, called 
 Ichthyodornlites. Their skeletons were cartilaginous, 
 like those of the modern Shark, to whose family they 
 belonged. Their skin was a kind of shagreen. 
 Hence all we now get of them in the fossil state are 
 the dorsal spines and the teeth. Some of the latter 
 showed reptilian affinities. Other fish, of the ganoid 
 order, were also predatory, notably the Great Fish 
 (Megalichthys), and Rhizodus. Enormous numbers 
 of small ganoids (Paltzoniscus, &c.) basked in the 
 creeks. A huge marine newt (Archcegosaurus) and 
 many other amphibians, of various sizes and shapes, 
 some of them assuming a water-snake-like form 
 (Ophiderpetori), and others perhaps that of a modern 
 frog, are to be added to the strange zoological list. 
 It will be seen, therefore, that an advance has been 
 made beyond the fishes, and that the next upper 
 rung in the great ladder of life was reached when the 
 introduction of the Amphibia took place.
 
 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 The coal measures are overlaid, especially in many 
 parts of England, with a set of red sandstones (often 
 mistaken for the Triassic sandstones), conglomerates, 
 
 MARINE NEWT, or Archagosanrns. 
 
 marls, and magnesian limestones. The conglomerates 
 and coloured sandstones form the lower beds, and 
 may be seen in the railway-cuttings near Penrith, in
 
 NATURE'S COAL-CELLARS. 179 
 
 Cumberland, about Carlisle, at Wolverhampton and 
 Birmingham, at Knaresborough, Pontefract, Durham, 
 and many places in West Lancashire. The magnesian 
 limestone forms bold coast cliffs from Tynemouth to 
 Hartlepool. It underlies most of the area of Sher- 
 wood Forest, in Nottinghamshire (from quarries in 
 which the stone for building the Houses of Parliament 
 was obtained), and can be seen in quarries beyond 
 Worksop by those who travel on the Great Northern 
 Railway from London to Sheffield. 
 
 As regards the appearance of the strata, the rocks 
 of the Permian formation resemble those of the Trias, 
 or New Red, more than those of the Coal Measures. 
 Their fossils, however, tell a different tale, and at once 
 show how nearly related they are to the fauna and 
 flora of the latter period ; indeed, so much is this the 
 case that we may say the Permian genera of animals 
 and plants are almost the same as those of the Car- 
 boniferous epoch. Sigillaria, Lepidodcndron, and other 
 club-mosses still existed, although not in such rank 
 abundance, nor represented by so many species as 
 before. Calamitcs, or huge horse-tails, were, however, 
 very plentiful, as well as several species of ferns. In 
 some places, as in Cumberland, the Permian rocks are 
 said to attain the enormous thickness of many thou- 
 sands of feet. 
 
 The magnesian limestone is an oceanic deposit, and 
 contains brachiopods peculiar to it, and which are not 
 found in any other strata. This kind of rock, how- 
 ever, is believed to have been chemically altered since 
 its formation, although geologists are not yet agreed as 
 to how the metamorphosis has taken place. In the 
 
 N 2
 
 l8o UNDERGROUND. 
 
 limy marls we often meet with peculiar fossils, such 
 as Schizodus, JSakewellia, &c., and in Durham, in the 
 limestone, we frequently get quantities of fossil fish 
 (Palaoniscus) in a very perfect condition. The first 
 kind of true reptile now occurs a step still further 
 in advance. It was allied to the crocodiles in the 
 manner with which its teeth were separately pegged 
 into the jaws, and it has been found in several places 
 in Permian strata. Labyrinthodon remains are much 
 more abundant, but these represent the lower ranks 
 of reptilian life. 
 
 In many respects the flora of the Permian period is 
 allied to that of the Secondary formation, and that of 
 the latter is believed by some botanists to have really 
 commenced about this time. At the close of the 
 Permian age a large number of marine mollusks 
 became extinct, although others, such as the Ortho- 
 ceras, Gonia fifes, Spirt fer, &c., lingered on as late as 
 the Lias period. The huge club-mosses passed away, 
 and the horse-tails followed soon after. Great phy- 
 sical changes occurred about this time, which may 
 be seen from the fact that there are few places 
 where the Secondary strata are conformable to those 
 of the Primary divisions ; thus showing that all of 
 the latter must have been disturbed first. Some 
 geologists hold that the breccias of this formation 
 are nothing more than consolidated "boulder-clays," 
 and that they were formed by glacial action ; if so, then 
 the great increase of cold may have had something 
 to do with the local breaks in the continuity of animal 
 and vegetable life.
 
 UNDERGROUND. l8l 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE MIDDLE-AGE OF OUR GLOBE. 
 
 WE now proceed to note the main incidents which 
 took place in what is now Great Britain during the 
 Secondary epoch of geology. As before remarked, 
 the fossils of the rocks included in this subdivision 
 partake of a character intermediate between those of 
 the older Primary and later Tertiary. 
 
 The Trias, or New Red Sandstone, marks the occur- 
 rence of some of the most characteristic " bits " of 
 genuine English scenery. Only two of the formations 
 which come under the general name of Trias are 
 found in England ; the middle division, which is a 
 marine limestone crowded with fossil remains, occurs 
 in Germany, and is termed " Muschelkalk." The 
 lower of our two English subdivisions is in many 
 places simply an ancient heaped-up bank of red or 
 liver-coloured quartz pebbles, and this is abundantly 
 developed in North Staffordshire (about Trentham, 
 and in the railway-cuttings from Stafford to Crewe, by 
 the London and North- Western Railway), at Alderley 
 Edge, in Cheshire ; at Stockport, and various localities 
 in the district ; about Nottingham, Bridgenorth, Liver- 
 pool ; and in Somerset and Devon. Professor Hull 
 has given his reasons for believing that these beds
 
 182 
 
 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 are derived from the wear-and-tear of the Old Red 
 Sandstone. By the way, it may be remarked that 
 these expressions, Old red and New red, were originally 
 employed when speaking of two formations distin- 
 guished by their coloured strata, one of which was 
 older than the coal-measures, and the other newer. 
 These lower conglomerates are called Bunter sand- 
 stone. 
 
 The upper Trias, or New Red Sandstone, goes by 
 the name of Keuper, a German name. In Germany all 
 
 Labyrinthodon (restored). 
 
 the members of the Trias are well and typically de- 
 veloped. Few fossils are met with in the Bunter sand- 
 stone, for in the conglomerates we can hardly expect 
 to find them, and the red sandstones do not appear 
 to have been favourable to the development of life.
 
 THE MIDDLE-AGE OF OUR GLOBE. 183 
 
 But in the Keuper strata we get many peculiar evi- 
 dences of the animals of the period; most notable 
 are the foot-prints, not unlike the impressions made 
 by the human hand, with fingers outstretched, on soft 
 clay ; hence the name which was given to the then 
 unknown creature which made them, of Cheirotherium 
 
 Fossil footprints of Cheirotherium (Labyrinthodon) and 
 impressions of rain-drops. 
 
 (the " beast with the hand "). In the Storeton quar- 
 ries, near Birkenhead, and particularly in the flagstone 
 quarries opened in strata of this age at Lymm, in 
 Cheshire, there may be seen the regular tracks left by 
 these ancient beasts as they slowly made their way 
 over the ancient mud-flats ! You may observe the
 
 184 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 difference between the impressions left upon the 
 ancient mud by the hind and fore feet. These 
 Cheirotheria are now known to have been amphibious 
 animals, and they go by the generic name of Laby- 
 rinthodonts, from the peculiar structure of their teeth. 
 
 The same strata are also abundantly stored with 
 ripple-marks, the impressions left on the soft muds by 
 rain and hail-drops, the cracks produced by the heating 
 and contracting power of the sun, &c. The Keuper has 
 an extensive distribution, underlying some of the 
 richest pasture-land of Cheshire, where its marls have 
 very likely influenced that and other counties in their 
 cheese and dairy farming, as well as their apple- 
 orchards. In Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire 
 again we find similar results wherever these strata form 
 the sub-soils. Near Taunton the remains of a peculiar 
 kind of water-flea (Estheria], and also of Labyrintho- 
 donts, have been found in the higher beds, whilst the 
 marine origin of some of the strata at least has been 
 proved by the discovery of foraminifera from the red 
 marls at Chellaston, near Derby. 
 
 Gypsum (sulphate of lime) occurs in bands in the 
 red marls, and observers travelling by the Midland 
 railway may see the white threads, seams, and layers of 
 this mineral mottling and marking the red sandstones 
 in the railway-cuttings from Loughborough to Leicester. 
 But unquestionably the most important mineral pro- 
 ductions of the New Red Sandstone are the beds of 
 rock salt, which occur in the higher subdivision, both 
 in Cheshire and Worcestershire. This valuable 
 mineral has long been worked in those counties, as 
 the many ancient towns and villages whose names end
 
 THE MIDDLE-AGE OF OUR GLOBE. 185 
 
 in " wich " sufficiently prove. That nearly all the 
 Upper Keuper beds were deposited in very salt water 
 (perhaps too salt for animal life to be developed) is 
 proved by the impressions of the cubic crystals of 
 salt so frequently seen. At Nantwich, in Cheshire, 
 there are no fewer than five different seams of rock- 
 salt, varying in thickness from a few inches to 40 
 feet. The rain-water which percolates these strata 
 dissolves a good deal of the rock-salt away, and 
 issues forth as " brine springs." All these springs are 
 now utilized, but they carried away enormous quan- 
 tities of solid salt long before man appeared on the 
 earth, and a good many of the lovely little Cheshire 
 " meres," or fresh-water lakes, owe their origin to the 
 depressions on the surface caused by the subsidence 
 of the strata over the places where the solid salt 
 beneath has been dissolved and carried away. 
 
 The paucity of organic remains, and the manner 
 with which the strata appear to have kept an accurate 
 record of %& physical phenomena, such as ripple-marks, 
 &c., lead us to infer that the Upper Keuper strata 
 must have been deposited either in an arm of the sea 
 so salt as to exclude animal life, or in inland lakes 
 like the Caspian, or the Dead Sea, in Palestine. In 
 both these modem " seas " beds of salt are being 
 formed along their floors. 
 
 The remains of a true reptile, called Hyperodapc- 
 don occur in the New Red Sandstone beds of South 
 Devon, and near Bristol relics of the other crocodile- 
 like reptiles, Palaosaurus and Thecodontosaurns have 
 been found ; so that the Labyrinthodonts had not it 
 all to themselves. At Durdham Down, near Bristol,
 
 1 86 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 these reptilian remains are found in a Dolomite conglo 
 merate. At Budleigh Salterton the pebble beds which 
 form the cliffs of the sea-shore belong to the former 
 part of the period of which we are now speaking. 
 Some of the pebbles are very large, and are composed 
 of partially metamorphosed Silurian rocks, containing 
 Silurian fossils ; so that we know these more ancient 
 rocks must have been in the state we now see them 
 as far back as the beginning of the Triassic epoch. 
 The most remarkable fact about these Silurian 
 pebbles is that they have been brought from an 
 outcrop of the Silurian strata in France, and not in 
 England. 
 
 Intermediate between the strata of the New Red 
 Sandstone period and those of the Lias are others, 
 less important and imposing from their thickness, but 
 which exceed either of these in the interest which 
 their fossils have created. These beds are called 
 Rhtftic, from their occurring in a well-developed 
 section in the Rhetic Alps. Both in England and 
 Germany in rocks of this age the remains of the 
 first mammal have been found. It was a small 
 creature, not bigger than a rat, but it belonged to 
 a race that was afterwards to be dominant. More- 
 over, it was itself a member of an order of mammals 
 which naturalists by common consent have placed at 
 the bottom of the class to which it belongs. The 
 name given to this interesting fossil animal is Micro- 
 lestes, a word implying its predatory character, as indi- 
 cated by its teeth. 
 
 Sometimes English geologists called the strata in 
 question " Penarth beds," because the best section of
 
 THE MIDDLE-AGE OF OUR GLOBE. iSy 
 
 them in this country occurs in the headland of that 
 name, a few miles beyond Cardiff. There the student 
 may obtain any quantity of Rhaetic fossils, fish-spines 
 (Hybodus), teeth of shell-devouring fish (Ptychodus), 
 and those of many other species, some very small, and 
 others (Saurichthys) having reptilian affinities. The 
 most remarkable of all, perhaps, are the teeth of a 
 Mud-fish (Ccratodus), allied to the Ctenodus, which 
 lived during the Carboniferous epoch. It was a 
 large fish, nearly allied to the amphibians, and was 
 believed to have become extinct, until living species 
 were actually found in the rivers of Queensland, Aus- 
 tralia. The teeth of this fish have been found chiefly 
 in the Rhsetic beds which may be seen capping the 
 New Red Sandstone in the beautiful section at Aust, 
 opposite Chepstow, which has been laid bare by the 
 denuding power of the river Severn. Both at Penarth 
 and Aust there may be found plenty of typical Rhsetic 
 fossils, such as Avicula contorta, Pecten Valoniensis, 
 Cardium Rhtzticum, &c. 
 
 And now we come to the study of that great and 
 important system of rocks called the Oolitic. It is 
 important on many accounts to the geological stu- 
 dent, and the marvellous diversity of the mineralogical 
 character of its rocks is not its least interesting feature, 
 although this is transcended by the variety and wealth 
 of its fossil remains, animal and vegetable. The lower- 
 most strata were formerly regarded as a distinct system 
 (and still are deemed so by many geologists), and 
 went by the name of the Lias. Perhaps no other for- 
 mation has produced fossils which are so well known 
 outside geology, for the " Snakestones " (Ammonites)
 
 i88 
 
 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 and " St. Cuthbert's Beads " (Pcntacrinitcs) have been 
 the theme both of folk-lore, tradition, and poetry. 
 
 The Liassic strata extend across England from Lyme 
 Regis, in Dorsetshire, to Whitby, on the Yorkshire 
 coast, as a conspicuous band of blue and brown 
 clayey limestones and shales. The harder rocks have 
 longest resisted the action of the weather, and every- 
 where along .this route form low escarpments, which 
 
 Ichthyosaurus commums, with the fleshy covering restored. 
 
 overlook the vales where the softer rocks have been 
 more denuded. 
 
