Geological facts; or, the crust of the earth, what it is, and what are its uses

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Title: Geological facts; or, the crust of the earth, what it is, and what are its uses
Author: Barrett, W. G.
Language: English
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[Illustration:

BASALTIC COLUMNS AT REGIA, IN MEXICO
]

GEOLOGICAL FACTS;
THE CRUST OF THE EARTH,
WHAT IT IS,
AND WHAT ARE ITS USES.

THE REV. W. G. BARRETT,

ROYSTON.

“There is in this universe a stair,
rising not disorderly nor in
confusion, but with a comely method
and proportion.”—SIR THOMAS BROWNE,
_Religio Medici_, 1642.

LONDON:
ARTHUR HALL, VIRTUE, & CO.
25, PATERNOSTER ROW.
1855.

LONDON:
R. CLAY, PRINTER, BREAD STREET HILL

PREFACE.

Last written, and generally last read, a Preface has nevertheless become
so integral a part of every book, that I may presume, I trust, upon the
attention of my readers while I ask them to indulge me with a little
prefatory egotism.

This book of mine goes forth into the world with many misgivings on the
part of its author. How he came to write it was thus-wise. He was
settled in a quiet country town in Cambridgeshire, Royston to wit, as a
Dissenting Minister; around him he found a number of young persons, who
did not believe they had “finished their education” because they had
left school, and who were anxious to avoid the usual littleness and
small talk of such towns, by earnest attention to actual study. And so
it came to pass that a Geological class was formed, which, meeting every
week, afforded real stimulus for private work, and led to the
consultation of the best standard works, happily available through the
well-conditioned library of the town.

The result of those classes is this little book. What is written here
was mostly, if not all, said there; and, urged to publish, the author
feels a pleasure in dedicating this book to the class, composed almost
entirely of young ladies, who found in these studies one of their chief
delights, and whose private collections have been greatly assisted by
the hints thus obtained.

I do not pretend to _teach the Science of Geology_; I aspire simply to
give a taste for this noble and elevating physical study; and, imperfect
as this little manual, written in the few hours of capricious leisure
snatched from an incessant strain of engagements, must be, I shall only
be too happy, if one and another lay aside _my_ book, and go up higher
to Lyell, Sedgwick, Buckland, Murchison, Ansted, Miller, and others.

Possibly my stand-point as a minister of religion may have given
unconsciously a too theological tone to some of the chapters, especially
the last; if such is the case, I beg leave to apologise for such an
error by the candid statement, that I have come into contact frequently
with minds who have not hesitated to express the doubts I have
endeavoured to resolve.

I am quite sure that if we, whose calling is with the greatest and the
deepest truths that can touch the heart of the real world in which we
live and move and have our being, encourage those whom we meet in the
free intercourse of social life, to express their doubts, however
painful the form of that expression may sometimes be, we shall be far
better prepared to meet the wants of our age than if we shut ourselves
up in our studies, and exclude ourselves by conventional devices from
God’s great world of thought and action that is vibrating so palpably
around us, many of whose most painful throbs are occasioned by a
supposed contradiction between Science and Scripture.

At the feet of the Master I desire to serve, I lay this little book,
beseeching Him to regard it as a labour of love, and to use it as an aid
to the faith of others in the inspired books of Nature and of
Revelation.

Removed from the happy town where this book was written, it only remains
to add, that for many of the fossils figured in the following pages I am
indebted to the kindness of the Rev. Mr. Meeke, at that time the
Unitarian Minister of Royston, whose cabinet was always open to my use,
and whose courtesy and catholic kindness I thus desire to record; while
to Miss Butler, one of my Geological class, I am indebted for all the
drawings and devices which will doubtless make this book more attractive
than it could otherwise have been.

In the words of Archdeacon Hare, I close this brief prelection: “So
imperfectly do we yet understand the redemption wrought for us by
Christ; and so obstinate are we in separating what God has united, as
though it were impossible for the Tree of Knowledge to stand beside the
Tree of Life. Yet in the redeemed world they do stand side by side, and
their arms intermingle and intertwine, so that no one can walk under the
shade of the one, but he will also be under the shade of the other.”

W. G. B.

MANCHESTER,
_July, 1855_.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
PAGE
INTRODUCTORY 1

CHAPTER II.

PRELIMINARIES 15

CHAPTER III.

THE ANCIENT EPOCH 33

CHAPTER IV.

THE PALÆOZOIC PERIOD 50

CHAPTER V.

THE OLD RED SANDSTONE 67

CHAPTER VI.

THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM 83

CHAPTER VII.

SECONDARY FORMATIONS. 1. _The New Red Sandstone_ 106

CHAPTER VIII.

SECONDARY ROCKS. 2. _The Oolitic System_ 123

CHAPTER IX.

SECONDARY ROCKS. 3. _The Oolite proper_ 145

CHAPTER X.

SECONDARY ROCKS. 4. _The Wealden_ 175

CHAPTER XI.

SECONDARY ROCKS. 5. _The Chalk. The Cretaceous System_ 198

CHAPTER XII.

THE TERTIARY SYSTEM 224

CHAPTER XIII.

SCRIPTURE AND GEOLOGY; OR, APPARENT CONTRADICTIONS RECONCILED 255

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

BY S. & G. NICHOLLS.

PAGE
BASALTIC COLUMNS, REGIA, MEXICO _Frontispiece._
SECTION OF THE EARTH’S CRUST 16
DITTO 21
LONDON BASIN 25
SECTION OF DITTO 25
ARTESIAN WELL 27
MINING DISTRICT 41
SECTION OF A MINE 43
TRILOBITE 56
DITTO 57
EYES OF DITTO 58
CRYSTALLIZATION ON CORNISH SLATE 60
BELLEROPHON 61
SILURIAN REMAINS 61
DITTO 62
CORALLINE 62
LAND’S END 66
FISH SCALES 74
FISH TAILS 75
CEPHALASPIS 76
COCCOSTEUS 77
PTERICHTHYS 78
OSTEOLEPIS 79
EXTINCT AND EXISTING FERNS 87
FLORA OF THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM 95
ASTEROPHYLLITE AND SPHENOPTERIS 97
PECOPTERIS, ODONTOPTERIS, AND NEUROPTERIS 98
CALAMITES 100
STIGMARIA FICOIDES 101
MINER AT WORK, AND LAMP 105
CASTS OF RAIN DROPS 111
FOOTPRINTS OF BIRD 113
DITTO 114
FOOTPRINTS OF LABYRINTHODON 116
AMMONITES 130
DITTO AND NAUTILUS 131
DITTO 132
ICHTHYOSAURUS 137
PLESIOSAURUS 140
DIRT-BED, PORTLAND 150
OOLITE CORAL 151
DITTO 152
PEAR ENCRINITES 164
DITTO 165
DITTO, WITH CORAL 166
AMMONITES JASON 166
OOLITE SHELLS 169
DISCOVERING THE PTERODACTYLE 170
THE PHILOSOPHER AND DITTO 171
PTERODACTYLE SKELETON 173
DITTO, RESTORED 174
FAUNA OF THE OOLITIC PERIOD 195
ROYSTON HEATH 206
FOSSIL TEETH (GREENSAND) 209
FOSSILS FROM THE GAULT (FOLKSTONE) 210
DITTO 211
FOSSILS FROM THE CHALK 212
FOSSIL FISH 214
DITTO 215
WALTONIAN AND MANTELLIAN FISHERMEN 223
FOSSILS FROM THE LONDON CLAY 238
WOOD PERFORATED BY THE TEREDINA 241
SEPTARIA 242
FOSSILS FROM RED CRAG 245
MEGATHERIUM 248
MASTODON 250
FOSSIL MAN 251
CLIFF, GUADALOUPE 252
THE GEOLOGIST’S DREAM 254
THE RECONCILIATION 288

GEOLOGY.

CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”
MOSES.

Geology is the history of the _crust_ of this planet. This history we
compile, not from old records or moth-eaten state papers, not from
antiquarian research or the study of ancient coins, but from actual and
painstaking examination of the materials composing this crust. How
suitable is this word _crust_, will be seen at once, when it is
considered that its thickness in all probability does not exceed eighty
miles, a mere fraction of the distance to the earth’s centre. Of this
eighty miles we know pretty accurately the character and arrangement of
some seven or eight miles; not that we have ever penetrated so far
beneath the surface in a straight line, the deepest mines not exceeding
1800 or 1900 feet; but, by putting together the thicknesses of the
various strata, with which we are well acquainted, we reach this
conclusion without much hesitation. Professor Whewell has well observed,
that “an earth greater or smaller, denser or rarer, than the one on
which we live, would require a change in the structure and strength of
all the little flowers that hang their heads under our hedges. There is
something curious in thus considering the whole mass from pole to pole
and from circumference to centre, as employed in keeping a snowdrop in
the position most suited to its vegetable health.”[1] When we come to
examine this crust, several appearances of a striking character reward
our toil. At first, and before we proceed in our investigations more
minutely, we find that there are only two varieties of rocks in all the
vast arrangements spread out before us. Some rocks we find to be
unstratified, and others we find to be stratified: from the absence of
all fossils in the former of these, and from their crystalline
character, we conclude that these were formed by the action of _fire_,
and therefore we call them _Igneous_ or _Plutonic_ rocks. From the
sedimentary character and from the numerous fossils of the stratified
rocks, we conclude these to have been formed by the action of _water_,
and we therefore call these _Aqueous_ or _Neptunian_ rocks. Following
out these investigations, we meet with other facts equally interesting:
we find that the Plutonic or unstratified rocks lie generally at the
base of all the others, and that where they come up to the surface and
crop out from other rocks, or rise in towering mountain heights above
them, this has been the result of igneous action from beneath, and that
this elevation has disturbed the surrounding strata from the horizontal
position in which we imagine them to have been first arranged. The
extent of the Plutonic rocks is immense; in _Europe_, the Scandinavian
mountains, the Alps, the Pyrenees, and the Carpathians; in _Asia_, the
Himalayan, the Caucasian, and the Altai mountains; in _Africa_, the
Atlas mountains and the Cape of Good Hope; in _America_, nearly the
whole of the two continents, and in _Australia_, its southern part;—all
these wide regions of the globe are composed of those igneous or
Plutonic rocks to which we give the names of granite, basalt, porphyry,
trap, &c. &c. Finding the surrounding strata disturbed by depression, or
upheaval in consequence of the giant claims of these older rocks that
appear to have risen out of the centre of the earth in a red-hot or
semifluid condition, and then suddenly to have cooled down, we begin to
examine this upper and sedimentary strata, and here the most delightful
and romantic results are obtained. We find no two courses or formations
in these sedimentary rocks alike. Rising up from the granite, we meet in
the clay strata corals and trilobites, the first fossil forms of ancient
life with which we are acquainted: we rise higher still, for our
imaginary start is from the bottom of the earth’s crust, and we meet in
other rocks fossil fishes of an extraordinary shape, and once,
doubtless, possessed of extraordinary functions; higher yet, and
touching the coal measures, we come to vast forests of palms and ferns,
that by chemical changes and mechanical pressure have been converted
into our mineral coal, the vast fields of which constitute the real
diamond mines of Great Britain; higher yet, exploring the Lias and
Oolitic groups, the huge remains of ancient saurians (animals of the
lizard species) fill us with awe and wonder, and make us rejoice that
they had no successors in the next strata; higher yet, and we reach the
last period of the earth’s history, previous to the introduction of man,
and enormous “four-footed beasts,” the mastodon, the megatherium and
others, astonish us by their gigantic proportions, and evidently
herbivorous habits; and last of all we rise to the surface and breathe
freely in company with our fellow man, made in the image of God, to
inhabit this world as his palace, and to interpret its mysteries as its
priest.

We may probably put these general results into a more popular form,—for
we reserve the details to a seriatim examination of each formation,—by
the following quotation from a modern and extensively useful writer: “We
distinguish four ages of nature, corresponding to the great geological
divisions, namely—

“1. The _primary_ or _palæozoic_[2] age, comprising the Lower Silurian,
the Upper Silurian, and the Devonian. During this age there were no
air-breathing animals. The fishes were the masters of creation. We may
therefore call it the _Reign of Fishes_.

“2. The _secondary_ age, comprising the carboniferous formation, the
trias, the oolitic, and the cretaceous formations. This is the epoch in
which air-breathing animals first appear. The reptiles predominate over
the other classes, and we may therefore call it the _Reign of Reptiles_.

“3. The _tertiary_ age, comprising the tertiary formations. During this
age, terrestrial mammals of great size abound. This is the _Reign of
Mammals_.

“4. The _modern_ age, characterized by the appearance of the most
perfect of created beings. This is the _Reign of Man_.”[3]

From this brief but necessary outline of “the treasures of the deep”
which lie before us we may proceed to make a few preliminary remarks on
the moral and theological aspects of this science. Many persons have
supposed that the statements of Scripture and the alleged facts of
Geology are at variance, and, forgetful that some of the devoutest minds
of this and other countries have been equal believers in both, have too
summarily dismissed geology from their notice as a study likely to lead
to infidelity. To such we would briefly remark, that it is utterly
impossible there can be any contradiction between the written volume of
Inspiration and the outspread volume of Creation. Both are books written
by the same hand, both are works proceeding from the same ever blessed
and beneficent Creator. We believe in the plenary inspiration of the
Bible, and we believe equally in the plenary inspiration of Nature; both
are full of God, for in them both He is all and in all; and he who is
the deepest and the most reverent student of both will not be long
before he comes to the conclusion that not only is there no disharmony,
no discrepancy and no contradiction between them, but that they are both
harmonious utterances of the one infinite and ever blessed God.

“In reason’s ear they _both_ rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice;
For ever singing as they shine,
‘The hand that made us is divine.’”

Let us remember that Geology has nothing to do with the history of man,
nor with God’s government of man; to the Bible, and only there, do we go
for information on these points. Geology gives us the history and the
succession of _the things and beings_ that were created and made, we
believe, incalculable ages before man was placed on the face of the
earth. Possibly at times some new discovery in geology may appear to
contradict our long received interpretations of isolated passages in
Scripture, in which case the modesty of science compels us to reexamine
our data, while our reverence for the word of God teaches us to revise
our interpretations. As Dr. Chalmers once remarked, “_the writings of
Moses do not fix the antiquity of the globe; if they fix anything at
all, it is only the antiquity of the species_.” We believe that the same
God who, in anticipation of the spiritual wants of the human race,
graciously promised from the beginning of man’s transgression, that “the
seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head,” laid up for him “in
the bowels of the earth those vast stores of granite, marble, coal,
salt, and the various metals, the products of its several revolutions;
and thus was an inexhaustible provision made for his necessities, and
for the developments of his genius, ages in anticipation of his
appearance.”[4]

Truth is, and always must be, coincident. There can be no real
contradiction between the truth of Scripture and the truth of Science.
Whatever is true in one department of God’s agency, must be true when
compared with his works in any other department. As an illustration we
may notice one particular in which Geology and Scripture move towards
the same point in proving the recent introduction of man. We take up a
chart of the earth’s crust, and examine it so far as that crust is open
to our investigation: eight miles depth or height we know pretty
accurately, and in all these accumulations we find one concurrent
testimony. If we take the Azoic period of the earth’s crust, and search
through the granitic rocks of Scotland, Wales, or Cornwall; or if we
pass on to the Palæozoic period, and examine the Old Red Sandstone, the
Carboniferous system, or other formations; or, extending our researches,
investigate the secondary formations, the Lias, the Oolite, and the
Chalk, and so on until we arrive at the Tertiary period of the earth’s
history; _all the testimony is one_; there is no contradiction; there
are no fossil boats or sofas; no fossil beds or books; no fossil boys
and girls; no fossil knives and forks; so far as the teachings of
Geology go throughout all these vast periods it says, “there was not a
man to till the earth;” they declare that man is not so old as the
earth, and that all its fossil remains are pre-Adamite.

Now why should this truth be supposed to lie against the teaching of
Scripture? The object of Moses in the first chapter of Genesis, is to
teach us that all existing matter owes its origin to the God of the
Bible, and not to any of the idols of the heathen. “In the beginning,”
says that oldest historical record with which we are acquainted, “God
created the heaven and the earth;” that is, we apprehend, at some period
of the earth’s history, in all probability an undefined and incalculable
distance from the present time, God created all matter out of nothing,
the universe, these heavens and this earth, began to be at the word of
God.

“_But afterwards_,” says Dr. Pye Smith, in his translation of these
words, “the earth was without form and void;” undergoing, we believe,
those vast geological changes, those deposits of metal, and those slow
accumulations of mineral wealth, by which it was fitted to become the
temple, the palace, the workshop, and the home of man. “The first
sentence in Genesis is a simple, independent, all-comprehending axiom to
this effect, that matter elementary or combined, aggregated only or
organised, and dependent, sentient, and intellectual beings, have not
existed from eternity either in self-continuity or succession; but had a
beginning; that their beginning took place by the all-powerful will of
one Being, the Self-existent, Independent and Infinite in all
perfection; and that the date of that beginning is not made known.”[5]

Dr. Redford says, “We ought to understand Moses as saying, that
indefinitely far back and concealed from us in the mystery of eternal
ages prior to the first moment of mundane time, God created the heavens
and the earth;” and Dr. Harris in the same strain writes thus, “The
first verse in Genesis was designed by the Divine Spirit to announce the
absolute origination of the material universe by the Almighty Creator;
and it is so understood in the other parts of holy writ; passing by an
indefinite interval, the second verse describes the state of our planet
immediately prior to the Adamic creation, and the third verse begins the
account of the six days’ work.”

On this subject we will quote but one brief sentence more—and we have
preferred using these quotations to stating the question in our words,
thoroughly accordant as they would have been. In Dr. Hitchcock’s
valuable work, entitled “The Religion of Geology,” he says, “The time is
not far distant when the high antiquity of the globe will be regarded as
no more opposed to the Bible than the earth’s revolution round the sun
and on its axis. Soon shall the horizon where Geology and Revelation
meet be cleared of every cloud, and present only an unbroken and
magnificent circle of truth.”

Let these thoughts be borne in mind while we pursue our examination of
the solid crust of this globe. We do _not_

“drill and bore
The solid earth, and from its strata thence
Extract a register, by which we learn
That He who made it and revealed its date
To Moses was mistaken in its age.”

Nowhere do we find the age of the globe revealed either to Moses or any
other inspired writer; we believe that as science has nothing to fear
from the Bible, so the Bible has nothing to fear from the widest
intellectual range of study. We ponder in devout amazement over these
unwritten records of the earth’s bygone history: we find ‘sermons in
stones’ as we light on some delicate fern, or elegant vertebrate animal,
preserved in the deposits of past ages, and the hieroglyphics of nature
and the distincter utterances of the Bible prompt the same
exclamation,—“How marvellous are thy works, O God, in wisdom hast thou
made them all!” “Waste, and disorder, and confusion we nowhere find in
our study of the crust of the earth; instead of this we find endless
examples of economy, order, and design; and the result of all our
researches carried back through the unwritten records of past time, has
been to fix more steadily our assurance of the existence of one Supreme
Creator of all things; to exalt more highly our conviction of the
immensity of His perfections, of His might and majesty, His wisdom and
His goodness, and all-sustaining providence; and to penetrate our
understandings with a profound and sensible perception of the high
veneration man’s intellect owes to God. The earth from her deep
foundations unites with the celestial orbs that roll through boundless
space, to declare the glory and show forth the praise of their common
Author and Preserver; and the voice of natural religion accords
harmoniously with the testimonies of revelation, in ascribing the origin
of the universe to the will of one Eternal and Dominant Intelligence,
the Almighty Lord and supreme First Cause of all things that subsist;
the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever; before the mountains were
brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made, God from
everlasting and world without end.”—_Buckland’s Bridgewater Treatise._

“Come, frankly read the rocks, and see
In them the Earth’s biography;
Let mountain piled on mountain tell
Its antique age; and every shell
In fossil form its tale unfold,
Of life’s bright day through time untold;
And gathering use from great and small,
See good in each, but God in all.”

CHAPTER II.
PRELIMINARIES.

“Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth.”
DAVID.

As yet we have only been _talking_ about the crust of the earth; we
shall now return and enter upon its actual examination. It will not be
necessary for us personally to descend into the abysmous caverns that
lie beneath our feet, nor, with hammer in hand, to go forth and explore
the district of country in which we may happen to dwell: we may do all
this by and by, when we know both _how_ and _what_ to observe.
Meanwhile, with such teachers as Buckland, Sedgwick, Murchison, Pye
Smith, Hugh Miller, De la Beche, Lyell, Owen and others, we may for some
while to come be only tarry-at-home travellers; for in a true sense, in
this department of knowledge, “other men have laboured, and we enter
into their labours.” Let us now look at the crust of the earth, as it
may be represented in two imaginary sections. Suppose we could make a
vertical section of the earth’s crust, and cut straight down some eighty
miles till we reached the central mass of incandescence that we believe
lies beneath this crust, or Erdrinde (_earth-rind_), as the Germans call
it, and then bring out this section to daylight, it would present
something very much like the following appearance.

[Illustration:

DIAGRAM I.
]

Here the granite A will be observed forming the supposed boundary
between the superlying strata and the fire B below to which we have just
referred, and thus will be seen the origin of all plutonic rocks. Here
too will be seen how the granite is not confined to the lower levels,
but rises, as mentioned in the first chapter, far above all the other
strata, and forms some of the highest peaks on the face of the globe.[6]
Here, too, will be seen how the granite is frequently traversed by veins
of trap-dykes, those black-looking branches, which rise often above the
whole mass of metamorphic and stratified rocks, often occasioning great
difficulties in mining operations. Here, too, the student will see how,
supposing the theory of a central globe of heat to be founded in fact,
the volcanoes that are now active, C, form, as the volcanoes that are
extinct, D, once did, the safety valves of this mighty mass of
incandescence, B; and in the same way may be seen how certain strata may
be above the granite, or above any other formation, though they do not
overlie them, and how the lowest strata, being formed first, is said to
be older than any superlying strata, notwithstanding any accidental
arrangement produced by upheaval or depression. For, in “consequence of
the great commotions which the crust of the globe has undergone, many
points of its surface have been elevated to great heights in the form of
mountains; and hence it is that fossils are sometimes found at the
summit of the highest mountains, though the rocks containing them were
originally formed at the bottom of the sea. But, even when folded or
partly broken, their relative age may still be determined by an
examination of the ends of their upturned strata, where they appear or
crop out in succession, at the surface or on the slopes of
mountains.”[7]

But to make this view of the subject clearer, let us imagine that some
Titanic power was granted us to push down these towering masses of
granite to their original situation, below the metamorphic and
stratified rocks, by which means we should at the same time restore
these curved and broken strata to their originally horizontal position;
and let us suppose that we were now again to descend to the foundations
of the earth for the purpose of making another vertical section; then
the crust of the earth would present to us an arrangement something like
the leaves of a book, or the coats of an onion, arranged in successive
and uninterrupted layers, or in concentric and unbroken circles. Such a
diagram must of course be imaginary, and unless it is taken into
connexion with the previous remarks, it is more likely to bewilder than
to assist the beginner. Let it again be urged upon the reader, that such
a chart as we are about to lay before him is only intended to give him
an idea of the succession of these formations and systems, and that the
details found in it are anticipatory of many future references to it on
the student’s part. Let it not be supposed that this is a mere barren
research into dry facts that have no connexion with our truest welfare;
for if, as Lord Bacon somewhere finely observes, all study is to be
valued “not so mush as an exercise of the intellect, but as a true
discipline of humanity,” then what study is calculated to be more useful
than Geology, in enlarging and purifying the powers of the mind, by
teaching us how harmonious, and orderly, and economic are the works of
God; in removing all narrow notions of the extent and age of this solid
globe, which from the beginning had its origin in the almighty will of
God; in checking the presumptuous or the chilling inferences of a
sceptical philosophy, by everywhere pointing out the design, skill, and
adaptations of an ever-present and most beneficent Creator; and in
chastening those overweening ideas of ourselves which both ignorance and
knowledge may create and foster, by saying to us, in the language of God
himself, as we stand amazed in the presence of huge pre-Adamite vestiges
of creation, “Where wast thou,” vain man, “when I laid the foundations
of the earth? Declare if thou hast understanding.” (Job xxxviii. 4.)

“Among these rocks and stones, methinks I see
More than the heedless impress that belongs
To lonely nature’s _casual_ work; they bear
A semblance strange to Power intelligent,
And of Design not wholly worn away.
And I own
Some shadowy intimations haunt me here,
That in these shows a chronicle survives
Of purposes akin to those of man,
Measuring through all degrees, until the scale
Of time and conscious nature disappear,
Lost in unsearchable eternity.”—WORDSWORTH.

We will now proceed to the diagram to which we have made allusion, and
which represents an ideal section of the earth’s crust as the various
formations are there found arranged. (Diagram II.)

