Henri
de Saussure had the kindness to send me, and which he had extracted
from sand and gravel beds, deposited on the shores of the Lake of
Geneva, at a former period when the water stood at about two metres
above its present level. The smallest of these water-worn pebbles
of brick from Geneva resembled closely many of those extracted from
the gizzards of worms, but the larger ones were somewhat smoother.
Four castings found on the recently uncovered, tesselated floor of
the great room in the Roman villa at Brading, contained many
particles of tile or brick, of mortar, and of hard white cement;
and the majority of these appeared plainly worn. The particles of
mortar, however, seemed to have suffered more corrosion than
attrition, for grains of silex often projected from their surfaces.
Castings from within the nave of Beaulieu Abbey, which was
destroyed by Henry VIII., were collected from a level expanse of
turf, overlying the buried tesselated pavement, through which worm-
burrows passed; and these castings contained innumerable particles
of tiles and bricks, of concrete and cement, the majority of which
had manifestly undergone some or much attrition. There were also
many minute flakes of a micaceous slate, the points of which were
rounded. If the above supposition, that in all these cases the
same minute fragments have passed several times through the
gizzards of worms, be rejected, notwithstanding its inherent
probability, we must then assume that in all the above cases the
many rounded fragments found in the castings had all accidentally
undergone much attrition before they were swallowed; and this is
highly improbable.
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