 These rocks are usually very full of marine fossils, 
 many of them of such great interest and perfection as 
 not to be excelled by those from any other formation. 
 
 Skeleton of Ichthyosaurus communis. 
 
 From the abundance of these particular animals 
 during this and the Oolitic period generally, it has 
 been not inaptly called " the Age of Reptiles." For 
 reptiles then abounded everywhere in the air (as
 
 THE MIDDLE-AGE OF OUR GLOBE. 
 
 189 
 
 Pterodactyles, or " Flying Lizards," some of them many 
 feet across their stretch of wing) ; in the sea as Plesio- 
 sauria, Pliosauria, Icthyosauria, where they occupied 
 the places now filled by whales and warm-blooded 
 animals of that class ; in the rivers as Crocodilia ; and 
 
 Skeleton of Plcsiosaiints, 
 from the Lias. 
 
 Plcsiosajtrus, with the fleshy 
 covering restored. 
 
 on dry land as Dinosauria. The latter were of vari- 
 able size and shape, some of them exceedingly large. 
 Singularly enough, not a few of them actually walked 
 on two legs (Cffmpsognafhus) after the fashion of a 
 
 The head of an Ichthyosaurus, upon a larger scale, to exhibit the 
 structure of the eye and jaws. 
 
 little-known lizard, still living in Australia, called 
 Chlamydosaurus. The young, middle-aged, and adult 
 of all these " monsters of the prime " are found in the 
 fossil state. At Lyme Regis and also at that great
 
 190 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 treasure-house of fossil reptiles, Barrow-on-Soar, in 
 Leicestershire (at which latter place the Lias lime- 
 stone is quarried for the purpose of being manu- 
 factured for hydraulic cement), the most perfect 
 skeletons of all the aforesaid animals have been ex- 
 humed, and these may now be seen in our principal 
 museums. Some had long, swan-like necks, as the 
 Plesiosaurus ; others short, but strong necks, like the 
 Ichthyosaurus, All of them, however, as their nu- 
 merous and peculiar teeth only too plainly indicate, 
 were of carnivorous habits. 
 
 Fossil fish, many of them also predator)-, like the 
 shark, are abundantly met with in the fossil state, 
 especially the dorsal spines of the genus Hybodus. 
 Large ganoid fish, covered with lozenge-shaped, bony 
 scales, are sometimes dug out quite perfect, especially 
 at Barrow; such as the Dapedius, Lepidotus, and 
 others ; whilst the teeth of fish which evidently fed 
 upon mollusks, and which were formed for the pur- 
 pose of crushing the shells (Acrodus\ arenotunfrequent. 
 Fossil mollusca occur in enormous quantities, the lime- 
 stone bands being made up often actually of nothing 
 else. Of these the most abundant are the " Snake- 
 stones," or Ammonites, of which three or four hundred 
 different species existed during the entire Oolitic 
 period. This type of mollusk is now extinct ; it was 
 nearly related to the Nautilus, differing from that 
 well-known and still-existing shell-fish in certain struc- 
 tural characters of the chambers of the shell. Fossil 
 Xautili are also common in the Lias rocks. Bra- 
 chiopod shells had by this time ceased to be nu- 
 merous, for they had given place to the more highly-
 
 THE MIDDLE-AGE OF OUR GLOBE. 
 
 organized bivalve mollusca. Perhaps one of the most 
 abundant and characteristic fossils of this age is that 
 which goes by the popular name of "Thunder-bolt." 
 
 Fossil Shells from the Lias and Oolite Formations. 
 
 Terebratula subserrata. 6. 
 
 Nautilus decussatus. 7- 
 
 Ammonites colubrinus. 8. 
 
 Plagiostoma giganteum. 9. 
 Spirifcr uerrucosits. 
 
 Pachyodon J.isteri. 
 Hippopodium ponderosnm . 
 Cucullca eftwgata. 
 Gcn'illia. 
 
 It occurs as a hard, pointed, dart-like object, and is 
 known to have been the internal bone of a peculiar
 
 192 
 
 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 kind of cuttle-fish which swarmed in the Liassic and 
 
 Oolitic seas. Pecten, 
 Avicitla, Trigonia, 
 Lima, Gryphea, 
 Gen'illia, Ostrea, 
 &c., abounded, and 
 altogether nearly 
 seven hundred 
 species of true bi- 
 valve mollusca have 
 been described from 
 these formations 
 alone. 
 
 In many places 
 the sea-floor was oc- 
 cupied with groves 
 of sea-lilies (Penta- 
 crinus, Apiocrinus, 
 &c). The former 
 of the two just 
 named was very 
 plentiful, and the 
 joints are found 
 in the greatest pro- 
 fusion in the Lias 
 strata. Sometimes 
 perfect specimens 
 are met with, 
 Fossil Shells from the Lias and Oolite Formations. 
 
 1. Ammonites obtnsus (the dark part only partially occupied 
 
 with dark-brown crystals of Calcite, and the lighter 
 cellular spaces with the same matter, nearly transparent). 
 
 2. Gryphaa inau~va. 3. Plcttrolomaria Anglica.
 
 THE MIDDLE-AGE OF OUR GLOBE. 193 
 
 changed into iron pyrites, and very beautiful fossils 
 they are. The Apiocrinidce are characteristically 
 Oolitic. Star-fish, Echinoderms, and other near re- 
 lations of these "sea-lilies" are found fossilized in the 
 same strata. 
 
 During the entire Oolitic period the land vegetation 
 was so abundant that seams of coal were formed from 
 its remains, as at Robin Hood's Bay, near Scarbo- 
 rough. In Virginia, United States, very thick beds 
 of coal occur in rocks of this geological age. Ferns 
 were abundant, and many of them very peculiar, such 
 as Pterophyllum, especially in the iron-ore nodules of 
 the Cleveland Hills. The most peculiar kinds of 
 plants, however, of the Oolitic epoch are the Cycads, 
 which in some sort are intermediate between ferns and 
 palms. Cycads are now living near the Cape, and 
 are particularly abundant in Australia. Fossil insects 
 have also been met with, but as yet, with one very 
 doubtful instance, none which are known to have 
 frequented flowers. 
 
 The Oolitic strata (sometimes also called Jurassic) 
 are subdivided into several parts, such as Inferior 
 Oolite, Great Oolite, Oxford Clay, Portland Oolite, 
 &c. The name originally arose from the " fish-roe "- 
 like structure of some of the limestones, especially 
 that worked near Bath. Nearly all the rocks bear 
 evidence of marine deposition, and some of them 
 {coral rag, for instance) are full of the most beautiful 
 fossil corals. In Somersetshire these strata occur 
 everywhere, as also underneath Gloucestershire, Lin- 
 colnshire, Northamptonshire, and part of Yorkshire. 
 In the Portland Oolite we get "Dirt-bands" inter- 
 o
 
 194 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 calated in the solid rock, with the trunks and roots 
 of trees still imbedded in these ancient soils ; all 
 these parts, however, being now converted into 
 stone. These " dirt beds " are the places where the 
 Cycads are most abundant, and these fossil plants go 
 by the popular name of " crows' nests," from their 
 depressed shape. There are several genera of them 
 (named after eminent geologists who have made the 
 Oolitic strata famous by their researches), such as 
 Mantellia, Bucklandia, &c. At Gristhorpe, on the 
 Yorkshire coast, the plants abound to so great a 
 degree that we get seams of impure coal, some of 
 them as much as a foot and a half in thickness. In 
 the shales above these coal-seams are a wealth of 
 fossil ferns, such as Pecopteris, Neuropteris, &c., and 
 also remains of a Calamite-like plant called Equisetites. 
 Fossil cycads, coniferous and other plants, are also 
 found in the rich natural museum of the Stonesfield 
 Slate ; in Oxfordshire we also get fossil wood, and 
 leaves of cycads (Zamia) in the Oolitic strata about 
 Peterborough. 
 
 Perhaps the most notable fact in the history of 
 Oolitic animals is the appearance of a bird. It is 
 the first introduction of the feathered tribes upon the 
 earth. But what a peculiar blending of the chief 
 characters of two wholly distinct groups ! At first 
 geologists were doubtful whether it was a bird- like 
 reptile, or a reptile-like bird. And they have now 
 arrived at the latter conclusion. The Arch&opteryx, 
 as this strange creature is named, probably had jaws 
 with teeth in them, after the manner of the flying 
 lizards (Pterodactyles). Its tail was elongated and
 
 THE MIDDLE-AGE OF OUR GLOBE. 
 
 195 
 
 jointed like that of a lizard, but the entire body was 
 covered with feathers. As yet only two specimens of 
 this anomalous bird have been met with. 
 
 There can be no doubt that warm-blooded animals 
 (which we have seen made their first appearance 
 
 The Reptile-like Bird (Archaopteryx). 
 
 when the Rhsetic beds were forming) continued in 
 existence throughout the entire Oolitic epoch. Every 
 now and then we meet with their remains in 
 estuarine and lacustrine strata, that is, in sediments 
 formed at the mouths of rivers or along the bottoms 
 of lakes. Towards the close of the Oolite about 
 o 2
 
 196 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 fourteen species, of different genera, are known to 
 have abounded ; but all of them belong to the lowest 
 order but one of the mammalia, the Marsupialia. 
 
 The lacustrine strata were formed in a large lake 
 at the conclusion of this interesting age, and they go 
 by the name of the Purbeck Beds. Some of the 
 limestones are so full of fossil fresh-water snails, like 
 those still living in our lakes and rivers (Paludina, 
 Planorbis, Corbula, &c.), that the limestone has evi- 
 dently been formed by the accumulation of their dead 
 shells ! The thickness of rock thus formed along 
 the bottom of this ancient Oolitic lake is between 
 300 and 400 feet, and the area was correspondingly 
 great, extending from beyond Purbeck to Battle, in 
 Sussex. The lowest beds contain the fossil trunks of 
 pine-trees.
 
 UNDERGROUND. 197 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE WHITE CHALK OF ENGLAND. 
 
 WE have now to speak of a system of rocks the 
 greater portion of which were deposited along the 
 floor of a deep ocean, and therefore they have an ex- 
 tension such as could hardly be expected from strata 
 formed under more local conditions. It is called 
 the Cretaceous system. 
 
 In the classification of the Cretaceous group of 
 rocks are now included some very interesting strata 
 which formerly occupied an intermediate place, by 
 themselves, between the Oolite and the Chalk. They 
 are called the Wealden beds, and they demand a 
 passing notice, if only for the fact that they were 
 originally formed as a delta at the mouth of a very 
 large river. As this river must have extended into 
 and drained a correspondingly large continent (all of 
 which has since disappeared), it follows that a good 
 many carcases of land animals, trunks of trees, leaves, 
 insects, &c., would be carried seawards, and deposited 
 in the accumulating sands and mud of its delta. And 
 so we find the Wealden strata are peculiarly rich in evi- 
 dences of this kind, and we get from its fossils a good, 
 although meagre, idea of the fauna and flora of the
 
 398 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 dry land. In addition, by the occasional presence of 
 -bands of limestone, made up of the shells of oysters 
 and other marine mollusca, as well as those of 
 bra ckish water species, we learn that frequently the 
 adj oining sea drove back the fresh water, and for a 
 tim e held sway over the site of the delta deposits, to 
 be speedily driven back to its old confines. These 
 Wealden beds take their name from the Weald of 
 Kent, where they occur abundantly. Some of the 
 stra ta are found at Hastings, in Sussex, and the Isle 
 of Wight. The cliffs at Hastings are formed of the 
 upp er division of the Wealden strata, and nearly the 
 sam e series of rocks may be seen again in the well- 
 known crags of Tunbridge Wells. 
 
 Among the fossil remains which have been exhumed 
 is the remarkable herbivorous reptile Igitanodon, first 
 made known to the world by the labours of Dr. 
 Mantell. The structure of its teeth plainly shows 
 that it fed upon plants, and it was, in many respects, 
 allied to the vegetable-feeding Iguana now living in 
 the West Indies, from which it has borrowed its 
 name. But for size we have perhaps never had its 
 equal in any terrestrial animal which has lived in these 
 latitudes. Its length of body, from nose to tip of 
 tail, was about 50 feet, and its height and strength 
 of limb (as indicated by its bones) were proportion- 
 ately great. Hylceosaimis, or " Forest lizard," was 
 another gigantic genus, 20 or 30 feet in length, 
 which abounded during the Wealden period. Both 
 these immense reptiles are among the models to 
 be seen in the Crystal Palace Gardens at Sydenham. 
 Their bones and teeth have been most abundantly
 
 THE WHITE CHALK OF ENGLAND. 
 
 I 99 
 
 found in a quarry at Whiteman's Green, near Crich- 
 field. Some of the Iguanodon left their footprints on 
 the soft mud, and accordingly we find them preserved 
 to us, as in the Horsham stone worked near Itchfield, 
 West Grinstead, where also we find the same feet- 
 impressed slabs marked with ripples. Megalosaurus 
 was also a huge terrestrial reptile living during this 
 period. These peculiar reptiles have been included 
 in an order called Deinosauria. Many of them pos- 
 
 Teeth of IgtianoJon. a, Young Teeth ; b, c, 'Worn ditto. 
 
 sessed remarkable bird-like relationships. Thus the 
 Iguanodon had very small and weak fore-limbs, quite 
 out of proportion with the massive development of 
 the hind- limbs. The footprints of the Iguanodon 
 have been found in the Hastings sand-beds at Cuck-
 
 200 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 field, in Sussex, and these were always noticed to be 
 tridactyle that is, made by three toes only. These 
 tridactyle footprints were found only in pairs, and 
 now that the fore-limbs of the Iguanodon are known 
 to have been weakly developed it is believed that 
 this reptile, huge as it was, walked temporarily or 
 permanently on its hind legs, and so far presented a 
 marked affinity to the Birds. 
 