[Illustration:

DIAGRAM II.
]

Here, in the words of another writer, we would add for the reader’s
guidance, that “the unstratified or igneous rocks occur in no regular
succession, but appear amidst the stratified without order or
arrangement; heaving them out of their original horizontal positions,
breaking up through them in volcanic masses, and sometimes overrunning
them after the manner of liquid lava. From these circumstances they are,
in general, better known by their mineral composition than by their
order of occurrence. Still it may be convenient to divide them into
three great classes; _granite_, _trappean_, and _volcanic_—_granite_
being the basis of all known rocks, and occurring along with the primary
and transition strata; the _trappean_, of a darker and less crystalline
structure than the granite, and occurring along with the secondary and
tertiary rocks; and the _volcanic_, still less crystalline and compact,
and of comparatively recent origin, or still in process of formation.”
This the student will observe by another reference to the previous
diagram; but, in looking at the one now before him, we must also add for
his further guidance,—for we are presuming that we address those who
need initiation into the rudiments of this science, and the circumstance
that we never met with a preliminary treatise that quite satisfied us,
or helped such intelligent youth as were prying into the apparently
cabalistic mysteries of the earth’s structural divisions, is one strong
inducement to the present undertaking;—we must add, that “it must not be
supposed, however, that all the stratified rocks always occur in any one
portion of the earth’s crust in full and complete succession as
represented” in Diagram II. “All that is meant is, that such would be
their order if every group and formation were present. But whatever
number of groups may be present, they never happen out of their regular
order of succession; that is, clay-slate never occurs above coal, nor
coal above chalk. Thus in London, tertiary strata occupy the surface; in
Durham, magnesian limestone; in Fife, the coal measures; and in
Perthshire, the old red sandstone and clay-slate; so that it would be
fruitless to dig for chalk in Durham, for magnesian limestone in Fife,
or for coal in Perthshire. It would not be absurd, however, to dig for
coal in Durham, because that mineral underlies the magnesian limestone;
or for old red sandstone in Fife, because that formation might be
naturally expected to occur under the coal strata of that country, in
the regular order of succession.”[8]

Still, after reading all this, we can easily imagine, not so much an air
of incredulity taking possession of the countenance of our courteous
reader as a feeling somewhat like this, with which we have often come
into contact in those geological classes of young persons which it has
been our pleasure to conduct: “Well, all that’s very plain in the book;
I see granite lies at the bottom, and pushes itself up to the top very
often; and I see in the diagrams that coal and chalk are not found in
the same place, and that different localities have their different
formations, and the various formations have their different fossils, but
I confess that I cannot realize it. I know the earth is round like an
orange, a little flattened at the poles—what is called an oblate
spheroid; but all this surpasses my power of comprehension; can’t you
make it plainer?” Well, let us try; on page 27 is a diagram,
representing no ideal, but an actual boring into the earth. London is
situated on the tertiary formation, in what is called geologically the
basin of the London clay, that is almost on the very top of the crust,
or external covering that lies on the vast mass of molten and other
matter beneath. Here is first a drawing and then a section that may
represent this basin:—

[Illustration:

DIAGRAM III.
]

[Illustration:

DIAGRAM IV.
]

The water which falls on the chalk hills flows into them, or into the
porous beds adjoining, and would rise upwards to its level but for the
superincumbent pressure of the bed of clay above it, _cccc_. Under these
circumstances, in order to procure water, Artesian[9] wells are sunk
through the bed of clay, perhaps also through the chalk, but at any rate
till the depressed stratum of chalk is reached; and this gives exit to
the subterranean water, which at once rises through the iron tubes
inserted in the boring to the surface. By these borings through the
clay, water is obtained where it would be impossible to sink a well, or
where the expense would prohibit the attempt. To explain this matter,
here is a diagram (No. V.) which represents the Artesian well at the
Model Prison at Pentonville, London, the strata upon which London is
built, and which we can apply to the diagram on page 21, that the theory
of the earth’s crust may be the more thoroughly understood before we
proceed.

[Illustration:

DIAGRAM V.
]

In the same manner Artesian wells have been sunk in other places, as at
Hampstead Water Works, 450 feet deep; Combe & Delafield’s, 500 feet
deep; and the Trafalgar-square Water Works, 510 feet deep.[10] Now, the
reader has only to take this last diagram, and in imagination to apply
it to the one on page 21, in order to see that so far as actual boring
and investigation go, the geological theory of the earth’s crust is
correct; only again let it be observed that this order is never
inverted, although it frequently happens that some one or more of the
strata may be absent.

Hitherto we have spoken of the earth’s crust without reference to that
wondrous succession and development of living beings which once had
their joy of life, and whose fossil remains, found in the different
strata, waken such kindling emotions of the power of Deity, and enlarge
indefinitely our conceptions of the boundless resources of His Mind.
This will open before us a new chapter in the history of our planet,
already the theatre of such vast revolutions, and which, under the
influence of Divine truth, is yet to undergo one greater and nobler than
any of these. We have as yet only glanced at the surface page of the
wondrous book, now happily opened for us by geologists, to whose names
we have already made reference; and as the mind rests with intense
pleasure on the discoveries of Champollion, Belzoni, Lane, Layard,
Botta, and others who have deciphered the hieroglyphics, in which were
written the wars and the chronicles of ancient nations, whose names and
deeds are becoming, by books and lectures, and above all by our noble
national Museum, familiar even to our children, and a source of help and
solace to the hard-toiling artisan; so with profounder interest, as
carried back into remoter ages of antiquity, so remote that they seem to
lie beyond the power of a human arithmetic to calculate, do we humbly
endeavour to decipher the hieroglyphics,[11] not of Egypt or of Nineveh,
but of the vast creation of God, written in characters that require, not
only learning and science to understand, but modesty, patience, and
triumphant perseverance. He who with these pre-requisites combines
reverence for God and His revelation, will always find in Geology
material both for manly exercise of thought, and also for reverent
adoration of Him who is Himself unsearchable, and whose ways are past
finding out.

“We not to explore the secrets, ask
Of His eternal empire, but the more
To magnify His works, the more we know.”—MILTON.

Most happily for Christendom, our noblest men of science are not ashamed
of the “reproach of Christ;” and we know not how to conclude this
chapter in a strain more accordant with our own thoughts than by quoting
the words of an eminent living naturalist:—“I can echo with fullest
truth the experience of Bishop Heber; ‘In every ride I have taken, and
in every wilderness in which my tent has been pitched, I have found
enough to keep my mind from sinking into the languor and the apathy
which have been regarded as natural to a tropical climate.’ Nay, I may
truly say, I found _no tendency_ to apathy or ennui. Every excursion
presented something to admire; every day had its novelty; the morning
was always pregnant with eager expectation; the evening invariably
brought subjects of interest fresh and new; and the days were only too
short for enjoyment. They were not days of stirring adventure, of
dangerous conflicts with man or with beast, or of hair-breadth escapes
in flood and field; their delights were calm and peaceful, I trust not
unholy, nor unbecoming the character of a Christian, who has his heart
in heaven, and who traces, even in earth’s loveliest scenes, the mark of
the spoiler. The sentiments expressed by my friend[12] and
fellow-labourer are those which I would ever associate with the study of
science. ‘If the sight of nature,’ observes Mr. Hill, ‘were merely the
looking at a painted pageantry, or at a spectacle filling the carnal
mind with wonder and delight, the spirit would be overpowered and worked
into weariness; but it is admiration at the wisdom, and reverence for
the beneficence of Almighty power. He who dwelleth in the light which no
man can approach unto, whom no man hath seen, nor can see,’ is yet
visible in His perfections through the works of His hand, and His
designs are made manifest in the purpose of His creatures. Wherever our
lot is cast, into whatever scenes our wayward impulses lead us, the
mind-illumined eye gazes on divine things, and the spirit-stirred heart
feels its pulses bounding with emotions from the touch of an
ever-present Deity. The habit that sees in every object the wisdom and
the goodness as well as the power of God, I may speak of, as Coleridge
speaks of the poetical spirit, ‘it has been to me an exceeding great
reward; it has soothed my afflictions; it has multiplied and refined my
enjoyments; it has endeared my solitude; and it has given me the habit
of wishing to discover the good and the beautiful in all that meets and
surrounds me.’

“‘Great are thy works, Jehovah, infinite
Thy power! what thought can measure thee, or tongue
Relate thee?’”[13]

CHAPTER III.
THE ANCIENT EPOCH.

“Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?”—_Job_
xxxviii. 4.

And now in right earnest let us begin our examination of the earth’s
crust. Some of the terms we may use will, perhaps, at first sight appear
repulsive from their novelty and difficulty; such words we will explain
as we proceed, and will only stay the student’s course to remark, that
there is a necessity for the use of the dead languages in the formation
of compound terms that are to become descriptive names, and in their
application to newly discovered objects. This necessity arises from the
fact that it is only in this way that scientific men of different
nations can understand the character of each other’s researches, and
compare notes with one another. A fossil is found, let us suppose, in
the lias formation; it proves to be the organic remains of some very
strange and anomalous creature. People go down to Lyme Regis to examine
it, and, in doing so, discover others. Comparative anatomists arrange
the dislocated parts and give them a name; this must be intelligible to
geologists on the Continent as well as in England; and therefore some
term descriptive of the animal, once the living possessor of these “dry
bones,” must be given, and finally it is called _ichthyosaurus_. Any one
in Russia, or Austria, or Italy, who happened to be acquainted with the
rudiments of Greek, would know at once the kind of animal referred to by
its very name, derived from _ichthus_, a fish, and _sauros_, a lizard.
This would indicate to all scientific men the nature of this remarkable
animal, of which we shall have to tell some stories by and by as full of
wonder as any modern or ancient book of marvels; while, if we had called
it _fish-lizard_, only those who understood English would know what we
meant. Our object is to simplify as much as possible every difficult
term that may be used; but while we solicit our readers to master each
difficulty as it rises, we hope they will not think that, when they have
read this little book, they are masters of Geology, our highest ambition
being only to impart a _taste_ for the science.

To return: our examination commences with the Plutonic rocks, so called
in memory of the well-known mythological god of the fiery or infernal
regions; and we take _granite_[14] as a type of these rocks, because it
is so familiar to all our readers. There are besides granite,
syenite,[15] greenstone, porphyry, basalt, and others, to dilate upon
which would defeat our purpose. Our object is to lay but a little at a
time upon the memory, and to let that little be well digested before we
pass from the thoroughly known to the unknown. Nothing but actual
examination can make the student familiar with the varieties of the
rocks of this very ancient epoch in the world’s history. Well, everybody
knows what granite is; they see it on the kerb-stones of the wayside, in
the hard paving of the London streets, in the massive slabs of London
and Waterloo Bridges, and elsewhere. “Granite!” exclaims the reader,
“everybody knows what granite is, and there is an end of it; you make as
much fuss about granite as Wordsworth did about his well-known primrose,
and the man who could see nothing but a primrose in a primrose.”

But there is a poetry and a history about granite upon which we are
going to dwell. This piece of granite which I hold in my hand is
composed of quartz, mica, and feldspar.[16] The quartz is white and
hard—I can’t scratch it with my knife; the mica is in glistening plates
or scales; and the feldspar is soft and greyish, and can easily be
scratched. Oh, if this granite could speak, what a story could it tell!
“To give it, then, a tongue were wise in man.” Let us try. “Once upon a
time, long, long ages ago, incalculable periods before Adam was placed
in possession of Eden, I, the granite, and my contemporaries, came into
being. Before us, this planet ‘was without form and void.’ A dark
chaotic period, of which I know nothing, preceded me. When I first
emerged into being, at the command of Him who laid the foundations of
the earth, this world was a barren, lifeless, uncultivated, uninhabited,
untrodden, seasonless waste. Here and there were undulations of land and
water, but all was bare, desolate, and silent: not a moss nor a lichen
covered the ancient skeleton of the globe; not a sea-weed floated in the
broad ocean; not a trace existed even of the least highly organized
animal or vegetable; everything was still, and with the stillness of
universal death. The earth was prepared, and the fiat of creation had
gone forth; but there was no inhabitant, and no beings endowed with life
had been introduced to perform their part in the great mystery of
creation.”[17] And the granite might go on to say—“Man! of three-score
years and ten, where wast _thou_ when He, my Maker and yours, laid the
foundations of the earth? Let me tell you what an important part I have
played in the history of your world’s formation. I rise to the highest
elevations, and form the sublimest pinnacles on the surface of the
globe, and without me your scenery would lose its grandeur and its
glory. But for me Albert Smith had never climbed Mont Blanc, nor
Humboldt Cotopaxi and Chimborazo; nor would the head of the famed
Egyptian Memnon[18] have been sculptured. You may see me giving to
Cornwall, Wales, and Scotland their most valuable minerals and metals.
In Europe

‘I am monarch of all I survey,
My right there is none to dispute.’

The Scandinavians, the Hartz mountains, the Alps, and the Pyrenees are
mine; nor is my territory less in Asia, Africa, the great Americas, and
in the becoming great Australia; and thus, by my deeply rooted
foundations and my vast extension, I constitute the framework, solid and
immoveable, of this ‘great globe and all that it inherits.’”

Thus, at any rate, the granite might speak, nor would there be one word
of vain boasting in it. Having beard it, or fancied we heard it, which
amounts to the same thing, let us soberize ourselves, and put granite
into the third person. There are no fossils in granite and the other
Plutonic and volcanic rocks; even supposing any forms of life to have
been in existence at the period to which we are referring, the action of
fire has annihilated all their remains. We should not therefore expect
in Cumberland and Cornwall, nor in those parts of Devonshire where
granite prevails, to find the fossils peculiar to other formations with
which in time we hope to make familiar acquaintance. But though
destitute of interest in this respect, how great is its importance and
interest in those economic uses which have the geologist for their
guide, and the whole family of man for their beneficent operations!
“Many varieties of granite are excellent as building stones, though
expensive in working to definite forms. Some of the most important
public works of Great Britain and Ireland, France and Russia, are of
this material. In selecting granite, those varieties in which the
constituent minerals and the scales of mica are superabundant, should be
avoided; and, as a practical test, it is wise to notice the country
immediately around the quarry, as the sandy varieties rapidly
disintegrate,[19] and form accumulations of micaceous sand. The Hayter
or Dartmoor granite, the Aberdeen granite, the Kingstown (Dublin)
granite, some beds of the Mourne or county of Down granite, and the
Guernsey or Channel Island granite, are well known for their excellence.
In some of the quarries the bedding of the granite is more defined than
in others; and wherever this is the case, or where marked cleavages or
joints prevail, the work is much facilitated. Many old Egyptian works
and statues were formed of granite, and it is still used for colossal
works, as it takes a fine polish. For example, the great fountain shell,
or vase, before the Museum at Berlin, and the pedestal of Peter the
Great at St. Petersburg, are of the northern granite, being sculptured
from erratic blocks. The splendid Scotch granite columns, in the
vestibule of the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge, are beautiful examples
of a modern application of this rock to the arts.”[20]

It is also in the Plutonic or igneous rocks that almost all the metals
are found; and here we have our first illustration of that order to
which we shall frequently call attention; an order as exquisite as can
be found in the drawers of a lady’s cabinet, forbidding the thought that
anything observable at the present time, in the bowels or on the surface
of the crust of the earth, can be attributed to the violent diluvial
action of the Noachian deluge. The diagram below represents an ideal
section of a mining district.

[Illustration:

SECTION OF A MINING DISTRICT.
]

Here the metalliferous vein, we may suppose, has cropped out on the
surface of the ground, or, as the miners say, has “come above grass.”
Let us now suppose that the position of this vein of ore, copper, lead,
or tin, has been ascertained—that is, how it runs, whether from north to
south, or from east to west—and also that the “captains” of the mining
district around have given their opinion as to the extent and thickness
of this underground vein. The next thing is to obtain this mineral
wealth. For this purpose shafts (_a a a a_) must be sunk, which must
reach the vein at a certain depth; then will probably follow cross-cuts
(_c c c_), called adit levels (technically an “additt”), driven, as may
be seen, at the lowest convenient point above the level of the highest
water of the valley; and these, in connexion with the shaft, will serve
the purpose of draining the mine and carrying the ore above ground. It
will also be seen, by reference to the diagram, that the shafts of a
mine do not always correspond; sometimes they are sunk vertically to
meet the vein, sometimes they are commenced in the very outcrop itself.
On this matter the best geological lesson is a visit to Cornwall, where
the student will see that everything depends on the locality of a mine,
the nature of the slope of the hill, or the character of the rock in
which the vein appears, and so on. “The act of sinking a perpendicular
shaft downwards to a depth where it is calculated the lode should be
cut, may seem to require little further skill than is necessary to
determine correctly the spot on the surface where the work is to
commence. But the process in this way is exceedingly tedious; and in a
mine at work, where many galleries already existing are to be traversed,
much greater rapidity is desirable. In such a case the shaft is sunk in
several _pieces_ (see diagram below), or, in other words, the sinking is
commenced at the same time in different levels; and no small skill is
required to lay out the work, so that the different portions of the
shaft thus formed may exactly fit when they are joined together. An
exceedingly small error of measurement, in any one of these various and
dark subterranean passages, would, in fact, be sufficient to throw the
whole into confusion; but such an accident rarely happens, although
works of the kind are common in the Cornish mines.”[21] As an
illustration of the immense quantity of water in the mines, we may
add—and this is almost as startling as any romantic fiction—that the
various branches of the principal level in Cornwall, called “the Great
Adit, which receives the waters of the numerous mines in Gwennap, and
near Redruth, measure on the whole about 26,000 fathoms, or nearly
thirty miles in length; one branch only, at Cardrew mine, extends for
nearly five miles and a half, and penetrates ground seventy fathoms
beneath the surface. The water flows into a valley communicating with a
small inlet of the sea, and is discharged about forty feet above
high-water mark.”[22] In this method about forty millions of tons of
water are raised by steam-power out of the mines in Cornwall.

[Illustration:

EAST WHEAL CROFLY COPPER MINE, CORNWALL.
]

Here, then, we have seen two of the economic uses of geology in
connexion with _granite_ alone; and as we think of these mineral
treasures, requiring only the labour and skill of man to bring them out
for his service and for the civilization of the world, our boast is in
our native land, which, though insular and small, combines within itself
everything needful to develop its three sources of national
wealth—mining, manufactures, and agriculture—to their highest point. Our
boast is not the warrior’s boast, which Shakspeare puts into the mouth
of one of his heroes—that this our isle is

“That pale, that white-faced shore,
Whose foot spurns back the ocean’s roaring tides,
And coops from other lands her islanders”—

but rather that, without impropriety or irreverence, the words of Holy
Writ may as legitimately be applied to Great Britain as to Palestine. It
is a land wherein “thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt
not lack anything in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose
hills thou mayest dig brass.[23] When thou hast eaten and art full, then
thou shalt bless the Lord thy God for the good land which He hath given
thee.” (Deut. viii. 9, 10.)

But before we bring this chapter on granite and its kindred rocks to a
close, we must glance at one more purpose served by this Plutonic rock.
Here is a teacup, and here is a piece of granite: the one comes from
Cornwall, the other is made in Staffordshire or Worcestershire. What
relation have they to each other? If it were not thought _infra dig._,
we should say the granite is the parent of the teacup. In Cornwall,
especially in the neighbourhood of St. Austel, the writer has lately
visited what are called the China clay works. “The granite is here in a
state of partial decomposition. In some localities, this _growan_”
(Cornish for disintegrated granite) “is tolerably firm, when it
resembles the Chinese _Kaolin_, and, quarried under the name of China
stone, is extensively employed in the potteries. This is ready for the
market when cut into blocks of a size convenient for transport; but the
softer material, which is dug out of pits, and called _China clay_, or
_porcelain earth_, requires a more elaborate preparation for the purpose
of separating the quartz, schorl, or mica from the finer particles of
the decomposed feldspar. This clay is dug up in _stopes_ or layers,
which resemble a flight of irregular stairs. A heap of it is then placed
upon an inclined platform, under a small fall of water, and repeatedly
stirred with a _piggle_ and shovel, by which means the whole is
gradually carried down by the water in a state of suspension. The heavy
and useless parts collect in a trench below the platform; while the
China clay, carried forward through a series of _catch-pits_ or tanks,
in which the grosser particles are deposited, is ultimately accumulated
in larger pits, called _ponds_, from which the clear supernatant water
is from time to time withdrawn. As soon as these ponds are filled with
clay, they are drained, and the porcelain earth is removed to _pans_, in
which it remains undisturbed until sufficiently consolidated to be cut
into oblong masses. These are carried to a roofed building, through
which the air can freely pass, and dried completely for the market. When
dry they are scraped perfectly clean, packed in casks, and carried to
one of the adjacent ports, to be shipped for the potteries.”[24] As
furnishing some idea of the extent to which this business is carried on,
it may be added that 37,000 tons of this China clay are annually shipped
from the south-west of England to the potteries, the value of which is
upwards of £50,000, while the number of working men and women thus
employed is beyond calculation. This is one of the practical results of
geology. This is one of the things which geology, once a neglected and
unpopular science, has done for our comfort and welfare. “A hundred
years ago, it does not seem that any part of this China clay was made
use of, or that this important produce was then of any value
whatever.”[25]

We bring this chapter to a close. Granite and its kindred rocks should
stand associated with an actual history and poetry, not inferior to the
history and poetry of man’s own handiwork; and we believe geology, so
often regarded with dread by the uninitiated, will soon be considered
worthy a patient and painstaking investigation. Remembering that geology
is still an incomplete science, and that we have much yet to learn
concerning the laws of organic and inorganic matter, we should be modest
in the maintenance of any theory, while thankful for the acquisition of
any fact. “We have yet to learn whether man’s past duration upon the
earth—whether even that which is still destined to him—is such, as to
allow him to philosophise with success on such matters; whether man,
placed for a few centuries on the earth as in a schoolroom, has time to
strip the wall of its coating and count its stones, before his PARENT
removes him to some other destination.”[26]

CHAPTER IV.
THE PALÆOZOIC PERIOD.

“In His hand are the deep places of the earth.”—DAVID.

Trench, in his charming little book on the “Study of Words,” says of
words that they are “fossil poetry.” He adds, “Just as in some fossil,
curious and beautiful shapes of vegetable or animal life, the graceful
fern or finely vertebrated lizard, such as now it may be, have been
extinct for many thousands of years, are permanently bound up in the
stone, and rescued from that perishing which would otherwise have been
theirs; so in words are beautiful thoughts and images, the imagination
and the feeling of past ages, of men long since in their graves, of men
whose very names have perished—these, which would so easily have
perished too, are preserved and made safe for ever.”

Geology is the fossil poetry of the earth; such a poetry as those can
never dream of who in a pebble see a pebble and nothing more. But to
those who walk through this great and beautiful world intent upon
finding material for thought and reflection, there is no “picking up a
pebble by the wayside without finding all nature in connexion with it;”
and the most retired student, in search not simply of the picturesque or
of the beautiful, but of anything and everything that can minister to
his profounder worship of Him to whom belongeth both “the deep places of
the earth and the strength of the hills,” may say of his solitary
rambles:—

“There rolls the deep where grew the tree;—
O earth, what changes hast thou seen!
There where the long street roars, hath been
The stillness of the central sea.”[27]

We now enter upon the ancient life, or Palæozoic period of the earth’s
history, and proceed to examine the oldest forms of life, or the most
ancient organic remains found in the crust of the earth. As we do not
aim to _teach_ geology in this small work, but simply to place the chief
geological facts in such a light as to impart a _taste_ for the science,
the reader will not expect any minute details, which are more likely to
perplex than to assist the beginner. Let the reader dismiss from his
mind all that he has tried to remember about Upper and Lower Silurian
rocks, and the Upper and Lower Ludlow rocks, the Caradoc sandstone and
the Llandilo flags, and so on; let us simply say that one part of the
crust of the earth, supposed to be between 50,000 and 60,000 feet in
thickness,[28] is called the Silurian system, and constitutes a large
and interesting part of the Palæozoic period. The term Silurian was
given to this part of the earth’s crust in consequence of these rocks
being found chiefly in Wales, Devon, and Cornwall—parts of England once
inhabited by the Silures, who under Caractacus made so noble a stand
against the Romans.

In coming for the first time into contact with the organic remains of
pre-Adamite creations, it may be well to entreat the student to mark, as
he goes on, the very different and characteristic fossils of the several
formations through which we propose to travel. There will be little or
no difficulty in doing this, and its mastery will be of invaluable
service in our after researches. There is and there can be no royal road
to any kind of learning; all, therefore, that we propose to do is to
take a few of the big stones, boulders, &c., that have needlessly been
allowed to make the road rougher than necessary, out of the way, that
thus our companion traveller on this geologic route may feel that every
step of ground walked over is a real and solid acquisition. In marking
the characteristic fossils of each formation, let us suggest, in
passing, the vast amount of pleasure there is in going to a friend’s
house, and looking at the minerals or organic remains that may be in the
cabinet or on the mantel-shelf, and being able to take them up one by
one, and to say this is from the Silurian; that is from the
Carboniferous; this is from the Cretaceous, and that from the Wealden
formations, and so on. Why, it gives a magical feeling of delightful
interest to every object we see, and will always make a person a welcome
visitor with friends with whom, instead of talking scandal, he can talk
geology. Not long since the writer had a very pleasing illustration of
this. He had been lecturing on geology in a small agricultural village;
there was a good sprinkling of smock-frocks among the hearers, and he
said at the close of one of the lectures, “Now, very likely most of you
have got some stones, as you call them, at home on the chimneypiece;
perhaps you don’t know their names, or what they were before they became
stones; well, bring them next week, and we will do our best to name them
for you!” Next week, after the lecture, up came one, and then another,
and then a third, and so on; and diving their hands down into the old
orthodox agricultural pocket, brought out a variety of specimens, some
of them very good indeed, which had been “picked up” by them in the
course of their labour, and which, supposed to be “_rather kūrŭss_,” had
been carefully conveyed home. When these matters were given a “local
habitation and a name,” the delight of many was most gratifying.

Now, all this is only just the application of M. Cousin’s words in
relation to physical geography: “Give me the map of a country, its
configuration, its climate, its waters, its winds, and all its physical
geography; give me its natural productions, its flora and fauna, and I
pledge myself to tell you _à priori_ what the inhabitants of that
country will be, and what place that country will take in history, not
accidentally, but necessarily; not at a particular epoch, but at all
periods of time; in a word, the thought that country is formed to
represent.”

These remarks furnish us with a clue. Each formation has its own
peculiar and characteristic fossils, and these fossils are arranged with
as much care, and preserved as uninjured, as if they had been arranged
for a first-class museum. But before proceeding on this fossiliferous
tour, we may anticipate a question that may possibly be asked on the
threshold of our inquiries, and into which we propose going fully in the
sequel of this volume. It may be asked, “Were not these fossils placed
in the rocks by the Deluge?” To this, at present, we answer, that so
partial and limited was the character of the Deluge, being confined to
just so much of the earth as was inhabited by man, and so brief was its
duration, compared with the vast geological epochs we shall have to
consider, that we do not believe we have one single fossil that can be
referred to the Noachian deluge; and before we close, we trust it will
have been made evident to every careful reader that fossils, as records
of Noah’s flood, are an impossibility; and that the vast antiquity of
the globe, taken into connexion with the prevalence of death on a most
extensive scale, ages and ages previous to the creation of man, can
alone account for our innumerable treasures of the “deep places of the
earth.”

