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Show ~48 IMBEDDING OF TERRESTRIAL QUADRUPEDS [Ch. XV. piecemeal from the floating carcass, and may in that case be~ come scattered at random over the bottom of a lake, estuary, or sea, so that a jaw may afterwards be found in one place, a 1·ib in another, a humerus in a third-all included, perhaps, in a matrix of fine materials, and where there may be evidence of very slight transporting power in the current, or even of none, but simply of some chemical precipitate. . . A large number of the bodies of drowned ammals, If they :float into the sea or a lake, especially in hot climates, are instantly devoured by sharks, alligators, and other carnivorous beasts, which may have power to digest even the bones. But durin()' extraordinary :floods, when the greatest number of land animals are destroyed, the waters are commonly so turbid, especially at the bottom of the channel, that even aquatic species are compelled to escape into some retreat where there is clearer water, le~t they should be stifled. For this reason, as well as the rapidity of sedimentary deposition at such seasons, the probability of some carcasses becoming permanently imbedded is considerable. One of the most memorable floods of modern date, in our island, is that which visited part of the southern borders of Scotland, on the ~4th of January, 1794, and which spread particular devastation over the country adjoining the Solway Frith. We learn from the account of Captain Napier, that the heavy rains had swollen every stream which entered the Fritl1 of Solway, so that the inundation not only carried away a great number of cattle and sheep, but many of the herdsmen and shepherds, washing down their bodies into the estuary. After the storm when the flood subsided, an extraordinary spectacle was seen' on a large sand-bank, called " the beds of Esk," where there is a meeting of the tidal waters, and where heavy bodies are usually left stranded after great :floods. On this single bank were found collected together the bodies of nine black cattle three horses one thousand eight hundred and forty sheep', forty-five dog' s, one hundred and eighty hares, besl'd es Ch. XV.] BY RIVER INUNDATIONS. ~49 a great number of smaller animals, and, mingled with the rest, the corpses of two men and one woman *. In those more recent floods in Scotland, in August 18~9, whereby a fertile district, six hundred miles in length, became a scene of dreadful desolation, a vast number of animals and plants were washed from the land, and found scattered about after the .storm, around the mouths of the principal rivers. An eye-witness thus describes the scene which presented itself at the mouth of the Spey, in Morayshire. " For several miles along the beach, crowds were employed in endeavouring t~ save the wood and ~ther wreck with which the heavy rolling t1de was loaded; whilst the margin of the sea was strewed with the carcasses of domestic animals, and with millions of dead hares and rabbits. Thousands of living frogs, also, swept from the fields, no one can say how far off were observed l eap.m g among the wreck t ." ' w:e are informed b~ Humboldt, that during the periodical swelhngs of the large nvers in South America, great numbers of quadrupeds are annually drowned. Of the wild horses, for example, which graze in immense troops in the savannahs thousands are said to perish when the river Apure is swollen: before they have time to reach the rising grounds of the Llanos. The mares, during the season of high water, may be seen, followed ~y their colts, swimming about and feeding on the grass of which the top alone waves above the waters. In ~his state they are pursued by crocodiles ; and their thighs frequently bear the prints of the teeth of these carnivorous reptiles. " Such is the pliability," observes the celebrated traveller, ''of the organization of the animals which man has subjected to his sway, that horses, cows, and other species of European origin, lead, for a time, an amphibious life, surrounded by crocodiles, water-serpents, and manatees. VVhen the rivers return again into their beds, they roam in the sa van- . * T~eatise on Practical Store Farming, p. 25. t SJr T. D. Lauder's Account of the Great Floods in Morayshire August 1829, p. 3121 Second Ed, ' |