Memoranda on Tours and Touraine Part 4

It moreover appears, that the species of plant which is a favourite in one district is discarded in another; and also that very celebrated wines are produced in vineyards where the species of plant is by no means held in high repute; but the most inexplicable circ.u.mstance respecting the culture of the vine, is the fact, that the most delicious wine is sometimes grown on one little spot only, in the midst of vineyards which produce no others but of the ordinary quality: while in another place the product of a vineyard, in proportion to its surface, shall be incredibly small, yet of exquisite quality, at the same time, in the soil, aspect, treatment as to culture, and species of plant, there shall be no perceptible difference to the eye of the most experienced wine grower. Possibly this may in some measure be accounted for by the peculiar nature of the substratum which the roots of the respective vines may chance to penetrate.

The grape called _caux_ or _cos_, common on the banks of the Cher, imparts colour and body to the red wines.

The best vines for the more valuable white wines, are the species denominated _sauvignon_, _semilion_, _rochalin_, _blanc doux_, _pruneras_, _muscade_, and _blanc auba_. The _semilion_ should form two-thirds of a vineyard consisting of these seven species of plants.

Red Hermitage is produced from two varieties of plants named the little and great _Scyras_. White Hermitage is produced from the greater and lesser _Rousanne_ grape.

The esteemed red wines of Saumur, are made from the _pineau_ plant. The Haut Rhin is cla.s.sed under the generic t.i.tle of the _gentil_. Some excellent black wines are produced from a grape named _cote-rouge_, as also from _auxerrois_, or _pied de perdrix_ grape, so called because its stalk is red.

The best Bordeaux wine _de cotes_ is made with the grape called _noir de pressac_, the _bochet_, and the _merlot_.

The first cla.s.s Burgundies, called _les tetes de cuves_, are from the choicest vines, namely; the _noirien_ and _pineau_, grown on the best spots of the vineyards having the finest aspect.

The black grape called the golden plant (_plant dore_,) is cultivated in all the most distinguished vineyards of Champagne, and from which is produced the finest of those celebrated wines.

The vines called the _semilion_ and _muscat-fou_ are very extensively cultivated, those most noted are the black _morillon_, of two varieties, the _madaleine_ and the vine of Ischia; the latter produces fine fruit as high as north lat. 48.

The bloom upon the grape, which so delicately tints the skin, is considered in proportion to its prevalence a proof of attention or negligence in the culture.

The age of which the vine bears well, is from sixty to seventy years, or more, but in the common course of things it is six or seven years before it is in full bearing. The vines are pruned three times before they bear fruit, when this operation is again repeated. In France the vine is propagated by layers of buds, which are taken up after the vintage, and by slips chosen from among the cuttings; vines from the latter live longest and bear most fruit, though those from the layers shoot earliest. The general method of training the vine in France, is the _tinge bas_ or low stem training, the young shoots of the year being tied to stakes from four to five feet in height.

The season of the vintage is one of stirring interest and alacrity, the merry groups of grape gatherers now to be seen in almost every field, commence their employment as early as possible after the sun has dissipated the dew, and the gathering is uniformly continued with as much rapidity as possible, if the weather continue fair, so as to terminate the pressing in one day.

In concluding this subject, we may very well exemplify the general distribution of the vegetable tribes in this part of France, by observing that merry _Bacchus_ presides over the cheerful hills, _Flora_ and _Pomona_ grace the laughing vallies and the sylvan shades, while the bountiful _Ceres_ extends her dominion over the upland plains, and the smiling prairies of the fertilizing Cher and Loire.

GEOLOGY OF TOURAINE.

_The GEOLOGY of Touraine_, being of a nature particularly worthy the attention of the scientific enquirer, we may properly close these restricted remarks, by a few cursory observations on so interesting a subject. In contemplating the geognostic structure of this department, the eye of the investigator encounters none of those strikingly bold and sublime operations of nature, almost every where to be met with in the primitive and volcanic regions of the globe.

Here with but a few solitary exceptions, the whole surface of the province presents a continuous series of rounded and gentle undulations, exhibiting to the careless glance of the un.o.bservant, and to the uninitiated, one vast h.o.m.ogeneous ma.s.s of earthy and stony materials.

But when this wide spread, and apparently uninvestigable aggregation of particles, comes under the scrutinizing _eye of science_, a beautiful and systematic arrangement of undigenous formations are clearly developed. Individually containing within themselves the marvellous and decisive evidence of their comparative existence, in their present relative positions.

Those _medallions of Nature_, the fossils which they contain not only furnishing us with a chronological knowledge of the progressive formation of the Earth's crust, but recording in language the most intelligible, what were the peculiar states, and characteristics of animal and vegetable existences at the distinct, and distant epochs of the World.