[Illustration:

1
]

The characteristic fossils of the Silurian system are entirely unique.
The trilobite may fairly be regarded as the prominent one; besides which
there are orthoceratites, and graptolites, some members of the
crinoidean family, with different kinds of corallines, and some other
names to be rendered familiar only by future further study. We shall
confine ourselves to those that our own recent researches have made us
familiar with. First, here is the trilobite. We need not perplex our
readers by any of the numerous subdivisions of this remarkable animal’s
nomenclature; that would defeat the purpose of this book. Any work on
geology will do this.[29] Here are three trilobites: one (1) by itself;
another, (2) imperfect in its bed or matrix, and a third (3) rolled up.

[Illustration]

This most remarkable crustacean possessed the power of rolling itself up
like the wood-louse or the hedgehog; and, reasoning by analogy, we
suppose this to have been its defence against its numerous enemies. It
is a very abundant fossil, found all over Europe, in some parts of
America, at the Cape of Good Hope, but never in more _recent strata_
than the Silurian. The hinder part of the body is covered with a
crescent-like shield, composed of segments like the joints of a
lobster’s tail; and two furrows divide it into three lobes, whence its
name.[30] Most remarkable are the eyes of this animal, and it is the
only specimen in the vestiges of ancient creations in which the eye,
that most delicate organization, is preserved; and if, as we believe,
this little creature was living and swimming about, now and then
fighting with some greater Cephalopodous mollusk, millions and millions
of years ago, then in this fact we have the real fossil poetry of
science, the romance of an ancient world which geology reveals to our
delighted and astonished minds. From Buckland’s Bridgewater Treatise we
give a drawing of the eyes of the trilobite; and in Buckland’s words we
add: “This point deserves peculiar consideration, as it affords the most
ancient, and almost the only example yet found in the fossil world, of
the preservation of parts so delicate as the visual organs of animals
that ceased to live many thousands, and perhaps millions of years ago.
We must regard these organs with feelings of no ordinary kind, when we
recollect we have before us the identical instruments of vision through
which the light of heaven was admitted to the sensorium of some of the
first created inhabitants of our planet.”[31]

[Illustration: Fossil]

But these are not the only fossils, or organic remains, to be found in
the clay, slates, &c., of the Silurian system. Passing by those we have
briefly indicated above, there are others of a highly interesting
character, concerning some of which we proceed to give a brief history.
Being in Cornwall a short time since, we made a visit to Polperro, a
romantic but out-of-the-way town on the south-west coast, for the
purpose of procuring some remains of fossil fish considered
characteristic of the Silurian system of Murchison, and which have been
recently discovered by Mr. Couch, an eminent local naturalist, in the
cliffs east and west of that town. We did not see Mr. Couch, but found
our way to a coast-guardsman, also a naturalist, whom we found to be a
most skilful bird and fish stuffer, and a ranger for objects of natural
history among the surrounding clay-slates and other rocks. William
Loughrin’s collection of Cornish curiosities will well repay any
traveller going out of the way twenty or thirty miles, and they will
find in him a fine specimen of an intelligent and noble class of men.
Below we give some specimens from the Polperro slate. No. 1 might be
taken for impressions of sea-weed, so remarkably does it resemble the
sea-weed thrown up on our beaches; but it is generally conceded that
this is merely a crystallization of oxydized matter, such as may often
be found in connexion with manganese.

[Illustration:

No. 1.
]

No. 2 is the Bellerophon,[32] a shell which we shall afterwards find in
the mountain limestone, but which is rare in connexion with the Silurian
rocks.

[Illustration:

No. 2. BELLEROPHON, a shell which seems to have been abundant.
]

[Illustration:

No. 3. REMAINS OF VEGETABLE TEXTURE.
]

No. 3 we know not how to describe. We are not certain what organic
remains these are; so far as we have been able to examine them, they
appear to us the remains of succulent vegetables, (?) probably the
thick, soft stems of sea-weed, that may once have reposed in quiescence
on the mud of which these slates are composed, and afterwards have been
crushed by the superposition of mud and shale, until in the course of
ages, by upheaval and depression, they have become a second time
visitants of our atmosphere, and now expose themselves to our study and
speculations.

[Illustration:

No. 3. (Portion magnified two natural sizes.)
]

[Illustration:

No. 4. CORALLINE. (Natural size.)
]

Here is one more form of life of this ancient period; it is evidently a
coralline, which we also procured at Polperro.

Let us suppose our readers to have made themselves familiar with these
organic remains, simply as characteristic and illustrative of this
formation; they will easily find their way into other traces and
remnants of ancient life in the Silurian epoch. How absurd must seem the
development hypothesis to those who rightly ponder these old, old
vestiges! It seems to us a very idle idea to suppose that a trilobite
could develop itself into a bird, or a monkey, or by any series of happy
accidents, could become a man;[33] yet such has been the theory of those
who overlook what some writer on geology, whose name we forget, has
expressed strongly in these words: “There is no fact which has been
demonstrated more completely to the satisfaction of every man of real
science, than that there is no known power in nature capable of creating
a new species of animal, or of transmuting one species into another.”

We close this chapter on the Silurian system in the eloquent words of
Professor Sedgwick: “The elevation of the faunas of successive periods
was not made by transmutation, but by creative additions, and it is by
watching these additions that we get some insight into nature’s true
historical progress. Judging by our evidence—and what else have we to
judge by?—there was a time when Cephalopods were the highest type of
animal life. _They_ were then the Primates of this world, and,
corresponding to their office and position, some of them were of noble
structure and gigantic size. But these creatures were degraded from
their rank at the head of Nature, and _Fishes_ next took the lead; and
they did not rise up in nature in some degenerate form, as if they were
only the transmuted progeny of the Cephalopods, but they started into
life in the very highest _ichthyic_ type ever reached.

“Following our history chronologically, _Reptiles_ next took the lead,
and, with some evanescent exceptions, they flourished during the
countless ages of the secondary period as the lords and despots of the
world: and they had an organic perfection corresponding to their exalted
rank in Nature’s kingdom; for their highest orders were not merely great
in strength and stature, but were anatomically raised far above any
forms of the Reptile class now living in the earth. This class, however,
was in its turn to lose its rank. _Mammals_ were added next (near the
commencement of the tertiary period), and seem to have been added
suddenly. Some of the early extinct forms of this class, which we now
know only by ransacking the ancient catacombs of Nature, were powerful
and gigantic, and we believe well fitted for the place they filled. But
they in turn were to be degraded from their place in Nature, and she
became what she now is by the addition of man. By this last addition she
became more exalted than before. Man stands by himself, the despotic
lord of the living world; not so great in organic strength as many of
the despots that went before him in Nature’s chronicle, but raised far
above them all by a higher development of brain, by a framework that
fits him for the operations of mechanical skill, by superadded reason,
by a social instinct of combinations, by a prescience that leads him to
act prospectively, by a conscience that makes him amenable to law, by
conceptions that transcend the narrow limits of his vision, by hopes
that have no full fruition here, by an inborn capacity of rising from
individual facts to the apprehension of general laws, by a conception of
a cause for all the phenomena of sense, and lastly, by a consequent
belief in the God of nature:—such is the history of nature.”[34]

[Illustration:

LANDS END, CORNWALL.
]

CHAPTER V.
THE OLD RED SANDSTONE.

“The fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee.”—JOB.

Lord Bacon remarks, “Some men think that the gratification of curiosity
is the end of knowledge, some the love of fame, some the pleasure of
dispute, and some the necessity of supporting themselves by knowledge;
but the real use of all knowledge is this, that we should dedicate that
reason which was given us by God to the use and advantage of man.” The
historian of the old red sandstone, Hugh Miller, to whose researches not
only we, but such men as Murchison, Lyell, Ansted, Agassiz and others,
are so exclusively indebted, is a philosopher in this last category. He
does not hesitate to tell us, how, as a Cromarty quarryman “twenty years
ago,” he commenced a “life of labour and restraint,” a “slim,
loose-jointed boy, fond of the pretty intangibilities of romance, and of
dreaming when broad awake;”[35] and how, as a quarryman, he ever kept
his eyes open, to observe the results of every blow of the hammer,
stroke of the pick, or blast of the powder; and finding himself in the
midst of new and undreamt-of relics of an old creation, preserved in
“tables of stone,” he adds _his_ testimony to that of the great father
of inductive philosophy, “that it cannot be too extensively known, that
nature is vast and knowledge limited, and that no individual, however
humble in place or acquirement, need despair of adding to the general
fund.”[36]

We here enter upon a marvellous field of discovery. Hitherto the forms
of life we have met with have all been invertebrate. The trilobite,
something between a crab and a beetle, once revelling, in untold
myriads, probably on the land as well as in the water, and of which two
hundred and fifty species have been brought to light, is the highest
type of life with which our researches have made us familiar. We are now
to begin the study of fossil fish, and to their discovery, strange
forms, and characters, this chapter will be specially devoted. It was
once a generally received opinion among even the most learned
geologists, that the “old red sandstone,” or the “Devonian system,” was
particularly barren of fossils, but the labours (literally such, “mente,
manu, malleoque”[37]) of Hugh Miller have proved the contrary. “The
fossils,” he says, “are remarkably numerous, and in a state of high
preservation. I have a hundred solid proofs by which to establish the
proof of my assertion, within less than a yard of me. Half my closet
walls are covered with the peculiar fossils of the lower old red
sandstone; and certainty a stranger assemblage of forms have rarely been
grouped together; creatures whose very type is lost, fantastic and
uncouth, and which puzzle the naturalist to assign them even their
class; boat-like animals, furnished with oars and a rudder; fish plated
over like the tortoise, above and below, with a strong armour of bone,
and furnished with but one solitary rudder-like fin; other fish less
equivocal in their form, but with the membranes of their fins thickly
covered with scales; creatures bristling over with thorns, others
glistening in an enamelled coat, as if beautifully japanned, the tail in
every instance among the less equivocal shapes, formed not equally as in
existing fish, on each side the central vertebral column, but chiefly on
the lower side, the column sending out its diminished vertebræ to the
extreme termination of the fin. All the forms testify of a remote
antiquity—of a period whose fashions have passed away.”[38]

The old red sandstone formation prevails in the north of Scotland,
Herefordshire, north of Devonshire, part of Cornwall, and in
Worcestershire and Shropshire. Our attention will be principally
confined to Cromarty, whose romantic bay and high hills have long
arrested the admiring gaze of the traveller. This was the scene of Hugh
Miller’s labours and discoveries; this the great library in which he
read the history of pre-Adamite ichthyolites[39] exposed not only to the
light of day, but for the first time to the inspection of human eyes, by
the sweat-of-brow toil of one of Scotland’s noble sons. Before we get
into the hard names that must be connected with this chapter, let us
hear Mr. Miller describe this library of God’s books that was so long
his wonder and his study in Cromartyshire. “The quarry in which I
wrought lay on the southern shore of a noble inland bay, or frith
rather, with a little clear stream on the one side, and a thick fir-wood
on the other. Not the united labours of a thousand men for a thousand
years could have furnished a better section of the geology of this
district than this range of cliffs; it may be regarded as a sort of
chance dissection on the earth’s crust. We see in one place the primary
rock, with its veins of granite and quartz, its dizzy precipices of
gneiss, its huge masses of horneblend; we find the secondary rock in
another, with its beds of sandstone and shale, its spars, its clays, and
its nodular limestones. We discover the still little known, but very
interesting fossils of the old red sandstone in one deposition; we find
the beautifully preserved shell and lignites of the lias in another.
There are the remains of two several creations at once before us. The
shore, too, is heaped with rolled fragments of almost every variety of
rock,—basalts, ironstones, hyperstenes, porphyries, bituminous shales,
and micaceous schists. In short, the young geologist, had he all Europe
before him, could hardly choose for himself a better field. I had,
however, no one to tell me so at the time, for geology had not yet
travelled so far north; and so, without guide or vocabulary, I had to
grope my way as best I might, and find out all its wonders for myself.
But so slow was the process, and so much was I a seeker in the dark,
that the facts contained in these few sentiments were the patient
gatherings of years.”[40]

Now with regard to the hard names to which we have just made
allusion—names that, apart from their etymology, which is nothing more
than “sending vagrant words back to their parish,” are enough to startle
any one; names such as heterocercal, homocercal, cephalaspis,
pterichthys, coccosteus, osteolepis, &c. &c.—why, they will all
presently become plain, and, we hope, familiar to our readers. “They
are,” says Hugh Miller, “like all names in science, unfamiliar in their
aspect to mere English readers, just because they are names not for
England alone, but for England and the world. I am assured, however,
that they are all composed of very good Greek, and picturesquely
descriptive of some peculiarity in the fossils they designate.”[41]

The rest of this chapter will be occupied with an account of the four
most remarkable and characteristic fishes of this formation, to
understand which a few preliminary remarks are necessary. Cuvier divided
all fish into two groups, the _bony_ and the _cartilaginous_; and these
two groups he subdivided into two divisions, characterised by
differences in their _fins_, or organs of locomotion, one of which he
called Acanthopterygian,[42] (thorny-finned,) and the other,
Malacopterygian,[43] (or soft-finned.) This concise arrangement did not,
however, meet all the wants of the fish-students, and it was often
practically difficult to know under which class to arrange particular
specimens. More recently M. Agassiz has arranged fish, not according to
their _fins_, but according to their _scales_; and simple as this
classification may seem, it is one of the greatest triumphs of genius in
modern times, inasmuch as all fishes extinct and existing, that have
inhabited or are inhabiting the “waters under the earth,” may be grouped
easily under the following four divisions:—

[Illustration:

1. GANOID SCALE; as bony pike.[44]
]

[Illustration:

2. PLACOID SCALE.[45]
]

[Illustration:

3. CTENOID SCALE; as sole or perch.[46]
]

[Illustration:

4. CYCLOID SCALE; as herring.[47]
]

One more preliminary remark, and we will proceed to look at the four
fishes already alluded to. Neither the teacher nor the student of any
science can skip definitions, axioms, postulates, and so on; they must
just be mastered, and their mastery is a real pleasure. In addition to a
marked difference in the _fins_, a difference was observed also in the
_tails_ of fossil (extinct) and living pieces of fish. This difference
between the tails of fish has been happily described in two words,
heterocercal and homocercal, of which the figures below will give a
better idea than a lengthened description.

[Illustration:

1. HETEROCERCAL.
]

[Illustration:

2. HOMOCERCAL.
]

[Illustration:

3. HOMOCERCAL.
]

The _heterocercal_ fish, it will be seen, are unequally lobed, that is,
the spinal vertebræ are prolonged into the upper lobe of the tail, as
seen in the shark, and of which our own dog-fish is an example; while
the homocercal fish are equally lobed, and the spine does not extend
into either.

The fossil fish of the old red sandstone belong almost, if not entirely,
to the classes of fish that have ganoid or placoid scales, and
heterocercal tails; and of these fish we will now say a few words of the
four most remarkable specimens of the one thousand and upwards fossil
species that have been discovered, and which can only be known
familiarly by accomplished geologists in the ichthyolite department.

[Illustration: Fossil]

1. Here is a drawing of the Cephalaspis,[48] or buckler-headed fish.
What an extraordinary looking creature this is! Like the crescent shape
of a saddler’s knife without the handle—broad and flat, with points on
each side running down, ever fixed in warlike attitude against its
enemies—it reminds one of an extinct trilobite, and of a living sole or
ray, at the same time; and one can easily fancy how hard it must have
been for its ancient foes to swallow down so singular and so knife-like
looking a creature. This is one of the curious organisms of old life
discovered in Cromarty, Herefordshire, and in Russia, the original of
which, restored in the drawing, seldom if ever exceeded seven inches.

Let us look now at another curiosity from the same quarter.

[Illustration: Fossil]

2. Here is a drawing of the Coccosteus,[49] or berry-boned fish. This
creature is equally singular with his long extinct neighbour. Hugh
Miller’s description is the best, and as he was its discoverer, let us
give it.

“The figure of the Coccosteus I would compare to a boy’s kite; there is
a rounded head, a triangular body, a long tail attached to the apex of
the triangle, and arms thin and rounded where they attach to the body,
and spreading out towards their termination, like the ancient one-sided
shovel which we see sculptured on old tombstones, or the rudder of an
ancient galley. A ring of plates, like the ring-stones of an arch, runs
along what we may call the hoop of the kite. The form of the key-stone
plate is perfect; the shapes of the others are elegantly varied, as if
for ornament; and what would be otherwise the opening of the arch is
filled up with one large plate of an outline singularly elegant.”[50]

[Illustration: Fossil]

3. Above is the Pterichthys,[51] or winged fish. We have here a fish
more strikingly different to any existing species than either of the
other two just passed under review. “Imagine,” says Miller, “the figure
of a man rudely drawn in black on a grey ground; the head cut off by the
shoulders; the arms spread at full, as in the attitude of swimming; the
body rather long than otherwise, and narrowing from the chest downwards;
one of the legs cut away at the hip-joint; the other, as if to preserve
the balance, placed directly in the centre of the figure, which it seems
to support. Such, at the first glance, is the appearance of the
fossil.”[52]

We will now turn to the fourth and last of the singular fishes of this
formation.

[Illustration: Fossil]

4. The Osteolepis,[53] or bony scaled fish. Here we have in the old red
sandstone the first perfect specimen of a fish with pectoral, abdominal,
and caudal fins, ending as the others do in the heterocercal tail. The
vertebral column seems to have run on to well-nigh the extremity of the
caudal fin, which we find developed chiefly on the under side. The tail
was a one-sided tail. Take into account with these peculiarities such as
the naked skull, jaws, and operculum,[54] the naked and thickly set
rays, and the unequally lobed condition of tail, a body covered with
scales that glitter like sheets of mica, and assume, according to their
position, the parallelogramical, rhomboidal, angular, or polygonal form,
a lateral line raised, not depressed, a raised bar on the inner or bony
side of the scales, which, like the doubled up end of a tile, seems to
have served the purpose of fastening them in their places, a general
clustering of alternate fins towards the tail—and the _tout ensemble_
must surely impart to the reader the idea of a very singular little
fish.[55]

Most hasty and superficial is this glance through the wonders of the old
red sandstone. On the economic uses of this formation, as _tile-stones_
and _paving-stones_, we need not dwell; apart from this, these singular
inhabitants of the seas of past ages, the mud of which, elevated and
hardened, has become solid rock, tell us stories of that long since
ancient time to which no poetry could do justice. Carried away from the
present into those remote eras, our minds revel in the realization of
scenery and inhabitants, of which now we possess only the fossil
pictures. At the British Museum, we gaze with feelings approaching to
repulsion on the stiff and unnatural forms of Egyptian mummies, but with
what feelings of profound wonder do we look on these small fishes, so
numerous that the relics of them, found in the Orkneys, may be carried
away by cartloads! No number of creations can exhaust God, for in Him
all fulness dwelleth. The God in whom we now live, and move, and have
our being, is the same God who gave to these pre-Adamite fish their
marvellous structures, minutely but fearfully and wonderfully made, and
who, when their joy of life and functions of life had ceased, consigned
them to a calm and peaceful grave. He is the same God who now upholds
all things by the word of his power, and whom we desire to honour by the
attentive and reverent perusal of his manifold works. _We_ are
tautologists; we say and do the same thing over and over again. God
never repeats himself: each successive creation—and how many, extending
through countless ages, does geology disclose!—only reveals some new
aspect of wisdom, love, and beneficence. To the mind that cannot repose
in God, we say, Study God, in his works and in his word; yea, come back
to this remote sandstone era and ask of the “fishes, and they shall
declare unto thee” the might and majesty, the skill and contrivance of
the Almighty; and though you and I were not there, nor had Adam yet trod
this blessed earth,—

“Think not, though men were none,
That heaven could want spectators, God want praise;
Millions of spiritual creatures walked the earth,
And these with ceaseless praise His works beheld.”

CHAPTER VI.
THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM.

“As for the earth, out of it cometh bread, and under it is turned up as
it were fire.”—JOB.

Suppose this lump of coal could speak, what would it say? Would it not
say something like this: “To get me up out of the earth involves dirt,
danger, slush, and much tallow-candle; but now you have me, let me tell
you my story, for though black I am comely, and but for me—but I
anticipate. Now and then I make a dust in your libraries, and
inadvertently shoot out sparks and firestones, but nevertheless I am of
more use to man than the old granite or the proudest Parian marble; you
may get a long way in philosophy, but you will never get beyond coal. I
am the real Koh-i-noor of the British empire; and though I can’t, like
my namesake, put on a white dress, I am nevertheless worth the soiling
of your whitest gloves. _Chemistry_ makes no discoveries without me: I
light the fire of the laboratory, and furnish man with the means of
every crucial test. _Civilization_ wants me every day on land and sea,
and though in one sense my labours end in smoke, in another they end in
commerce, progress, national brotherhood, and interchanging productions
of every clime. The _poor student_ needs me, for I light his lamp, warm
his feet, and cook his food while he is doing sweat-of-brain work for
others. And best of all, the _poor man_ is a rich man when he has me; he
knows that next of kin to good food is good fuel, and man by my help is
making such progress, that the day will come when every man will sit by
his own blazing fire, instead of seeking joy elsewhere amidst false and
pernicious excitements.”

Something like this our friend Coal would be sure to say; and that Coal
may not complain of any aloofness on our parts, let us proceed to an
examination of the carboniferous system.

“’Tis very pregnant,
The jewel that we find, we stoop and take it,
Because we see it; but what we do not see,
We tread upon, and never think of it.”
_Measure for Measure._

The carboniferous system is not all coal; underlying, and often
overlying, the coal measures, for the most part, is the mountain
limestone, a formation pre-eminently rich in marine fossils. During the
tremendous convulsions experienced by the earth immediately after the
deposition of the old red sandstone, a vast sea of lime, thick, muddy,
and hot, seems to have been poured out over a large portion of the
British islands and elsewhere. This flow of liquid lime covered and
encased many then existing animals, and we now find it full of fossils
of the crinoidean family, a few molluscs, and traces of fish. We shall
not, however, stay to examine these now, as we shall meet with them
again in the Oolite; our attention will be limited to that part of the
carboniferous system which includes only the coal measures, properly so
called.

Coal is a vegetable that, by _chemical change_ and by _mechanical
pressure_, has become a bituminous mineral; and this will render it
needful to say a word or two on the ancient vegetable kingdom. The vast
quantities[56] of remains of leaves, ferns, and stems of trees, found in
the coal measures, are not in themselves evidence sufficient of the
vegetable origin of coal; we arrive at that conclusion in consequence of
the researches of modern philosophers, who having applied the powers of
the microscope to the internal structure of coal, have discovered the
cellular and reticular construction of vegetable life beautifully
preserved, and thus previous convictions have become certainties. The
examination of the ancient vegetable kingdom is, however, attended with
much difficulty, in consequence of the total destruction in most cases
of the stems and trunks of the plants, and the entire absence, in
consequence of pressure, of all fructification on the fronds of the
ferns. If we take an existing species of fern, say the rare and delicate
“maiden-hair fern,”[57] one of the smallest and most elegant ferns of
England, we find the fructification very distinct on the under side, and
the different methods in which this fructification is arranged is now
the principal guide in the classification of ferns. But if we take a
fossil fern, say the pecopteris, found in the coal measures, we shall
see that there has been so much dislocation and crushing, that all
appearance of seed-vessels has disappeared. The following sketch will
explain this.

[Illustration:

EXTINCT FERN, AND MAIDEN-HAIR FERN.
]

“Nothing,” says Professor Ansted, “however, is more certain than that
all coal was once vegetable; for in most cases the woody structure may
be detected under the microscope, and this, if not in the coal in its
ordinary state, at least in the burnt ashes which remain after it has
been exposed to the action of heat, and has lost its bituminous and
semi-crystalline character. This has been too well and too frequently
proved by actual experiment to require more than the mere statement of
the fact.” And here let us say a few words, which to a few perhaps may
have the charm of novelty, about the economic history of coal; for as
Cowper says that the first curse, “labour,” has, by God’s blessing on
it, been “softened into mercy,” so do we add also, in his words,
heartily subscribing to their truth,—

“Thus studied, used, and consecrated thus,
On earth what is, seems formed indeed for us;
Not as the plaything of a froward child,
Fretful unless diverted and beguiled;
But as scale, by which the soul ascends
From mighty means to more important ends;
Securely, though by steps but rarely trod,
Mounts from inferior beings up to God;
And sees, by no fallacious light or dim,
Earth made for man, and man himself for Him.”

How long coal has been known and used, we cannot certainly tell, but a
writer in Lardner’s Cabinet Cyclopædia states that the first mention of
coal is in the pages of one Theophrastus, who was, it seems, a pupil of
Aristotle. He says, “Those fossil substances that are called coals,”
(Greek, ἄνθραξ) “and are broken for use, are earthy; they kindle,
however, and burn like wood coals; they are found in Liguria and in the
way to Olympias over the mountains, and are used by the smiths.” Cæsar,
although he speaks of the metals of the British isles, does not once
mention its coal; but it seems more than likely that it was both known
and used by the Romans during their occupation of Britain. Horsley, in
his “Britannia Romana,” says of Benwell, a village near
Newcastle-on-Tyne, “There was a coalry not far from this place, which is
judged by those who are best skilled in such affairs to have been
wrought by the Romans; and, in digging up the foundations of one of the
Roman walled cities, coal cinders very large were dug up, which glowed
in the fire like other coal cinders, and were not to be known from them
when taken up.”

During the time of the Saxons, we find ourselves on less doubtful
ground. In a grant made to the monks of Peterborough Abbey for one
night’s annual entertainment, those good old souls had, we find, “ten
vessels of Welsh ale, two vessels of common ale, sixty cartloads of
wood, and twelve cartloads of _fossil coal_,” (_carbonum fossilium_.)

