On a fossil human skeleton from Guadaloupe / [Carl Dietrich Eberhard König].

  • König, Charles Dietrich Eberhard, 1774-1851
Date:
1814
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On a fossil human skeleton from Guadaloupe / [Carl Dietrich Eberhard König]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    14/18 (page 14)
    I 14 Mr. Konig on a fossil human Skeleton \ made the least progress towards a petrified state. Most of the ivory employed in Russia is derived,from the tusks of the fossil extinct species of elephant; and even the osseous re¬ mains of the plaister quarries of Paris, according to Vauque- lin's analysis, have yielded animal matter. Shells also may, - for a considerable lapse of time, escape the influence of petri¬ fying causes; a remarkable instance of which we have in the calcareous rock of Maastricht, which, together with the re¬ mains of extinct species’even of amphibious animals, encloses shells but very little altered from their original state. The attention of geologists being now directed towards this object, it may be expected that a scientific examination of the circumstances under which this limestone occurs, will not fail ere long to fix its age, and assign to it the place it is to occupy in the series of rocks. All our present information respecting the grande terre of Guadaloupe amounts to this, that it is a flat limestone country, derived principally from the detritus of zoophytes, with here and there single hills (mornes) composed of shell limestone ; while Guadaloupe properly so called, se¬ parated from the other part by a very narrow channel of the sea, has no trace of limestone, and is entirely volcanic. It is the opinion of father Labat, who is followed by Buffon, that the grande terre, of a far more recent origin than the other part of Guadaloupe, was originally a shoal covered with corals, which emerged from the deep in consequence of the retreat of the sea. Others, who have visited those parts, such as Messrs. Peyre, Hapel, Amic, &c. find in the irregularity of stratification and the tumultuous manner, in which, as they tell us, the shells are dispersed in the rocks composing the grande terre, a strong indication, that this portion of the island