was detained in the gulf by a storm which lasted three days.* It is bounded by the coasts of five departments; the Eastern Pyrenees, the Aude, the Herault, the Gard and the Bonches du Rhone. Four bays are formed by the coasts in the department of the Var; namely, the bays of Cavaleire, Grimaud, Napoule and Juan. BOOK CXLI. It is unnecessary to mention all the islands near the Islands. coasts of France; Jersey and Guernsey are more important than any others in the channel, but as they are under the protection of England, they shall be described in the account of that country. The isle of Ouessant on the coasts of the ocean is surrounded by other smaller islands of the same name, and lined with rocks, which render the approach dangerous. It may be equal to two square leagues in superficial extent; the soil is by no means unfruitful. Groaix, a more productive island, is chiefly inhabited by fishermen. Belle-Isle, about four leagues in length, and two in breadth, yields rich pasturage. Mourmoutiers, equal to four square leagues in extent, is peopled by industrious inhabitants. Yeu is formed by a granite rock, covered with a light stratum of vegetable mould; the surface occupies the space of nearly six square leagues. The isle of Re, about five leagues long, and fifteen in circumference, is bounded by rocks on the north and the west. The land is ill provided with wood, and unfruitful in corn; the wealth of the inhabitants consists chiefly in the produce of their vineyards. Oleron, an island of considerable importance, is about six leagues long, and two broad; its salt marshes are very valuable. Camargue, an island on the Mediterranean, is formed by the alluvial deposits brought down by the Rhone; with the exception of a large marsh, the soil affords excellent pasturage. The Hyeres, of which the principal islands are Porquerolles, Port-Croz, Bagneaux and Titan, stretch to the distance of seven leagues from cast to west; they are fruitful in oranges and in different aromatic plants. The Lerins or the islands of St. Marguerite and We may mention the testimony of William of Nangis, a monk of the thirteenth century, and a biographer of St. Lewis. "Mare Leonis nuncupatur, quod semper est asperum, fluctuosum et crudele." See also Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, tom. xii. p. 210. BOOK Corsica. Geology. ry remarks. St. Honorat are encompassed with quicksands, and almost uninhabited. Corsica is situated on the south-east of the Lerins; from its importance it may be necessary to enter into some details concerning it. The island is partly covered with mountains, forming a group which a French geographer has denominated the Sardo-Corsican, because it is the continuation of a range in Sardinia. The group consists of the chain of Caona on the south, the mountains of Cagnone in the centre, the Frontogna heights on the north-west, and the Titime on the north. Different counterforts or branches connected with these chains, enclose numerous valleys or small basins. The seven of most consequence are those watered by the Tavignano and the Golo on the east, and the valleys of the Valinco, the Taravo, the Gravone, the Liamone and the Fango, which descend towards the western declivities of the island. None of these rivers are navigable. Several marshes are situated on the eastern coast, the largest or the Biguglia is nearly eight miles in length. The chain of Titime terminates at Cape Corsica on the north, the most important of any in the island. The mountains that descend on the western side, enclose many bays and several gulfs, among others, the gulfs of Valinco, Ajaccio, Porto and St. Florent. Other islands are situated near Corsica, but all of them are very small. Before we proceed to examine the soil in the different Prelimina- parts of France, it may not be out of place to, make some remarks relative to the geology of the country. rocks or such as are anterior to the appearance of organic matter, are scen on the declivities of the Pyrenees and the Alps, but the granite in the former is less ancient than the granite in the second. Granite masses support volcanic summits in the Cevennes proper, and particularly in Cantal and Mount Dor. The granite in the Ceveno-Vosgian group disappears in the neighbourhood of Avalon, and is seen anew at the two extremities of the Vosges, in other words, at the sources of the Moselle, and in the vicinity of the Ardennes. The same rocks prevail in the Armorican range, *See Tableau des Montagnes by M. Brouguere. forming the crests of the small basins, watered by the feeders of the Loire, and covering almost all the surface in the departments of the Lower Loire, Morbihan, Finistere, the Cotes-du-Nord, the Ile-et-Vilaine and the Manche. BOOK CXLI. sandstone. From the remains of granite rocks, triturated and unit- Ancient ed by the action of water, are formed the masses of ancient sandstone which extend near the frontiers of the kingdom. But at the time that their molecules were cemented, continents existed, for in their inclined strata are found vegetable remains. Extensive deposits of the same rocks are situated at the base of the Cevennes, on the banks of the Tarn in the neighbourhood of St. Etienne, near Brives, in the territory of Bourbon-Archambault, on the banks of the Cher and the Auron. The same rocks bound the Vosges on the west and south, they form their summits from the sources of the Sarre to the base of Mount Tonnere, and appear again on the banks of the Moselle in the vicinity of Sierck. The