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Foreign Correspondence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 March 2016

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Extract

The learned Geologist of Montpelier, M. Marcel de Serres, has just communicated to the Paris Academy of Sciences the following facts concerning the dunes, or shifting sand-hills, of the French Mediterranean coasts. These sands are first thrown upon the shore by the sea; when dry, they are carried inward by the winds, to the distance of several kilométres, covering fields and vineyards to the depth of two or three feet, suffocating vegetation, and transforming the richest cultivation into a desert waste.

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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1859

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References

page 81 note * With respect to these remarkable changes, consult the valuable work of MM. Belpaire, entitled:—De la plaine maritime depuis Boulogne jusqu'au Danemark, &c, par MM. Antoine et Alphonse Belpaire. Anvers, chez Max. Kornicker.—T. L. P.

page 82 note * Amongst others a peculiar species of “Old Man” (Artemisia maritima), Sweet-briar, some species of Solanum, Viola, Lotus, Linum, Daucus, &c.

page 82 note † See my Mémoire sur la Fécule et les subitanes qui peuvent la remplacer dans l'Industrie. Bruxelles, 1855–6, J. B. Tircher.

page 82 note ‡ Journal de la Société des Sciences Médicales et Naturelles de Bruxelles Oct. 1854.

page 82 note § On the uses of salt in agriculture, see an excellent prize essay by my friend Dr. Max. De Saive, of Brussels, founder of the Veterinary School of Medicine at Liége, entitled “Mémoire sur les usages du sel en Agricultures,” and to which the Brussels Academy awarded their gold medal some years ago.—T. L. P.

page 82 note ∥ A curious experiment was made some time since by M. Blengini, upon the effects of iodine and bromine en vegetation. Some seeds were found to germinate with astonishing rapidity if they were sprinkled over with a slight quantity of a solution of iodine, or iodide of sodium.—T. L. P.

page 83 note * M'Phun's, Weather Indicator,” dedicated to Prof Nichol. Glasgow, 1857 Google Scholar.

page 84 note * With respect to sounds resembling artillery, the utmost caution should be used, from the distance at which guns can occasionally be heard. I have distinctly heard the practice-firing at Woolwich from the downs behind Folkestone; and at that town the salutes from the forts at Boulogne, thirty-two miles off, are perfectly audible. I remember hearing, while walking on Dover pier, the low rumble of the bombardment of Antwerp by the French in 1832, the distance of which, in a straight line. I should think must be something like one hundred and thirty miles. The sounds of ships' guns are very like those described in the above article, and are audible for long distances, and the large calibre of the cannon now used increases very greatly the range of sound.

While I was sketching in Hythe church, two or three years since, the percussion of the evening guns of some men-of-war lying off Sandgate clattered the panes of glass in the windows of that fabric, which stands on a limestone-hill, and is of early English architecture, based on Norman foundations, and in good repair. These remarks are not made with a desire to invalidate the stated nature of the sounds alluded to by Dr. Phipson, and the authorities he quotes, but with the view to show the imperative necessity of the utmost caution in the observation of such phenomena.

The peculiar hollow booming of the waves on the sea-shore before a storm is too palpable to escape notice, and is generally, as far as I recollect, accompanied by a remarkable stillness, or rather silence, if I may express it, to distinguish it from any ideas of atmospheric motion,—a stillness in which the noises of various objects are unusually perfect and distinct.

The breaking of the waves when heard from behind an obstruction, such as a wall, bank, hill, or street, is sometimes not unlike the sound of guns.— ED. GEOLOGIST.

page 85 note * See also Rammelsberg, Handwörterbuch der Mineralogie (first supplement, 1843, p 102).

page 85 note † Berzelius, Jahresber, vol XV. 217 and 231; also Humboldt, Cosmos, vol. I. p. 119 et seq.

page 86 note * Mr. E. W. Binney has described the occurrence of three probably meteoric stones in the coal-measures of Lancashire. — Transact. Liter. Philos. Soc. of Manchester, vol. IX.—ED. GEOL.

page 86 note † For an account of a recent discovery of gold in the island of Bourbon, see my article in The Geologist for March, 1858.—T. L. P.