The Danes had so much fighting on hand, that they troubled themselves
neither with coal nor civilization; and we know little of our English
diamond until we come to Henry the Third’s reign, when, in 1239, a
charter was granted to the inhabitants of Newcastle-on-Tyne to dig
coals, and we find the coal called for the first time “_carbo maris_,”
or sea-coal, a term retained through all the succeeding centuries. About
this time chimneys came into fashion. As long as people burnt wood they
scarcely needed chimneys, but coal introduced chimneys, to say nothing
of steamboats and railroads. The Archbishop of Canterbury, who at that
time used to reside alternately at Croydon and at Lambeth, had by royal
permission thirty cartloads of “sea-borne coal” annually delivered at
his archiepiscopal palace, because, says the historian, “for his own
private use in his own chamber he now had the convenience of chimneys.”

The smoke nuisance of that day deserves a passing notice. Smoke was then
with many a grand luxury. Old Hollingshed says, “Now we have many
chimneys, yet our tenderlings do complain of rheums, and catarrhs, and
poses. Once we had nought but rere-doses,[58] and our heads did never
ake. For the smoke of those days was a good hardening for the house, and
a far better medicine to keep the good man and his family from the quack
or the pose, with which then very few were acquainted. There are old men
yet dwelling in the village where I remain, who have noted how the
multitude of chimneys do increase, whereas in their young days, there
was not above two or three, if so many, in some uplandish towns of the
realm, and peradventure in the manor places of some great lords; but
each one made his fire against a rere-dose in the hall, where he dined
and dressed his meat. But when our houses were built of willow, then we
had oaken men; but now that our houses are made of oak, our men are not
only become willow, but a great many altogether men of straw, which is a
sore alteration.”

Leaving this digression, let us try and get a bird’s-eye view of the
coal-fields of the British Isles. If we commence in Devonshire, we find
there the Devonian culms, or Bovey Tracey coal, lying near the surface
of the ground, and of little except local use. Crossing over the Bristol
Channel, we come into Pembrokeshire, to the Welsh basin, remarkable
because thence we mostly get our anthracite coal. Thence we pass on to
the Derbyshire coal-fields, that go with little interruption into
Scotland, averaging 200 miles in length, and about 40 in width,—once
mighty tropical swamps, jungles, and forests, now become chief minerals
of commerce. Included in this last immense field is the great Newcastle
coal district, the most celebrated of any, supplying almost all the
south of England, and nearly all London, with their best coals; and the
Scotch carboniferous system, celebrated for its numerous fossils, and
for its general base of old red sandstone. In addition to which there is
the Irish carboniferous system, occupying as much as 1,000 square miles,
but of an inferior quality, and not likely to be of any great economical
importance.

In the words of Professor Ansted, we add: “This account of the coal-beds
gives a very imperfect notion of the quantity of vegetable matter
required to form them; and, on the other hand, the rate of increase of
vegetables, and the quantity annually brought down by some great rivers
both of the eastern and western continents, is beyond all measure
greater than is the case in our drier and colder climates. Certain kinds
of trees which contributed largely to the formation of the coal, seem to
have been almost entirely succulent,[59] and capable of being squeezed
into a small compass during partial decomposition. This squeezing
process must have been conducted on a grand scale, and each bed in
succession was probably soon covered up by muddy and sandy
accumulations, now alternating with the coal in the form of shale and
gritstone. Sometimes the trunks of trees caught in the mud would be
retained in a slanting or nearly vertical position, while the sands were
accumulating around them; sometimes the whole would be quietly buried,
and soon cease to exhibit any external marks of vegetable origin.”[60]

There are various kinds of coal on which we may bestow a few words.
There is _anthracite_, or non-bituminous coal, and which, therefore,
burns without flame or smoke, and is extensively used in malting; and
_sea-coal_, which is highly bituminous, and which gives forth so much
flame and smoke, that in the good old times of 1306, Parliament forbad
its use in London by fine and by demolition of all furnaces in which it
was burnt, because “this coal did corrupt the air with its great smoke
and stink;” and _cannel-coal_, the etymology of which, they say, is firm
the word candle, because in many parts of Lancashire the poor use it in
place of oil or tallow for lights; and _jet_, sometimes called black
amber, which in France employs about 1,200 men in one district, in
making earrings, rosaries, and other ornaments; and last of all, there
is wood passing into coal called _lignite_, found only in the Devonshire
culms.

Having thus glanced at the natural history and varieties of coal, we may
here try and realize the flora of the carboniferous era. An examination
of the fossils of this period enables us to come to undoubted
conclusions concerning the trees and plants of that era, so that it is
no mere dream to look upon a picture like the following, and see in it a
landscape of the coal-forming time of the British islands.

[Illustration:

FLORA OF THE COAL MEASURES RESTORED.
]

The sun then poured down his golden beams of heat and light, and a
tropical climate prevailed in our now cold and humid England. The
mountain tops were gilded with his rays; a vast ocean studded with
islands, and these crowned with gigantic palms and ferns, then covered
our northern hemisphere. In that ocean but few fish were to be found,
though many rare molluscous animals swam to and fro, enjoying their
brief term of life, and discharging all their appropriate functions.
Mountain streams discharged their muddy waters into this ocean, leaving
along their margin course broken trees, vegetables, grasses and ferns.
The giant Lepidodendron looked like a monarch of the ancient world,
while around him smaller ferns, vying with each other in beauty and
grace, grew, “first the blade” and then the ripened frond, until, in
obedience to the great law of organic life, they died and decayed, and
became material for the coming man’s future use. But amidst all this
prodigal luxuriousness of the vegetable world, there appears to have
been neither bird nor beast to break the monotony of the scene; all was
silent as the grave—rank, moist verdure below; magnificent ferns and
palms above, and the stillness of death on every side.[61]

[Illustration: Fossil]

Let us, however, glance at the principal ferns, whose fossil remains we
have often found at the mouth of many a coalpit thrown out among the
waste. The uncouth names given to them, uncouth only in appearance, must
not deter the reader from his acquaintance with their peculiarities; for
are not the names of botanical science almost, if not quite, as
repellent at first? This star-shaped beauty, (1) the _asterophyllite_,
(from _aster_, a star, and _phyllon_, a leaf,) was a common one; this
(2) is the _sphenopteris_ (from _sphēn_, a wedge, and _pteron_, a wing),
so named from a fancied resemblance of the petals of the frond to a
wedge; the next (3) is the _pecopteris_ (from _pekos_, a comb, and
_pteron_, a wing), from a resemblance of the frond to the teeth of a
comb; the next (4) is the _odontopteris_ (from _odous_, a tooth, and
_pteron_, a wing), and in this the frond is something like the jaws of a
shark bound together by a central stem, from which they diverge; and the
last (5), our favourite, is the _neuropteris_ (from _neuros_, a nerve,
and _pteron_, a wing), on account of the exquisite beauty with which the
fibres, like nerves, distribute themselves.

“Besides the ferns, then growing to a great size, there were other
plants whose modern representatives are uniformly small; but as the
resemblance in this case is simply one of general form, and the great
majority of other trees seem to possess no living type to which they can
be referred, it is by no means impossible that these also may be
completely lost. One example of them is seen in a plant, fragments of
which are extremely common in the coal measures, and which has been
called _calamite_.[62] The remains of calamites consist of jointed
fragments, which were originally cylindrical, but are now almost always
crushed and flattened. They resemble very closely in general appearance
the common jointed reed, growing in marshes, and called _equisetum_, or
mare’s tail; but instead of being confined to a small size, they would
seem to have formed trees, having a stem more than a foot in diameter,
and jointed branches and leaves of similar gigantic proportions. They
were evidently soft and succulent, and very easily crushed. They seem to
have grown in great multitudes near the place where the coal is now
accumulated; and though often broken, they seldom bear marks of having
being transported from a distance.”[63] The fossils of the carboniferous
system here figured we found not long since in the neighbourhood of
Stockport.

[Illustration:

CALAMITES.
]

[Illustration:

CALAMITE.
]

[Illustration:

STIGMARIA FICOIDES.
]

This chapter on the carboniferous system must not be further lengthened.
We do not aspire to teach the science of geology; we aim only to impart
such a taste for it as shall lead the reader to consult our master works
on this subject, and if we succeed in this humble but useful aim, our
purpose will be fully answered. Only in reference to the economic uses
of coal, we will quote the following, copied, we believe, from the
“Athenæum” some time since, but unfortunately copied without reference
to its original; a lesson for common-place-book keepers. The writer in
speaking of coal-gas says: “The consumption of gas is enormous. The
following statistics give us an insight into the extent which this
branch of industry has attained. In England 6,000,000 tons of coals are
annually employed for the manufacture of gas, and from 12,000,000 to
15,000,000 pounds sterling expended in its production. In London alone
500,000 tons of coals are annually used, producing 4,500,000,000 cubic
feet of gas, and 500,000 chaldrons of coke; of the latter, 125,000
chaldrons are consumed in manufacturing the gas, and the remainder sold
for fuel. Upwards of half-a-million houses in London burn gas, and the
length of the main arteries for conveying it is 1,600 miles. The capital
employed in the metropolis is 4,000,000_l._ The manufacture of coal-gas
for the purpose of illumination affords one of the most striking
instances of the triumphs of science when enlisted in the divine cause
of civilization. Looking at it as a whole, and regarding the ingenuity
evinced in the construction of apparatus, the chemical skill and beauty
displayed in the process, and the very valuable purposes to which it is
applied, it forms one of the most beautiful, curious, and useful of our
manufactures; and probably there is no subject of a manufacturing
character in the present day which more engages public attention,
coal-gas having now become not a mere luxury, or even convenience, but
an absolute necessary. In the words of my late colleague and friend, Dr.
Hofmann, ‘The extent to which the use of gas has affected the arts and
manufactures in this country, can only be conceived by those who are
aware of its innumerable applications in the double capacity of giving
light and heat. To our experimental chemists the benefits afforded by
gas cannot be overrated, more especially in England, where the price of
spirits of wine is so exorbitant. But for the use of gas in the
laboratory, the progress of chemistry in this country must have been
greatly retarded.’

“In speaking of the general influence of the manufacture of coal-gas, it
is impossible to leave unnoticed the number of hands daily engaged in
raising whole strata of coal, in loading and navigating the fleets
employed in conveying it, not only to the different parts of this
kingdom, but to foreign countries, which consume a larger quantity of
English coal for the production than is generally known. The extension
of the gas enterprise produced a sensible effect on the ironworks, by
the vast number of retorts, the stupendous gas-holders, and endless
pipes required for generating, storing, and conveying it.

“Several other branches of trade were also forced into increased
activity, and even new trades sprung up in consequence of the extended
use of gas. The substances produced in the purification of gas naturally
attracted the attention of the gas manufacturer; and chemistry soon
pointed out valuable purposes to which they might be applied. The oily
matter, which separates as a secondary product in the distillation of
coal, yielded, when purified in its more volatile portion, the most
convenient solvent for caoutchouc; another part of it was found to be an
efficient preservative of timber, and the pitchy residue formed the
chief ingredient of an excellent substitute for the flag stones of our
pavements; while the ammoniacal liquors were found useful in improving
the fertility of land. Thus, after the lapse of countless ages, was the
nitrogen of petrified fern forests resuscitated in the ammoniacal
liquors of the gas-works, to vegetate once more and increase the produce
of our corn fields.”

[Illustration:

SIR HUMPHREY DAVY’S LAMP, AND MINER AT WORK.
]

“All nature feels the secret power,
And through eternal change obeys
Up from the deepest region creeps
The trace of life of former days.”
_Faust._

CHAPTER VII.
SECONDARY FORMATIONS.
_No. 1. The New Red Sandstone._

“There is a path which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture’s eye hath
not seen; the lions’ whelps have not trodden it, nor the fierce lion
passed by it.”—JOB.

We now take our leave of the Palæozoic period, and enter upon the
investigation of other and more recent geological epochs in the history
of the crust of our planet. This division is known by the names
Secondary or Mesozoic,[64] and is inclusive of the New Red Sandstone,
Oolitic, Wealden, and Cretaceous groups. If, in our previous survey, we
have had our minds filled with wonder as we looked at the disinterred
relics of past creations, and have gazed at these fossil forms of
ancient life with almost a loving interest in their still remaining
beauty; so, as we now study higher types of life, and behold how “other
wonders rise, and seize the soul the prisoner of amaze,” we shall find
reason upon reason for the penetration of our minds with the profoundest
adoration of Deity. No man turning up a tumulus, and there finding
coins, weapons, beads, vases, or other such historical relics, would
venture to say such things were created there; on the contrary, he would
acknowledge that they were Roman, and that he had come to that
conclusion by perceiving their resemblance to other and similar ancient
Roman relics, discovered where there could be no doubt of their origin
and history. Or if a traveller were to visit the cities of Herculaneum
and Pompeii, and there find buried beneath the overwhelming torrent of
once burning lava, all possible kinds of human memorials, not only in
human _works_, but also in the skeleton remains of human _beings_, would
he not come to the conclusion that these were indubitable evidences of
those cities having once been inhabited by man, and that these skeletons
were once covered with warm flesh, and that they had lived, and moved,
and had their being, even as we do now, amidst the activities and
enjoyments of actual life? We apply this to geology. There are persons
who never judge by _evidence_, (though what else have we to judge by?)
but rashly jump to conclusions about geological facts, that have not a
particle of common sense to sustain them. They never think that every
rounded pebble they meet with has been so rounded by the action of
water; they imagine sand to have been created as sand, instead of taking
the geologist’s proof, that all sand has been produced by the action of
moving water on solid rock. They believe that fossils were created, and
that God put encrinital remains, and dead ammonites, and bones of
saurians, and teeth and bones of great mammals, in the earth, just as we
find them in the cliffs and caves of this and every country; and they
imagine that thus to account for the wonders of creation redounds to the
glory of that God whom thus they ignorantly worship. Even our great
publishing society in Paternoster Row,[65] that has published about
everything in natural history but geology, has acknowledged to me that
it declines to undertake a work on this science, because of the
_theological difficulties_ connected with the subject. Why, what is this
but the very way to breed infidelity? The man who studies nature and who
studies his Bible, is not ashamed to say he believes them both; though
two books, they are both given by inspiration of God. Man may be a liar,
but neither nature nor the Bible can lie; and while one tells us the
history of man, the other reveals to us the history of the creation, and
succession of those beings which preceded the advent of man.

We now come to the New Red Sandstone, which must occupy our attention
both on account of the unique fossil remains found in it, and also on
account of its economic use and value in commerce. Few formations, small
as it is, possess so many points of interest to the beginner as the new
red sandstone; for, lying just above the carboniferous, and between it
and the oolitic group, we find in it certain curiosities of very olden
time, that are full of marvellous power to fill us with amaze. Every one
remembers Robinson Crusoe’s surprise at finding “the print of a man’s
naked foot on the shore, which was very plain to be seen in the sand,”
and how he “stood like one thunder-struck, or as if he had seen an
apparition;” and then how he “went again to see if it might not be his
fancy, but there was no room for that, for there was exactly the very
print of a foot, toes, heel, and every part of a foot;” and then how,
after “innumerable fluttering thoughts, and out of himself,” he went
home terrified to his fortification.

Equally surprising are the discoveries made in the old red sandstone.
Large slabs of this rock have been discovered in England, in Scotland,
and in the United States, on which are left, as Robinson left the
impression of his foot, the undisturbed footmarks of _pre-Adamite_
animals; the ebb and flow of the tide of those distant ages; the
ripple-mark showing the direction of the wind; and casts of the
rainprints made by showers, long long ages ere man had taken possession
of the “deep places of the earth.” “Romantic nonsense!” says a grave
friend; “let us go to something practical, instead of losing ourselves
in such idle speculations.” Now, you are just the person whose ear we
want to catch; and to you we say, just listen to the evidence of these
assertions. “The casts of rainprints below project from the under side
of two layers; the one a sandy shale, and the other a sandstone
presenting a warty or a blistered surface, and affording evidence of
cracks formed by the shrinkage of subjacent clay on which rain had
fallen. The great humidity of the climate of the coal period had been
previously inferred from the nature of its vegetation, and the
continuity of its forests for hundreds of miles; but it is satisfactory
to have at length obtained such positive proofs of showers of rain, the
drops of which resembled in their average size those which now fall from
the clouds. From such data we may presume that the atmosphere of the
carboniferous period corresponded in density with that now investing the
globe and that different currents of air varied then as now in
temperature, so as to give rise, by their mixture, to the condensation
of aqueous vapour.”[66]

[Illustration:

CASTS OF RAIN-PRINTS.
]

Again, let us hear the words of Professor Ansted. “It may appear at
first sight that nothing can be more fleeting, or less likely to be
handed down to future ages, among the fossils of a bed of sandstone,
than the casts of the impressions of the footsteps of an animal, which
by chance may have walked over that bed when it existed in the condition
of loose sand forming a seashore. A little consideration, however, will
show that it is in fact a very possible occurrence, as, if the wet sand
should be immediately covered up with a thin coating of marl, and
another layer of sand be superimposed, such an impression will be
permanently preserved. In after ages, also, when the soft sands have
become sandstones, and are elevated above their former level, the stones
split asunder wherever a layer of different material occurs; and thus it
happens that the casts of the footsteps may be preserved and exhibited,
although all other traces of the former existence of the animal have
been lost.”[67]

[Illustration:

FOOTPRINTS OF A TRYDACTYLE BIRD, AND IMPRESSION OF RAIN.
(_Nat. size._)
]

If we go to the British Museum, on the north wall of room No. 1. we
shall find slabs of sandstone containing footprints of animals,
apparently bipeds and quadrupeds, of which we find the following notice
in the catalogue of the Museum; and when this description is compared
with the three drawings that follow, we make no doubt of carrying the
conviction of the reader along with our own, as to the origin of these
extraordinary _ichnites_,[68] as such petrified prints are termed:—“The
slabs of sandstone on the north wall of this room, with the supposed
tracks of an animal called Cheirotherium, are that on the left from the
quarries of Hildburghausen in Saxony, and that in the centre from those
of Horton Hill, near Liverpool, (the latter presented by J. Tomkinson,
Esq.) On the right hand are placed slabs from the same new red sandstone
formation, with equally enigmatical imprests of various dimensions,
called Ornithichnites,[69] being very like footmarks of birds; they
occur in the sandstone beds near Greenfield, Massachusetts, at a
cataract in the Connecticut River known by the name of Turner’s Falls.”

[Illustration:

FOOTPRINTS OF BIPEDS (BIRDS?) PROM TURNER’S FALLS.
(_Size of slab, 8 ft. by 6._)
]

The lines in this drawing are merely to indicate the direction, the line
of progress, of these bipeds, and the reader by following the lines will
find the illustration all the more interesting.

But the most remarkable footprints preserved on slabs of sandstone are
those of a quadruped, whose hinder feet were much larger than his fore
feet. Some of our marsupial[70] quadrupeds, such as the opossum and
kangaroo, and many species of batrachian[71] reptiles, are distinguished
by the same peculiarity. Below is a copy of this slab, which is in the
window recess of the same room of the British Museum.

[Illustration: Fossil]

The animal that left these impressions on the soft sandy shore, that are
now converted into hard stone, was originally named the
Cheirotherium,[72] and, indeed, this name is still retained by many
writers, the hand-like footprints being quite a sufficient reason for so
appropriate a name; but latterly the teeth of a fossil animal, supposed
to be the same as the Cheirotherium, having been examined, and
disclosing a peculiarly labyrinthine character, the animal has been
called Labyrinthodon.[73] Professor Owen, the great comparative
anatomist of geology, has fairly established the real character of this
animal. He says it is a huge frog, a gigantic batrachian, with hinder
feet at least twelve inches in length, combining a crocodilian with a
frog-like structure; and although the actual shape and proportions of
such an animal must remain greatly an enigma, it is one of the wondrous
marvels of geology to pause over these extinct huge creatures, and mark
in them the exhaustless resources of creative power.

“So reads he nature, whom the lamp of truth
Illuminates,—thy lamp, mysterious Word!
Which whoso sees, no longer wanders lost,
With intellects bemazed in endless doubt,
But runs the road of wisdom. Thou hast built
Worlds that never had been, hadst thou in strength
Been less, or less benevolent than strong.”

In Professor Ansted’s remarkable prose poem on geology, called, “The
Ancient World,” we have the following picture of the new red sandstone
period, which we quote for its vivid but faithful colouring:—“We may
imagine a wide, low, sandy track by the sea-side; the hills and cliffs
of limestone, which still rise boldly on the shores of the Avon, and in
Derbyshire and Yorkshire, having then been recently elevated, and
forming a fringe to the coast line. In some places, where footprints are
found in successive beds and at different levels, local elevation was
probably going on, and the line of coast was occasionally shifting. The
sandy fiats thus laid bare, and not reached by the ordinary level of
high water, were of course traversed by the ancient animals of that
period; but only a few faint records of them have been handed down for
our observation. Amongst these, however, we are able to enumerate
turtles and tortoises, a little lizard having a bird-like beak, and
probably a bird’s foot,—birds themselves, some larger than an ostrich,
others as small as our smaller waders. In some parts of the world there
were also large reptiles with powerful tusks, not surpassed in the
amount of their departure from the ordinary structure of reptiles by any
known aberrant forms of that strange and varied tribe.

“Amongst the most striking of these objects, at least on our own shores,
would be the numerous and gigantic Labyrinthodons. We may imagine one of
these animals, as large as a rhinoceros, pacing leisurely over the
sands, leaving deep imprints of its heavy, elephantine hind foot,
strangely contrasting with the diminutive step of its short fore
extremities. Another, a small variety, provided like the kangaroo, not
only with powerful hind legs, but also with a strong tail,[74] also
leaves its impress on the sand, although itself, perhaps, soon fell a
victim to the voracity of its larger congener. These and others of their
kind, passing over the sands, and marking there the form of their
expanded feet, marched onwards in their course, fulfilled their part in
nature, and then disappeared for ever from the earth, leaving, in some
cases, no fragment of bone, and no other indication of their shape and
size than this obscure intimation of their existence.

“It is strange that in a thin bed of fine clay, occurring between two
masses of sandstone, we should thus have convincing evidence preserved
concerning some of the earth’s inhabitants at this early period. The
ripple mark, the worm track, the scratching of the small crab on the
sand, and even the impression of rain drops, so _distinct as to indicate
the direction of the wind_ at the time of the shower,—these and the
footprints of the bird and the reptile are all stereotyped, and offer an
evidence which no argument can gainsay, no prejudice resist, concerning
the natural history of a very ancient period of the earth’s history. But
the waves that made that ripple mark have long since ceased to wash
those shores; for ages has the surface then exposed been concealed under
great thicknesses of strata; the worm and the crab have left no solid
fragment to speak to their form or structure; the bird has left no bone
that has yet been discovered; and the fragments of the reptile are
small, imperfect, and extremely rare. Still, enough is known to
determine the fact, and that fact is the more interesting and valuable
from the very circumstances under which it is presented.”[75]

But reminding ourselves of one part of the title of our book, which
professes not only to describe the crust of the earth, but also to point
out its uses, we must add a few words on the economic value of this
small but interesting formation. In this same new red sandstone are
found the salt mines of Cheshire, and the brine pits of Worcestershire,
which supply all the rock and table salt consumed in England, besides
vast quantities for exportation. The rock salt of Cheshire was first
discovered near Northwich, while searching for coal; but the largest
mine, called the Wilton Mine, is at Nantwich, and still yields about
60,000 tons of salt annually. The salt is generally found from
twenty-eight to forty-eight yards beneath the surface, in thick strata
varying from fifteen to thirty-five yards in thickness. Besides these
beds of salt, there are brine springs from twenty to forty yards in
depth. Our common table salt is almost exclusively derived from these
springs, which is produced by evaporating the water, and allowing the
salt to settle at the bottom of the pans, where, after being washed, it
is placed in moulds like the China clay, and comes to our grocers’ shops
in the blocks we frequently see. “So far as observation has yet gone,
the English supply is practically inexhaustible; no limit is known to
the extent of the beds or the springs; and it ought to be regarded as
one of the blessings which we owe to the mineral wealth of our country,
that the beautiful table salt of England may be obtained at such an
extremely low price as that now charged for it.”[76]

To this formation, with its fossil footprints, we owe doubtless the fine
fancy of Longfellow, in one of his sweet minor poems; and we shall bring
this chapter to a close by quoting the last three verses of this lyric.
If we can fulfil such a mission, we had better be frail and erring men
than huge Labyrinthodons:—

“Lives of great men all remind us,
We can make our lives sublime,
_And departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time_.

“Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwreck’d brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

“Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.”

CHAPTER VIII.
SECONDARY ROCKS.
_No. 2. The Oolitic System._

“Hast thou perceived the breadth of the earth? declare if thou knowest
it all.”—JOB.

The next division of the secondary rocks is termed the Oolitic system or
group. This is a term rather of convenience than of scientific accuracy.
In this title it is intended to include the Lias, the Oolite proper, and
the Wealden formations. This chapter will be limited to a consideration
of the first two series of rocks just named, and in each we shall find
abundant material for thoughtful contemplation and intelligent wonder.
The English student of geology possesses this great advantage over the
student of geology in other lands: this little “corner of Europe,”
called England, contains types of almost all the European rocks, and not
a few of those that are found in Asia, Africa, and America. To this fact
Professor Whewell alluded when he said, “As if nature wished to imitate
our geological maps, she has placed in the corner of Europe our island,
containing an index series of European formations in full detail.” Out
of this circumstance, though little thought of by any except the
geologist, arise our threefold sources of wealth. But for the varied
distribution of rocks through our country, neither mining, nor
manufacturing, nor agricultural operations could be carried on to that
extent, and with that success, which have made this country the envy and
the admiration of the civilized world. In the warlike age, when
Shakspeare wrote, we expect that his praise of England will be on
account of her internal security from foreign invasion, and in the hardy
prowess of her sons; as when he says, and we are not insensible to the
patriotic emotions wakened up by such noble words,—

“This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This fortress built by nature for herself,
Against infection and the hand of war;
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.”
_King Richard II._

But, we confess, we rather dwell on other features in our physical and
social history, as affording the best proof of our real greatness, and
the best illustration of our untiring Anglo-Saxon energy. We would
rather record such facts as the following, than announce any “famous
victory;” we would rather turn fondly to considerations like these, than
contemplate

“Our sands that will not bear her enemy’s boats,
But suck them to the top-mast.”

