Stanislas Étienne Meunier

“ More recently, Nature has been caught in the act; that is, fulgurites have been found in sand which was still hot, at the spot where the lightning had been seen to strike. Besides, several experimenters, as Beudant, Huchette, and Savart, have obtained tubes analogous to fulgurites by discharging the great electrical battery of the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers through beds of pounded glass, or of sand mixed with sea-salt to make it more fusible. ”

“ THE effects of lightning on the tops of mountains are often very intense. Among them have been cited such works as the transportation of large masses to a considerable distance. They also frequently include the development of high degrees of heat. ”

“ If we inclose the shell of a crawfish in a mass of lead which we then cause to pass through a flattening-mill, we can inflict upon the crustacean a malformation quite like that of the silurian trilobites. A remarkable exemplification of the changes of form which fossils contained in rocks that have become schistous have undergone is presented by the belemnites of different localities in the Alps, in cases where they have been broken into pieces and their segments have been more or less removed from each other. ”

“ We can see in them how the thin pellicle which we call the crust of the earth has yielded to strains or torsions analogous to those which the wrench has impressed upon the plate of glass, and how it has become fissured in directions coordinate to each other. ”

“ We already know that the schistous or leafy structure presented by many tracts called metamorphic must be attributed to real laminations. M. Daubrée has make experimental studies on the distortions which the forms of the fossils in the schistous rocks have undergone. The trilobites and mollusks of the neighborhood of Angers very rarely present themselves in any other than deformed shapes which seem like caricatures of the animals from which they are derived. These deformities can be perfectly imitated in experiments. ”

“ It is known that a very slight elevation of temperature is sufficient to produce chemical reactions in the depths of rocky masses. The quarry-water, with which all the rocks are impregnated, and that which finds its way to them through fissures, could give rise to reactions which might be prolonged for a protracted period. ”

“ In the operation a beard (bavure) or overflow runs out from each of the four-lateral faces, the expanding form of which, in consequence of the change of pressure, adjusts itself with the faces of the prism. The deformed mass exhibits on a transverse fractureFig. 4.—Production of the fan-shaped structure in a mass of clay forced to flow out from between two parallel plates. The horizontal pressure of the plates makes it take on first a leafy structure, then the fan-shaped structure as soon as it has passed beyond the limits of the plates. ”

“ Fulminated tubes are found principally in places where beds of sand lie upon a soil which contains water, and is consequently a conductor of electricity; for example, at certain points in Silesia, in Eastern Prussia, Poland, Cumberland, and Brazil. ”

“ These seeds appear to represent the Sigillariæ and the calamites, and some genera of the cycads and conifers. Before entering upon the account of his studies, Brongniart describes, in an introductory chapter, the periods of vegetation and the different floras that have succeeded each other on the earth's surface. "We may consider," he says, "as having been deposited during a same epoch of the creation of the vegetable kingdom, and as belonging to
Fig. ”

“ Under these constantly measuredFig. 1.—Double system of conjugate fractures developed in a plate of glass, GG, by the effect of the torsion produced by the turning-handle, TT. EE, block of wood in which the other end of the glass plate is fastened. (One sixth the natural size.) efforts he saw reproduced all the characteristic traits of the geology of regions whose strata are warped, synclinal valleys, anticlinal crests, slopes, and reversals of strata, strata in the form of C, strata in the form of S, etc. ”