 The vegetation of this time was still largely made 
 up of ferns, pines, and cycads, but as yet no signs of 
 true flowers. Insect life had been largely developed, 
 as is found from the abundance and variety of fossil 
 insects found in the Purbeck beds; but they were 
 none of them butterflies or bees. Most of the other 
 orders of insects had been created, but the latter only 
 appeared when flowers came in. 
 
 In succeeding order we now come to a series of 
 rocks termed " Neocomian" (from their being largely 
 developed in the neighbourhood of Neufchatel, in 
 Switzerland). They include, in reality the Wealden 
 subdivision, as well as strata formed at Speeton, 
 Punfield, Tealby, and the beds which have long 
 been known to geologists by the name of Green- 
 sand. They are full of marine fossils, among which 
 are peculiar and characteristic species of Ammonites 
 and Belemnites, as well as modifications of the 
 Ammonite type of Cephalopod, with the shells very 
 curiously twisted about ; such as Ancyloceras, Turri- 
 lites, Hamites, &c. The abundance of Ichthyosaurian 
 bones shows us that these marine reptiles still swarmed 
 in the seas. In the " Lower Greensand," which is 
 found cropping out at many places in Wiltshire, Berk-
 
 THE WHITE CHALK OF ENGLAND. 2OI 
 
 shire, Bedfordshire, and elsewhere, the strata are often 
 full of fossils. Thus at Farringdon we find a rock 
 full of fossil sponges of various kinds, all beautifully 
 preserved. At several places in Bedfordshire the 
 remains of fish, reptiles, and shells almost compose 
 one stratum about 2 feet thick, and these fossils 
 have been somehow converted into phosphate of 
 lime, so that the bed containing them is profitably 
 worked, the fossils dug out and ground into fine 
 powder, and otherwise prepared as an artificial 
 manure for fertilizing the soils. It should be stated, 
 however, that these fossils are nearly all derivate, and 
 have been washed out of the older Oolitic beds. 
 
 The lower part of the cliffs at Hunstanton are 
 formed of a pudding-stone, which was in great request 
 among our Anglo-Saxon ancestors for the manufacture 
 of their querns or handmills. The strata extend 
 beneath the Prince of Wales's estate at Sandringham, 
 and on to Lynn. All over this district they go by the 
 name of " Car-stone." In Sussex and elsewhere we 
 have a well-known geological stratum called Gault, 
 which in many places, as about Folkestone, abounds in 
 fossils so well preserved that the iridescent " mother- 
 of-pearl " lustre still glistens on Ammonites and Tur- 
 rilites. This bed may always be known by the presence 
 of certain fossils, such as Ammonites lautus,Inoceramus 
 sulcatiiS) and Belemnites minimus; and thus it has been 
 identified with the " red chalk " which crops out in 
 the Hunstanton cliffs, on the Norfolk coast, where 
 its colour makes that part such a splendid landmark 
 at sea. The gault clay is 100 feet thick at Folke- 
 stone. We find it also well developed in the Isle
 
 202 
 
 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 of Wight, Dorsetshire, Wiltshire, and Cambridge- 
 shire ; whilst in a deep well-boring it was found 
 underneath the city of Norwich at a depth of more 
 than 1,100 feet beneath the white chalk. 
 
 The " Upper Greensand " consists of greenish-grey 
 sand and sandstone. It is often seen cropping out 
 
 all round the area occu- 
 pied by the Wealden ; and 
 may be known by certain 
 fossils, such as Pecten 
 quinquecostatus (or " five- 
 ribbed " Pecten), Pecten 
 quadrico status (or " four- 
 ribbed " Pecten), &c. In 
 the Isle of Wight the Upper 
 Greensand is familiar to 
 visitors from its occurring 
 at Shanklin. We also find 
 its strata cut through by 
 the Great South-Western 
 railway, all about Chard 
 and Honiton ; and in the 
 Great Western about Wan- 
 tage and Wallingford ; at 
 Didcot Junction, Wool- 
 stone, and elsewhere in 
 Oxfordshire. The " Copro- 
 litic " beds of Cambridge- 
 shire probably occur in 
 
 this formation. It is well known and much sought 
 after in certain localities by well-borers, on account 
 of its being usually saturated with water which has 
 
 Spiral Cephalopod (Turrilitcs). 
 Lower Cretacsous Formation.
 
 THE WHITE CHALK OF ENGLAND. 203 
 
 percolated along its porous strata from its outcrop at 
 the surface. 
 
 The true Chalk follows, in successive order, the 
 Upper Greensand ; and we come now to a stratum 
 which presents all the characters of a deep-sea or 
 
 Various Fossils from the Cretaceous Formation. 
 
 I. Coccolith (much magnified) ; 2. Globigcrina, a foraminifer 
 (much magnified) ; 3. Ammonites Rhotomagcnsis ; 4. Spicules 
 or Crystals of Fossil Sponges ; 5. Teeth oi Marine Reptile 
 {Ichthyosaurus} ; 6. Tooth of Shark (Lanma). 
 
 oceanic deposit. Its great thickness, the unaltered 
 mineral character of the deposit of over so very ex- 
 tensive an area, as well as the peculiarity that it is
 
 204 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 mainly built up of broken or entire shells of Fora- 
 minifera, all point to this conclusion. No other kind 
 of rock is better known than chalk. This chalk 
 (when properly prepared) will yield to the micro- 
 scopical investigator a large number of genera and 
 species of oceanic foraminifera. One of the com- 
 monest of these chalk foraminifera is a species still 
 abundant in the Pacific and Atlantic, along whose 
 extended floors it and its congeners are forming a 
 slimy ooze, just as chalk was originally elaborated. 
 The name of this living foraminifer is Glob.igerina 
 bulloides, and its equal abundance in the white chalk 
 of England, in ihefossit state, and in the blue oceanic 
 waters of the Atlantic and Pacific, in the living con- 
 dition, affords an additional evidence that the for- 
 mation we are now speaking of was formed along the 
 bottom of a deep and extensive sea. 
 
 To build up a dense, earthy, white rock like chalk 
 to the thickness of more than a thousand feet (for 
 the Upper Chalk alone is more than that in Norfolk), 
 by the slow accumulation along the sea-floor of shells 
 
 too small for the naked 
 eye to perceive without 
 assistance, must have occu- 
 pied long periods of time. 
 As they formed chalky 
 ooze, the latter became the 
 receptacle for such dead 
 Fossil Sea-urchin (Galerites animals as found in it their 
 albogalents}. i ast resting-place. The 
 
 other and larger fossils of the Upper Chalk are just 
 those we should expect to find in an oceanic deposit.
 
 THE WHITE CHALK OF ENGLAND. 
 
 205 
 
 They are nowhere abundant, and they are repre- 
 sented by species of Brachiopods (Terebratula and 
 
 Fossil Sea-urchin (Micrastcr, 
 cqr anguininni). 
 
 Terebratula subrolnnda. 
 
 "Fairy-loaf" (Ananchytes). 
 
 Rhynchonella) ; small oysters of multiform shape and 
 possessed of the power of so moulding themselves
 
 206 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 to the shape of any object which might happen to 
 lie on the sea-bed as often to take a perfect cast of 
 it ; abundance of sea-urchins of all kinds ; Echini, 
 Ananchytes, Galerites, Holaster, Micraster, Spatang2ts, 
 &c. ; and remains of diminutive genera of sea-lilies. All 
 of these deep-sea Echinodermata remind us of similar 
 living species dredged up in the deeper parts of the 
 Atlantic and Pacific during the recent " Challenger " 
 expedition. Indeed, the naturalists on board proved 
 that the abysmal parts of the sea still shelter some 
 genera of echinoderms we had believed to be extinct, 
 
 Palatal Tooth of Plychodus Tooth of Lamna clcgans. 
 
 poly gurus. 
 
 but which are found fossilized in the white chalk ; as, 
 for instance, Salenia, which is tolerably abundant in 
 Norfolk, particularly in the flints. 
 
 In the white chalk we have more or less regular 
 courses of flints, sometimes occurring as bands 
 of fantastically-shaped nodules, and at other times 
 (especially in the Lower Chalk) as thin, tabular plates. 
 There is every reason for believing these flints to 
 have been formed by organic agency, perhaps by
 
 THE WHITE CHALK OF ENGLAND. 207 
 
 the precipitation of silicates, induced by the de- 
 composition of organic matter along the sea-floor, 
 for it has been proved that such a process will bring 
 about siliceous precipitation. This would cause the 
 flint to assume a gelatinous condition, which would 
 invest any shell, coral, or echinoderm, whose decom- 
 posing tissues had perhaps caused the chemical 
 changes to be set in action. The mode in which the 
 most delicate shells, sponges, sea-mats, &c., are im- 
 bedded in the now hard flints, sufficiently proves how 
 soft and plastic the latter must have been when they 
 were originally formed. In Norfolk we get huge 
 flints imbedded one within another like a. pile of 
 basins in a crockery-shop, often to the height of 5 or 
 6 feet. They stand vertically to the strata, just as 
 they were formed, and are believed to have been 
 gigantic sponges, like " Neptune's cup." The name 
 given to these fossils is Parciuwudra. 
 
 All about London, and the eastern, south-eastern, 
 and south-western counties, there are most extensive 
 sheets of flint gravel. They often compose some of 
 the Tertiary strata, such as the Bagshot sands. They 
 likewise occur abundantly as post-glacial gravel 
 throughout Suffolk and Norfolk. All these flints, 
 rounded and angular, were originally formed organic- 
 ally at the bottom of the deep chalk sea, after the 
 manner just indicated. All of them were originally 
 imbedded in the white chalk. Hence we may infer 
 to what extensive denudations the latter formation 
 must have been subjected, even in England alone, 
 from the quantity of flint-nodules and bands which 
 have been liberated, broken up, rolled and gathered
 
 208 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 together to form these subsequently-deposited gravel- 
 beds ! The process undoubtedly went on throughout 
 the entire Tertiary epoch, and there is every reason 
 for believing that the white chalk once extended even 
 into Scotland, for fragments of it have been found 
 hermetically sealed up and preserved beneath the 
 lavas which were ejected by the Mull volcano during 
 the Miocene period. 
 
 But even in the chalk we occasionally get glimpses 
 of the kind of life which existed out of the sea. 
 Thus, we know that Flying Lizards (Pterodactyles), 
 both tailed and tailless, abounded more than ever, 
 and perhaps attained a greater size, some of them 
 being as much as 20 feet across their outstretched 
 Avings ! Marine reptiles (Ichthyosauri] were not so 
 abundant in the sea, their places having been taken 
 by another kind, which became extinct at the close of 
 the Cretaceous era, called Mososaurus. The latter 
 has been found in nearly a perfect state in the Upper 
 Chalk near Norwich, where its teeth and bones are 
 often met with. Its length was as much as 25 to 30 
 feet, and from the formidable character of its teeth 
 we should say it was the tyrant of the seas. Belem- 
 nites (or " Thunderbolts," as they are popularly but 
 erroneously called) are very plentiful in the chalk; next 
 to them in abundance are Ananchytes (commonly 
 called " Fairy Loaves") and bivalve shells, such as 
 Spondylus spinosus. 
 
 We have evidence in the uppermost chalk strata 
 elsewhere than England, that true flowers had at 
 length appeared to adorn the world. As yet these 
 were not of a highly-attractive kind. Associated
 
 THE WHITE CHALK OF ENGLAND. 2OQ 
 
 with them the oak, maple, sycamore, and other true 
 dicotyledonous trees and shrubs make their appear- 
 ance. Thus, just at the close of the great secondary 
 epoch we find preparations made as it were for its 
 successor the Tertiary, which is noted for the abun- 
 dance of its higher animal and vegetable life above 
 all others. This may be largely due to the fact that 
 during the whole Tertiary epoch the deposits were of 
 a local character and no extensive oceanic strata then 
 formed are known, inasmuch as the great oceanic 
 areas were the same then as now, all the physical 
 change having taken place on the sea-boards, or in 
 shallow water.
 
 210 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE LATER LIFE OF THE WORLD. 
 
 THE Tertiary epoch is distinguished above its pre- 
 decessors by the great influx of animal and vegetable 
 forms of life allied to those still living. Few living 
 species of animals have a geological antiquity as high 
 as the commencement of this new era, although we 
 have seen that one of the shelled animalcules (Glo- 
 Irigerina) was as abundant and active during the 
 Upper Cretaceous period as it is now. A species of 
 brachiopod found fossilized in the Chalk (Terebratula 
 linearis] is believed to be identical with a rare species 
 
 I 2 
 
 \.Palccothcrium magnum (restored); a Tapir-like animal (Eocene 
 
 Formation). 
 2. Skeleton of MegatJieriiini (Miocene Formation). 
 
 still living in the deeper parts of the sea. These, 
 however, are exceptions to the general rule. 
 
 But with the Tertiary epoch, at any rate, there com- 
 menced the existence of many genera of animals and 
 plants which are still living somewhere in the world. 
 In a few instances even the species have continued on
 
 THE LATER LIFE OF THE WORLD. 211 
 
 to our time unaltered. And as we pass from the 
 commencement of the Tertiary age and approach our 
 own we are particularly struck by the increasing re- 
 semblances which the fossils bear to living forms of 
 life, until at length we see them merging into each 
 other, and fossil forms and existing types blend 
 together. It is this gradually-increasing relationship 
 between the extinct and living types that has caused 
 geologists to separate the Tertiary epoch into its four 
 great stages or periods, according to the percentages 
 of living species which have been found among the 
 fossils of each subdivision. 
 
 The Eocene period (" Dawn of Recent " life) found 
 Europe (including Great Britain) enjoying a climate 
 different from that which now characterizes these lati- 
 tudes. It was almost tropical in its temperature, and 
 consequently the life of the period in many respects 
 resembled that of some countries under the equator. 
 In the sea, in the rivers, on the dry land, although 
 Eocene animals are nearly all extinct, we cannot but 
 recognise their tropical appearance. This will be 
 more evident as we proceed. 
 