“Though animal organization is beyond the constructive skill of man, he
takes the elements existing in nature, and by new combinations gets new
power. He keeps adding to the qualities of his noblest coursers, his
fleetest dogs, and his goodliest beeves. He year by year develops the
resources of the soil, reclaims the marsh from wild fowl, the heath from
rabbits, and the flinty hillside from briars and thistles. He goes on
multiplying the blades of grass and grains of corn, and compels an equal
area to yield a twofold substance. He discovers in his raw materials
unsuspected properties, until soda and sand are converted into a Crystal
Palace, and water, coal, and stony ore into a train, which rushes with
the might of an earthquake and the velocity of the wind. He devises
fresh applications of machinery, and in the creations of his ingenuity
finds a servant and a master. The broad result to England is quickly
told: fifty years have doubled the population, and employment and
subsistence have been doubled likewise. An engine is contrived which
economises labour, and threatens starvation to the labourer; but the
issue proves that the work it makes is more than it saves. Annihilate
all the cranks and wheels constructed in the interval, and return our
counties with their present population to the condition in which they
were when the century began, and there would be nothing but famine in
the land. A government wiser than man’s has provided, in the constant
exertion of talent, for the increase of our race, and maintains a
proportion between our wants and our progress. Every round we rise in
the ladder leads to a higher; but our step is limited, or we should
outstrip our needs by too prodigious a stride, and encroach on the
rights of a future age.”[77]

There is no turning over a leaf in the many-paged book of geologic
investigation, without finding the frequent application of thoughts like
these. Every part of the crust of the earth has its uses, and uses, too,
that are peculiar to _it_; and as we have endeavoured hitherto to point
out the economic uses of each formation in the great onward progress of
humanity, we shall not find ourselves at a loss in this respect, now
that we enter the second division of the secondary rocks.

We commence with the Lias.[78] During the new red sandstone period, clay
and marl were being deposited at the bottom of the seas and lakes then
in existence. These were the natural degradations of existing rocks;
into these soft deposits sunk various pre-Adamite remains, finding in
the soft argillaceous beds ready to receive them the “possession of a
burying-place” provided for them by the infinite Creator. Here they
remained until in process of time, at the close of the new red sandstone
period, these beds and their contents were upheaved from beneath the
ocean, apparently without much violence; and becoming hardened by the
chemical action of sun and wind, present us with the formation we are
now studying, rich in its peculiarly characteristic fossils. The name
lias, or layers, indicates the finely stratified condition of the rocks,
and affords proof of the tranquil method of their deposit and upheaval.
They stretch in a north-easterly direction from Lyme Regis, in
Dorsetshire, where it may be seen on the open coast cliffs for about
four miles, on to Whitby, in Yorkshire, where also it lies open to the
sea, in cliffs of considerable elevation, and lying conformably with
other strata, and is thus particularly favourable to geologistic
examination. It is in the shales of the lias at Whitby, and at Lyme
Regis, that most of the extraordinary and remarkable fossils have been
met with that we are about to describe, and for which this formation is
so justly renowned. Indeed, so far as palæontology, or the knowledge of
ancient beings, is concerned, there is no formation more full of
interest to the student.

Here we meet for the first time with the ammonite. We will introduce him
first in his fictitious, and then in his real character, and this we do
to show how science dispels the follies of ignorance and superstition.
The ammonites were once supposed to be petrified snakes—indeed they are
even now called by the ignorant, “_snake-stones_;” and the pleasant
little legend about these snake-stones was this, that St. Hilda, who
once resided near Whitby, was very much annoyed, as any matron would be,
especially if she kept an establishment for young ladies, as St. Hilda
is alleged to have done, by the multitude of snakes that infested the
place, and disturbed her equanimity. Accordingly, she set to work, and
having first prayed their heads off, then prayed the snakes into stone.
In Scott’s “Marmion” the legend reads thus:—

“And how the nuns of Whitby told
How of countless snakes, each one
Was changed into a coil of stone
When holy Hilda prayed,
Themselves within their sacred bound,
Their stony folds had often found.”—CANTO 2.

Richardson, in his Geology, relates the “instance of a dealer who having
been requested by his customers to supply them with some of the
creatures which had escaped decapitation, contrived to manufacture some
heads of plaster of Paris, and affixed them to the specimens; thus he
pursued a thriving trade, until some remorseless geologist visiting the
place, not only beheaded the reptiles, but showed that they were in
reality fossil shells.” With the figure of the ammonite every reader of
geological books is familiar; it is, perhaps, the best known and most
beautiful of all our fossils. We give below a representation of four
different kinds, found in the lias and oolite.

[Illustration:

1. AH. BECHEI. LIAS
]

[Illustration:

2. AM. BRODIEI. OOLITE.
]

[Illustration:

3. AM. HUMPHRIESIANUS. LIAS.
]

[Illustration:

4. AM. WALCOTTI. LIAS.
]

In general outline it will be seen that the ammonite somewhat resembles
the nautilus, and yet there are characteristic differences that are so
striking as to mock the development hypothesis. In the first place, the
shell of the ammonite, though of the same flat discoidal form as that of
the nautilus, appears to have been much thinner; secondly, it will be
seen that the whorls of the ammonite are rounder and more in number than
those of the nautilus; and lastly, the siphuncle, of which more
presently, runs _round_ the chambers of the ammonite, but _through_ the
chambers of the nautilus. Let us look a little at each of these
peculiarities; and to aid us, we give below two drawings of sections of
ammonites, and two drawings of a nautilus.

[Illustration:

AM. KŒNIGI LIAS.
]

[Illustration:

NAUTILUS. (FOSSIL.) HORIZONTAL.
]

[Illustration:

AM. HETEROPHYLLUS. LIAS.
]

[Illustration:

NAUTILUS (FOSSIL), SHOWING THE SIPHUNCLE.
]

The shell of the ammonite is a continued arch, having transverse arches
or ribs crossing the main arch, giving to _some_ particular forms of
beauty, and to _all_ the peculiar symmetry of a series of spiral curves.
But, to compensate for the thinness of the shell, a peculiar adaptation
is provided; it consists in the flutings which are seen in the surface,
occasioned by the transverse ribs. A pencil-case made of a thin plate of
silver is all the stronger for being fluted, and the zinc roof of a
railway station is fluted or corrugated, on the same principle. It is
thus that strength is combined with economy of material and elegance of
form. In the ammonite we see this recent invention anticipated by the
Creator, long ages ere man had appeared. In addition to this, those
round knobs or bosses studding some of the ammonites (_e.g._ 1 and 3),
like gems upon a diadem, add strength as well as beauty to their frail
forms, and thus served the same purpose as the groin work in gothic
architecture, a beautiful illustration of which may be seen in the roof
of Salisbury Cathedral. Then, looking at the chambers of the shell in
the sections, we find that some were for living in, while others were
mere empty air-cells, used for purposes of elevation or depression,
according as the animal wished to rise to the top or sink to the bottom
of the sea,—these front chambers being the drawing-rooms in which the
aristocratic ammonite lived. Running _round_ them is an hydraulic
instrument, called the siphuncle, or air-tube, by means of which
singular mechanism this curious animal altered his specific gravity for
purposes of sinking or swimming. “The universal prevalence of such
delicate contrivances in the siphuncle, and of such undeviating and
systematic union of buoyancy and strength in the air chambers throughout
this entire family, are amongst the most prominent instances of order
and method that pervade these remains of former races that inhabited the
ancient seas; and strange indeed must be the construction of that mind,
which can believe that all this order and method can have existed
without the direction and agency of some commanding and controlling
Mind,”[79] These are what Cowper finely calls “_the unambiguous
footsteps of the God_;” and in tracing them our minds are elevated into
exalted ideas of Him, whose wisdom is unsearchable, and whose ways are
past finding out. With regard to the sections of the ammonite, as seen
in the two previous figures, dimly indeed compared with the beautiful
specimens from which they were copied, we can only add, in the words of
the treatise just quoted, “Nothing can be more beautiful than the
sinuous windings of these sutures in many species, at their union with
the exterior shell, adorning it with a succession of most graceful
forms, resembling festoons of foliage and elegant embroidery. When these
thin septa are converted into iron pyrites, their edges appear like
golden filagree work, meandering amid the pellucid spar that fills the
chambers of the shelf.”

We pass by some other fossils found in the lias, such as the
pentacrinite, of which we shall speak when we come to other members of
the crinoideal family, gryphites,[80] of which the _gryphea incurva_ is
the most common type, broken portions of which, and sometimes good
specimens, may be found in most gravel heaps, their peculiar form having
obtained for them the name among the rustics of “_devil’s toe-nails_;”
and belemnites,[81] often met with in vast numbers, and known under the
name of _ladies’ fingers_, and _thunderbolts_; and fossil fish, a few
specimens of which are found in the lias.

Passing by these, we next notice the huge Saurians,[82] by far the most
wondrous vertebrated animals with which either the ancient or modern
vestiges of creation have made us acquainted. These saurians, sometimes
called Enaliosaurians, (_enalios_, the sea, and _sauros_, a lizard,) on
account of their peculiar habitat, may all be included in Milton’s
description of the leviathan, though it is hard to tell what precise
creature our great poet had in his “mind’s eye” at the time of writing
this description—one line of which, from having a syllable too much,
reads most unrhythmically—for the crocodile does not go so far out to
sea as he represents, and if he did, would be hardly likely to go on to
the “Norway foam;” nor can he mean the whale, for the whale has no
“scaly rind:”—

“That sea beast,
Leviathan, which God of all his works
Created hugest that swim the ocean stream.”
_Par. Lost_, Book I.

But before we enter on a description of these extinct and anomalous
creatures, we shall give a sketch of both. No. 1 is the skeleton of the
Ichthyosaurus,[83] restored from the fragments found chiefly at Lyme
Regis: it may be seen, with several of its congeners and contemporaries,
in the British Museum. No. 2 is a restored outline of this saurian; from
both of which sketches it will be seen that the most justly dreaded
monsters of our tropical climates sink into insignificance beside the
ancient tenants of the mighty deep, in those remote periods of
geological antiquity we are now contemplating. The combination of the
forms of the fish and the lizard seems more like a troubled dream of
Fuseli, than the calm and philosophic deductions of the most eminent
anatomists and philosophers.

[Illustration: Fossil]

The fossil remains of this creature show that it was intended chiefly,
if not entirely, for a marine life. Like the seal, it may occasionally
have come to bask on the shore, although, like the seal, it possessed no
developed legs or feet, but only paddles. The size of these animals was
enormous; they sometimes attained a length of upwards of thirty feet;
and to realize such a creature, we must imagine our meeting with a
monster thus long in some tropical swamp, having a smooth slimy skin
like a whale, a long heavy head like a porpoise, teeth like a crocodile,
vertebræ hollow, and therefore light, like the vertebræ of a fish,
enabling it to dive swiftly to the bottom, and equally as swift to rise
again; and paddles like a whale. Again, look at the head,—that is, go
into room No. 4 of the British Museum, and look with wonder, as we often
have, on Wall-case A(1), and B(2), and C(3), and you will agree with us
that the half of the wonders of this heteroclite[84] creature have not
been told. It had a gape, that is, it could open its jaws seven feet, so
that a grenadier guard might walk into his mouth without stooping; it
had teeth, not placed in sockets, but arranged in a long continuous
trough; it had an eye more marvellous than the eye of the Ancient
Mariner, that kept the wedding guest sitting on a stone, who could do
nought but hear, for the eye of the Ichthyosaur was often eighteen
inches in diameter, so that a man might put his head, hat and all, into
its socket,—and this eye was possessed of more wondrous properties than
even the eye of the celebrated Irishman that could see round a corner,
for the eye of the Ichthyosaur enabled its owner to see all round the
country at one time; and as it was a very predatory animal, having
doubtless as many enemies as victims, it required this eye both day and
night, and accordingly the eye was placed _close to the nose_, so that
the animal could not come to the surface of the water to breathe without
being immediately forewarned of danger, or advised of a prize.[85]

Next follows the _Plesiosaurus_,[86] which may be seen, in its skeleton
parts, restored, and in casts, in room No. 3 of the British Museum, in
Wall-cases D(4), E(5), F(6). “The beautiful state of preservation of
many of the Plesiosauri, the entire skeleton, from the point of the
muzzle to the extremity of the tail, lying in relief, as if it had sunk
down quietly on the soft clay, and become petrified on the spot,
manifests how different were the conditions in which the strata of the
lias and the wealden were deposited; while the exquisite manner in which
the investing stone has been removed, attests the consummate skill and
indefatigable zeal of the gentleman (Mr. Hawkins) by whom these superb
fossils were developed.”[87]

Below, No. 1, is a skeleton of the Plesiosaurus, and No. 2 is the
restored outline of the animal, whose largest specimen never exceeded
seventeen feet.

[Illustration: Fossil]

Cuvier thus describes the Plesiosaur (we borrow the quotation from
Buckland):—

“The Plesiosaur is the most heteroclite, and in character the most
monstrous, of all the animals that have yet been found amid the ruins of
a former world. To the head of a lizard it united the teeth of a
crocodile, a neck of enormous length resembling the body of a serpent, a
trunk and tail like that of an ordinary quadruped, the ribs of a
chameleon, and the paddles of a whale. Such are the strange combinations
of form and structure of the Plesiosaurus, a genus the remains of which,
after interment for thousands of years amidst the wreck of millions of
extinct inhabitants of the ancient earth, are at length recalled to
light by the researches of the geologist, and submitted to our
examination in nearly as perfect a state as the bones of species that
are now existing on the earth.”

We add a word upon the uses of this portion of the crust of the earth,
and we do so in the striking words of Hugh Miller. “We have seen how
this central district of England has its storehouses of coal, iron,
salt, lime,—liberal donations to the wants of the human animal, from the
carboniferous, saliferous, and silurian systems; and to this we must now
add its inexhaustible deposits of medicine, contributions to the general
stock by the oolitic system. Along the course of the lias medicinal
springs abound: there is no other part of England where they rise so
thickly, or of a quality that exerts a more powerful influence on the
human frame. The mineral waters of Cheltenham, for instance, so
celebrated for their virtues, are of the number; and the way in which
they are elaborated in such vast quantities seems to be as follows:—They
all rise in the lias, a formation abounding in sulphate of iron, lime,
magnesia, lignite, and various bituminous matters; but they all have
their origin in the saliferous marls of the upper new red sandstone
which the lias overlies. In the inferior formation they are simply brine
springs, but brine is a powerful solvent. Passing through the lias, it
acts upon the sulphur and the iron—becomes, by means of the acid thus
set free and incorporated with it, a more powerful solvent
still—operates upon the lime, upon the magnesia, upon the various
lignites and bitumens—and at length rises to the surface, a
brine-digested extract of liassic minerals. The several springs yield
various analyses, according to the various rocks of the upper formation
through which they pass; some containing more, some less lime, sulphur,
iron, magnesia, but in all the dissolving menstruum is the same. And
such, it would appear, is the mode in which Nature prepares her simples
in this rich district, and keeps her medicine-chest ever full.”

Thus wondrous is the machinery of God’s universe; every day utters some
fresh speech, and every night shows forth some new knowledge.

“The Lord of all, himself through all diffused,
Sustains and is the life of all that lives.
Nature is but a name for an effect,
Whose cause is God.”

NOTE.—We do not like to close this chapter without mentioning the name
of _Mary Anning_, of Lyme Regis. It is mainly to her practical talent
and perseverance that we owe these relics of past ages found in the
lias: the history of the British Museum will have to record this
humble name, as well as that of Sir Hans Sloane, its founder. The
following we borrow from Miss Zornlin’s “Recreations in Geology,” p.
197—

“Mary Anning died in 1847. Her father, by trade a carpenter, was in
his own neighbourhood one of the first collectors of _coorosities_, as
they are locally termed, such as _petrified ladies’ fingers_ and
_turbots_ (as the fish were termed), _verterbarries_ (vertebræ),
_cornemonius_ (ammonites), and _crocodiles’ jaws_ (ichthyosauri), &c.
He died when his daughter Mary was about ten or eleven years old; and
the circumstances of the family being straitened, she went down one
day to the beach to search for ‘coorosities.’ She found a fine
specimen of an ammonite; and as she was coming home, a lady who met
her in the street offered her half-a-crown for the fossil in her hand.
Mary Anning’s future destiny was sealed. She prosecuted her searches
‘on beach,’ and in the following year (1811) observed among the ledges
of the rocks a projecting bone of some animal. This enterprising girl
(then only eleven years old) traced the fossil in the cliff, and hired
some men to dig it out. It proved to be the skeleton of an
ichthyosaurus, and has for many years formed an object of interest in
the British Museum. Mary Anning afterwards sold this specimen for
about 23_l._”

To this we add, that in the “Memoirs of Ichthyosauri,” by Thomas
Hawkins, Esq. reference is made to Miss Anning, as one “who devoted
herself to science, and explored the frowning and precipitous cliffs,
when the furious spring-tide conspired with the howling tempest to
overthrow them, and rescued from the devouring ocean, sometimes at the
peril of her life, the few specimens which originated all the facts
and ingenious theories of those eminent persons, whose names must ever
be remembered with sentiments of the liveliest gratitude.”

CHAPTER IX.
SECONDARY ROCKS.
_3. The Oolite proper._

“O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them
all.”—DAVID.

Proceeding with our rapid sketch of the crust of the earth and its uses,
we now leave the Lias, to enter upon a survey of the Oolite proper.
Overlying the Lias, and underlying the Wealden, we find this deposit,
which, though it occupies a comparatively narrow track in our own
country, is remarkable for the peculiarity and beauty of its fossils,
and for the commercial importance of the rocks of which it is composed.
Its name is derived from _ōŏn_, an egg, and _lithos_, a stone,[88] from
the remarkable resemblance many of the beds bear to the roe, or eggs of
a fish. A good specimen of oolite and the hard roe of a red herring are
unlike one another, mostly in the circumstance that one can be cooked,
and the other cannot. These egg-like grains are mere agglomerations of
calcareous matter, although sometimes a piece of coral, or a broken
shell, or a grain of sand, is found to be the nucleus around which these
deposits have arranged themselves. It may be as well here to say a word
upon the general character of _calcareous_ rocks, which are so largely
to engage our attention in this and a subsequent chapter. “This division
comprehends those rocks which, like chalk, are composed chiefly of lime
and carbonic acid. Shells and corals are also formed of the same
elements, with the addition of animal matter. To obtain pure lime it is
necessary to calcine these calcareous substances,—that is to say, to
expose them to heat of sufficient intensity to drive off the carbonic
acid and other volatile matter, without vitrifying or melting the lime
itself. White chalk is often pure carbonate of lime; and this rock,
although usually in a soft and earthy state, is sometimes sufficiently
solid to be used for building, and even passes into a compact stone, or
a stone of which the separate parts are so minute as not to be
distinguishable from each other by the naked eye.

“Many limestones are made up entirely of minute fragments of shells and
corals, or of calcareous sand cemented together. These last might be
called ‘calcareous sandstones;’ but that term is more properly applied
to a rock in which the grains are partly calcareous and partly
siliceous, or to quartz-ore sandstones having a cement of carbonate of
lime.

“The variety of limestones called ‘_oolite_’ is composed of numerous
small egg-like grains, resembling the roe of a fish, each of which has
usually a small fragment of sand as a nucleus, around which concentric
layers of calcareous matter have accumulated.

“Any limestone which is sufficiently hard to take a fine polish is
called _marble_. Many of these are fossiliferous; but statuary marble,
which is also called saccharine limestone, as having a texture
resembling that of loaf-sugar, is devoid of fossils, and is in many
cases a member of the metamorphic series.”[89] The geographical
distribution of this group of rocks may be traced thus:—Commencing with
the _Bill_ of Portland, (for there is no _isle_ of Portland,) it runs up
through part of Dorsetshire, Somersetshire, Gloucestershire,
Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, part of Lincolnshire, terminating in
Yorkshire, where the lias and oolite may be seen lying conformably or in
sequence; the zone we have thus indicated being about thirty miles in
width. The following tabular arrangement will supplement this by
pointing out the divisions and subdivisions of the oolite; on which,
however, we do not intend to dwell, as our only object, in this most
preliminary treatise,—and we shall be pardoned again intruding this
thought upon our readers,—is to assist in the investigation of our
standard text-books on this science:—

OOLITE PROPER.

1. UPPER. │1. Portland stone, with underlying dirt-beds.
│2. Kimmeridge clay.
──────────┼─────────────────────────────────────────────
2. MIDDLE.│1. Coral rag.
│2. Oxford clay.
──────────┼─────────────────────────────────────────────
3. LOWER. │1. Cornbrash and Forest marble.
│2. Great Oolite and Stonesfield slate.
│3. Fuller’s earth.
│4. Inferior Oolite.—_Lyell._

In the upper oolites, it will be seen, is found the famous Portland
stone, in which are some of the most remarkable specimens of the extinct
fauna of this remote period. “They are found most plentifully in what is
locally designated the ‘dirt-bed’ of Portland—a stratum of dark
argillaceous mud, which must at one time have been the soil in which
they and other vegetables flourished, but which, by a submergence of the
land, was converted into the bottom of an estuary, over which other
strata of clay, limestone, and sand were deposited. ‘At the distance of
two feet,’ says Bakewell, ‘we find an entire change from marine strata
to strata once supporting terrestrial plants; and should any doubt arise
respecting the original place and position of these plants, there is,
over the lower dirt-bed, a stratum of fresh-water limestone; and upon
this a thicker dirt-bed, containing not only the cycadeæ, but stumps of
trees from three to seven feet in height, in an erect position, with
their roots extending beneath them. Stems of trees are found prostrate
upon the same stratum; some of them are from twenty to twenty-five feet
in length, and from one to two feet in diameter. The following section
of a cliff in Dorset exhibits very clearly proofs of the alternation
from marine strata to dry land covered with a forest, and of a
subsequent submergence of the dry land under a river or lake which
deposited fresh-water limestone.’”

[Illustration:

_a a a_, Portland stone (marine formation); _b_, Dirt-bed, consisting
of black mould and pebbles (temporary dry land); _c_, Burrstone, and
_d_, Calcareous slate (both of fresh-water formation).—_Chambers’
Geology, p._ 128.
]

From the well-known quarries in Portland, a description of which would
tempt us too far astray, have been procured the materials for St. Paul’s
Cathedral, the Reform Club, and other public buildings. A visit to
Portland, and examination of the quarries, such as we have twice paid,
is well worth the attention of any summer tourist, and will richly
repay, in its romantic scenery, and in the unique simplicity of its
people’s manners, a week’s quiet stay at the King’s Arms, the once
favoured and favourite inn of George the Third.

Then, if we take the middle oolite, we shall find in it the well-known
“coral rag,” so called because of the continuous beds of petrified coral
found in great abundance, and in many places, apparently, in the same
position in which they once grew at the bottom of the sea. We give below
a few specimens recently obtained by us from the north of Wiltshire,
from which it will be seen how closely they resemble those of existing
species.

[Illustration:

OOLITE CORAL. (Nat. Size.)
]

[Illustration:

CORALS AND SPONGE FROM THE OOLITE.
]

But what period was that, and what sunny clime was this, when the ocean
poured its waves over what are now our oolitic building-stones, and when
the coral insect built its continuous reefs in this our England, just as
it is now distributing its labours over so vast an expanse of sea in the
tropics and the southern hemisphere?[90] We cannot but recal the poetic
and vivid language of Hugh Miller: “Oh, that hoarse voice of Ocean,
never silent since time first began!—where has it not been uttered?
There is stillness amid the calm of the arid and rainless deserts, where
no spring rises and no streamlet flows, and the long caravan plies its
weary march amid the blinding glare of the sand; and the red unshaded
rays of the fierce sun. But, once and again, and yet again, has the roar
of Ocean been there. It is his sands that the winds heap up, and it is
the skeleton remains of his vassals,—shells, and fish, and the stony
coral,—that the rocks underneath enclose. There is silence on the tall
mountain peak, with its glittering mantle of snow, where the panting
lungs labour to inhale the thin bleak air, where no insect murmurs and
no bird flies, and where the eye wanders over multitudinous hill-tops
that lie far beneath, and vast dark forests that sweep on to the distant
horizon, and along long hollow valleys, where the great rivers begin.
And yet, once and again, and yet again, has the roar of Ocean been
there. The effigies of his more ancient denizens we find sculptured on
the crags, where they jut from beneath the ice into the mist wreath, and
his later beaches, stage beyond stage, terrace the descending slopes.
Where has the great destroyer not been,—the devourer of continents—the
blue foaming dragon, whose vocation it is to eat up the whole land? His
ice-floes have alike furrowed the flat steppes of Siberia, and the rocky
flanks of Schehallion; and his nummulites and fish lie embedded in the
great stones of the Pyramids, hewn in the times of the old Pharaohs, and
in the rocky folds of Lebanon still untouched by the tool. So long as
Ocean exists, there must be disintegration, dilapidation, change; and
should the time ever arrive when the elevatory agencies, motionless and
chill, shall sleep within their profound depths, to awaken no more, and
should the sea still continue to impel its currents and to roll its
waves, every continent and island would at length disappear, and again,
as of old, ‘when the fountains of the great deep were broken up,’

‘A shoreless ocean tumble round the globe.’”[91]

From this digression we return to our third division of the Oolite
proper, the _Lower Oolite_, as developed in Somersetshire (around Bath),
and in Wiltshire (Tisbury, Braford, &c.), which has its own points of
interest and of use. Here occurs the fuller’s earth, mostly found at a
village near Bath, called Old Down, which possesses the peculiar
property of absorbing the grease or oil remaining in cloth, and thus
_fulling_ or thickening it. Here also is found that peculiar rubbly
limestone, called “_Cornbrash_,”[92] in Wiltshire, which, on exposure to
atmospheric agencies, soon decomposes, and by mixture with he ordinary
constituents of the soil, makes an admirable material in agricultural
operations. Here also we have the Bath Oolite, the quarries of which are
very extensive, abundant in fossils, and the character of whose stone
gives to the city of Bath that clean and aristocratic appearance which
is so striking to the stranger approaching Bath from the Great Western
Railway.

