D. H. HILL LIBI^;«ymNOBTH C^OLirm ST4TE C0LLC6C

ENTOMOLOGICAL COLLECTION

15968S This book may be kept out TWO WEEKS ONLY, and is subject to a fine of FIVE CENTS a day thereafter. It is due on the day indicated below:

UL 12 196t

2 1957

HAI.LANTYNE, HANSON AND CO.

EDINBURGH AND LONDON

THE

NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA.

H IRarrative of

A RESIDENCE AT THE GOLD MINES OF CHONTALES;

JOURNEYS IN THE SAVANNAHS AND FORESTS;

SaHit!) 9Db0crt)3tion0 on animal© anH IPIants in Ecference to

tlje %i)tox2 of dEboIution of ILibins jForm0»

By THOMAS BELT, F.G.S.

AUTHOR OF

"mineral veins," "the glacial period in north AMERICA," ETC. ETC.

SECOND EDITION, REVISED AND CORRECTED.

is mine It was his faith—pei'haps That life in all its forms is one, And that its secret conduits run Unseen, but in unbroken line. From the great fountain-head divine, Through man and beast, through grain and grass. LoNGFELLOVif.

TKIlitb /IRap aiiD JUustrations.

LONDON:

E.G. EDWARD BUMPUS, 5 & 6 HOLBORX BARS,

[The right of translation is 7'eserved.]

A. G. RENSHAW, Esq.,

THE VALUED FlilEND OF THE AUTHOK,

Zbis Edition

DEDICATED BY

MRS. BELT AND HER SONS

AS A SMALL RECOGNITION OF HIS KIND AND UNCEASING

INTEREST IN THEIR WELFARE.

159686

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

In the recently published " Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," edited by his sou Mr. Francis Darwin (vol. iii. p. I 8 8), the following passage occurs:

" In the spring of this year (1874) he (Mr. Darwin) read a boolc which gave him great pleasure, and of which he often spoke with admiration, ' The Naturalist in Nicaragua,' by the late Thomas Belt. Mr. Belt, whose untimely death may well be deplored by naturalists, was by profession an engineer, so that all his admirable observations in natural history in Nicaragua and elsewhere, were the fruit of his leisure. The book is direct and vivid in style, and is full of description and suggestive discussions. With reference to it, my father wrote to Sir J. D. Hooker:— 'Belt I have read, and I am delighted that j^ou like it so much; it appears to me the best of all natural history journals which have ever been published.'

Praise so high, from a critic so competent, renders auy apology for the publication of a second edition of the work referred to by Air. Darwin, needless.

Moreover, apart from the intrinsic merits of the book, the great interest which is now generally displayed on all subjects connected with Central America and the circumstance that this book has now for some time been out of it desirable that a new print—render

edition should be issued from the press. In so doing it seems fitting to say something of the life and work of the author, whose death occurred only four years after the first publication of this book. The following account is reprinted from the Quarterly Jounud of

:Science of January 1879

' "THOMAS BELT, F.G.S. '' " In the obituary of the year, and amongst the list of scientific men who have loved science for itself, and sought truth for truth's sake, few will leave a brighter or happier memory with their friends than Thomas Belt.

"Born in Newcastle in 1832, he was an early member of the Tyneside Naturalists' Club, and there began that love of nature and nature's ways that ever remained fresh with him throughout his life. "In 1852 his adventurous nature took him to the Australian gold diggings, and there (the leading spirit of a family of four brothers located in the colony) from 1853 to i860 he successively visited, as a miner, the districts of Friars and Forest Creeks, Maryborough, Mount Molingul, Kingower, Korong, Mount Egerton. ' school of mines ' he acquired that " In this rough practical knowledge which not only served him so well in after-life in his profession, but gave him that insight into the building-up of the earth's crust which enabled him, not seldom, to put forth novel theories in geology and natural phenomena. Unorthodox as they were when first promul-gated, yet, silently and solidly, they commended themselves to those who studied the facts and the inferences he drew from them. Amid real hard work in Australia, he found time to speculate on the flight of birds, and to show that

the mechanical action of the birds' wings is not always the prime mover, but that the force of the wind, particularly in the albatross, is the real agent that carries them sweeping over the ocean with the rapidity of the wind itself. Further, that this force is utilised by the faculty the bird lias of balancing itself against the power of the wind. It is the equivalent of the string of the boy's kite, and almost overwhelming j3roof of this theory is afforded by the fact that the albatross is helpless in a calm, and cannot—from a level itself or fly so well assurface, as the deck of a ship—raise a domestic goose. that the upper strata of " His theory of whirlwinds—viz., air pressed upon the lower rarefied and lighter strata, till a casual opening or thinning out in the upper layer leaves the lower strata free to fly upwards, and to form the circular whirlwinds common even in this country—was an outcome of his actual experience acquired in the dreadful dust storms of Australia. It is a curious fact that the paper on this subject, sent to a Melbourne scientific society, and put aside as unworthy of notice, was sent by Mr. Belt to the present Astronomer-Royal, and then, as communicated by the Astronomer-Royal to the Philosophical Institute of Victoria, was accepted and read in Melbourne, in December 1857. The paper itself will be found in the London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine for January 1859. " The boldest of his speculations, and one of the soundest, as after-events proved, was his plan for crossing the Australian continent. He proposed, at the time the Government expedition was mooted, to replace the costly plans of the Government by the following scheme:—That he and his brother Anthony (who was unfortunately lost in the Royal Charter), should be conveyed to the Gulf of Carpentaria, with about twenty pack-horses loaded with provisions and water; that an escort should protect them for some twenty miles from the coast, and that then the