 The Eocene formation is well represented in Great 
 Britain, although in that " patchy " form which dis- 
 tinguishes the Tertiary strata when compared with the 
 extensive spread of the Primary systems of rocks. 
 On the Continent and in America there is similar 
 evidence of Tertiary strata being deposited in lake- 
 basins; estuaries, &c., although perhaps the largest 
 and finest development of the early Tertiary rocks is 
 to be found in some of the western States of North 
 America, notably in Kansas, Wyoming, Dakotah, and 
 p 2
 
 212 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 elsewhere. In these latter places the strata are often 
 thousands of feet in thickness, full of animal and plant- 
 remains much more complete in their history of the 
 life of the period perhaps than is afforded elsewhere 
 on the globe. The geological history of this district 
 is being worked out by the United States Geological 
 Surveyor in the completest manner, and when it is 
 fully presented to the world it will read like a fairy 
 tale. 
 
 The student will find in all good works on geology 
 the various details respecting the subdivisions of the 
 Eocene strata, into which it is not necessary for us 
 here to enter. The lower are called "Thanet," 
 " Woolwich," " Reading," and " Oldhaven " beds. At 
 the various places whose names are here mentioned 
 the reader will find sections showing each stratum. 
 
 Characteristic Foraminifcra from the Eocene Marine Strata. 
 I. Nummulites ; 2. Miliola. (Both magnified.) 
 
 In the Isle of Thanet, where we find the lowest beds, 
 the latter are of a yellowish-green or buff colour, and 
 the fossils are usually in the shape of impressions or 
 " casts " only ; although there are places where we 
 find such genera of fossil shells as Corbula, Cyprina,
 
 THE LATER LIFE OF THE WORLD. 213 
 
 &c., well preserved. The best localities for observing 
 this stratum are at Herne Bay, the cliffs of Pegwell 
 Bay, the sand-pits at Charlton, near Woolwich, and 
 others on the south side of London. Mr. Whitaker 
 has noticed them at Sudbury, in Suffolk, and they 
 are also to be seen near Ipswich. The " Woolwich 
 and Reading beds " are most thickly developed in 
 Whitecliff Bay. They are also seen in the cliffs of 
 Alum Bay, as well as at the places whose names they 
 bear. The characters of this bed change very much ; 
 sometimes it is sandy, at others full of green-coated 
 angular flints. At others it is bright-coloured, mottled, 
 "plastic clay," as in Berkshire, North Hampshire, 
 and part of Surrey ; or it is a thick, compact bed of 
 oyster-shells, as at Bromley. Great quantities and 
 a considerable variety of fossils have been found in 
 this bed, nearly all of them being of marine habits. 
 Perhaps the most notable are the remains of an 
 extinct animal nearly allied to the Tapir, called Cory- 
 phodon. Fossil turtles occur in the same rock. The 
 "Oldhaven beds" are chiefly composed of rolled flint 
 pebbles, usually imbedded in sand, and occasionally 
 cemented thereby into a kind of pudding-stone. They 
 are to be seen in the neighbourhood of Canterbury, 
 Rochester, on Plumstead Common, at Blackheath, 
 Woolwich, and elsewhere. The fossils are both of a 
 marine and estuarine character, indicating that all the 
 beds were formed near the old shores, and that fresh 
 water debouched into the sea. 
 
 But the most important of all the Eocene strata is 
 that called the " London Clay." It is perhaps the 
 most extensive of all the Tertiary beds, and formerly
 
 214 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 it undoubtedly covered a larger area than it does now, 
 for there is evidence of a great thickness having been 
 removed by denudation, especially in Norfolk. It 
 crops out in the cliffs of the Suffolk and Essex 
 coasts, extends under the Metropolis (whence its 
 name), continues to Hampshire, and the Isle of 
 Wight. Its thickness is about 500 feet, and 
 from its fossils (which are very numerous in some 
 places, and nearly absent in others) there can be no 
 question that it is a purely marine deposit. Pro- 
 fessor Rupert Jones, judging by the fossil foraminifera 
 yielded by the London Clay, concludes it was de- 
 posited in about one hundred fathom water. Some 
 parts could not have been formed far from land, how- 
 ever, as there are imbedded the remains of land 
 animals and reptiles, plants, trees, &c., all of which 
 were evidently carried to the sea by the rivers. 
 
 But no matter how we look at the fossils of this 
 interesting deposit, we are assured of the higher 
 temperature which then prevailed. The marine shells 
 belong to genera whose names at once call up to the 
 mind of the conchologist West Indian and other 
 tropical forms. Such are Pleurotoma, Rostellaria, 
 Valuta, Nautilus (of several species), and many 
 others. The Sea-urchins equally indicate warm seas. 
 The Fossil Fish are allied to the White Shark (only 
 much larger), the Saw-fish, the Sword-fish, &c. 
 Palaophis is a species of Sea-serpent at least 13 
 feet in length, which lived in the London Clay 
 sea. Many kinds of marine turtles abounded, and 
 their perfect carapaces are often found in the 
 " cement-stones " which take the place in the London
 
 THE LATER LIFE OF THE WORLD. 215 
 
 Clay that flint-nodules do in the chalk. Remains of 
 true Crocodiles have been dug out in several localities. 
 
 But the Fossil Flora is unquestionably the most im- 
 portant in its bearings upon the climature of this 
 period. We know that the dry land must have been 
 clothed with a vegetation analogous to that which 
 now luxuriates in the Malayan Archipelago. In the 
 Isle of Sheppey (one of the most notable fossiliferous 
 localities of the London Clay) we actually find banks 
 of fossil palm-fruits called Nipadites, allied to those 
 which still so accumulate on the surface of the river 
 Ganges as to impede the steam navigation and clog 
 the paddles of the river boats. More than a dozen 
 species of these palm-fruits have been described. 
 Sheppey has also yielded more than one hundred 
 species of fossil plants, nearly all of which are related 
 to genera still living in much warmer latitudes ; such as 
 custard-apples, gourds, &c. Palceotheria, or tapir-like 
 animals, abounded on the dry land ; and recently a 
 fossil bird has been found (Odontopteryx), whose 
 mandibles were provided with bony teeth ! Opossums 
 swarmed in the forests of this period, and at its close 
 Monkeys seem to have made their first appearance on 
 the globe. Ganoid fish still lived in the rivers, and 
 their remains have been found at Kyson, near Wood- 
 bridge, in Suffolk, associated with those of large bats, 
 water-snakes, &c. These ancient forests were the 
 haunts of Pythons, Hyanodons (a creature with the 
 joint character of a tiger and a hyaena), and other 
 predatory animals. 
 
 The middle Eocene beds succeed the London 
 Clay, comprising the Bagshot sands and gravels.
 
 2l6 
 
 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 Bracklesharn beds, Barton Clay, &c. Here and there 
 we get plenty of fossil plants, as in the famous " leaf 
 
 Fossil Shells from the London Clay, or Eocene Formation. 
 
 6. Rostellaria rimosa. 
 
 7. Sangiiinolaria compressa. 
 
 8. Palndina Icnta. 
 
 9. PeciuncttHts scalaris. 
 
 1. Fusus asper. 
 
 2. Ancillaria subulata. 
 
 3. Turritclla im brie at aria. 
 
 4. Limnaza longiscata. 
 
 5. Vohita lucatrix. 
 
 beds " of Bournemouth and Alum Bay. From these 
 we infer that the climature was of a more pronounced 
 tropical character during the middle of the Eocene
 
 THE LATER LIFE OF THE WORLD. 217 
 
 period than it was at the beginning or the end. At 
 Bournemouth the most beautiful impressions of the 
 leaves, fruits, &c., of tropical palms and other plants 
 have been found, all of them pointing to humidity 
 and warmth of climate. The fossil flora of Alum 
 Bay is remarkable for its number of species allied to 
 the Acacias. Acacias, figs, dryandras, fan-palms, &c., 
 appear to have been the most numerous. The re- 
 markable fact about our English Eocene flora is its 
 resemblance to that of tropical Australia. The 
 abundance of Protcaceous plants (now characteristic 
 of the Australian region) is that which renders the 
 similitude most complete. 
 
 The Bracklesham beds are exceedingly fossiliferous 
 in places. Although they take their name from the 
 place in Sussex, it is these beds of white, yellow, and 
 crimson sand, and lignite seams, which give to the 
 cliffs of Alum Bay their well-known attractiveness. 
 The Lignite seams (like the coal seams in the South 
 Wales coal-field) always rest on stiff beds of clay. 
 The Barton Ciay is remarkable for its beautiful and 
 well-preserved fossil shells, the very look of which 
 suggests recent tropical or warm temperate species. 
 At Hordwell and Barton cliffs these beds are about 
 300 feet thick, and often full of the most lovely 
 fossils, such as Rostellaria, Vcluta, Typhis, and large 
 foraminifera, called Nummulites. 
 
 The Upper Eocene is almost wholly represented 
 in England by strata called " fluvio-marine," from its 
 associated fresh-water, brackish, and marine fossils. 
 In the Isle of Wight, at Headon, Osborne, Bembridge, 
 and Hempstead, these beds are well developed. Some-
 
 . 2l8 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 times entire hills are seen to be composed of fresh- 
 water or marine shells. Here and there remains of 
 crocodiles, turtles, &c., have been met with. This 
 upper series of Eocene beds is about 500 feet in 
 thickness. Similar strata are found in the Vienna 
 and Paris basins, and the limestones used in the 
 erection of the palatial houses in those great cities 
 are seen to be composed by the agglomeration of 
 minute shells which lived about this stage of the 
 Tertiary epoch. 
 
 The Middle Period, called Miocene, is little, repre- 
 sented in British geology, although we know it was a 
 remarkable epoch in the history of the northern hemi- 
 sphere. From the extraordinary development of the 
 strata in Arctic regions, cropping out from under the 
 ice and snow sheets, some important inferences may 
 be drawn. In Greenland, Spitzbergen, and as high 
 as eighty-two degrees north latitude, Miocene strata 
 have been found, containing seams of lignite and 
 abundance of fossil plants. Some of the latter are even 
 southerly types ; none of them could now exist where 
 they are now found fossilized. And even if they could 
 find warmth enough, we should have to strip off the 
 ice and snow which now swathe those regions. It is 
 evident, therefore, that during the Miocene period no 
 ice-cap existed at the North Pole to extend down to 
 the Arctic Circle, and the probability is that forests 
 existed beneath the very pole-star ! 
 
 Everywhere the- flora of the Miocene formation 
 speaks distinctly of a very warm climature, although 
 not a tropical one, as existing about this time. This 
 is the opinion of Professor Heer^ who has devoted his 
 life to the study of the fossil plants and insects found
 
 THE LATER LIFE OF THE WORLD. 219 
 
 in the strata of this particular age. He holds that the 
 combined evidence of the fossil flora points to a cli- 
 mate which was on an average sixteen degrees higher 
 than it is now over the same latitudes. 
 
 Flowers had by this time multiplied upon the face 
 of the earth, and many gaily-blossomed species ex- 
 panded their corollas in the warm sunshine. Butter- 
 flies, bees, wasps, ants, and even the white ants 
 (termites] abounded in places. The northern hemi- 
 sphere was now clad in a dense robe of vegetation. 
 We get a glimpse of the richness and variety of the 
 flora which adorned the world at this time from the 
 fossil plants exhumed from that wonderful storehouse 
 at Oenigen, in Switzerland. The beds containing them 
 were originally quietly deposited along the bottom of 
 an extensive fresh-water lake, and it is literally sur- 
 prising how perfectly leaves, flowers, and fruit have 
 been preserved. Every vein is still shown on the 
 leaves, by means of which we can make out even the 
 species of some of them. No fewer than eight 
 hundred species of flower-bearing plants have been 
 described from these beds alone, and about two 
 thousand species altogether, including the non-flower- 
 ing species, such as ferns, mosses, lichens, diatoms, 
 &c. Several hundred species of fossil Miocene plants 
 have come from Iceland and Greenland, others from 
 Spitzbergen, the Alaska Islands, Kamtschatka, and 
 Japan. Singularly enough the flora, as a whole, 
 whilst still possessing Australian kinds, includes many 
 which are now abundant in the Southern States of 
 North America, such as magnolias, tulip-trees, wel- 
 lingtonias, &c. The commonest of European plants 
 at this time were smilax, camphor-trees, dryandras,
 
 220 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 fig-trees, palm-trees, banksias, sequoias, gardenias, 
 vines, and laurels. 
 
 In France there were large lakes in the centre of 
 that country, where limestone beds were formed. The 
 country supported enormous quantities of wild ani- 
 mals of curious extinct types, such as anoplotheria, 
 palaotheria, tapirs, river-hogs, pigs, deer without 
 antlers, antelopes, elks, acerotheria, c., on which 
 preyed hycetwdon, anthracothcrium, &c. The car- 
 cases of these animals strewed the plains, and their 
 bones were afterwards dissolved by the agency of the 
 weather and carried by the water into the cracks, 
 fissures, and caverns which extend into the Oolitic 
 limestones beneath, where the matter has accumulated 
 in stalagmitic masses of phosphate of lime. It is in 
 these " phosphorite deposits," as they are called, in the 
 south of France, that we get a perfect museum of early 
 Miocene animals, among which we have just named 
 the most abundant, although there is proof of mon- 
 keys, lemurs, crocodiles, and huge serpents and 
 vampire bats having lived thereabouts during the 
 same period. 
 