By the aid of these silent but eloquent intelligencers, we discover that the strata which now const.i.tute the table lands of Touraine, were among the last, in the whole geological series, that emerged from the waves of the Ocean. That, that grand instrument of transposition and renovation, has in a general sense, ever since been restrained within its mighty confines. And that at the time its waters last prevailed over these regions now high and dry, many of the types of living testacea, etc.

were become identical with those of existing species.

Touraine, or the department of Indre-et-Loire, may be said to be the grand repository of the _tertiary_ formations of central France. It const.i.tutes the southern divisions of the great _Paris basin_, formed by a vast depression in the chalk, and which is about 180 miles long and 90 miles broad. This cretaceous or chalk basin terminates to the south a short distance from Poitiers, where the oolites and certain other formations older than the chalk, crop out from beneath it, and thence forward, princ.i.p.ally const.i.tute the formations of the more southern departments of the kingdom: and occasionally extend to the summits of the gigantic Pyrenees.

The long range of rocky precipices often const.i.tuting rather lofty escarpments, along the northern borders of the valley of the Loire, are a portion of the extensive cretaceous formations which surround Paris.

In the vicinity of Tours and many other places where its strata are alike exposed to view, many beautiful specimens of some of its characteristic fossils may be readily obtained; this formation here also frequently contains its usual layers of flint, and which often a.s.sumes the exact form of the zoophytes, and other organic structures, into which it has percolated.

But in this locality, as also in many instances in the chalk region south of Angouleme, the mineralogical character of the formation is often completely altered, chiefly appearing as a fine white calcareous sandstone, occasionally pa.s.sing into a compact siliceous limestone, similar to the _calcaire siliceux_ of the superior freshwater limestone, but for the most part dest.i.tute of the small sinuous cavities the latter commonly contains.

This calcareous sandstone is directly succeeded, in ascending order, by the most extensive surface deposit of Touraine, termed by the French geologist, argile et poudinge; a rather thick argillaceous deposit, in which flint boulders are sometimes thickly embedded, and on which reposes the _calc d'eau douce_ or freshwater limestone, both formations belonging to the uppermost subdivision of the Parisian tertiary strata, or newer Pliocene deposits.

Immediately above the freshwater limestone just named, a series of isolated ma.s.ses occur, consisting of marine sand and marl, the whole rarely exceeding fifty feet in thickness, and containing for the most part a different and immense a.s.semblage of fossils. This tertiary formation which is provincially termed _faluns_, (broken sh.e.l.ls) is considered to belong to a period intermediate between that of the Parisian and subapennine strata, and to a.s.simulate in age to the crag formation of England, which belongs to the Miocene or middle Tertiary.

Mr Lyell who has closely examined the _faluns_[D], says that most of the sh.e.l.ls they contain do not depart from the Mediterranean type, although a few would seem to indicate a tropical climate, among these may be mentioned some large species of the genera _conus_, _terebra_, _rynula_, _tasciolaria_, _cerithium_ and _cardita_.

The species he considers for the most part marine, but that a few of them belong to land and fluviatile genera. Among the former, _helix turonensis_ (faluns Touraine) is the most abundant.

Remains of terrestrial quadrupeds are here and there intermixed, belonging to the genera mastodon, rhinoceros, hyppopotamus, deer and others, and these are accompanied by cetacea, such as the lamantine, morse, sea calf, and dolphin, all of extinct species.

Out of two hundred and ninety species of sh.e.l.ls from the _faluns_ Mr Lyell says he found seventy-two identical with recent species, and that out of the whole three hundred and two in his possession forty-five only were found to be common to the suffolk crag. Nevertheless a similarity of mineral composition, and the general a.n.a.logy of the fossil sh.e.l.ls and zoophytes, together with the perfect ident.i.ty of certain species, strongly justifies the opinion that has long been p.r.o.nounced, that the faluns of Touraine, and the Suffolk crag are nearly contemporaneous.

To this brief outline of what may properly be termed the regular stratifications of Touraine, it only remains to be stated, that they are frequently concealed by considerable deposits of alluvial and diluvian beds of flinty gravel, sand, and advent.i.tious clays, in some of which numerous specimens of the rocks and fossils to be found existing in _situ_ in the neighbourhood are interspersed.

It is almost impossible to contemplate even the comparatively scanty catalogue of geological facts just adverted to, without being forcibly reminded of the remarkable physical transformations which the surface of the country must have undergone, at distinct, and incalculably distant epochs; and to speculate on the causes which effected; and the peculiar circ.u.mstances characterizing those revolutionizing periods.

Geology, may indeed, be truly said to be an inductive science, and while pondering over its natural inferences we find ourselves most marvellously progressing through a long concatenation of pre-existing realities, which at every remove may be said to a.s.sume more and more the features of romance!

During the cretaceous period, _Touraine_ had not emerged from the Ocean, which here was probably studded with Islands const.i.tuted of the primary rocks of Brittany, and those of the older secondary formations we have noticed as now princ.i.p.ally occupying the more southern provinces. These lands, we may reasonably infer, were adorned by the luxuriant vegetation of a tropical climate, the fossil remains of which, are found abundantly dispersed throughout the first formed members of the tertiary series.