“In this lower division,” says Lieutenant-Colonel Portlock, “also occurs
the Bath oolite, which is an excellent stone for the delicate mouldings
of gothic architecture, and is represented in France by the Caen stone,
which was imported for the purpose by our early architects, as may be
seen in the beautiful Temple Church.”[93] Of two varieties of Oolite,
called “Barnack rag” and “Ketton stone,” obtained from the quarries in
Rutlandshire and Northamptonshire, almost all the churches in
Cambridgeshire, of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, are built. As
an instance, and illustrative of previous remarks, we may specify King’s
College Chapel, Cambridge. Whoever has been to the top of that gem of
gothic architecture, and walked outside where the stone is weathered,
and has been supplemented in various indifferent ways, may there see the
ripple marks of the old tides and winds, marking the ebb and flow of
pre-Adamite phenomena; and little shells, some of them most tiny ones,
but in beautiful preservation, once left in the soft calcareous sand,
now embedded in the hard building stone. And here, before we speak of
the fossils of the Oolite, we should like to be thoroughly understood
about this same ripple-mark, of which we have more than once spoken, and
which it seems desirable to explain. “Another structure, often
conspicuous in fine-grained sandstones, is that commonly called
“ripple-mark.” Either in quarries or natural cliffs, wherever the upper
surface of a bed is exposed, it is often found to be not smooth or flat,
but waved in small undulations, exactly like those so often seen on a
sandy shore. Now, a good deal of misconstruction has, I think, arisen as
to the origin of these small undulations or ripples in the sand, leading
sometimes to a possibility of grave error in geological reasoning.
People standing on the beach, and observing the gentle rippling motion
of the waves, and a very similar form in the sand beneath them, have not
unnaturally jumped to the conclusion that the one was the cause of the
other, that the ripple on the surface of the water had somehow imprinted
its form on the sand at the bottom. Now, really, one is not the _cause_
of the other, but they are both caused by the same action, and each is
as much a ripple as the other. The wave-like form in the sand is not a
ripple _mark_, but a ripple; if it is the mark of anything, it is a
‘current mark,’ and as such I have always preferred to speak of it. Just
as a current in the air produces a ripple in the surface of the water
below it, so a current in the water produces a ripple in the sand below
it. It makes no difference, indeed, whether the sand be acted upon by
air or water. Wherever the circumstances are favourable, wind will cause
a ripple or current mark on the surface of blown sand, as I observed
frequently under very favourable circumstances at Sandy Cape, in
Australia, and as has been observed by Sir Charles Lyell, near Calais.
In each case the moving fluid propels the grains of sand forward, piling
them up into ridges, which are perpetually advancing by the rolling of
particles over the crest of each ridge into the hollow beyond, where
they are for a time sheltered from the current, but soon buried under
the advancing ridge, to be again turned up and rolled onward, perhaps,
as their site becomes exposed to the force of the stream.”[94]

Other fossil remains found in the Oolite demand our notice before we
leave this period of the earth’s history, or this portion of the earth’s
crust. In the autumn of last year we were _en route_ to Cornwall, but
turned aside to visit, among other matters, the Oolite in the
neighbourhood of Bath, Chippenham, Bradford, and Trowbridge. Leaving the
trunk line of the Great Western, we transferred ourselves at Chippenham
to the branch that would take us to Trowbridge, that little Halifax or
Preston of the West of England. Many a long day had passed since we made
our first acquaintance with the poet Crabbe, and, though fossil hunting,
we felt we must pay a pilgrimage to his honoured shrine. We looked at
the old church in which for eighteen years he was the representative and
expounder of a large and human creed first uttered by the Great Teacher
from Galilee; and standing by Chantrey’s monument of Crabbe, we thought
how dear to God the man must be, who by dint of purpose, purity, and
hope, had risen from an unknown boy to command the ear of the public in
a time of poetic dearth, and who, amidst a very chequered life, had
realized the fine idea of Goldsmith:

“As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form,
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm,
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head.”

We have heard it objected to Crabbe’s poetry that it wants fire, that it
has no romance, that it moves among the homely scenes of rustic life,
and seldom soars above parochial records and village history. But
Crabbe’s life was a singularly unromantic one; everything with him had
been real, hard, up-hill work, in which he had broken down had he not
believed in work rather than in genius. At Bungay School he was flogged
unmercifully, according to the wise methods of teaching the classics
then in vogue, but now happily exploding, except in our antediluvian
public schools; at Bury St. Edmunds he was apprenticed to a surgeon, who
quickly turned him into an errand boy and servant of all work; at twenty
years of age, conscious of innate power, and aspiring to literary
honour, he found himself in London in two equal conditions of misery,
without a _friend_ and without a _pound_; and then, in this very
condition of impecuniosity, the tender place of his heart was touched by
an unpropertied girl, Sarah Elwy, and he, the friendless young man,
loves her with a pure, deep, passionate, and unchanging love. For eight
long years of struggle, her image gave buoyancy to his spirit, and
oneness to his purpose, amidst the ups and downs of no common
hardships,—now turned from the rich man’s door by lacqueys in silver
lace, and then politely bowed out by those who might have been his
patrons in an hour of need, until, fortune favouring the bold, he became
not only the recognised poet of the poor, but better still, the husband
of a woman of surpassing worth.

Never aspiring to be a great poet, but only a true and real man, he
lived, and laboured, and published much. As a parish clergyman, his
memory at Trowbridge is a familiar household word, and having honourably
served his generation according to the will of God, he placidly and
Christianly fell asleep. As we stood by Chantey’s monumental record of
this good man, we felt that it did us good to look on such a memorial of
a working man; a working man, in the truest sense of the word, for we
must take some care, or else this good name will become an empty
conventional sham. We must not confine the term to any one class,
whether to men who work with sweat of _brow_, or to other men who work
as hard, and harder too, with sweat of _brain_; we give the name of
working men to all who toil with head or hand, and all such may be
bettered by the contemplation of a character like Crabbe’s.

But we return; our digression makes geology lag behind. We were
fortunate in procuring several fine specimens of the Crinoidean[95] or
Stone-lily family, about which the reader will pardon a few details. At
the stations of the Great Northern Railway, the marble mantelpieces and
uprights are all made of the Derbyshire encrinital marble, and the mind
is filled with singular surprise in the contemplation of these
interesting relics of past creations. How multitudinous must have been
this one form of life in those ancient days, and how quietly these
encrinites, when their brief term of life was over, must have sunk down
into the soft calcareous and argillaceous beds lying at the bottom of
the old ocean waiting to receive them, only that, mummy like, it might
embalm them safely, until in process of time, by upheaval, evaporation,
and sun-hardening, their delicate forms should be brought out to our
daylight in all the symmetry and beauty of their pre-Adamite life! But
the family of Crinoideans or Stone-lilies, called the “_Pear_
encrinite,” or “_apiocrinites rotundus_,” differs very remarkably from
the “_Lily_ encrinite,” or “_encrinites molliformis_;” and the following
descriptions grouped from Lyell and Buckland, aided by the accompanying
figures, will introduce these singular animals to our readers. “The
Crinoideans or Stone-lilies are almost all confined to the limestone,
but an exception occurs at Bath, where they are enveloped in clay. In
this case, however, it appears that the solid upper surface of the
‘Great Oolite’ had supported for a time a thick submarine forest of
these beautiful zoophytes, (_plant-animals_,) until the clear and still
water was invaded by a current charged with mud,” (see diagram below,
_a_,) “which threw down the stone-lilies, and broke most of their stems
off near the point of attachment. The stumps still remain” (_b_) “in
their original position, but the numerous articulations once composing
the stem, arms, and body of the zoophyte, were scattered at random
through the argillaceous deposit in which some now lie prostrate. Vast
strata of entrochal[96] marble, extending over large tracts of country
in Northern Europe and North America, are made up of the petrified bones
of encrinites, just as a cornrick is composed of straws. Man applies it
to construct his palace or to adorn his sepulchre, but there are few who
know, and fewer still who duly appreciate the surprising fact, that much
of this marble is composed of the skeletons of millions of organized
beings, once endowed with life, and susceptible of enjoyment, which
after performing the part that was for a while assigned to them in
living nature, have contributed their remains towards the composition of
the mountain masses of the earth.”

[Illustration:

_In situ._ _Restored._

PEAR ENCRINITES, OR APIOCRINITES ROTUNDUS. BRADFORD, WILTS.
]

That a better idea still may be formed of this zoophyte, let the
following diagrams be added: 1 is the body or bulbous head of the
pear-encrinite, curiously laminated, and geometrically divided; 2 is a
stem the natural size, and 3 a section, or one of the articulations, in
which its entrochal and radiated character will appear.

Below is a root of the pear-encrinite (1); this will give some idea how
rudely the graceful stems were broken off by the mud sea that came upon
them, and how firm a hold the roots of these beautiful zoophytes took of
the ocean bottom; many of these roots are covered with serpulæ and
coral, that only reveal their beauty under the lens. In the root before
us, a little coral insect has begun to reticulate his tiny links of
network; these may be seen in 3, magnified, and by comparison with 2,
which is a piece of Jamaica coral, found plenteously on the seashore of
the north side of the island, the similarity in structure and symmetry
will be immediately detected.

[Illustration: Fossil]

We have already spoken of the Ammonite, but we give here a specimen of a
rare kind, preserved in the fine clay near Chippenham. The form of this
ammonite is more remarkable than that of any other; its delicate
nautilus shell has been sadly compressed, and some of its external
protuberances have been broken off, and are here restored by dotted
lines; but, more striking still, the delicate horn-like structure that
terminated its mouth or aperture has been perfectly embalmed by Nature’s
kindly hand.

[Illustration: Fossil]

[Illustration:

AM. JASON, OR AM. ELIZABETHÆ. _Oolite._
]

We have no ammonites afloat now: its twin brother, the nautilus,
survives still in sunny climes on the tropic seas; and, perhaps, when a
“new heaven and a new earth” shall usher in another act in the great
drama of creation, the nautilus may be superseded by other forms of
molluscous life, to show forth the exhaustless resources of His skill
and wisdom, who is “wonderful in counsel and excellent in working.” Thus
sings a poet and a geologist:—

“The nautilus and the ammonite
Were launch’d in storm and strife;
Each sent to float, in its tiny boat,
On the wide, wild sea of life.

“And each could swim on the ocean’s brim,
And anon, its sails could furl;
And sink to sleep in the great sea deep,
In a palace all of pearl.

“Thus hand in hand, from strand to strand,
They sail’d in mirth and glee,
Those fairy shells, with their crystal cells,
Twin creatures of the sea.

“But they came at last to a sea long past,
And as they reach’d its shore,
The Almighty’s breath spake out in death,
And the ammonite lived no more.

“And the nautilus now, in its shelly prow,
As o’er the deep it strays,
Still seems to seek, in bay and creek,
Its companion of other days.

“And thus do we, on life’s stormy sea,
As we roam from shore to shore,
While tempest-tost, seek the loved—the lost,
But find them on earth no more!”—RICHARDSON.

Below we add a small group of oolitic shells, not on account of any
particular beauty of form attaching to them, but as characteristic of
this formation, and as lying conveniently near us for being figured.
Their hard names—hard to the mere English reader—may possibly alarm the
young, who may at present skip the names: let them get to love the
science—let them get into the habit of making nature have a meaning in
its realities, and into the settled purpose of determining to know what
kind of a world this is in which God has cast their lot, and soon these
hard names will be only as finger-posts, directing to certain roads on
which they may journey to the end of a happy pilgrimage. Aye, better
than any old pilgrimage to a fabulous Holy Sepulchre, will be your
pilgrimage to sepulchres wrought by the hand of Infinite Benevolence,
for the creatures whom his infinite wisdom had formed, and sustained
until he pronounced the decree, “Return!”

[Illustration:

1. CUCULLEA CARINATA.
2. CUCULLEA UMBONATA.
3. MODIOLA BIPARTITA.
4. TEREBRATULA GLOBOSA.
5. TEREBRATULA DIGONA.
6. TEREBRATULA MAXILLATA.
]

Before we quit the Oolite, we have one more stranger to introduce—and in
very truth he is the strangest stranger with whom we have yet made
acquaintance. We refer to the Pterodactyle.[97] The geologist, we may
suppose, has just lighted on one of these extraordinary remnants of
antiquity, say in the Stonefield Quarry, Oxfordshire, and stands aghast
as his pick lays open the fragments of this nondescript creature.

[Illustration: Fossil]

But when the researches of science had laid bare the whole of the fossil
remains of this heterogeneous creature, when the head and gape of the
crocodile, the wing-hands of the bat, and the web-feet of the duck were
all revealed; when it was ascertained to be one of those flying reptiles
that have no existing type, and that it was “the most extraordinary of
all the beings of whose former existence the study of fossils has made
us aware,” and “the most unlike anything that exists in the known
world;” the blank wonder of the geologist gave way to calm and admiring
study, as these undreamt-of relics of the past were made subservient to
the wisdom and delight of the present.

[Illustration: Fossil]

The following is Cuvier’s description of this strange creature, borrowed
from Ansted, vol. i, p. 418:—

“You see before you,” he says, “an animal which in all points of bony
structure, from the teeth to the extremity of the nails, presents the
well-known saurian characteristics, and of which one cannot doubt that
its integuments and soft parts, its scaly armour, and its organs of
circulation and reproduction, were likewise analogous. But it was at the
same time an animal provided with the means of flying; and when
stationary, its wings were probably folded back like those of a bird,
although, perhaps, by the claws attached to its fingers, it might
suspend itself from the branches of trees. Its usual position, when not
in motion, would be upon its hind feet, resting like a bird, and with
its neck set up and curved backwards, to prevent the weight of the
enormous head from destroying its equilibrium. Any attempt, however, to
picture this strange animal in a living state, would appear to one who
has not followed the whole argument to be rather the production of a
diseased imagination, than the necessary completion of a sketch of which
the main outlines are known to be true. The animal was undoubtedly of
the most extraordinary kind, and would appear, if living, the strangest
of all creatures. Something approaching to it in form we may perhaps
recognise in the fantastic pictures of the Chinese; but art has, in this
respect, not been able to rival nature; and the fabled centaur, or
dragon, do not present anomalies more strange than those of the species
we have been considering.”

This description of Cuvier will recal to the reader’s mind the
well-known words of Milton (Par. Lost, Book II. line 247), in which, in
his description of an imaginary fiend, he almost realizes to the life
the animal whose extinct and fossil remains have been so recently
disinterred.

“The fiend
O’er bog, or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare,
With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way,
And sinks or swims, or wades or walks, or creeps or flies.”

[Illustration:

1. PTERODACTYLE, FROM SOLENHOFEN, (one-third natural size.)
]

We conclude this chapter by giving drawings of the Pterodactyle. The
_first_ is the Pterodactyle as found at Solenhofen; the _second_ is the
skeleton restored; and the _third_ the animal itself, according to the
best judges of what a portrait of the Pterodactyle would be.

[Illustration:

2. SKELETON RESTORED.
]

[Illustration:

3. THE PTERODACTYLE.
]

CHAPTER X.
SECONDARY ROCKS.
_No. 4. The Wealden._

“The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have
pleasure therein.”—DAVID.

Lying immediately between the oolite and the chalk, is a small formation
of fresh water, and not of marine deposit, to which the term Wealden has
been given. This name has been given to it because it has been found
developed chiefly in the Wealds, or Wolds,[98] of Sussex, Surrey, and
Kent; and to Dr. Mantell belongs the honour of investigating this
singularly interesting formation, and of giving us its history, after
months of patient research and laborious toil conducted on the spot,
just as Hugh Miller has become the historian and explorer of the Old Red
Sandstone of Cromarty. But although the Wealden is small when compared
with the vast extent of some other formations, previously or
subsequently added to the material of this “great globe’s” crust, it
possesses unusual interest on account of the strange organic remains
that are found in it, and of the evidence which these remains supply of
vast changes in the conditions and characters of the living beings,
found at that period roaming at large in the once tropical swamps of the
Wealden.

The Wealden is almost if not wholly of fresh water origin; and a word or
two on the formation of the deltas of great rivers, now going on in
various parts of the world, will help us rightly to appreciate the
character of this formation. It is seldom, some one remarks, that we
“can catch a mountain in process of making,” and hence we have much
difficulty in arriving at definite ideas concerning the times that the
sedimentary rocks occupied in their deposit. But we _can catch_ deltas
in the process of manufacture,—the deltas of the Nile, the Mississippi,
the Amazon, and other huge rivers that pour down, not their “_golden
streams_,” but their muddy accumulations, gathered from the mountain
sides whose slopes they wash into the great ocean basin waiting to
receive them. “All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not
full.”

These deltas,—for we wish to explain as we go along, and would rather
fall into the error of explaining where there is no necessity, than of
leaving one word that might prove a stumbling-block unexplained,—these
deltas are all the mouths, (_les embouchères_,) of _oceanic_ rivers,
that is, of rivers that pursue their impetuous course towards their
native ocean bed; and the character of these deltas necessarily varies
with the character of the coast through which they pursue the _un_even
“tenor of their way.” As the level of the sea is approached, the
rapidity of the mountain stream is necessarily checked. No longer
dashing down steep mountain precipices, as it did in the heyday of its
youth, it finds itself grown into a majestic breadth and depth; and as
it nears its maternal home, leaving the high land of its origin far
behind, it traverses with slow and measured pace the slightly descending
planes by which it falls into the ocean. This gradual process enables it
to deposit on each side the alluvial soil, and decayed vegetable matter,
and so on, that have been held by it in suspension during its rapid
progress; and as the current slackens still more as it approaches its
final destiny, portions of land gradually rise into view, the results of
these deposits, which from their triangular shape have received the name
of deltas, from their likeness to the Greek letter Δ.

Thus the mouths of the Ganges form a vast breadth of waters, with
intervening islands and strips of land, 200 miles in width. Into this
delta the river Ganges runs laden with the rich spoils of clay, sand,
vegetable matter, &c., gathered from the Himalaya Mountains, and thus
those dismal-looking islands have been formed in the mouth of this
river, that have become the home of tigers, crocodiles, &c.

In North America, that “father of waters,” the Mississippi, sometimes
called the Missouri, runs through a glorious valley of unexhausted and
inexhaustible wealth of 3,000 miles, and runs out into the sea at least
fifty miles, while its currenmiles further. “Like all other great
rivers, the Mississippi does not empty itself into the sea in one
continuous channel, but in a great variety of arms or mouths, which
intersect in sluggish streams the great alluvial delta, which is formed
by the perpetual deposit of the immense volume of water which rolls into
the ocean. Between these mouths of the river a vast surface, half land,
half water, from 50 to 100 miles in width, and 300 in length, fringes
the whole coast; and there the enormous mass of vegetable matter
constantly brought down by the Mississippi is periodically deposited. A
few feet are sufficient to bring it above the level of the water, except
in great floods; and as soon as that is done, vegetation springs up with
the utmost rapidity in that prolific slime. No spectacle can be
conceived so dreary and yet so interesting, as the prospect of these
immense alluvial swamps in the course of formation. As far as the eye
can reach, over hundreds of square leagues, nothing is to be seen but
marshes bristling with roots, trunks, and branches of trees. In winter
and spring, when the floods come down, they bring with them an
incalculable quantity of these broken fragments, technically called
logs, which not only cover the whole of this immense semi-marine
territory, but, floating over it, strew the sea for several miles off to
such an extent, that ships have often no small difficulty in making
their way through them. Thus the whole ground is formed of a vast
network of masses of wood, closely packed and rammed together to the
depth of several fathoms, which are gradually cemented by fresh
deposits, till the whole acquires by degrees a firm consistency. Aquatic
birds, innumerable cranes and storks, water serpents, and huge
alligators, people this dreary solitude. In a short time a kind of rank
cane or reed springs up, which, by retarding the flow of the river,
collects the mud of the next season, and so lends its share in the
formation of the delta. Fresh logs, fresh mud, and new crops of cane or
reed, go on for a series of years, in the course of which the
alligators, in enormous multitudes, fix in their new domain, and
extensive animal remains come to mingle with the vegetable deposits.
Gradually, as the soil accumulates and hardens, a dwarfish shrub begins
to appear above the surface; larger and larger trees succeed with the
decay of their more stunted predecessors; and at length, on the scene of
former desolation, the magnificent riches of the Louisianian forest are
reared.”[99]

To this glowing description we might add what we ourselves have
witnessed on the coast of South America, where the great Amazon, the
Orinoco, and the Essequibo, roll their mud-laden waters into the
Atlantic, and form vast accumulations of alluvial deposit all along its
northern coast; indeed, the coast line of all the Guianas of South
America, averaging some five to ten miles in width, and at least 1,000
miles in length,—Venezuela, British Guiana, Surinam, and Cayenne,—are
nothing more than the deposit formed at the base of the mountains by
these and other rivers of smaller note. Buried in this mud are pebbles,
trunks of trees, animal remains, and so on; and if these in process of
time should be elevated and afterwards hardened, or submerged and
pressed into clayey slate or sandy stone, the fauna and the flora of
these deltas would then be brought to light, just as the leaves of
plants are exhibited between the pages of a botanist’s collecting book.

In some such method as this was once formed a delta, now constituting
the Wealden formation in our own country. What is now the south-east of
England, including the Weald clay, the Hastings sand, and the Purbeck
beds of limestone and marls, in short, the greater part of the counties
already named, with part of Dorsetshire, was once the delta of a mighty
river, that so long and so uninterruptedly flowed through this then
uninhabited part of the planet, that its accumulated deposits average
1,000 feet in thickness. We have but to pause over those words—_one
thousand feet thick_;—once mud, or rather fluviatile deposits of mud and
sand, a thousand feet thick in order to receive fresh evidence of the
high antiquity of the globe, and of the recent creation of man. We have
but for a moment to remember that these deposits consist of innumerable
layers of mollusks and crustaceans, a prodigious accumulation of the
bones of reptiles and fishes, and of the trunks, branches, and foliage
of a long extinct vegetable world, all quietly brought down by “the
rivers of waters” of that era, and carefully and without injury
deposited in what were then the bottoms of bays or the rising land of
deltas, in order to appreciate the evidence which this one deposit alone
affords of the immense period of time occupied in its accumulation.

Our next section, the cretaceous division of the secondary rocks,
presents us with an exclusively marine deposit. The Wealden, as we have
said, is a fresh-water deposit. “Many a long and weary journey,” says
Dr. Mantell, “have I undertaken to examine the materials thrown up from
a newly-made well, or the section exposed by recent cuttings on the
roadside, in the hope of obtaining the data by which this problem is now
completely settled.” The data referred to are such as these—the absence
of all ammonites, encrinites, corals, terebratulæ, and other marine
organisms, which form so large a portion of the cretaceous and other sea
deposits.

Here, again, we may anticipate future remarks. It may be thought—by some
it has been roundly asserted—that these _fossils were placed in their
present situations by the deluge_. Without entering into the theological
question, as to the universality or partiality of the Noachian flood,
although, as we shall hereafter see, there is but one opinion on that
subject held by our best geologists, namely, that the deluge recorded in
the Bible was simply the subsidence or submerging of so much of the
earth, _and no more_, as was then inhabited by man, and that so partial
and so limited was its character, and so brief its duration, compared
with those vast geological epochs we have been considering, that there
are no traces in nature of that event at all, _i.e._ that we have no one
single fossil that can be referred to that event,—without, we repeat,
entering upon the investigation of this subject, which will be done in a
subsequent part of this volume, we would merely remark, in reply to this
absurd notion, that the Wealden is evidently an _alluvial_, and not a
_diluvial_ formation; and as these terms are so frequently used as if
they were synonymous, we shall venture upon our old habit of
explanation. An _alluvial_ deposit is formed by the _ordinary_, but a
_diluvial_ deposit by the _extraordinary_ action of water. Thus all the
straths and carses of Scotland, and our English dales or dells, (may not
the remote etymology be _delta_?) are all of alluvial formation; while,
as owing their origin to diluvial, or the violent action of water, we
are to ascribe the heaps of rubbish, gravel, sand and boulders, that are
found in firm compact together.

Thus, if we take a basin of water holding a quantity of earthy matter in
solution, and place it on a quiet table, and allow the earthy matter
gradually to subside, that which is found at the bottom of the basin is
an _alluvial_ formation, deposited by the quiet and ordinary action of
water.

But when, as sometimes here in Royston, a sudden and heavy rain occurs,
when for a while “the windows of heaven” seem opened, and the
surrounding hills pour down their rushing streams through the town,
filling, as unfortunately they do on such occasions, the cellars of our
neighbours in the bottom of the town, with sticks, stones, flint,
gravel, bits of chalk, paper, bones, cloth, and a variety of
intermingled sundries too numerous to mention, and all huddled together
in wild confusion, then is formed in such ill-fated cellars a _diluvial_
deposit, occasioned by the extraordinary action of water.

Now, the Scripture flood (and we may be allowed to say, we are not
trying to explain away the fact of the deluge,[100] nor to weaken the
strength of the Mosaic narrative, but the very contrary) was a most
extraordinary event. Not only were the “windows of heaven opened,” but
the “fountains of the great deep” were broken up, and if it had left any
traces of its action, they would have been of a heterogeneous and
diluvial character; whereas in the Wealden, as elsewhere, the fossils
occur in the most orderly and quiet manner, preserving in many cases
those exquisite forms of beauty which distinguished them during life.