 In England, perhaps, the only place where un- 
 doubtedly Miocene strata occur are the Lignite, or 
 brown coal beds of Bovey Tracy in Devonshire. 
 These are about 200 or 300 feet in thickness, and 
 the remains of about fifty species of Miocene plants 
 have been obtained from them ; among which the 
 chief are wellingtonias (or sequoias), evergreen oaks, 
 figs, prickly palms, cinnamon-trees, ferns, &c. In the 
 island of Mull the Duke of Argyll has described certain 
 Miocene plant-beds, which were subsequently covered
 
 THE LATER LIFE OF THE WORLD. 221 
 
 up by a stream of molten lava that issued from the 
 Mull volcanoes. One species of fern has been found 
 in these beds which has not been met with elsewhere. 
 The Miocene period is more remarkable in British 
 geology for its igneous rather than its sedimentary 
 deposits. This was, as we have before remarked, the 
 period when volcanic activity was felt for the last time 
 in the British islands. At least five or six active 
 volcanoes were then in existence in the isles of Mull, 
 Ram, EifT, Antrim, and near Edinburgh. In central 
 France a very large number (more than one hundred) 
 of volcanoes were in operation, and these now form 
 the conical hill-scenery about Clermont, which have 
 also amalgamated together the old weathered rocks of 
 the central mountains by their flows of trachytic lava. 
 Mounts Etna and Vesuvius as yet were not volcanoes ; 
 the Alps were nothing like the extensive and high moun- 
 tain-chain they no ware; lacustrine deposits of enormous 
 thickness were then forming at the base of the much 
 lower Himalayan Mountains ; whilst the Andes may 
 have been some thousands of feet lower than they are 
 now. Nearly all Great Britain was a dry land surface? 
 peopled with tapirs, three-toed horses (Hipparion\ pigs, 
 mastodons (an extinct kind of elephant), rhinoceri, 
 deer, leopards, &c., whose bones and teeth were left 
 strewn upon the bare ground ; and so when the latter 
 became depressed to form a shallow sea-floor (as it did 
 early in the subsequent period), these teeth and bones 
 were covered over by, and lay at the bottom of, the 
 next marine deposits, which are the well-known " Crag " 
 beds of Norfolk and Suffolk.
 
 222 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 THE "GREAT ICE AGE." 
 
 WE have seen the evidence afforded by the fossil 
 plants of the Eocene and Miocene periods as to the 
 higher temperature of the climate which then marked 
 the northern hemisphere. Further, we had incidentally 
 to notice that it was much higher during mid-Eocene 
 time than in the Miocene. Now we come to speak of 
 the Pliocene period, and we shall find in its earlier- 
 formed strata still further evidence of the decrease of 
 warmth, and in the later beds actually of the first indi- 
 cations of the setting-in of cold conditions ; and in the 
 Pleistocene period this cold, we shall find, has so 
 increased that Arctic, instead of tropical climature 
 characterized those areas of the Northern Hemisphere 
 occupied by the British islands ! Thus we have sure geo- 
 logical evidence, not to be gainsaid, of the pendulum- 
 like swinging of the climature from a sub-tropical state 
 in the Eocene to Arctic cold in the Pleistocene period \ 
 The latter is on this account also called the " Great 
 Ice Age," the "Glacial Period," &c. f all of which 
 betoken the geological evidence its beds afford of the 
 climature under which they were formed. 
 
 Let us speak of the Pliocene era first. It is represented 
 in the eastern counties of England by thick beds of 
 fossil shells, called "crag," at the bottom of which lie
 
 THE "GREAT ICE AGE." 223 
 
 undoubted remains of Miocene animals (as mentioned 
 in the last chapter), commingled with those of a still 
 older period, the Eocene, for the London Clay has 
 had large quantities of its own fossils worn out of 
 it by the action of the weather during the long 
 period that England was dry land. Accordingly we 
 find London Clay fossils (usually changed into phos- 
 phate), as crabs, fish, turtles, shark's teeth, wood, &c., 
 mixed up with the bones of Miocene land animals, 
 and the characteristic shells of the Crag. Some of 
 these London Clay fossils have been bored into by 
 the boring mollusca of the Pliocene seas, and in a 
 few instances the shells are still in the chambers thus 
 excavated ! 
 
 These " Crag " beds are especially interesting to the 
 young geological student ; they abound with a variety 
 of fossils, and these can be easily obtained. In some 
 of the pits you see a section of 20 or 30 feet made 
 up entirely of loose shells, corals, fish-teeth, &c., 
 any of which you can take out with the finger and 
 thumb ! The " coprolites " (as the phosphatic 
 nodules and fossils are called, most of which have 
 been weathered out of the London Clay) have been 
 much sought after in Suffolk. They are ground to 
 powder, and, when properly prepared, converted into 
 rich phosphatic manures of high fertilizing power. 
 Thus has man learned the practical art of converting 
 stones into bread ! More than one million pounds' 
 worth of these precious little phosphate stones have 
 been raised from the base of the " Red crag " since 
 their utility was first made known by Professor Henslow 
 some thirty years ago.
 
 224 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 The Pliocene period in Britain is represented by 
 three beds, called the "Coralline," " Red," and " Nor- 
 wich Crags," whose relative ages to each other stand 
 in the order their names are here placed. In the 
 Coralline Crag, which is found only in a few places 
 in Suffolk, being best developed about Orford, we 
 find there about three hundred and fifty species of 
 fossil shells which have been figured and described, 
 besides one hundred and thirty species of sea-mats 
 {some of them, as Fascicularia, of peculiar structure) 
 and numbers of fossil lamp-shells, sea-urchins, fish, 
 corals, foraminifera, &c. Peculiar bottle-nosed whales 
 (Choneziphius and Belenmoziphius) were then toler- 
 ably abundant, and their snouts are found fossil- 
 ized. 
 
 The molluscan fauna of the Coralline Crag, how- 
 ever, shows us that warmth-loving species still lived 
 in British latitudes, such as Voluta, Pyrnla, Conns, 
 Cassidaria, &c. At the same time it should be 
 stated that among the fossil shells we have an over- 
 powering abundance of the genus Astarte, always a 
 cold-loving kind. So that the sea of the Coralline 
 Crag would appear to have been affected by extremes 
 of climature ; and this is substantiated by the pre- 
 sence of large boulders of quartz, pudding-stone, 
 oolitic limestone, and flints (many of them com- 
 pletely covered by fossil barnacles) which abound at 
 the base of the Red Crags. In short, there are about 
 twenty-eight species of mollusca which we might call 
 Southern, on account of their being now found in seas 
 more to the south. For it should be remembered that 
 we now find numerous species of shells of exactly the
 
 THE "GREAT ICE AGE." 225 
 
 same kind as those still living somewhere or another 
 in these Crag beds ; and so the inferences as to 
 climate become safer. 
 
 In the succeeding Red Crag there have been found 
 about two hundred and fifty species of fossil shells, 
 besides sea-urchins, &c. Sea-mats were not now so 
 abundant. Among this list of shells we only find 
 thirteen species which are " Southern," whilst the 
 " Northern " species have considerably increased ; and 
 thus we get double evidence of the gradual refrigera- 
 tion of the climate. The third, or Norwich Crag, ap- 
 pears to have been an estuarine deposit, of the same 
 age or a little later, as that when the Red Crag was 
 formed. In the Norwich Crag, however, we find no 
 " Southern " species of mollusca at all, whilst there 
 appear actually Arctic species, in nearly Arctic pro- 
 portions; and in a higher bed (Chillesford Crag) 
 formed at a still later date, the abundance of Arctic 
 mollusca is perfectly astonishing. 
 
 Nothing could be completer than the climatal 
 changes thus indicated even by our English Pliocene 
 fossils, which are supplemented by physical and other 
 evidence ; to say nothing of the inferences so plainly 
 pointed out by the study of preceding and succeeding 
 geological formations. In Sicily, about the latter part of 
 the time our Crag beds were being slowly formed, and 
 for a long time afterwards, a great limestone formation 
 was elaborated. It is full of fossils, and among them 
 are certain species of shells which are absent in the 
 Great Britain strata, but which existed in our seas 
 whilst the Crag was formed. As the cold increased, 
 these species emigrated to the south, and took up their 
 o
 
 226 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 places in the Mediterranean, where they abounded : 
 nearly half the entire island of Sicily is covered with 
 Pliocene deposits, to the thickness of 2,000 feet. 
 Mount Etna had not then commenced its existence. 
 All the mass of volcanic material which now builds 
 it up to the height of 11,000 feet, has accumulated 
 around the vent since the close of the Pliocene 
 period. In Italy, near Florence, there was an exten- 
 sive lake, along whose floor nearly 1,000 feet of strata 
 were formed. 
 
 Near Cromer there are very high cliffs, and at low 
 water there may be seen 
 cropping out from be- 
 neath them and extend- 
 ing seaward so as to form 
 its bed, an ancient forest. 
 The tree-trunks still ex- 
 tend into the ancient 
 Skeleton of the Mastodon. soils, and the latter are 
 interstratified with 
 
 fresh-water deposits, showing there was a lake once 
 where the German Ocean rolls now. From the strata 
 of this "forest bed" (as it is called) there have been 
 exhumed the remains of yew-trees, spruce pine, 
 Scotch fir, oak, alder, birch, beside ferns, water-lilies, 
 &c. The land animals are represented by remains of 
 rhinoceros, hippopotamus, elephant (three species), 
 bear, beaver, &c. This "forest bed " is believed to be 
 about the same age (or a little later) as the Norwich 
 crag. Anyhow it is Preglacial, that is to say, it existed 
 before the extreme Arctic climature set so rigorously 
 in, for we can see the boulder clays of the cliffs rest- 
 ing upon it.
 
 THE " GREAT ICE AGE. 
 
 227 
 
 The Glacial period was the last of the great geo- 
 logical eras. It must have extended over a very long 
 
 Fossils from the " Crags " (Newer Tertiary), or Pliocene 
 Formation. 
 
 1. Ftadculana aurantiitm. 
 
 2. Littorina littorca. 
 
 3. Tubulipom. 
 
 4. Valuta Lamblrti. \ 
 
 5 . Patella aqitalis. 
 
 6. Cyprixa avdlana. 
 
 7. Scalaria similis. 
 
 8. Cardita scalaris. 
 
 9. Modiola. 
 
 10. Sulla cylindracea. 
 
 11. Saxicava rugosa. 
 
 12. Tellina crassa. 
 
 13. Nassa elegans. 
 
 14. Paludina unicolor. 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 
 
 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 Skeleton of Mammoth, or Elcphas 
 Primigenius. 
 
 time, and we have proof that the rigour of the climate 
 was more than once assuaged before the period came 
 to a close. The deposits which were then formed are 
 represented by the " boulder clays," which cover so 
 large an area of northern, midland and eastern Eng- 
 land, as well as the beds of sand and gravel with 
 
 which these boulder 
 clays are so fre- 
 1 quently interstra- 
 tified. To account 
 for the contrast- 
 able and extreme 
 changes of climate 
 which the fossils 
 of the Eocene and 
 Pleistocene or Gla- 
 cial period so plainly indicate, some have thought 
 it necessary to assume that the pole of the earth has 
 shifted, or that the earth's crust 
 has somehow slipped over its in- 
 ternal molten nucleus, so as to 
 bring different areas of the sur- 
 face alternately under the in- 
 fluence of tropical heat or Arctic 
 cold. But if the reader will turn 
 to Dr. James Croll's "Climate 
 and Time," he will there find 
 facts enough to show how no such extreme hypothesis 
 is needed, and that there are certain actual astro- 
 nomical changes to which our earth is subject, which 
 set up physical influences powerful enough to bring 
 about all the changes in climate which geology testifies 
 have really taken place. 
 
 Skeleton of Irish Elk 
 (Megaceros).
 
 THE "GREAT ICE AGE." 229 
 
 The Pleistocene or Glacial period appears to have 
 been characterised, in Great Britain at least, by three 
 remarkable series of geological operations. During 
 the era when the first set were at work a considerable 
 elevation of this country took place, and this was 
 attended by an extreme Arctic climature. Afterwards, 
 in the second era, we have evidence of a great depres- 
 sion or subsidence, when the lower part of the country 
 wascovered by a wintry sea, in which icebergs abounded. 
 During the third stage an elevation of Great Britain 
 once more took place, and the climate showed signs 
 of modification, although glaciers still filled the moun- 
 tain valleys. It is evident that these great changes 
 could not have been effected in a short space of time, 
 and there is not the slightest reason to think they 
 were otherwise than slow in their operation. During 
 the first era the hills and mountains of Wales, Cum- 
 berland, North Lancashire and Yorkshire, Scotland 
 and Ireland, stood relatively higher above the sea- 
 level than they do now. All the high land was 
 swathed in an extended ice-sheet, as Greenland is 
 at the present time. This ice-sheet was in slow 
 movement seawards, as we know is usually the case 
 with "continental" ice, and its mechanical power 
 upon the underlying rocks was so great as to crush 
 and grind them into mud. In this way was formed 
 the "till" or boulder-clay of the northern counties 
 and Scotland. Sometimes very large boulders are 
 seen imbedded in it, weighing many tons each. These 
 are always formed of rocks which naturally occur 
 further to the north, and they must have been con- 
 veyed to where we find them by some such carrying 
 agency as that of ice. However, all the boulders
 
 230 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 which are hard enough to retain them, little and big 7 
 bear marks of ice-action in scratches, polishing, etc., 
 exactly resembling those you may see at any time in 
 the heaps of rubbish brought down by the Swiss 
 glaciers. The sides of the hills and mountains, and 
 even the highest peaks of all our high lands, are still 
 scratched where the ice- sheet moved over their 
 surfaces. We always find lakes to be accompaniments 
 of mountain scenery, and many of our best geolo- 
 gists are of opinion that these are simply "rock 
 basins," scooped out by the agency of moving ice 
 where its mechanical power was greatest. Hence, 
 now that the ice has all been melted off the surface 
 these rock-basins are filled with water. At Win- 
 dermere, Ullswater, Coniston, and elsewhere in the 
 lake district of England, you may see large moraine 
 heaps around the margins, and rounded bosses of 
 rock dotting their surfaces as islands. These are 
 all of them certain marks of ice-action. The same 
 phenomena occur in North Wales and Scotland in 
 even a more marked degree. 
 
 This era of elevation was followed by one of sub- 
 sidence, and we are not without means of judging to 
 what extent the depression took place. Near Car- 
 narvon is a high hill called Moel Tryfaen, and near 
 its summit, at a height of about 1,600 feet, is 
 actually a " raised beach," from which about thirty 
 species of recent shells, mostly of Arctic kinds, 
 have been obtained. This ancient beach, therefore, 
 marks the depth to which the submergence must 
 have taken place, for we cannot suppose one hill to 
 be shifted from its place and submerged by itself.
 
