The red notebook of Charles Darwin / edited, with an introduction and notes by Sandra Herbert.

  • Charles Darwin
Date:
1980
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Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Credit: The red notebook of Charles Darwin / edited, with an introduction and notes by Sandra Herbert. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    109/184 (page 95)
    NOTES 95 No. 53. d Sea. -A e Ъ CL С С Section of Inland cliff at Abesse, near Dax. a, Sand of the Landes. b, Limestone. c, Clay. Thomas Falkner, A Description of Patagonia (London, 1774), p. 51 : Being in the Viiulcan, below Cape St. Anthony, I was witness to a vast cloud of ashes being carried by the winds, and darkening the whole sky. It spread over great part of the jurisdiction of Buenos-Ayres, passed the River of Plata, and scattered it's contents on both sides of the river, in so much that the grass was covered with ashes. This was caused by the eruption of a volcano near Mendoza; the winds carrying the light ashes to the incredible distance of three hundred leagues or more. Lyell, Principles of Geology, vol. 3, p. 204: Some of these bones [in certain strata in the basin of the Loire] have precisely the same black colour as those found in the peaty shell-marl of Scotland ; and we might imagine them to have been dyed black in Miocene peat which was swept down into the sea during the waste of cliffs, did we not find the remains of cetacea in the same strata, bones, for example, of the lamantine, morse, sea-calf, and dolphin, having precisely the same colour. Lyell, Principles of Geology, vol. 1, p. 316: We have before mentioned the violent earthquakes which, in 1812, convulsed the valley of the Mississippi at New Madrid, for the space of three hundred miles in length. As this happened exactly at the same time as the great earthquake of Caraccas, it is probably that these two points are parts of one continuous volcanic region.... Humboldt, Personal Narrative, vol. 4, pp. 11-12: The extraordinary com¬ motions felt almost continually during two years on the borders of the Missisippi and the Ohio, and which coincided in 1812 with those of the valley of Caraccas, were preceded at Louisiana by a year almost exempt from thunder storms. Lyell, Principles of Geology, vol. 1, pp. 321-322: Syria and Palestine abound in volcanic appearances, and very extensive areas have been shaken, at different periods, with great destruction of cities and loss of lives. It has been remarked. . .that from the commencement of the thirteenth to the latter half of the seventeenth century, there was an almost entire cessation of earthquakes in Syria and Judea; and, during this interval of quiescence, the Archipelago, together with part of the adjacent coast of Lesser Asia, as also Southern Italy and Sicily, suffered extraordinary convulsions ; while volcanic eruptions in those parts were unusually frequent. A more extended comparison. . . seems to confirm the opinion, that a violent crisis of commotion never