Subsequent to the deposition of the chalk, a retiring of the sea from this region, and a period of repose, are indicated by the presence of the _freshwater formation_, but on examining the overlying deposits of _faluns_, we have the most indubitable evidence, that this quiescent state, was succeeded by another irruption of the Ocean, which desolated the land, and deposited the wrecks of its animal and vegetable productions as now discovered in that formation. As yet, the geologian maintains, man had not been called into existence, and therefore the huge quadrupeds whose remains are found in the _faluns_, unmolestedly ranged through the umbrageous wilds of nature absolute Lords of the creation.

While the imagination is startled at the mystic nature of these successive cosmological revolutions, it is no less puzzled to account for the mighty causes which have effected them. The geologist however has discovered in various parts of the world, the most positive evidence of the upheaving and subsidence of immense tracts of territory, by the stupendous operations of subterranean convulsions.

At Alum Bay in the Isle of Wight we have an extraordinary and complete example of this description; in the remarkable _vertical_ position of the beautiful and variously coloured arenose stratifications of the plastic clay, we are enabled to discover that the ponderous substrata of chalk were uplifted subsequently to the deposition of the tertiary formation. And it would not be unreasonable to believe that the same, or a similar convulsion, finally raised the lands of Touraine to their present elevation above the level of the sea.

We have however in this country, as in almost every other part of the globe, the most striking proofs of the mighty modifying operations of the last grand _cataclysm_, the erosive power of whose turbulent waters have denudated or scooped out deep vallies, frequently leaving--as instanced in the faluns detached and widely scattered ma.s.ses of pre-existing formations, and heaping up their _debris_ in the vast and variously shaped acc.u.mulations designated as diluvial deposits.

These popular speculations have been touched upon rather with the view of exciting the attention of the curious, and inviting the disquisitions of the able student of nature, than a desire to attach any absolute importance to existing theories; for in a progressive science like geology, new and amazing facts are continually being developed, and it is only when an immensely increased acc.u.mulation of such existing evidences has been thoroughly scrutinized by the penetrating and comprehensive genius of a _Newton in geology_, that we can hope to arrive at any thing approaching a correct explication of its remarkable and interesting phenomena.

To the commonest observer however the present state of geology presents an astounding exposition of divine power and goodness, and distinctively marks the gigantic footsteps of that creative energy, which out of stupendous confusion and disorder, the rocking earthquake, and the wreck of worlds, has caused to spring forth the existing order of things; whose beauty, perfection, utility and harmony, charm our senses, enhance our knowledge, and demand for their Creator, the constant tribute, of our most grateful emanations.

There are a few Chalybeate, and many calcareous springs in the department, some of the latter of which incrust every substance over which they flow, and it is not uncommon to find an a.s.semblage of most fancifully shaped stalactical incrustations in the caves of the calcareous freestone, etc., being often singularly imitative of the works both of nature and of art. Caves of this description known by the name of the caves gouttieres are to be seen near the _village of Savonnieres_ on the road from _Tours_ to Chinon, not far from the banks of the Cher. But perhaps no less remarkable in the estimation of the curious are the extraordinary series of excavations ranging nearly opposite Tours. These artificial caverns which are hewn out of the white calcareous sandstone rocks on the banks of the Loire, frequently const.i.tute entire dwellings, and are so free from humidity as to be occupied by the peasantry during summer and winter, while others are formed into extensive storehouses for the wines of the country.

From the general and impartial review we have here taken of some of the more attractive features, climatic advantages, and geological structure of Touraine, it cannot but be admitted that it possesses inducements of no ordinary description to the searcher after health or recreation.

Considerations, of more special importance to the hypochondriac and the valetudinarian, who may feel themselves obliged to abandon the soothing comforts of the domestic circle, for the purpose of obtaining relief from a temporary residence abroad.

In our just estimation of any country or locality, much however depends on the spirit and manner in which we scrutinize its resources, to the eye of the vacant and un.o.bservant mind, the most beautiful and soul-stirring facts and scenes possess neither novelty nor charms, while the attentive and _intelligent investigator_ seldom fails to discover and appreciate those extraordinary a.s.semblages of creative perfections, and wonders, with which the all bountiful hand of the Supreme Creator has most amply stored every portion of the material Universe.

SPAS OF FRANCE.

A small work of this description will not admit of our entering into a minute detail of all the mineral waters of France; we shall therefore merely give a sketch of their physical characters, medicinal properties, and of the different localities where they are found, to serve as a superficial guide to Invalids; and conclude by giving a more general description of the _Spas of Central France_.

Mineral waters may be arranged into the four following cla.s.ses; _Saline_; _Acidulous_; _Chalybeate_; and _Sulphureous_.