 THE "GREAT ICE AGE. 231 
 
 Moreover, there are other hills in North Wales and 
 elsewhere which tell a similar tale. It was most 
 probably at this stage that the midland and eastern 
 counties were strewn with the ice-derived rubbish 
 called boulder clay. The wolds of Yorkshire suf- 
 fered dreadfully, for we find in the eastern counties 
 the upper boulder clay is crammed full of chalk 
 rubbish and oolitic boulders; and in the Cromer 
 cliffs you may see enormous masses of chalk, 200 
 feet each in length, and 30 or 40 feet thick, which 
 have been brought by icebergs to their present sites. 
 You can plainly see now where they were dropped 
 on the muddy sea-bed ; they squeezed the ooze out, 
 for all round these huge chalk boulders the crags and 
 clays are contorted and twisted in the most remark- 
 able manner. This wintry sea endured long enough 
 to strew the greater part of England with the rich 
 subsoils of sand, gravel, and clay, which now play so 
 important a part in our agricultural prosperity. 
 
 When the third stage of this period set in there 
 was a reversal of the physical conditions of land and 
 sea. Upheaval had once more set in, the wintry sea 
 gradually disappeared, until at length England was 
 joined to the rest of Europe as a continued westerly 
 extension. Similarly, Ireland was a land connection 
 of England, by way of what is now the Isle of Man. 
 The climate gradually became milder, the ice -sheet 
 slowly disappeared ; but for a long time afterwards 
 glaciers still filled the larger mountain valleys, where 
 they ploughed out the rubbish that had accumulated 
 previously, and which had not been re-arranged (as 
 was the case in Scotland and Ireland during the sub-
 
 232 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 mergence era) into those long, low lines of straths, 
 dunes, and eskers, which so plainly diversify the 
 landscape scenery of central Ireland and the plains 
 of Scotland. The course of some of the ancient 
 glaciers can still be seen. Their moraines are abun- 
 dant in all our hilly and mountainous districts. Even 
 the distribution of the Arctic plants on the slopes 
 and tops of our hilly ranges, and of the northern 
 mollusca met with in the deeper and colder parts of 
 the sea around our coasts, is only to be explained 
 by reference to the overwhelming cold of the Glacial 
 period. The woolly-haired mammoth (Elephas primi- 
 genius} and woolly-haired rhinoceros, both of them 
 then specially adapted to survive the rigours of a 
 cold climate, abounded in England, and their teeth 
 and tusks and bones are often met with in deposits 
 which were then formed. The fossil-shells imbedded 
 during the submergence stage belong mostly to Arctic 
 species; although during the warmer intervals of 
 climate to which we have already alluded other 
 species of mollusca abounded better suited to the 
 change than the Arctic and cold-loving kinds. 
 
 Thus we see that the irregular beds of boulder 
 clay, sand, gravel heaps, and detached boulders, of 
 North Wales, Lancashire, Yorkshire, Cumberland, or 
 Scotland, have a story of their own, which completes 
 the geological narrative of the extensive physical 
 changes to which our planet has been subjected 
 since it first left the hands of its Creator! Every- 
 where, even amidst what appears to be chaos and 
 confusion, there are thus evolved law and order; 
 which latter, the poet tells us, is " Heaven's first law ! "
 
 FOSSILIFEROUS LOCALITIES. 233 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 FOSSILIFEROUS LOCALITIES. 
 
 THERE is a popular saying which declares that 
 "seeing is believing." The youthful reader, whose 
 mind is struck for the first time with the romantic 
 revelations of geology respecting the antiquity of our 
 globe, and the animals and plants which formerly 
 inhabited it, but are now extinct and buried in the 
 rocks beneath our feet, is even more affected when 
 he is taken for the first time to some rock in which 
 he can see the fossils imbedded. Here is such 
 ocular demonstration as he never expected, and the 
 " hunting instinct," which is more or less strong in all 
 of us, comes out as he begins to disinter the petrified 
 organic remains. 
 
 The common idea of most geological students is 
 that fossiliferous localities are at a distance from their 
 own homes. They have never seen any of the fossils 
 they read or hear about, and so at once conclude 
 there cannot be any in their own districts. But the 
 eye brings with it the power of seeing, and it is not 
 long after a student knows what fossils are, and under 
 what conditions they occur, that he begins to find 
 them. Then a new and almost poetic halo is thrown 
 around objects formerly deemed the most common- 
 place. Pebbles are no longer accidental things, but 
 fragments of old rocks, broken off and rolled by the
 
 234 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 waves of forgotten sea-shores. A piece of coal is not 
 what it is to the vulgar eye something to burn, and 
 which costs so much a ton : it is a fragment of a 
 mineralized forest which was once waved by primeval 
 gales and breezes, and stimulated into growth by the 
 light and heat of the sun ages ago. 
 
 There are few sciences which are more dependent 
 on others than that of geology. Certainly there is 
 none which sends the young student so eagerly to 
 other sciences for assistance. The fossils he meets 
 with in the rocks are far more abundant than he 
 imagined before he began to study geology. Indeed, 
 one of the chief causes of wonder to the young 
 geologist, when his eyes are thoroughly opened, is 
 the abundance of fossil remains within the immediate 
 neighbourhood of his home, unless the latter happen 
 to be on the old granite or metamorphic rocks. He 
 wonders how it is he never noticed them before. 
 Fragments or whole specimens of fossils, animal and 
 vegetable, are constantly turning up before his eager 
 and enthusiastic eyes, either in the parent rocks or 
 in the boulder clays and drifts which have been 
 formed out of them. The very rocks of the hills 
 and mountains seem to be almost wholly composed 
 of them ; nay, the solid dry land of the globe appears 
 to have been mainly put together by the agency or 
 through the instrumentality of Life ! The abodes of 
 all living forms are on the sepulchres of the dead ! 
 Existence and extinction are strangely associated 
 together. 
 
 No sooner has the young beginner appreciated the 
 wealth of objects by which he is surrounded, or to
 
 FOSSILIFEROUS LOCALITIES. 235 
 
 which he may obtain easy access, than the first fit of 
 collecting takes possession of him. His holidays are 
 spent in fossiliferous localities ; and his leisure time 
 in reading about them, or in arranging his cabinet. 
 At length he feels the need for more knowledge than 
 he possesses about the many strange forms he comes 
 across. He has an idea they are something alto- 
 gether different from anything now existing, and a 
 feeling of something like disappointment comes over 
 him when he learns that they are constructed on the 
 same plan, and that in many instances the same 
 generic and even specific forms are still in existence. 
 This state of mind, however, soon gives way to 
 thorough admiration, for he now catches a glimpse 
 of the life-plan of the globe. He sees that, beginning 
 with the lowest and humblest of organisms, it has 
 graduated into the present fauna and flora ; that the 
 stream of life, issuing like a rill from such obscure 
 springs as are hardly descernible in the distant Lau- 
 rentian period, has been gaining in volume and depth 
 as it has passed onward, in unbroken continuity, 
 through all the succeeding ages, until it has opened 
 out in the grand ocean of existing life ! Every fossil 
 he picks up is a letter in the great stone book, and 
 many such letters, properly put together, have spelled 
 out some of the most wonderful generalizations that 
 have come before the human mind. For geology as 
 a science is peculiar in this respect, that in propor- 
 tion to the degree of intellectual labour bestowed 
 upon it, the resulting knowledge is wider and broader 
 than that afforded by any other science, except, per- 
 haps, astronomy.
 
 236 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 Geology is essentially an open-air study. It leads 
 a man into the most beautiful of landscapes, to the 
 most charming of scenery. The tame flatness of the 
 plains reveals to him comparatively little, unless coal 
 or salt mining has partly turned the earth's crust in- 
 side out, or railway-cuttings have laid open sections 
 instructive both as regards the strata and the fossils 
 they contain. Boulder-clay pits or natural tarns will 
 even here occasionally prove interesting. But to 
 study the stony science in its fulness we must " gang 
 to the hills !" There, where the heather is purplest, 
 and the atmosphere exhilarates like old wine, you are 
 most likely to read off the "record of the rocks !" 
 Healthful activity is necessarily gendered; and the 
 memory is stored with remembrances of sunny days 
 and clear skies, never to be forgotten ! 
 
 The so-called British Laurentian rocks have as 
 yet yielded no fossils, but the Cambrian formation, 
 once deemed so poverty-stricken in organic remains, 
 has lately yielded up abundance of fossils under more 
 extended and diligent observation. The richest of 
 these fossiliferous localities are in the neighbourhood 
 of St. David's, where organic remains have been dis- 
 covered in abundance by Dr. Hicks. These fossils 
 include representatives of many different groups of 
 animal life, as sponges, annelids (or worms), crus- 
 taceans (as Trilobites, Entomostraca, &c.), Brachio- 
 pods, and true mollusca. Among others we get the 
 huge Trilobite Paradoxides Davidis, nearly two feet 
 in length. The name Mennnan is given to these 
 strata, from the ancient Roman name of St. David's. 
 They form the upper part of the Lower Cambrian
 
 FOSSILIFEROUS LOCALITIES. 237 
 
 rocks. The Lingula Flags occur in the Middle 
 Cambrian, and, as their name imports, they are 
 usually rich in the fossils which give to them their 
 name, particularly in the neighbourhood of Tremadoc, 
 in North Wales. Cambrian fossils may also be found 
 in certain bands of softer slates than usual about Dol- 
 gelly, Portmadoc, Harlech, Festiniog; in the rocks 
 of Ragged -stone Hill, overlooking the Hollybush 
 Valley, in the Malverns ; in the black shale over- 
 lying this Hollybush sandstone along the Malverns, 
 where is abundance and variety of Trilobites. The 
 rocks of the Arenig mountains, in Merionethshire, 
 are in places crowded with fossils belonging to nearly 
 every kind of invertebrate animal. Many of these 
 fossil remains are but feebly preserved, and frequently 
 all the evidence of their existence is in the shape of 
 impressions or "casts." In Cumberland we have 
 strata of the same age as the Upper Cambrian rocks 
 of North Wales, and in various localities, as at 
 Dufton, Swindale, Pusgill, &c., fossils are found. 
 The Bala limestone is in places full of fossils, but 
 perhaps the best locality for them in all North Wales 
 is at Mynydd Fronfrys, near Llangollen, where the 
 young geologist may soon fill his bag with a rich and 
 varied assortment, and meantime get one of the 
 finest views in Britain as well. At Hirnant, near 
 Bala, we have another good locality for fossils ; and 
 the ardent student may find them abundantly, as 
 casts, on the top of Snowdon. 
 
 Near Carnarvon, about two miles out of the town, 
 on the road to Bedgellert, the rambler comes to where 
 the river Seiont crosses the high road, and he may
 
 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 observe that the escarpment forming the further bank 
 of the river is formed of black shales. These are rich 
 in various species of Graptolites, But perhaps the 
 best hunting-ground for these beautiful fossils is in a 
 pretty tree-shadowed gorge cut by a moutain-stream, 
 which may be found by directly ascending the 
 hill behind Low Wood Hotel, near Windermere. 
 The black slates which crop out on each side the 
 ravine and form the floor over which the stream 
 purls, are full of very pretty Graptolites, converted into 
 iron sulphite (iron pyrites), so that they look as if 
 the slates were gilded with them. At Moffat, in 
 Dumfries-shire, we have similar black shales (the 
 Graptolites are seldom or never found except in 
 black shales), in places actually crowded with these 
 interesting objects. 
 
 On the hillsides above Troutbeck, near Winder- 
 mere, the Coniston limestone may be easily found, 
 for it rises higher than the rest of the rocks, being 
 harder. It is one mass of casts and impressions of 
 all kinds of invertebrate fossils, particularly corals 
 and brachiopods. 
 
 The Silurian rocks have recently been separated 
 from the Cambrian at a different horizon than for- 
 merly ; so that many strata not long ago called 
 Lower Silurian, are now included among the Upper 
 Cambrian beds. But even under the new classifica- 
 tion, the Silurian strata proper are often very full of 
 fossils. About Wrexham, Builth, and Llandovery, 
 the Lower Silurian strata are very rich in that pecu- 
 liar fossil brachiopod called Pentamerus, and the 
 student will find it in most outcrops of the Lower
 
 FOSSILIFEROUS LOCALITIES. 239 
 
 Llandovery beds. Higher up in the series we have 
 a stratum so crowded with this fossil that it goes by 
 their name. At May Hill we may find abundance of 
 all kinds of invertebrate organisms. The Wenlock 
 beds (so called from the typical development of these 
 strata in Shropshire) are frequently very fossiliferous, 
 and especially at the place whence they derive their 
 name. Near Comvay, Plas Madoc, Pentre Voilas, 
 and notably at the flag and slate quarries about three 
 miles from Llangollen, any number of characteristic 
 fossils may be found. At the last-mentioned locality 
 the fossil Encrinites are often preserved entire 
 heads, arms, pelvis, and stems. Woolhope, near 
 Hereford, is another celebrated fossil-hunting place, 
 the organic remains being very perfectly preserved, and 
 not difficult of extraction. The Wenlock limestone 
 occurs at the place which gives to this stratum its 
 name, and this bed is perhaps the most remarkable 
 of any of the Silurian strata for its abundance and 
 variety of fossils. Wenlock Edge, in Shropshire, is 
 full of fossil corals. The same rock forms the Wren's 
 nest at Dudley, and is there so full of all kinds of 
 marine fossils, that one can hardly put the tip of 
 one's finger on an unoccupied place. 
 
 At Ludlow, near the castle, is the celebrated " Fish- 
 bone bed," a few inches in thickness, but full of the 
 small teeth, scales, &c., of small fossil fishes (chiefly 
 Onchus) almost the first to appear in the seas of the 
 globe. The "bone-bed" extends for a distance of 
 nearly forty miles. At Leintwardine, where the flag- 
 stone quarries occur, the student may purchase fossil 
 star-fish, some of them exceedingly perfect, from the 
 workmen.
 