two voyagers only, with their pack-horses, should make their way to Cooper's Creek, the farthest known accessible point from the Victorian settled districts. Belt argued justly: ' If we fail, only two lives will be lost, but all the chances are in our favour; we are provided with water and food more than ample to cover the distance we have to travel. Every step of our road carries us homewards and to safety. If we never find a drop of water on the road, our animals have enough to carry those who have to bear the whole journey to their goal, and as the animals succumb they will be shot or turned adrift.' The event showed Belt's sagacity. The unfortunate Government expedition left Melbourne loaded with camp followers and impedimenta^ and by the time they reached a few stages beyond Cooper's Creek were well-nigh exhausted. Burke, the leader of the expedition, in desperation started with his two men, Wills and King, and bravely struck out for the Gulf of Carpentaria. Through desert and fertile plains, not altogether destitute of water, they reached in safety the northern shore of Australia; but the energy, the courage, and the strength that took them this long, weary journey did not suffice to carry them back over double the distance to their camp. Brave hearts! they struggled on; but King only, and as a worn-out man, ever saw Cooper's Creek again. Belt's plan would have solved the problem without loss of life, and at a tenth of the cost. His ideas were in advance of his time, and he had that belief in his own powers which should have won his plan the attention its merits deserved. The writer knows the fact, that had Belt then possessed the means, he would have spent them all in his endeavour to carry out this scheme of crossing the Australian continent.

"In 1862 Belt returned to England, and his professional engagements led him to North Wales, Kova Scotia, Central America, and Chontales, Nicaragua. At the latter place his entomological collection has made him famous. Many

hundred species of coleoptera and lepidoptera attest his energy and labour; and his charming book, ' The Naturalist in Nicaragua,' whilst illustrating his great powers of observation, has endeared him to every lover of nature, and proved the painstaking truth with which he collected his

facts. " The succeeding years of his life were spent in almost continued travel: to North and South Russia, Siberia, the Kirghese Steppes, and many times to the United States. In these journeys he, from time to time, made those observations upon glacial action, upon w^hich he built up his theories of the ice age. These became the ruling passion of his later years. Much of this work will be found in the Quarterly Journal of Science and in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society. How much of it will stand the test of time the future only can tell; but all this special work of his is, at least, a careful and elaborate argument, advocating the theory that the extraordinary changes of climate in past ages, over large areas of the earth's surface which are now temperate regions, during the period called by geologists the glacial epoch, may have been brought about by other causes of less intensity than the submergences and emergences of the land, even than by the displacement of whole continents, which theories have been advanced by some to account for the phenomena in question. "Mr. Belt advocates the agency of ice, and ice-dams, and place of ' great up-great lakes—to use his own words—in heavals and depressions of the earth's surface within a comparatively short peiiod; ' and he questions the hypothesis by

'which we are taught that an immense area in Europe and America has been a sea bottom, and every part of it a sea beach as the land rose again, without any evidence of marine life having been left behind; ' and he claims that his theory of glacial action ' explains all the phenomena by one great

advance southwards of the ice of a single glacial period.' ' Loess of the Ehine and theQuarterly Journal of Science, Danube,' January 1877, " The immediate cause of his death was brain fever, following a long attack of mountain fever."

In the " Natural History Transactions of North-umberland, Durham, and Newcastle-on-Tyne," vol. vii., 1879, the following short memoir, by Mr. Joseph Wright, giving some further details of Mr. Belt's career, appears

"'Died at Denver, Colorado, U.S.A., September 22nd, 1878, Mr. Thomas Belt, F.G.S., aged forty-five.' Such was the brief announcement by telegram which appeared in the newspapers, and told to his astonished friends in this district that he had passed away from their midst. " His attainments, and the high position he had won for himself in the scientific world, render it only fitting that some record of his life and labours should appear in the ' Transactions of the Tyneside Naturalists' Field Club,' of which he was a member for many years. " Mr. Belt was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in 1832, and received his education at the school of the late Mr. Joliu Storey, one of the first secretaries of our Club. " He early evinced a taste for natural history pursuits, the departments of botany and entomology being his favourite studies. In June 1850, he became a member of the Club, and in the second volume of the ' Transactions ' his name several times appears as the authority for the habitats of some of the rarer plants of the district. On more than one occasion, his old master, Mr. Storey, acknowledges his obligations to him for help on these points.

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