Page:Aspects of nature in different lands and different climates; with scientific elucidations (IA b29329668 0002).pdf/339

 Besides much carbonate of lime and magnesia, Madrepores and Astræas also contain some fluoric and phosphoric acids     75, 76

Oscillatory state of the bottom of the sea according to Darwin     76-79

Traditions of Samothrace. Irruptions of the sea. Mediterranean. Sluice theory of Strato. Myth of Lyktonia, and the "Atlantis broken into fragments"     78-83

On the causes which prevent the sinking down of clouds and precipitation taking place from them     83-84

Heat disengaged from the crust of the earth while solidifying. Hot currents of air which in the early ages of the earth, from frequent corrugations of the strata and elevations of land, may have been diffused in the atmosphere from temporary fissures     84, 85

Colossal size and great age of some kinds of trees; Dragon tree of Orotava thirteen, and Adansonia digitata (Baobab) thirty-two English feet in diameter. Characters cut in the bark of the trees in the 15th century. Adanson assigns to some of the Baobab trunks in Senegambia an age of between 5100 and 6000 years     86-92

Judging by the annular rings, there are yew-trees (Taxus baccata) from 2600 to 3000 years old. Is it true that in the northern temperate zone the part of the tree turned towards the north has narrower annular rings, as Michel Montaigne affirmed in 1581? Species of trees in which individuals attain a size of above twenty-one or twenty-two English feet diameter, and an age of several centuries, belong to the most different natural families     92-94

Diameter of the Mexican Schubertia disticha of Santa Maria del Tule 40-1/2 English feet; the sacred Banyan fig-tree of Ceylon almost 30; and the oak at Saintes (Dep. de la Charente Inférieure) 29-1/2 English feet. The age of the oak tree estimated from its annular rings at