 240 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 The localities where Devonian fossils are met with 
 lie chiefly along the southern coasts of Devonshire. 
 Thus, in the cliffs near Torquay, the observer may 
 see myriads of fossil corals in relief against the face 
 of the rock. At Newton Abbot, in the limestone 
 quarries, he may obtain trilobites, such as Bronteus, 
 characteristic of this formation ; and a rich assort- 
 ment of other organisms. Again, at Plymouth, 
 Chudleigh, Ashburton, Ipplepen, and wherever quar- 
 ries are opened in the Devonian limestone, fossils 
 may be obtained. At Pilton, Barnstaple, Ilfracombe, 
 and Lynton, in North Devonshire, in the slate, sand- 
 stone, and limestone strata, there is plentiful supply 
 of brachiopods, cephalopods, and trilobites. 
 
 The Old Red Sandstone may be regarded as the 
 lacustrine equivalent of the marine strata distin- 
 guished as Devonian. In many places in Scotland, 
 where quarries are opened in the sandstones, we may 
 obtain remains of the remarkable fishes which lived 
 during this epoch. Among other localities where 
 these fossils are to be found, we may mention Car- 
 moylie, in Forfarshire, Caithness (where the flag- 
 stones are frequently crowded with splendid and often 
 entire specimens of Osteolepis), Cromarty, Moray, 
 Nairn, and Gamrie in Banff. At Dura Den, near 
 Coupar,in Fife, a very large number of huge fossil fishes 
 have been found, and the specimens look remarkably 
 well on the surfaces of the yellow sandstones. 
 
 At Kiltorcan, in Ireland, there is a wonderful 
 abundance of the beautiful Devonian fern (Palao- 
 pteris hibernicus}, and other vegetable fossils, as well as 
 of the bivalve mollusca Anodonta. The remains of
 
 FOSSILIFEROUS LOCALITIES. 241 
 
 fishes are identical with those found in the Old Red 
 Sandstone of Scotland. 
 
 The Carboniferous formation is of immense thick- 
 ness, and as it has been much disturbed by faults, 
 and been repeatedly jerked up to the surface, it 
 occupies a very large superficial area in Great Britain. 
 Hence there are numerous outcrops of all its subdivi- 
 sions, and plenty of localities where the geological 
 student may find the characteristic fossils, animal and 
 vegetable, of each subdivision. Beginning with perhaps 
 the richest and most interesting from a palaeontological 
 point of view the carboniferous limestone, we may 
 mention the following localities as eminently rich in the 
 fossils peculiar to this stratum : Clifton, near Bristol, 
 for fossil corals ; the Eglwyseg Rocks near Llangollen 
 for brachiopods (Product*) and reef-building corals ; 
 Hafod, about a mile and a half from Corwen, where we 
 find a small "outlier" of the main mass of limestone 
 forming the Eglwysegs. This quarry is perhaps the 
 richest in Britain for number and variety of fossils. 
 Among others the collector finds the beautiful Phtllips- 
 astrea. Fossil corals are to be found in every degree 
 of development and age. Other capital collecting- 
 grounds are the outcrops of the limestone strata near 
 Castleton, in the Peak of Derbyshire, where are an 
 abundance of encrinites, brachiopods, gasteropods, 
 bivalves, cephalopods (especially Goniatites sphcericus), 
 and such trilobites as Phillipsia ; but comparatively 
 few reef-building corals. The best locality in Britain 
 for the latter is perhaps the outcrop of the car- 
 boniferous limestone on the road from Mold to 
 Denbigh, in North Wales. The very walls by the 
 roadsides are nothing but geological museums. Near 
 R
 
 242 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 Bakewell, in Derbyshire, we have an abundance of 
 encrinites, although they are not even there so 
 plentiful as a locality about a mile beyond Clitheroe, 
 in Lancashire. This locality is an excellent collect- 
 ing-ground, and at Salt Hill close by, in the shales 
 dividing the limestone masses, there may be found 
 any quantity of that small but pretty, and "last of 
 the trilobites," Phillipsia. 
 
 The Yoredale shales are often crowded with fossils, 
 nd as these shales part like a pile of cardboards, 
 and the fossils are frequently converted into iron 
 pyrites, they look as if they had been electrotyped on 
 the black surfaces. These fossils consist of Aviculo- 
 Pecten, Goniatites, Nautilus, Posidonia, &c. The best 
 collecting localities are the outcrops of these shales 
 along the banks of the streams which come down to 
 Hebden Bridge, in Yorkshire, from the high ground 
 towards Halifax. Here and there bands of black 
 limestone occur in these shales, and they are full of 
 minute and very beautiful fossil nuivalve and cepha- 
 lopodous shells. Along the flanks of Pendle Hill, 
 near Clitheroe, at Glossop, and abundantly at Lisdoon- 
 varna, County Clare (where the " spas " derive their 
 medicinal virtues from the water oozing through the 
 Yoredale shales and dissolving the sulphites out of 
 them), and in most places, indeed, where regular out- 
 crops of these strata are seen fossils may be found. 
 The lower coal-measures, near Oldham, in Lanca- 
 shire, have beds of shale overlying the true but 
 indifferent seam of coal, full of marine fossils. This 
 is unusual, for the shale stratum forming the " roofs " 
 of coal-seams are usually crowded with fossil ferns
 
 FOSSILIFEROUS LOCALITIES. 243 
 
 and when shells are present, they are generally repre- 
 sentatives of fresh-water forms, as Anthraeosia, &c. 
 But this marine character of the lower seams of coal in 
 Lancashire and Yorkshire is very general. Among 
 the most notable of the fossils found there, often in, 
 great perfection and abundance, and usually in the 
 condition of impure iron pyrites, is Goniatites Listen. 
 
 We can hardly go to the many coal-pits, and 
 examine the hillocks of shales pitched out, either in 
 sinking the shafts deeper or in taking down the 
 roofs, without finding an abundance of fossil ferns, 
 club-mosses, molluscs, and fishes. In the neigh- 
 bourhood of Manchester, as at Bolton, Clifton, Ash- 
 ton, Woodley, Hyde, &c., fossil ferns are very abun- 
 dant and beautifully preserved; as are also the 
 Calamitesi, Sigillaria, Lepidodendron, &c., together 
 with their catkins or Lepidostrobus. In a quarry on 
 the road between Manchester and Bolton, at Peel 
 Delph, the sandstone rock looks like a huge plum- 
 pudding, it is so abundantly stocked with the fossil 
 fruits of a coniferous tree allied to the Salisburia 
 from Japan. These fruits are of a three-cornered 
 shape, and have long been known by the name of 
 Trigonocarpum . 
 
 Fossil bivalve mollusca (Anthracosia, &c.) are 
 very numerous near Hyde and Wigan, where they 
 form bands. At Carron, in Scotland, these shells 
 have been converted into carbonate of iron, and the 
 celebrated " Black band " ironstone is therefore 
 nothing but a seam of these chemically-altered fos- 
 sils. Near St. Helen's, in Lancashire, and in many 
 parts of the North Staffordshire coal-field, but par- 
 R 2
 
 .244 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 ticularly near Longton, the shales abound in fossil 
 fishes. In the little iron-stone nodules found among 
 the shales on the refuse -heaps the student may pos- 
 sibly find an entire specimen, if he break the nodule 
 open properly. In similar nodules found among the 
 shales near the mines at Coalbrook-dale, in Shrop- 
 shire, fossil king-crabs have been discovered. The 
 neighbourhood of Newcastle is rich in fossil ferns ; 
 and at Jarrow colliery, in Ireland, some very remark- 
 able remains of amphibians are occasionally ex- 
 humed. 
 
 The Permian rocks are richest in fossils near 
 Tynemouth, where Productus horridus is to be found. 
 At Collyhurst, Manchester, during excavations for 
 the erection of house, &c., the Permian marls are 
 laid open, and an abundance of Schizodus, &c., may 
 there be picked up. 
 
 The New Red sandstone will yield the student very 
 vivid impressions of foot-prints at Storeton quarry, 
 near Birkenhead ; at Lymm, in Cheshire ; at Elgin 
 and Lammermuir, in Scotland. In the neighbour- 
 hood of Leicester, in the upper Keuper beds, may 
 be got pseudomorphs of rock-salt cubes, sun-cracks, 
 impressions of rain-drops, &c. 
 
 The Rhsetic strata are full of fossils, especially in 
 the well-known section at Aust, on the Somersetshire 
 side of the river Severn, nearly opposite Chepstow, 
 where the beds may be seen resting on those of the 
 New Red sandstone. Masses of the Rhsetic rock lie 
 at the base of the cliffs, and at low water the student 
 may here hammer out an abundance of teeth of 
 Bybodus, Acrodus, Saurichthys, &c., as well as such
 
 FOSSILIFEROUS LOCALITIES. 245 
 
 characteristic shells as Pecten valoniensis, Ostrea 
 Liassica, &c. Lower down the estuary, on the other 
 side, at Penarth, near Cardiff, the headland is com- 
 posed of Rhaetic strata, and there also may easily be 
 disinterred a rich collection of fossil remains. 
 
 The Lias strata (as well as the Oolitic) run across 
 England in a broad diagonal band, extending from 
 the Yorkshire to the Dorsetshire coasts. The Lias 
 often underlies flat ground, because its soft shales 
 easily weather down. In such places no fossils will 
 be found, except where deep excavations have been 
 made. In the neighbourhood of Leicester, as at 
 Barrow-on-Soar, Loughborough, &c., pits have been 
 sunk in these strata to get at the bands of argillaceous 
 limestone which are met with in the shales. There 
 a rich harvest of remarkable fossils may be reaped, 
 such as entire heads of Ichthyosauri, perfect speci- 
 mens of ganoid fish, as Dapedius, &c., and Ammo- 
 nites in abundance. In the escarpments of harder 
 and generally limestone rocks which overlie these 
 plains, a greater number and variety of Lias fossils 
 may be more easily obtained ; and where these strata 
 form sea-cliffs, as at Whitby, in Yorkshire, and Lyme 
 Regis, in Dorsetshire, enormous numbers of Ammo- 
 nites, Nautili, Belemnites, Pectens, Avicula, &c., are 
 easily exhumed. 
 
 The Oolite is a very various formation, and each 
 of its rock varieties is more or less marked by 
 peculiar fossils. This is noticeably so in the lower 
 Oolite, where we have zones containing each pecu- 
 liar Ammonites. Near Cheltenham, Middlesbrough, 
 Scarborough, Northampton, Bath, and throughout
 
 246 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 Lincolnshire, these beds extend, and they are very 
 generally rich in fossils. As a great many excava- 
 tions have been made in them, either to extract iron- 
 stone, limestone for burning into mortar, or building- 
 stones, it follows that there are more than usually 
 numerous advantages offered to the young geologist 
 in an " Oolitic " country to see sections and obtain 
 fossils. Among the best places in England where 
 Oolitic fossils can be obtained we mention the fol- 
 lowing : Dundry Hill, near Bristol ; Gristhorpe, 
 near Scarborough (for fossil ferns, &c.); Stonesfield, 
 at the slate-quarries ; Collyweston, near Stamford ; 
 Cheltenham, and many parts of Gloucestershire, but 
 particularly the neighbourhood of Stroud, Cirences- 
 ter, Tetbury, and Minchinhampton ; neighbourhood 
 of Northampton (in ironstone) ; Chippenham, Hart- 
 well, Tisbury, Portland, Isle of Purbeck, &c. At 
 these various places the fossils of the different sub- 
 divisions of the Oolitic system may be obtained. At 
 Burton Bradstock we shall find an abundance of 
 superior Oolitic fossils. Stonesfield, in Oxfordshire, 
 has long been famous for its fossil plants, corals, 
 echinoderms, mollusca, fishes, reptilian, and even 
 mammalian remains, and these are usually well pre- 
 served on the surfaces of the flaggy slates. The 
 latter are quarried in the Evenlode valley, at Sars- 
 den, Woodstock, Sevenhampton common, and Eye- 
 ford. On Minchinhampton common we may find 
 an abundance of fossils of the Great Oolite, and also 
 near the Seven Springs, North Leach, Burford, and 
 Sherborne Park, in Gloucestershire. In the Port- 
 land beds we have the largest of fossil Ammonites,
 
 FOSSILIFEROUS LOCALITIES. 247 
 
 some of them being three feet in diameter. In the 
 "dirt beds" (ancient soils) found intercalated amid 
 the Purbeck beds we have fossil trunks and stools of 
 coniferous and cycadeous trees, the latter of which 
 are better known among the workmen by the name 
 of "Crows' nests." 
 
 The Wealden strata require to be worked by some- 
 body living on the spot for many fossils to be found. 
 The wandering geologist may, however, meet with 
 the remnants of fossil wood, and even reptilian re- 
 mains, at the junction of the Hastings sand and 
 Weald clay, as at Crickfield, where we have dis- 
 interred the teeth of Iguano'don. Near Battle we come 
 across the lower beds of the Wealden series, so full 
 of fossil shells as often to form flaggy limestones. 
 The Tilgate stone has been celebrated for its yield of 
 fossil reptilian remains ever since the days of Dr. 
 Mantell ; and Mr. H. B. Woodward tells us, that " it 
 becomes a regular bone-bed in places." At various 
 localities in Sussex, where the Weald clay occurs, 
 there are beds of fresh-water shells, chiefly composed 
 of Paludina, which are popularly known by the name 
 of " Sussex Marble." These "marbles" are worked 
 near Biddenden, Staplehurst, Crowhurst, Chidding- 
 fold, Betworth, Bethersden, and Laughton ; and the 
 young geologist may obtain any number of these 
 beautiful fossils at the above localities. At Horsham, 
 Itchingfield, West Grinstead, &c., the beds of calca- 
 reous sandstones are not only ripple-marked, but im- 
 pressed with the feet of Iguanodon, As the pedes- 
 trian walks from Hastings to Battle Abbey, along 
 what was anciently a Roman road, he may easily
 
 248 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 perceive, from the ripple-marked flagstones of the 
 causeway, that he is walking over the shallow portions 
 of the delta where the Wealden strata were originally 
 deposited. 
 