Without entering more fully into details of the fossil remains of this
period, we shall conclude this chapter by a reference to one of the vast
saurians whose remains have been disinterred from the Wealden. Many
years ago Dr. Mantell discovered, in a quarry at Cuckfield in Sussex, a
tooth, which he took up to the Geological Society of London; it was
altogether unlike any tooth he had hitherto found, but yet it was so
common, that the quarrymen had broken many of them up to mend the roads.
The most eminent geologists of the day were puzzled extremely with this
tooth. One thought it belonged to a fish; another, that it belonged to
an unknown herbivorous mammal; and a third, who was right, that it
belonged to a herbivorous reptile. Sir Charles Lyell was at that time
about to visit Paris, and the tooth, and that alone, was shown to
Cuvier, who at once pronounced it to be the tooth of a rhinoceros. In
the process of time other fossil remains were found, portions of jaws,
cervical, dorsal, and caudal vertebræ; and on Cuvier seeing these, with
the magnanimity of a truly great mind, he frankly avowed his error, and
said, “I am entirely convinced of my error in pronouncing it to be the
tooth of a rhinoceros.” Shortly after, Dr. Mantell was fortunate enough
to procure the skeleton of an iguana,[101] and he found that the fossil
teeth found in Tilgate forest bore a close resemblance to the teeth of
the iguana. The teeth of the iguana were found to be small, closely set,
and serrated like the edge of a saw, not so much for crushing victims,
as for champing and grinding its vegetable food; this corresponded
precisely with the fossil teeth found, and after long and careful
deliberation, the name given to this crocodile lizard, and the name
which it retains, was Iguanodon, or the reptile with teeth like the
iguana.

The probable size of the Iguanodon was thirty feet in length, though
probably some exceeded these enormous proportions. Seventy species have
been discovered in the quarries opened at Tilgate forest; and this gives
us some idea of the conspicuous part these mighty creatures once played
in the eras happily before man was an inhabitant of this planet. Why
these remains should generally be found in the same locality we cannot
certainly tell, though the previous extract from Alison may shed some
light on this curious fact; but it appears beyond doubt that particular
spots were selected by these beasts as hospitals and dying places,
where, undisturbed by their enemies, they retired to die unseen.

The drawing on page 195, representing the restored fauna of this period,
that is, inclusive of the Lias, Oolite, and Wealden formations, will not
only illustrate our previous remarks, but enable our readers thoroughly
to appreciate the following vivid description of the life of that remote
era, which we do not like to abridge. Should any feel sceptical as to
whether there were ever such “goings on” in this globe of ours,
especially in our eastern counties, now the resort of tourists and
invalids having no dread of such creatures before their eyes, we ask
them not to reject all this as fable until they have gone to the British
Museum, and in Room 3, and in Wall-case C, they will there see some of
the magnificent specimens, obtained by Dr. Mantell, of these extinct
deinosaurians.[102] On reading this description, it seems quite
justifiable to congratulate ourselves upon the era in which we live.
Strange forms and monsters vast have been in the old time before us, and
their disinterred remains teach us again and again the good and
wholesome lesson of the king of Israel, prefixed as a motto to this
chapter.

“Two of these saurians have more especially attracted attention, in
consequence of their great abundance in a fossil state in our own
country, but they are by no means the only ones known. Of these two, one
was more exclusively a tenant of the deep, while the other was probably
more frequently met with on the mud banks or on the shore. Both were
truly marine in their habits, and both seem to have served as the
representatives of the great Cetacean tribe—the whales, the porpoises,
and other similar animals now existing.

“It is not easy to imagine the conditions of existence of such animals.
We know their form, their proportions, their strange contrivances of
structure, their very skin, and the nature of the food which they
devoured; and yet, knowing with absolute certainty these points, we
hardly dare draw the conclusions which are suggested. I will, however,
venture to offer a sketch of the appearance of the sea and its
inhabitants during this portion of the Reptilian epoch.

“There were then, perhaps, existing on or near the land, some of those
reptiles which I shall describe in the next chapter; and with them were
associated true crocodilians, not much unlike the fresh water gavial
inhabiting the Ganges. These, also, might occasionally swim out to sea,
and be found in the neighbouring shoals.

“But these shoals were alive with myriads of invertebrated animals; and
crowds of sharks hovered about, feeding upon the larger tribes. There
were also numerous other animals, belonging to those remarkable groups
which I have attempted to describe in some detail. Imagine one of these
monstrous animals, a plesiosaurus, some sixteen or twenty feet long,
with a small wedge-shaped crocodilian head, a long, arched, serpent-like
neck, a short compact body, provided with four large and powerful
paddles, almost developed into hands; an animal not covered with
brilliant scales, but with a black slimy skin. Imagine for a moment this
creature slowly emerging from the muddy banks, and, half walking, half
creeping along, making its way towards the nearest water. Arrived at the
water, we can understand from its structure that it was liable to
exhibit greater energy. Unlike the crocodile tribe, however, in all its
proportions, it must have been equally dissimilar in habit. Perhaps,
instead of concealing itself in mud or among rushes, it would swim at
once boldly and directly to the attack. Its enormous neck stretched out
to its full length, and its tail acting as a rudder, the powerful and
frequent strokes of its four large paddles would at once give it an
impulse, sending it through the water at a very rapid rate. When within
reach of its prey, we may almost fancy that we see it drawing back its
long neck as it depressed its body in the water, until the strength of
the muscular apparatus with which this neck was provided, and the great
additional impetus given by the rapid advance of the animal, would
combine to produce a stroke from the pointed head which few living
animals could resist. The fishes, including perhaps even the sharks, the
larger cuttle-fish, and innumerable inhabitants of the sea, would fall
an easy prey to this monster.

“But now let us see what goes on in the deeper abysses of the ocean,
where a free space is given for the operations of that fiercely
carnivorous marine reptile, the ichthyosaurus. Prowling about at a great
depth, where the reptilian structure of its lungs, and the bony
apparatus of the ribs would allow it to remain for a long time without
coming to the air to breathe, we may fancy we see this strange animal,
with its enormous eyes directed upwards, and glaring like globes of
fire. Its length is some thirty or forty feet, its head being six or
eight feet long; and it has paddles and a tail like a shark; its whole
energies are fixed on what is going on above, where the plesiosaurus or
some giant shark is seen devouring its prey. Suddenly striking with its
short but compact paddles, and obtaining a powerful impetus by flapping
its large tail, the monster darts through the water at a rate which the
eye can scarcely follow towards the surface. The vast jaws, lined with
formidable rows of teeth, soon open wide to their full extent; the
object of attack is approached—is overtaken. With a motion quicker than
thought the jaws are snapped together, and the work is done. The
monster, becoming gorged, floats languidly near the surface, with a
portion of the top of its head and its nostrils visible, like an island
covered with black mud, above the water.

[Illustration:

FAUNA OF THE OOLITIC PERIOD, RESTORED.
]

“But a description of such scenes of carnage, enacted at former periods
of the earth’s history, may perhaps induce some of my readers to
question the wisdom that permitted them, and conclude rashly that they
are opposed to the ideas which we are encouraged to form of the goodness
of that Being, the necessary action of whose laws, enforced on all
living beings, gives rise to them. By no means, however, is this the
case. These very results are perfectly compatible with the greatest
wisdom and goodness and even according to our limited views of the
course of nature, they may be shown not to involve any needless
suffering. To us men, constituted as we are, and looking upon death as a
punishment which must be endured, premature and violent destruction
seems to involve unnecessary pain. But such is not the law of nature as
it relates to animal life in general. The very exuberance and abundance
of life is at once obtained and kept within proper bounds by this
rapacity of some great tribes. A lingering death—a natural decay of
those powers which alone enable the animal to enjoy life—would, on the
contrary, be a most miserable arrangement for beings not endowed with
reason, and not assisting each other. It would be cruelty, because it
would involve great and hopeless suffering. Death by violence is to all
unreasoning animals the easiest death, for it is the most instantaneous;
and therefore, no doubt, it has been ordained that throughout large
classes there should be an almost indefinite rate of increase,
accompanied by destruction rapid and complete in a corresponding degree,
since in this way the greatest amount of happiness is ensured, and the
pain of misery and slow decay of the vital powers prevented. All nature,
both living and extinct, abounds with facts proving the truth of this
view; and it would be as unreasonable to doubt the wisdom and goodness
of this arrangement, as it would be to call in question the mutual
adaptation of each part in the great scheme of creation. No one who
examines nature for himself, however superficially, can doubt the
latter; and no one certainly, who duly considers the laws ordained for
the general government of the world, can believe it possible for these
laws to have acted without a system of compensation, according to which
the vital energies of one tribe serve to prepare food for the
development of higher powers in another.”[103]

CHAPTER XI.
SECONDARY ROCKS.
_No. 5. The Chalk._
THE CRETACEOUS SYSTEM.

“His hands formed the dry land.”—DAVID.

At the conclusion of the Wealden period, the crust of our globe
underwent another great change. The fresh-water rocks we have just been
studying were probably submerged by some violent subterranean or
subaquean agency, and upon a great part of them a new deposit was
gradually formed. Foot by foot, and inch by inch, slowly accumulated
those cretaceous particles (Lat. _creta_, chalk) which now constitute
the chalk hills and cliffs of our own country, to say nothing of the
extent of territory in Europe occupied by this well-known mineral. To
those who like ourselves live in a chalk district, this formation
possesses special interest, simply because the “bounds of our
habitation” are fixed there; and though we miss here all traces of the
Ichthyosaurus and Iguanodon, although no Deinotherium nor Mastodon as
yet make their appearance on the stage of being, yet with a very little
knowledge of geology, coupled with a desire not to walk through the
world with “eyes and no eyes,” it is in our power to invest many an
otherwise motiveless walk with pleasurable interest. A cutting in the
hills may reveal some unthought-of geological curiosity; a heap of
flints may disclose some “rich and rare” fossils; and even a walk over
the Downs, those breezy “downs” or “heaths” of southern England, covered
with their short herbage, and dotted with their browsing sheep—those
downs that undulate in such well-known forms of beauty, may be fruitful
of suggestions concerning their origin, character and antiquity, that
may be of healthful power in the development of an intellectual life.

We live—that is, _we_ aforesaid—not on a fresh-water deposit, like the
people of Purbeck, Hastings, and so on, but upon an _old marine
deposit_. The huge cliffs of chalk that gave the name of _Albion_, the
“white isle,” to our country, with all these downs, which rest upon
chalk, having a depth or thickness of often more than two thousand feet,
were once formed at the bottom of pre-Adamite oceans; and in process of
time, as the secondary period drew near to its destined close, and other
and higher types of life were to make their appearance, were upheaved by
Him, “whose hands thus formed the dry land,” to serve the future
purposes and contribute to the comforts of the coming lord of all.

Of this Albion we may well be proud, as the home of religion, the
birth-place of true freedom, and the sanctuary of the oppressed. With
Coleridge we exclaim:—

“Not yet enslaved, nor wholly vile,
O Albion, O my mother isle!
Thy valleys fair, as Eden’s bowers,
Glitter green with sunny showers;
Thy grassy upland’s gentle swells
Echo to the bleat of flocks;
Those grassy hills, those glittering dells,
Proudly ramparted with rocks;
And Ocean, ’mid his uproar wild,
Speaks safety to his island-child.
Hence for many a fearless age
Has social quiet loved thy shore;
Nor ever proud invader’s rage
Or sack’d thy towers or stain’d thy fields with gore.”

If we were to tell the story of the Chalk formation, it would run
something after this fashion:—Once upon a time—but what time we don’t
know, for man’s records only go back a few thousand years; but long,
long ages before there was a man to till the earth—all this chalk lay
out of sight at the deep bottom of the old, old sea. The tall cliffs at
Dover, which Shakspeare would hardly recognise now with their tunnels
and railroads, the wavy downs of Sussex and Surrey, the chalk hills of
Hampshire, all that piece of Wiltshire called Salisbury Plain, and this
line of country stretching away north to bluff Flamborough Head, and
running down south to Weymouth and the isle of Purbeck, taking up in its
course a good part of Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, and
Norfolk,—all this immense district, averaging probably a thousand feet
in thickness, lay quietly at the bottom of the sea. Yes! it wasn’t
created just pat in a moment, and set up in these hills and valleys, any
more than sand was created sand, but gradually, grain by grain, it
accumulated, ages rolling by while thus the earth was a-preparing. These
undulating downs knew then no boys pursuing on them their healthful and
gymnastic games; no fair riders then crossed these pleasant turfy
swards, inhaling life and vigour from the air of heaven; no evening
promenades for men of business, recreating the overworked physical
nature,—then diversified the scene: but instead thereof crumbling
particles of older rocks covered the floor of the ocean with their dust,
so making green sand, while the waste and débris of coral reefs, ground
up and pulverized, poured in their lavish contributions, so making
chalk; (?) while above this deposit thus forming, the ocean waves rolled
to and fro, and in their rise and fall, their daily ebb and flow,
sounded their eternal bass in the ear of old father Time, who certainly
then had no human children. Had we been there we should have seen as
tenants of the “vasty deep,” pectens, plagiostamas, hamites, belemnites,
and other odd-looking crustaceans, roaming about at their own sweet
will; some ganoid fishes that have now such hard names, that to write
them would interfere with the strain of this description; while here and
there we might have spied a veteran remnant of the oolite come down by
strange chance into the chalk, a solitary pterodactyle, snapped at and
pounced upon by an ugly mososaurus, a sea crocodile standing four feet
high. These, and such as these, were the tenants of that ocean, which
then rolled over our heaths and downs; and when at length their period
of life and purpose of creation were answered, these too all perished,
and the secondary formation ended its wondrous career. The old ocean
still rolls on, unchanged, unaltered still; but what changes has it seen
in these long distant epochs of which geology tries to tell the story!

“Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow;
Such as creation’s dawn beheld, thou rollest now!”

No one can write the history of the Chalk formation, without remembering
his indebtedness to the patient and laborious toil of Dr. Mantell in
this department, from whose “Geological Excursions round the Isle of
Wight,”[104] we give the following extract. “The features of a chalk
district are so well known, that a brief notice will render local
details unnecessary. The rounded summits of the hills, covered with
short verdant turf—the smooth undulated outline of the downs unbroken,
save by the sepulchral mounds of the early inhabitants of the
country—the coombes and furrows ramifying and extending into the deep
valleys, which abruptly terminate at the base of the hills, and appear
like dried-up channels of rivulets and streams, though free from all
traces of alluvial débris, thus bearing the impress of physical
operations, of which the agents that produced them have long since
passed away—are phenomena familiar to every one who has travelled over
the downs of the south-east of England, and are displayed in the chalk
districts of the ‘beautiful isle.’ These features are restricted to the
hilly districts of the _white chalk_, and have resulted from the
peculiar nature of the sedimentary detritus,[105] of which the strata
comprised in the upper division of the Cretaceous system are composed:
for in the lower groups, clays, marls, sands, and sandstones prevail;
and where these deposits approach the surface, and form the subsoil, the
country is broken and diversified, and the landscape presents a striking
contrast with the down scenery, as may be observed in the picturesque
district which flanks the escarpment of the chalk hills. It may,
perhaps, be necessary to remind the unscientific reader, that these
strata are but an insulated portion of an ancient sea-bottom, or in
other words, a mass of consolidated sediments formed in the profound
depths of the ocean, in a very remote period of the earth’s physical
history. This detritus is made up of inorganic and organic materials.
The former consist of the débris of the cliffs and shores which
encompassed the ancient sea, of the spoils of islands and continents
brought down into the ocean by fresh-water currents, and of chemical
deposits thrown down from mineral solutions. The organic substances are
the durable remains of animals and plants which lived and died in the
ocean, and of fluviatile and terrestrial species that were transported
from the land by rivers and their tributaries; the whole forming such an
assemblage of sedimentary deposits as would probably be presented to
observation, if a _mass of the bed of the Atlantic ocean_, 2,000 feet in
thickness, were elevated above the waters, and became dry land.”

We have alluded to the undulating character of the downs, so “well
known,” as Mantell says, that “local details are unnecessary.” How
correct this is may be seen in the following drawing, which represents a
portion of Royston Heath.

[Illustration: Fossil]

All over this heath is found the “Royston crow,” during the winter
months. This fine bird migrates hither from Norway, to avoid its severe
winters, and is scientifically known as the “Hooded-crow, _corvus
cornix_.” On its first arrival, when it is in its best plumage, it is
comparatively tame, allowing the sportsman to approach very near; but as
the season advances, acquaintance with the gun makes it very knowing and
shy. It associates freely with the other crows, but its nest has never
yet been found in England. About March the hooded-crow wholly
disappears. The head, throat, and wings are black; the back and breast a
“clear smoke-grey.” Norman, the bird-stuffer of this town, has always
several fine specimens on hand.

As, in the case of the Carboniferous system, we ventured to say to the
reader that it was not all _coal_, so in the Cretaceous system, we would
remind him that it is not all _chalk_; but without going minutely into
the subdivisions which the chalk formation has received, because this
unpretending elementary treatise does not profess to _teach_ geology,
but simply aims, as we have ventured again and again to repeat, to
infuse into the mind a desire of acquaintance with the marvels and
truths of this science, we will just indicate the leading divisions and
nomenclature of this deposit. First, there is the green sand; that is,
_first_, beginning at the bottom or lower part of the formation: this
may be well seen and studied in the neighbourhood of Cambridge, where we
have procured many of its characteristic fossils, including several
vertebræ and teeth of the otodus, a fish allied to the shark family,
such as are figured in the opposite diagram.

[Illustration:

FOSSIL TEETH OF FISHES:
FROM UPPER GREEN SAND, CAMBRIDGE.

1. OTODUS.
2. CARCHARIAS.
3. CORAX.
4. OXYRHINA.
5. NOTIDANUS.
6. LAMNA.
7. PTYCHODUS.
]

[Illustration:

FOSSILS FROM THE GAULT, FOLKSTONE.

1. AMMONITE DENTATUS.
2. AM. LAUTUS.
3. AM. SPLENDENS.
4. AM. CRISTATUS.
5. AM. DENARIUS.
6. CATILLUS SULCATUS.
]

At Potton and Gamlingay in Bedfordshire, and in the neighbourhood, this
green sand is highly ferruginous, and the roads and fields present that
peculiarly dark-red colour which is first singular and then wearisome to
the eye. In the case of the Potton beds, the red colour is caused by
oxidization or rust of iron; in the neighbourhood of Cambridge, &c.,
where there is the _green_ sand, this is owing to the influence of
“chloritous silicate of iron.” Then we have the galt or gault, a local
term of which we cannot trace the etymology. The gault, however, is not
of great thickness, but is likely to be the most interesting department
of the Chalk to the beginner, on account of the abundance and peculiar
appearance of its fossils. A ramble under the cliffs at Folkstone,[106]
where the gault may be seen in perfection, will amply repay any one for
toil, dirt, and a few slips and bruises. He will there find evidences of
a prolific and prodigal bestowment of life in the innumerable fragments
of organic remains every where observable; and if he be patient,—if he
won’t go running on from spot to spot, saying, as some do, “Oh, there’s
nothing here;” if he will just persevere in a minute examination of
every spot where organic remains may be detected, he will not come away
without his reward in ammonites, hamites, and other cephalopodous
mollusks, and most of them with that peculiar nacreous or
mother-of-pearl lustre upon them which renders the fossils of this
period so beautiful and attractive. Only we caution the explorer not to
buy of the so-called guides. At Dover and Folkstone the rogues have a
knack of getting a lump of gault, and sticking into it one or two common
pyrites, which are very abundant in the cliff, bits of shell, ammonites,
&c.; they then offer this conglomerate for sale, all rounded and smooth,
assuring you upon their “sacred honour,” the honour of men who always
draw upon their imagination for their facts, that they would not ask so
much for it, only on account of its excessive rarity. As good economists
always avoid cheap houses, and go to the best shops, so let the young
geologist always go to the best shop: let him go to the cliff with his
hammer, and work for himself. We picture a few fossils from the gault,
only regretting that it is out of the power of our artist to convey
their lustrous colours, as well as their curious forms.

[Illustration:

1. NATICA CANICULATA.

2.} VENTICRULITES.
3.}

4.} ROSTELLARIA MARGINATA.
5.}

6.}
7.} CATILLUS CRISPI.
8.}
]

[Illustration: Fossil]

Then comes, lastly, the _Chalk_: that is, the _white_ chalk, divided
into lower and upper; the _lower_ being harder and mostly without
flints, and the upper characterised by layers and bands of flint,
sometimes nodular, as in Cambridgeshire, and sometimes flat almost as a
pancake, as in the neighbourhood of Woolwich.

Above are some of the most characteristic fossils of the Chalk. No. 1 is
a _pecten_, or oyster, called the “five-ribbed,” or _quinque costatus_;
No. 2 is the _plagiostoma spinosa_, so called on account of its spines,
a shell found frequently in our chalk or lime-pits; No. 3 is the
intermediate hamite (Lat. _hamus_, a hook), “_hamites intermedius_;” No.
4 is the _spatangus cor-anguinum_, a very common fossil _echinus_ in the
chalk; No. 5 is the _ananchytes ovata_, found frequently in the Brighton
and Ramsgate cliffs; No. 6 is a scaphite (Gr. _skaphē_, a skiff or
boat); and the last is our old friend the belemnite, who has survived so
many of this earth’s changes, and now finds himself a contemporary of
the cretaceous inhabitants of the globe.

In many respects, the Chalk presents us with remarkable anomalies: we
have _sand_, the green sand, but unlike in colour and in texture the
sand of the old and new red sandstone, where we find it compressed and
hardened into solid and compact masses of stone; we have _clay_,
argillaceous beds such as the gault, but it is not clay hard and pressed
into slaty rocks, but soft and compressible; and we have _carbonate of
lime_, the chalk constituting the calcareous beds of this formation; but
where we have met with it before it has been hard and solid limestone,
and marble, not pliable and soft as in the Cretaceous system; and yet
apparently it is all the same material as we have found in the earlier
stages of the earth’s crust—the washings, degradations, and deludations
of older and harder rocks, along with the secretions and remains of
organized animals that once peopled this ancient earth; thus affording
us, on a large scale, another illustration of the economy observable in
all the works of God.

[Illustration:

FOSSIL FISH FROM LEWES.
]

Having spoken of the fossil fishes of the Chalk, we here give drawings
of two procured from the neighbourhood of Lewes, the famous fossil
fishing-ground of the late Dr. Mantell; and it is due to the name and
memory of the Chalk historian and geologist, to inform the reader that
Dr. M. was the first who succeeded, by skilful removal of the
surrounding chalk, in procuring a perfect ichthyolite from the
cretaceous formation of England. The British Museum is now enriched by
Dr. Mantell’s collection of fossil fishes, that once so much excited the
admiration of Agassiz, when he saw them at Brighton.

[Illustration:

FOSSIL FISH (ICHTHYOLITE) FROM LEWES.
]

Here let us again advert to the Deluge theory, not because our own minds
are not satisfied on the point, but because theology and science alike
demand a true statement of the facts of the case. We believe, as we said
in a previous chapter, in the plenary inspiration of nature, just as we
believe that the Scriptures were given by inspiration of God; and we are
quite sure that both books, if they are not misinterpreted, will declare
the glory of God in one common speech, and elevate the mind of man, to
whom they speak, up to a more adoring trust and a profounder reverence.
With Dr. Hitchcock we say, “It seems to me that the child can easily
understand the geological interpretation of the Bible and its reasons.
Why, then, should it not be taught to children, that they may not be
liable to distrust the whole Bible, when they come to the study of
geology? I rejoice, however, that the fears and prejudices of the pious
and the learned are so fast yielding to evidence; and I anticipate the
period, when on this subject the child will learn _the same thing in the
Sabbath school and in the literary institution_. Nay, I anticipate the
time as not distant when the high antiquity of the globe will be
regarded as no more opposed to the Bible, than the earth’s revolution
round the sun, and on its axis. Soon shall the horizon, where geology
and revelation meet, be cleared of every cloud, and present only an
unbroken and magnificent circle of truth.”[107] But to return; this
Deluge theory refers all existing fossils to “Noah’s flood,”—to that
violent diluvial action, the graphic account of which is in the book of
Genesis. Now, it is impossible to believe this if we look at a fossil:
look, for instance, at this terebratula, and observe how perfectly
uninjured it is, frail as is its shelly covering; or at this plagiostoma
spinosa, and mark how susceptible it is of injury, and yet that its
brittle spines are all unbroken; or at this inoceramus or catillus, and
observe its delicate flutings, still in exquisite preservation, without
fracture or distortion; or these specimens of echinites, the ananchytes
ovata, or the spatanguscor-anguinum, and see the markings on the shell,
the apertures of the mouth and stomach still perfect; who can see all
this and not come to the conclusion, that these creatures, and thousands
such as these, endured not only no violence in death, such as a deluge
would suppose, but that at death they subsided quietly to the bottom of
the sea, there to find a fitting sepulchre of soft cretaceous matter
prepared for them, which in process of time was lifted up, to exhibit in
a hard chalky bed their forms of pristine beauty?

In the upper chalk every one has seen the layers of flint, and marked
their singular distribution, in layers; and here we would add, that the
existence of flint in chalk is one of those hard nuts which geology has
not yet cracked. The geologist, the chemist, and the zoologist have all
puzzled themselves in vain to find a truly satisfactory origin for these
nodules of siliceous matter. We have heard it suggested that they may be
_coprolites_; but no one who examines the texture of a flint, can hold
that theory, to say nothing of the idea that the coprolites have been
preserved, while the animal remains have perished. We may sum up all we
have to say about flints in the following words, from that useful little
book, Chambers’s “Rudiments of Geology:”

“_The formation of flint_, within a mass so different in composition as
chalk, is still in some respects an unsolved problem in geology. It
occurs in nodular masses of very irregular forms and variable magnitude;
some of these not exceeding an inch, others more than a yard in
circumference. Although thickly distributed in horizontal layers, they
are never in contact with each other, each nodule being completely
enveloped by the chalk. Externally, they are composed of a white cherty
crust; internally, they are of a grey or black silex, and often contain
cavities lined with chalcedony and crystallized quartz. When taken from
the quarry they are brittle and full of moisture, but soon dry, and
assume their well-known hard and refractory qualities. Flints, almost
without exception, enclose remains of sponges, alcyonia, echinida, and
other marine organisms, the structures of which are often preserved in
the most delicate and beautiful manner. In some specimens the organism
has undergone decomposition, and the space it occupied either left
hollow, or partially filled with some sparry incrustation. From these
facts, it would seem that flints are as much an aggregation of silex
around some organized nucleus, as septaria are aggregations of clay and
carbonate of iron. This is now the generally received opinion; and when
it is remembered that the organisms must have been deposited when the
chalk was in a pulpy state, there can be little difficulty in conceiving
how the silex dissolved through the mass would, by chemical affinity,
attach itself to the decaying organism. Chalk is composed of carbonate
of lime, with traces of clay, silex, and oxide of iron; flint, on the
other hand, consists of 98 per cent. of pure silex, with a trace of
alumine, oxide of iron, and lime. Silex is quite capable of solution: it
occurs in the hot-springs of Iceland and most thermal waters; has been
found in a pulpy state within basalt; forms the _tabasheer_ found in the
cavities of the bamboo, and the thin pellicle or outer covering of
canes, reeds, grasses, &c.; and siliceous concretions are common in the
fruits and trees of the tropics. All these facts point to a very general
diffusion of silex in a state of solution; and whatever may have caused
its abundance in the waters during the deposition of the upper chalk,
there can be little doubt respecting the mode in which it has been
collected around the organic remains of these early seas.”

