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Show PRESERVATION OF ORGANIC REMAINS [Ch. XIV. enters so largely into the alluvium and vegetable soil upon the plains of Greece, and into hard and crystalline breccias which have been formed at the foot of declivities, that it constitutes a real stratum which might, in the absence of zoological characters, serve to mark our epoch in a most indestructible manner ,y;., Imbedding of Organic Bodies and Human Remains in Blown Sand. The drifting of sand is the next cause which we may consider among those capable of preserving the remains of the inhabitants of the land during its period of emersion. W c have nlready alluded to the African deserts, as the most remarkable example of desolation produced by this cause. Innumerable towns and cities have been buried to the westward of the Nile, between the temple of Jupiter Ammon and Nubia; and it is scarcely possible to conceive a mode whereby interment could take place under circumstances more favourable to the conservation of monuments for indefinite periods. The sand which surrounded and filled the great temple of Ipsambul, first discovered by Burckhardt, and afterwards partially uncovered by Belzoni and Beechey, was so fine as to resemble a fluid when put in motion. Neither the features of the colossal figures, nor the colour of the stucco with which some were covered, nor the paintings on the walls, had received any injury from being enveloped for ages in this dry impalpable dust f. At some future period, perhaps, when the pyramids shall have perished, the action of the sea, or an earthquake, may lay open to the day some of these buried temples. Or we may suppose the desert to remain undisturbed, and changes in the surrounding sea and land to modify the climate and the direction of the prevailing winds, so that these may then waft away the Lybian sands as gradually as they once brought them to those regions. Thus many a town and temple of higher antiquity than Thebes or Memphis might reappear in their * Ann. des Sci. Nat., tome x:Xii., p. 117. Feb. 1831. t Stratton, Ed. Phil. J ourn. No. V., p. 62. Ch.XIV.] AND WORKS OF ART IN BLOWN SAND. ori(o) 'in. al inteOo 'rity , a n d a part of t 11 e g 1o om w ]u ·c h overhangs the history of earlier nations might be dispelled. Whol: caravans are said to have been overwhelmed by the Lybian sands i and Burckhardt informs us that " after passing the Akaba, near the head of the Red Sea, the bones of dead camels are the only guides of the pilgrim through the wastes. of sand.". '' We did not see, " sa ys c ap t am· L yon, speakmg of a plam near the Soudah mountains in Northern Africa, " the least appearance of vegetation; 'but observed many skeletons of animals, which had died of fatigue on the desert, and occasionally the grave of some human being. All these bodies were so dried by the heat of the sun, that putrefaction appears not to have taken place after death. In recen~ly-expired ani~als I could not perceive the slightest offensive smell ; and m those long dead the skin with the hair on it remained unbroken and perfect, although so brittle as to break with a slight blow. 'l'he sand-winds never cause these carcasses to change their places, for in a short time a slight mound is fo~med round them, and they become stationary*·" The burymg of several towns and villages in England and France by blown sand is on record; thus for example in Suffolk, in the year 1688, part of Downham was overwhelmed b sands which had broken loose about one hundred years befor:, from a warren five miles to the south-west. This sand had, in the course of a century, travelled :five miles, and covered more than a thousand acres of land t. The ruins of buildings have been found entire in the driftsand of Cornwall, as we before .mentioned, as also land-shells. One of the latter is said to belong to a species which is unkn~ wn at present in this country+· Near St. Pol de Leon, in Bnttany, a whole village was completely buried beneath driftsand, so that nothing was seen but the spire of the church §. *Travels in Northern Africa in the years 1818, 1819, and 1820,p. 83. t Phil. Trans. vol. ii., p. 722. t Vol. i., p. 301. § Mem, de l'Acad. des Sci, de Paris, 1772.-Malte.Brun's Geog. vol. i., p. 425.J |