 The lower cretaceous beds are in places crowded 
 with peculiar fossils, and, as a rule, they are in such 
 an excellent state of preservation that few look better 
 in the cabinet. As a rule, also, they are not difficult 
 to extract. In the neighbourhood of Farringdon we 
 find an area covered by the well-known "Sponge- 
 gravel," in which is an abundance of such genera of 
 fossil sponges as Afanon, Verticillipora, Scyphia, 
 &c. In Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire the lower 
 Green Sand is worked for " coprolite" stones ; and 
 there we find an abundance of phosphatized shells, 
 teeth, bones, wood, &c., nearly all of them derivative, 
 however, and chiefly from the Wealden and Oolitic 
 strata. The Gault clay preserves the fossils beauti- 
 fully, and the Ammonites, B acuities, Hamites, &c., are 
 frequently quite iridescent when first laid open to the 
 view. Not unfrequently the cephalopod shells are 
 converted into iron pyrites. 
 
 Folkestone and the neighbourhood have long been 
 noted for the abundance of these fossils. At Hun- 
 stanton, in Norfolk, there is a band of bright red 
 chalk, overlaid by the white chalk, which causes the 
 cliff to assume a very well-marked and easily-identi- 
 fied appearance out at sea. This red chalk is believed 
 to be of the same age as the Gault. It contains many 
 of the same kind of fossils ; among others, numbers of 
 the small Belemnites minimus. The Upper Green 
 Sand in the Isle of Wight, and elsewhere, contains
 
 FOSSILIFEROUS LOCALITIES. 249 
 
 plenty of fossils. The most beautiful of all, however, 
 are perhaps those obtained from the white chalk. 
 They consist of fossil fishes, often most beautifully 
 preserved, but requiring much time and patience to 
 develop them, as the reader will see from Dr. 
 Mantell's very full instructions as to how to proceed 
 in this matter. The chalk of Sussex, Isle of Wight, 
 and Kent, may be studied for signs and tokens of 
 fossil fish wherever there is a quarry, and remains 
 (chiefly teeth) of the large marine lizard Mososaurus. 
 Everywhere there are to be obtained any number of 
 bivalves (Pecten, Spondylus, Inoceramus, &c.); as well 
 as brachiopods (Terebratula carinata, T. obesa, Rhyn- 
 chonella, &c.), and Belemnites. Star-fishes, Anan- 
 chyteSj Micraster, &c. In the white chalk near 
 Norwich the latter are very abundant, and may 
 always be obtained of the lime-burners at the pits, or 
 dug out of the solid face of the chalk by the student 
 himself. 
 
 The heaps of flint nodules excavated from the 
 chalk and thrown aside in heaps, to be subsequently 
 broken up, should always be carefully looked over by 
 the student, for there are very often beautiful fossil 
 shells and simple corals (as Parasmilia, &c.), im- 
 bedded in the flint, evidently when the latter was in 
 a soft state. At Margate, Ramsgate, Dover, Croydon, 
 Oxstead, Marden, Purley, Kenley, and elsewhere, 
 may be obtained Micraster, Jfolaster, Galerites, 
 Ammonites, &c. 
 
 The Tertiary strata are all well represented in Great 
 Britain, with the exception of the Miocene. In the 
 London Clay we have the island of Sheppy, in places
 
 250 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 a mass of fossil palm fruits (Nipadttes), and many 
 other fossils. In the plastic clay at Peckham is the 
 Paludina bed, so called because full of that shell. 
 
 At the Charlton chalk-pits, close to the railway 
 station, there may be obtained not only quantities of 
 Cretaceous fossils, but also many from the Lower 
 Eocene beds which may be seen capping the chalk. 
 
 The London clay is of course the chief and most 
 important member of our English Eocene formation, 
 being 500 feet in thickness. In certain places an 
 extensive variety of fossils may be dug out ; but 
 Sheppy is undoubtedly the best locality. Near 
 Harwich large Nautili, and the carapaces of huge 
 turtles are frequently found. At Bognor, in Sussex, 
 fossils can be collected, as well as in the Isle of 
 Wight, in Alum and WhiteclifTe bays. At Studland, 
 Poole, Alum Bay, and Bournemouth (but especially 
 at the latter place), there are " Leaf-beds," from which 
 remains of many kinds of subtropical land plants have 
 been extracted. At Bracklesham Bay, in Sussex, and 
 also in the cliffs at Alum Bay, there are beds crowded 
 with Cardita and Turritella. Barton and Hordwell, 
 in Hampshire, yield most beautiful fossil marine 
 shells, such as Rostellaria, Valuta, Typhis, Crassatella, 
 &c. At Headon, Osborne, Bembridge, East Cowes, 
 and elsewhere in the Isle of Wight, the student may 
 easily obtain a most varied collection of fresh-water, 
 brackish, and marine mollusca, of Upper Eocene age. 
 
 The Miocene beds of Bovey Tracey will hardly 
 repay the student, and even if he should obtain any 
 fossils thence, it is probable he would be disappointed 
 at their being so badly preserved. In Suffolk, how-
 
 FOSSILIFEROUS LOCALITIES. 251 
 
 ever, underlying the Coralline as well as the Red 
 Crags, are roundish or oval masses of sandstone, 
 locally known as " Box-stones," used for mending 
 the roads with. These are broken up and rounded 
 fragments of an Upper Miocene or very early Pliocene 
 stratum, which still extends unbroken beneath many 
 parts of Belgium. The geologist finds many fossils 
 in these Box-stones, and they are most abundant 
 about Felixstowe and Foxhall, near Ipswich, in 
 Suffolk. 
 
 The " Crag " beds are famous collecting-grounds 
 none better. To geologize in a crag-pit is like exa- 
 mining the bed of the sea after the water has been 
 drained off. The young student soon fills his boxes 
 with sharks' teeth, corals, univalve and bivalve shells, 
 &c., wherever the crag crops out. The fossils can 
 be extracted almost with the finger and thumb, and 
 thirty or forty species be obtained at almost any pit 
 in little over an hour. The Crags are three in num- 
 ber the Coralline, Red, and Norwich. The best 
 places for obtaining the fossil polyzoa (formerly called 
 Corallines) from the first-mentioned deposit are at 
 Aldborough, Sudbourne (especially at the pits near 
 Sir Richard Wallace's Park), and around Oxford 
 generally. The Red Crag has a much larger exten- 
 sion ; and as phosphatic nodules, called " coprolites," 
 are worked from it at its base, a good many sections 
 are opened between Ipswich and Felixstowe. Many 
 men are employed at these pits, from whom teeth of 
 deer, rhinoceros, tapir, fragments of Mastodon, &c., 
 may be purchased. The shells are particularly abun- 
 dant, especially Pectunculus, Astarte, and the famous
 
 252 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 left-handed red whelk, Fusus contrarius. The best 
 localities for getting Red Crag fossils are at Bentley, 
 Foxhall, and Bucklesham, near Ipswich ; and at 
 Butley, Waldringfield, Kirton, Falkenham, Nacton, 
 and Felixstowe. At the latter place the crag forms 
 steep cliffs, full of shells, fifty feet high. 
 
 The Norwich Crag has two beds, an upper and 
 a lower, the former being remarkable for the large 
 number of Arctic mollusca it contains. This upper 
 bed is best seen, and the largest number of fossils 
 can be got out of it, at Chillesford, near Orford, in 
 Suffolk. At Aldeby the shells are most beautifully 
 preserved, the bivalves being usually both together, 
 and the mollusca occupying the same position in the 
 sand-bed as when they were alive. At Bramerton, 
 Postwich, and Thorpe, near Norwich, the bed of crag 
 bearing the latter name is finely developed, and 
 abundance of Pliocene shells can be obtained. At 
 Wroxham, Sherringham, and elsewhere in Norfolk, a 
 shell-bed of later date occurs, in which we find large 
 numbers of the still living Tellina Balthica, 
 
 The Boulder-Clay beds rarely contain fossils of their 
 own, but the student can always find abundant in- 
 terest in them, by collecting the different kinds of 
 rocks brought as boulders, noticing whence they have 
 come from, their parent sources, what is their minera- 
 logical composition, whether they are scratched and 
 striated by glacial action, &c. Researches of this 
 kind in the boulder clays are much wanted, and it is 
 good work, in which every young collector might be 
 profitably engaged.
 
 CONCLUSION, 253 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 AT the close of the Glacial epoch Great Britain was 
 not a group of islands, but a part of the European 
 continent. It was at this stage that the animals and 
 plants which are now indigenous took possession of 
 the area and spread themselves over it, so that when 
 the separation from the continent took place which 
 split our country up into islands, the same fauna and 
 flora had been distributed as was common to Europe 
 generally. The only difference was that not quite 
 so large a number of species had been spread. Our 
 fresh-water fish, worms, mollusca, etc., are the same as 
 those of continental rivers, and it is evident these 
 could not have crossed the salt sea, but must have 
 spread before England and Ireland became islands. 
 It was probably about the end of what we may call 
 the " continental era " of Great Britain that MAN 
 first made his appearance. There is every geological 
 reason for believing that he was in possession before 
 the "island era" of our country began. That the 
 splitting-up of Great Britain into islands is of a geo- 
 logically recent occurrence we have every fact to 
 assist us in believing. All round our coasts there are 
 submerged forests, many of them far out at sea where 
 the water is shallow. We may still see their ancient 
 soils. The trees in many places are now extend- 
 ing their aged roots where they once grew. It is 
 evident that if we were to elevate the sea-bed so as 
 to raise these ancient forests high enough above the
 
 254 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 level of the sea to enable them to grow, we should 
 not only make the seas which girdle our shores 
 shallower, but actually convert their beds into dry 
 land, and thus once more establish continental 
 conditions ; for there are few places in the German 
 Ocean deep enough to cover the ball on the top of 
 St. Paul's Cathedral, were that edifice placed in the 
 sea ! The same is true of the Irish Sea. 
 
 It would seem as if man first made his appearance 
 in our country in the sav.age state. His flint imple- 
 ments are found imbedded in the river gravels off 
 the then larger streams in whose waters he probably 
 fished. The earliest of these implements are very 
 rudely chipped (palceolithic), but we can see they are 
 weapons ; and they gradually pass into the more 
 elegantly-cut and chipped and polished weapons of 
 a later date (neolithic) by almost imperceptible de- 
 grees. Caves and holes of the earth then sheltered 
 man from the pitiless blast. The hyaena, cave bear, 
 woolly-haired mammoth, and hairy rhinoceros were 
 his congeners ; and it is possible that some of them 
 owe their local, and perhaps entire, extinction to the 
 vigour with which they were hunted down by the 
 new-comer. The snows gathered thick and deep in 
 winter months, although the glaciers no longer slid 
 down the valleys, and the natural streams swelled 
 when they melted, and carried down quantities of 
 mud, sand, and stones. In this manner the alluvium 
 of our rivers was spread out in sheets and layers 
 wherever the ground was flatter than usual. River 
 gravels banked up the sides of the streams in terraces, 
 and as the weather gradually became milder, and the 
 volume of water carried down by the streams smaller,
 
 CONCLUSION. 255 
 
 the rivers shrank within narrower limits, and so left 
 their old banks (terraces) high and dry. 
 
 Now took place that gradual depression of the low- 
 lying, marshy plain, long characterized by boggy 
 morass and stagnant tarns, which lay between the Nor- 
 folk and Suffolk coasts and Belgium. A tributary of 
 the Thames had probably flowed northerly across this 
 monotonous swamp, in that deep submarine valley 
 which is marked on the Admiralty charts as the 
 " Deep Water Channel." All this plain, as it sank, 
 was encroached upon by the waters of the North 
 Sea, whose abysmal depths show us plainly the 
 length of time it has existed as an ocean. In this 
 manner the sea gradually gained on the flat marshes 
 until at length England was separated from the Con- 
 tinent. It is very probable that a similar geographical 
 change had detached Ireland from England just be- 
 fore, and the reader will find the reasons for arriving 
 at this conclusion in the study of the relative distri- 
 bution of animals and plants towards the west. 
 
 Well, and rightly, have geologists distinguished the 
 epoch when MAN makes his appearance as the 
 Quaternary. All those physical changes we de- 
 nominate pre-historic have occurred since he took 
 possession of the globe. Written history only goes 
 authoritatively backward a few thousands of years, 
 and even then we find a few comparatively civilised 
 nations existing. All the rest, Britons among them, 
 were sunk in the very depths of savagery and bar- 
 barism. A few thousand years backward still, and 
 how low must have been the condition of humanity. 
 A few thousand years onward, since written history 
 commenced, and what a marvellous progress !
 
 256 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 One cannot study this geological life-scheme of 
 our globe, badly put together though it is on account 
 of the necessary imperfection of the record, without 
 seeing a unity of plan throughout. The last geologi- 
 cal epoch which preceded the appearance of man, put 
 the finishing touches to the surface of our old planet. 
 The stones had been formed that should build man's 
 house, the coals had been stored away that should 
 warm his hearth, the metals had been segregated 
 into veins, or gathered into pockets ; the animals 
 and plants of the world had been broken up and dis- 
 tributed over zones and into regions never occupied 
 before And now the subsoils of the temperate 
 regions, where civilization should hereafter be best 
 and most highly developed, where Christianity could 
 be established and join civilisation hand in hand in 
 issuing forth to the uttermost parts of the earth 
 had been prepared by the formation of clays and 
 sands unknown before, so that such highly-favoured 
 regions are now best able to support the nations whose 
 leisure can be devoted to loftier and nobler engage- 
 ments ! The words of the inspired writer fitly express 
 the conclusions arrived at by the reverent geologist : 
 " God Himself formed the earth and made it ; He 
 hath established it ; He created it not in vain, He 
 formed it to be inhabited." 
 
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