ancient ocean has left traces of its existence in Saline deposits. every country on the earth; as its waters became gradually lower, calcareous strata or beds of sea salt, were deposited in the declivities of the heights which have been already indicated, and in basins of which the limits are still apparent. d'Or rocks on The whole chain of Jura may be considered the highest Calcareous region of these deposits, which are supported on the south Jura. by the base of the Lower Alps, the Cevennes and the Pyrenees, and on the east by the base of the High Alps, and form on the right of the Saone, the mountains of the Charollais, the Cote and the heights of Langres. The same deposits become lower towards the Mediterranean, and their declivities extend in the direction of the channel, occupying a zone, which may be traced from the banks of the Tarn to Valogne and the neighbourhood of Cherburg; they form the ridge of the Ardennes, terminate at the sources of the Serre, and re-appear in the vicinity of Boulogne-sur-Mer. But a second series of sediments is found on these lands, Chalk deposits. exhibiting in the south of Angouleme and Perigueux, and BOOK Ancient reptiles. Higher deposits. at the distance of some leagues to the north of the Garonne, the calcareous substances which belong to the chalk formation. It might be said that they have been accumulated in the depths of vast Caspian seas, of which the remains on the banks of the Dordogne, the Ille, and the Charente, extend and are lost in the ocean, where they form the island of Oleron. Another deposit, much greater than the last, occupies an immense basin, which, in its irregular windings, stretches into England, terminating on the west towards a branch of the hills, that diverges from the Armorican chain. to the Loire, where it forms the regular schistus of Angers; the same deposit extends on the south towards the heights of Gatines, the ridge of Issoudun, and the hills near Bourges, on the east towards those of Auxerre, and the heights of Langres and the Ardennes, on the north beyond the Baltic. The animals that existed in these Caspian seas, differed wholly from any that now frequent the ocean. Among those that the naturalist considers the most remarkable, are large reptiles, which may be compared to monsters engendered in the imagination, exhibiting the singular spectacle of a head like a dolphin's with the teeth of a crocodile, placed at the extremity of a long neck consisting of eighty vertebræ, and attached to the body of a lizard. The remains of the marine reptiles, called Ichtyosauri, have been found in the blue marl near Honfleur, and other animals, the Plesiosauri, not unlike lizards, and about nine feet in length, have been collected near Boulogne and Auxonne. A third animal, to which a French naturlist has given the name of Teleosaurus Cadomensis,* resembles in some respects the crocodile; it is found in the quarries near Caen. At a period subsequent to the formation of the chalky basins, which cover a great part of Champagne, Normandy, Touraine, Picardy, and Artois, the traces of smaller seas have been left in France. These traces may be discovered wherever there are beds of coarse limestone, such as the kind used for building in the neighbourhood of Paris, or * M. Geoffroy de St. Hilaire. wherever there are deposits similar to the strata beneath the same rocks. The smallest of these Caspian seas, if they may be so called, covered the country now watered by the Rhone in the lower part of its course; it may be traced into the departments of Herault, Gard, Vaucluse and Bouches du Rhone. Another and a somewhat larger sea was situated on the north of the former, and bounded by the declivities of Jura, those on Cote d'Or, and the heights of Charolais. The basin which it formed, reaches from the north of Dijon to the south of Valence. A third of still greater dimensions, covered almost all the surface in the departments of Tarn, Upper Garonne, Gers, Landes, Gironde, and lastly, Lot-et-Garonne. But the largest of them all extended over the Loiret, the Seine-et-Oise, the Oise, and partly over the departments of Aisne, Seine-et-Cher, Indre-et-Loire, and Indre. The basins of these Caspians were not drained at the same epoch. While the one on the north, the last that has been mentioned, is formed by marine calcareous strata, in which the organic remains belong to animals wholly different from any that now frequent our seas,; in the basin through which the Garonne flows, are found many shell-fish similar to others that still exist. It may be concluded from the gypsum rocks, which appear to have been formed in the depths of fresh water, that lakes succeeded the seas in the two basins round Paris and Avignon. BOOK CXLI. Graminivorous animals frequented the banks of these Ancient quadrupeds lakes, but they were part of a creation very different from the one which now inhabits the surface of the earth. Their bones have been collected, examined and compared by a celebrated naturlist,* and with the aid of a science, which was brought by the same person to a high degree of perfection, their forms have been discovered. It was in the strata of Montmartre, Belleville and Montmorency, in the quarries of Aix, in the calcareous marl near Orleans, and on the Rhenish limits of France, that the bones of these ancient animals were found. From their particular conformation and the marked characters which distinguish them from M. Cuvier. See Recherches sur les Ossemens Fossiles, 5 vols. 4to. 1823. 23 |