At Scratchell’s Bay in the Isle of Wight, it will be seen that the
flints are in a vertical position; and to the most casual observer the
perpendicular arrangement of these flints will supply the strongest
evidence of disturbance by upheaval from below. The bay in front, called
Scratchell’s Bay, is a small but romantic indentation in the coast of
the south side of the island, in which are the famous Needles. In the
face of the cliff is a noble archway between 200 and 300 feet high,
which has been created by the constant action of water eating and
wearing away the lower beds; while the Needles themselves are only
isolated masses of chalk, separated or eroded from the main land by the
same erosive action. “To the late Sir Henry Inglefield belongs the merit
of having first observed and directed attention to the highly
interesting phenomena of vertical chalk strata, occasioned by the
disruption and elevation of the eocene and cretaceous formations, which
are so remarkably displayed in the Isle of Wight, where the vertical
position of the strata, and the shattered condition of the flint
nodules, thought still embedded in the solid chalk, may be conveniently
studied in the cliffs in the neighbourhood of Scratchell’s Bay.”[108]

With the study of the Chalk formation, we close what has been
appropriately termed the “secondary period, or middle epoch of the
ancient world;” of which it has been well said, “In reviewing the
characters of the Cretaceous group, we have evidence that these varied
strata are the mineralized bed of an extensive ocean, which abounded in
the usual forms of marine organic life, as algæ, sponges, corals,
shells, crustacea, fishes, and reptiles. These forms are specifically
distinct from those which are discovered in the tertiary strata; in many
instances, the genus, in all the species, became extinct with the close
of the Cretaceous period. It affords a striking illustration of creative
power, that of the hundreds of species which composed the Fauna and the
Flora of the Cretaceous group, not one species passed into the
succeeding epoch.”[109]

Of that old ocean with its countless tenants we have already spoken, and
conclude by applying to it the well-known lines of Montgomery, in his
celebration of the coral insect in his “Pelican Island:”—

Millions of millions here, from age to age,
With simplest skill, and toil unweariable,
No moment and no movement unimproved,
Laid line on line, on terrace, terrace spread,
To swell the heightening, brightening gradual mound,
By marvellous structure climbing towards the day.
Omnipotence wrought in them, with them, by them;
Hence what Omnipotence alone could do,
Worms did.

[Illustration:

WALTONIAN AND MANTELLIAN FISHERMEN.
]

CHAPTER XII.
THE TERTIARY SYSTEM.

“And God made the beast of the earth after his kind.”
MOSES.

In our rapid sketch of the materials constituting the crust of the
earth, we first of all, in that imaginary section which we supposed to
have been laid bare to us, studied the characters of the hypogene
rocks,[110] that make up the Azoic period, in which, with the exception
of a few zoophytes, all nature was void of animal, life and possessed
only by the genius of dread silence. Rising higher, we surveyed the
Palæozoic or primary rocks, where the fishes of the Old Red Sandstone
convinced us of progress in the forms of life, and taught us our first
lesson in the ascending scale of those types of life with which
Palæontology has now made us familiar. Leaving this period at the
Carboniferous era, we entered upon the Mesozoic,[111] or Secondary
period, ushered in amidst strange convulsions that must again and again
have rendered the earth “without form and void;” and here we found
ourselves in company with the strange and gigantic remains of a higher
order of vertebrated animals, the saurians, the crocodile-kings of a
bygone period; and as we pondered these hieroglyphics of past
generations, our souls “were seized the prisoners of amaze;” and now, in
our upward ascent, leaving behind us the scenes

“Where eldest Night
And Chaos, ancestors of nature, held
Eternal anarchy,”

we come to the Cainozoic,[112] or Tertiary Rocks, where other and higher
types of life are found. Huge mammals, beasts of prodigious size, are
now found inhabitants of the earth, the precursors of man—reasoning,
intelligent, responsible man, who is presently to make his appearance on
this great theatre of life, “made a little lower than the angels,” to
have dominion over the works of Jehovah’s power.

Sir H. de la Beche proposes, for tertiary, the term “_supercretaceous_;”
it is, however, of little consequence which term is adopted, the meaning
in each case being the same, that all the rocks or strata lying above
the chalk are to be considered as belonging to the tertiary system or
series. Confessedly, it is a dark period in the history of those
successive creations which have been engaging our attention, for we can
trace no near connexion between the secondary or older, and tertiary or
newer formations. That is to say—and the bare statement appears so
sufficient and final a refutation of what has been termed the
“development hypothesis,” now recognised as contradictory to fact and to
Scripture—that there are not known to exist in any of these newer strata
the same beings, or the descendants of the same beings, that were found
upon the earth at the termination of the chalk deposit.

Nor is this all; not only are none of the old fossils found in any one
of the three divisions of this system, but we are introduced at once to
so many new ones, that their species and genera are almost endless; and
he is not only a geologist of mark, but a most singularly accomplished
geologist, who thoroughly understands their minute subdivisions, and can
appropriately classify the fossils of this most fossiliferous era. To
make the matter as simple as possible, let us add that “the broad
distinction between tertiary and secondary rocks is a _palæontological_
one. None of the secondary rocks contain any fossil animals or plants of
the _same species_ as any of those living at the present day. Every one
of the tertiary groups _do_ contain some fossil animals or plants of the
_same species_ as those now living.”[113]

Having alluded to the threefold division of this series of rocks, we
shall proceed to notice them, dwelling a while upon each, and showing
the principle on which each is based, as originated and enunciated by
Lyell. Of the three divisions, the first is called _Eocene_ (_ēōs_, the
dawn, and _kainŏs_, recent), by which term is represented the oldest or
lowest of this tripartite series. Then we have the _Miocene_ (_meiōn_,
less, and _kainŏs_, recent)—a name, we think, not the most appropriate,
and likely to mislead the beginner, because really it represents a
series of beds, _more_ and not _less_ recent than the _Eocene_; but the
idea of the name is this (and it must be carefully borne in mind), that
although it is _more_ recent than the series of beds _below_, it is
_less_ recent than those _above_; it is nearer the “dawn” of our present
era than the _Eocene_, but not so near the dawn as the _Pliocene_. This
last term, the _Pliocene_ (from _pleiōn_, more, and _kainŏs_, recent),
is applied to the newest of the beds of the tertiary series in which
there are found many _more recent_ than extinct shells. The Tertiary
system or series, then, is divided into these three sections: viz. 1.
The older Tertiary or Eocene; 2. The middle Tertiary or Miocene; and 3.
The newer Tertiary or Pliocene.

We used a term just now, in quoting from Mr. Juke’s most useful manual,
which we will explain; we said, the “distinction between the secondary
and tertiary rocks is wholly a _palæontological_ one;” that is, it is a
distinction founded not on the character of the rocks, but on the
character of the _organic remains_ found in the rocks. “This character,”
says Sir Charles Lyell, “must be used as a criterion of the age of a
formation, or of the contemporaneous origin of two deposits in different
places, under very much the same restrictions as the test of mineral
composition.

“First, the same fossils may be traced over wide regions, if we examine
strata in the direction of their planes, although by no means for
indefinite distances.

“Secondly, while the same fossils prevail in a particular set of strata
for hundreds of miles in a horizontal direction, we seldom meet with the
same remains for many fathoms, and very rarely for several hundred
yards, in a vertical line, or a line transverse to the strata. This fact
has now been verified in almost all parts of the globe, and has led to a
conviction, that at successive periods of the past, the same area of
land and water has been inhabited by species of animals and plants even
more distinct than those which now people the antipodes, or which now
coexist in the Arctic, temperate, and tropical zones. It appears that,
from the remotest periods, there has been ever a _coming in of new
organic forms_, and an _extinction of those which pre-existed on the
earth_, some species having endured for a longer, others for a shorter
time; while none have ever reappeared after once dying out. The law
which has governed the creation and extinction of species seems to be
expressed in the verse of the poet—

‘Nature made him, and then broke the die;’

and this circumstance it is which confers on fossils their highest value
as chronological tests, giving to each of them, in the eyes of the
geologist, that authority which belongs to contemporary medals in
history. The same cannot be said of each peculiar variety of rock; for
some of these, as red-marl and red sandstone for example, may occur at
once upon the top, bottom, and middle of the entire sedimentary series;
exhibiting in each position so perfect an identity of mineral aspect, as
to be undistinguishable. Such exact repetitions, however, of the same
mixtures of sediment, have not often been produced, at distant periods,
in precisely the same parts of the globe; and even where this has
happened, we are seldom in any danger of confounding together the
monuments of remote eras, when we have studied their imbedded fossils
and relative position.”[114]

Let us now briefly explain the very simple but satisfactory basis on
which this threefold division of the Tertiary rocks rests, and then
proceed to a brief explanation of each. The reader will already have
noted a statement on a preceding page, to which we shall be pardoned,
if, a second time, we ask attention to it. In imparting elementary
instruction on geology we have always found our classes more or less
puzzled by the tertiary system, on account of its nomenclature and
minute subdivisions, and we have learnt from experience the importance
of presenting this statement over and over again. We have remarked that
in the _secondary rocks_—that is, up to the end of the chalk
system—there are _no_ organic remains found precisely similar to any
species existing at the present day; but when we come to the tertiary
rocks, although we find many strangers, we find also a good many organic
remains of the same kind and character as the shells, that are now found
on our shores. In one part of the Tertiary the number of fossils that
belongs to existing genera is many, in another more, in another more
still; and upon this simple idea of positive, comparative, and
superlative, the present division is based. Taking the _percentage_
principle as a guide, Sir Charles Lyell and a distinguished French
geologist, M. Deshayes, have ascertained that in the lowest beds of this
system there were only 3½ per cent. of fossil shells similar to
existing species, and this, for “the sake of clearness and brevity,”
says Sir Charles, “was called the _Eocene_ period, or the period of the
dawn, the dawn of our modern era so far as its testaceous fauna are
concerned.” Rising higher in the examination of these rocks, certain
strata were found containing 18 per cent. of fossil shells, similar to
shells found now; and to this was given the name of _Miocene_, the
puzzling name already spoken of, because it means _less_ recent, whereas
it is in reality _more_ recent, and is to be understood in relation to
the series _below_, and not to the series _above_. A step higher up in
this system revealed deposits of a coralline and craggy character, in
which 41 per cent. of fossil shells like those of the present era were
found; and to this the name of _Pliocene_, or more recent still, was
given; and latterly, in Sicily chiefly, a series of strata has been
discovered, referable to the Tertiary, in which 95 per cent. of recent
species of shells have been found, and to this series the name of
Post-Pliocene, or _Pleistocene_, has been given. Before our description
of each of these divisions, let us add, that “the organic _remains of
the system_ constitute its most important and interesting feature. The
fossils of earlier periods presented little analogy, often no
resemblance, to existing plants and animals; here, however, the
similitude is frequently so complete, that the naturalist can scarcely
point out a distinction between them and living races. Geology thus
unfolds a beautiful gradation of being, from the corals, molluscs, and
simple crustacea of the grauwacke—the enamelled fishes, crinoidea, and
cryptogamic plants of the lower secondary—the chambered shells, sauroid
reptiles, and marsupial mammalia of the upper secondary—up to the true
dicotyledonous trees, birds, and gigantic quadrupeds of the tertiary
epoch. The student must not, however, suppose that the fossils of this
era bring him up to the present point of organic nature, for thousands
of species which then lived and flourished became in their turn extinct,
and were succeeded by others long before man was placed on the earth as
the head of animated existence. Of _Plants_, few marine species have
been detected; but the fresh-water beds have yielded cycadeæ, coniferae,
palms, willows, elms, and other species, exhibiting the true
dicotyledonous structure. Nuts allied to those of the cocoa and other
palms have been discovered in the London clay; and seeds of the
fresh-water _characeæ_, or stoneworts, known by the name of _gyrgonites_
(Gr., _gyros_, curved, and _gonos_, seed), are common in the same
deposit. Of the _Radiata_, _Articulata_, and _Mollusca_, so many belong
to existing genera, that this circumstance has suggested the
classification of tertiary rocks according to the number of recent
species which they contain.”—_Chambers’ Outlines_, p. 147.

Let us now begin _the Eocene period_. The most remarkable formations of
this period are the London and Hampshire basins. Of the London basin we
have already spoken in a previous chapter; a few additional remarks will
be sufficient. The diagrams 4 and 5, p. 25, will explain these tertiary
deposits better than any verbal explanation; and when it is remembered
that this bed of clay is probably a thousand feet in thickness, we get a
passing illustration of the folly of those puerile reports which a few
years since were industriously circulated about a coming earthquake in
London. Poor, uneducated people took up the alarm rather anxiously,
never dreaming of what any tyro in science would have told them—that
supposing there was a subterranean chimney on fire down below, there was
a wet blanket under their feet composed of a thousand feet of sodden and
solid clay, a blanket of the material they may see in the deep cuttings
of the Great Northern Railway in and about London, that would most
effectually have put out any fire, or checked the progress of any
earthquake, just as a cannon-ball is stopped dead by a woolsack.

A run down the river Thames will take any one who has a day to spare to
the isle of Sheppey, where he will be amply rewarded by seeing, on the
north side of the island, an exposure of this formation in the cliff
laid bare to the height of 200 feet, and which pleasure trip will be
amply rewarded by the discovery _in situ_ of the fossil tropical plants,
&c., that once flourished in the neighbourhood of our cold and foggy
London. “At the entrance of the Thames, the London clay extends on both
sides of the river, and is admirably exhibited in the isle of Sheppey,
which consists entirely of this stratum. The cliffs on the north side of
the island are upwards of 200 feet high, and are cut down vertically by
the action of the sea; they have long been celebrated for the remarkable
abundance and variety of the organic remains obtained from them, amongst
which, perhaps, the most interesting are the fruits, berries, and woody
seed-vessels of several hundred species of plants. From the same
locality there have also been obtained the remains of upwards of fifty
species of fish, and a considerable number of crustaceans, and many
other invertebrata; besides some remarkable bones which have been
described by Professor Owen, and which indicate the former existence in
this island of large serpents, and of such birds as prey upon small
reptiles and mammalia. Many of these fossils, especially those of
plants, are very difficult to preserve, owing to the great tendency of
the iron pyrites, which enter largely into their composition, to
effloresce and be destroyed by exposure to the atmosphere.”[115]

Passing from the London basin to the Hampshire basin or Barton beds, we
shall first give a group of the shells found here; and we wish our
readers could look at them as they lie before us in their condition of
most exquisite preservation, so exquisite, that those who have seen them
have involuntarily and frequently exclaimed, “_But these can’t be
fossils!_” I know of no picture-painting of past history so touching,
and yet so true, as these lovely specimens of the shells of the
pre-Adamite condition of England in all their native simplicity. To
those who see in them shells, and only shells, why, in the name of the
prophet, give them _figs_, while we again remember Wordsworth’s hero,—

“A primrose on the river brim,
A yellow primrose was to him,
And it was nothing more.”

To us they speak a wondrous story, replete with the knowledge that
maketh glad the heart of man, because it is purifying, elevating
knowledge; and though it does not teach the peculiar truths of theology,
and we heartily wish that geology had been allowed to tell only its own
tale of Creation—for here, as elsewhere,

“Nature, when unadorned,
Is then adorned the most”—

instead of being put to the rack, and made to suggest the special truths
of Revelation,[116] with which it has nothing to do;—although, we say,
it does not teach the peculiar and special truths for which a Revelation
was needed, it everywhere throws light on the boundless treasures of
wisdom and care and beneficent Providence of the God of revelation. But
again we catch ourselves sermonizing: to the diagram.

[Illustration:

FOSSILS FROM THE LONDON CLAY.

1. TELLINA CRASSA.
2. CHAMA SQUAMOSA.
3. TURRITELLA IMBRICATARIA.
4. FUSUS ASPER.
5. PLEUROTOMA COLON.
6. MUREX TUBIFER.
7. APORHAIS PES-PELICANI.
8. VOLUTA LUCTATOR (or luctatrix).
9. TROCHUS MONOLIFER: the necklace trochus.
10. VENERICARDIA COR-AVIUM.
11. FUSUS BULBIFORMIS: the bulb fusus.
]

These fossils we obtained from the neighbourhood of Christchurch; and as
these sheets were being written, we received from Dr. Mantell’s
“Geological Excursions in the Isle of Wight,” the following appropriate
description of them: “The numerous marine fossil shells which are
obtained from this part of the coast of Hampshire, are generally known
as Hordwell fossils; but it is scarcely necessary to remark, that they
almost entirely belong to the London clay strata, and are procured from
Barton cliffs. These fossils are most conveniently obtained from the low
cliff near Beacon Bunny, and occur in greatest abundance in the upper
part of the dark green sandy clay. There are generally blocks of the
indurated portions of the strata on the beach, from which fossils may be
extracted. A collection of Hordwell fossils, consisting of the teeth of
several species of sharks and rays, bones of turtles, and a great
variety of shells, may be purchased at a reasonable price of Jane
Webber, dealer in fossils, Barton cliff, near Christchurch.”—(P. 124.)

Before leaving the Eocene, or rather the London clay of the Eocene, we
will give a drawing of a fossil in our possession. The drawing opposite
represents a piece of fossil wood, pierced through and through by
Teredinæ, a boring mollusk allied to the Teredo, which still proves so
destructive to our vessels. Although the wood is converted into a stony
mass, and in some parts covered by calcareous matter, the same as is
found in the septaria, so common in these beds, to which we shall
presently direct attention, still the grain and woody texture are most
distinct. This wood was once probably floating down what we now call the
Thames, when these piercing, boring mollusks seized hold upon it,
penetrated its soft texture, and lived, moved, and had their being down
at the bottom of the river in their self-constructed chambers. Time
rolled on, and the log of wood is floated upon the shore, and there it
lies to harden and to dry; again the log is drifted away, and, buried in
some soft bed of clay, is preserved from rotting. In process of time it
again sees the light; but now saturated by argillaceous material, and
when hardened by the sun, becomes the petrifaction such as we see it.

[Illustration:

WOOD PERFORATED RY TEREDINA PERSONATA, LONDON CLAY.
]

Here let us refer to the septaria, of which we have just spoken; two
specimens lie before us, which we will briefly describe. In one (1) the
clay is in distinct lozenge-shaped masses of a blue colour, while veins
of calcareous spar or crystallized carbonate of lime surround these,
which are capable of a beautiful marble-like polish; in the other (2)
the clay is of the same colour, only in larger proportions, and the spar
is of a deep brown colour, while here and there portions of iron pyrites
may be seen; they become beautiful ornaments in a room when cut and
polished. It should be added, that the septaria are not without their
economic uses, being extensively used as cement after being stamped and
burnt.

[Illustration:

SEPTARIA
]

Here we may leave this brief sketch of the Eocene, or lowest beds of the
Tertiary. A new creation has been introduced to our view; and although
we still wait for the coming of man—the lord and interpreter of all—the
contemplation of these successive acts and centres of creation fills our
minds with renewed admiration and reverence of Him for whom, and by
whom, and to whom are all things. Thus “even Geology, while it has
exhumed and revivified long buried worlds, peopled with strange forms in
which we can feel little more than a speculative interest, and compared
with which the most savage dweller in the wilderness of the modern
period—jackal, hyæna, or obscene vulture—is as a cherished pet and bosom
friend, has made for us new bonds of connexion between remote regions of
the earth as it is, on account of which we owe it a proportionate share
of gratitude.”[117]

No. II.—_The Miocene._

We shall briefly pass over this period. At Bordeaux, Piedmont, and in
Lisbon, this formation is seen; as well as in various other parts of the
Continent of Europe. The supposition of Geology is, that during this
period “whole regions of volcanoes burst forth, whose lofty but now
tranquil cones can be seen in Catalonia, in Spain, in France,
Switzerland, Asia, and in America. The Alps, the Carpathian Mountains,
and other lofty ranges were at this period partially upheaved. The
researches of Sir Robert Murchison have established this fact, by his
finding deep beds of limestone, characteristic of the Tertiary period,
on the summit of one of the loftiest of the Alps, fully ten thousand
feet above the level of the sea.”

No. III.—_The Pliocene Period._

This term has already been explained. We shall only detain the reader by
a few words respecting the organic remains that characterize this
formation. In England it is confined to the eastern part of the county
of Suffolk, where it is called “Crag.” This is a mere provincial name,
given particularly to those masses of shelly sand which are used to
fertilize lands deficient in calcareous matter. The geological name
given to this strata is the “Red or Coralline Crag;” and it is so called
on account of the deep ferruginous colour its fossils have through
extensive oxidization of iron. We give drawings of the fossils of the
Red Crag, obtained from the neighbourhood of Ipswich.

[Illustration:

FOSSILS FROM THE RED CRAG, NEAR IPSWICH.

1. VENERICARDIA SENILIS.
2. TURRITELLA.
3. PATELLA ÆQUALIS.
4. CYPREA.
5. PALUDINA LENTA.
6. PECTUNCULUS VARIABILIS.
7. MUREX.
8. FUSUS CONTRARIUS.
9. BUCCINUM ELONGATA.
10. VENERICARDIA SCALARIS.
11. VOLUTA LAMBERTI.
12. FUSUS ASPER.
13. PECTUNCULUS PILOSUS.
]

But these are not the only fossils of this period; it is here we meet,
and that for the first time, with the highest form of animal life with
which the researches of geology have made us acquainted. We have traced
life in various forms in the different rocks that have passed under our
rapid survey, and in all we have seen a wondrous and most orderly
gradation. We began with the coral zoophytes, and from them proceeded to
the mollusks and crustacea of the hypogene rocks; ascending, we
discovered “fish with glittering scales,” associated with the crinoids
and cryptogamous plants of the secondary series of rocks; and then we
arrive where we are now, among the true dicotyledonous and exogenous
plants and trees, with the strange birds and gigantic quadrupeds of the
tertiary period. But the student must not imagine that even the fossils
of this epoch bring him up to the modern era, or the _reign of man_; for
even in the tertiary system numberless species lived and flourished,
which in their turn became extinct, to be succeeded by others long
before man, the chief of animals and something more, made his
appearance, to hold dominion over these manifold productions of creative
skill and power. But amidst these creations,

“God was everywhere, the God who framed
Mankind to be one mighty human family,
Himself their Father, and the world their home.”

It would be altogether beside the purpose of this preliminary treatise
to enter into any details respecting the animals that have been found in
such abundance in the Norwich Crag, that it has been called the
“Mammaliferous Crag.” Those who desire full and deeply interesting
information on this question should consult Owen’s noble work, entitled
“British Fossil Mammals and Birds,” where, under the respective
divisions of Eocene, Miocene, and Pliocene, he will see a complete chart
of our riches in the possessions of a past creation. For the discovery
of the Siberian Mammoth so often quoted, we shall refer to the same
work, page 217, &c.; from which we shall only quote one brief extract,
illustrative of the abundance of these remains in our own coasts in the
ages past.

“Mr. Woodward, in his ‘Geology of Norfolk,’ supposes that upwards of two
thousand grinders of the mammoth have been dredged up by the fishermen
of the little village of Happisburgh in the space of thirteen years. The
oyster-bed was discovered here in 1820; and during the first twelve
months hundreds of the molar teeth of mammoths were landed in strange
association with the edible mollusca. Great quantities of the bones and
tusks of the mammoth are, doubtless, annually destroyed by the action of
the waves of the sea. Remains of the mammoth are hardly less numerous in
Suffolk, especially in the pleistocene beds along the coast, and at
Stutton;—they become more rare in the fluvio-marine crag at Southwold
and Thorp. The village of Walton, near Harwich, is famous for the
abundance of these fossils, which lie along the base of the sea-cliffs,
mixed with bones of species of horse, ox, and deer.”[118]

[Illustration:

SKELETON OF THE MEGATHERIUM CUVIERI (AMERICANUM).
]

All the animals of this period are called theroid animals: from
_therion_, a wild beast; and looking at the skeletons as they have been
arranged from the few existing fossils, or from nearly complete
materials—a matter not of guess-work, but of the most rigid application
of the principles of comparative anatomy—we stand astounded at the
prodigious sizes of these mammoths of the tertiary era. There is the
_deinotherium_, or fierce wild beast; the _palæotherium_, or ancient
wild beast; the _anoplotherium_, or unarmed wild beast, and others. We
give above a drawing of the well-known _megatherium_, or great wild
beast, to be seen in the British Museum, and add the following from
Mantell’s Guide to the Fossils of the British Museum:—“This stupendous
extinct animal of the sloth tribe was first made known to European
naturalists by a skeleton, almost entire, dug up in 1789, on the banks
of a river in South America, named the Luxon, about three miles
south-east of Buenos Ayres. The specimen was sent to Madrid, and fixed
up in the Museum, in the form represented in numerous works on natural
history. A second skeleton was exhumed at Lima, in 1795; and of late
years Sir Woodbine Parish, Mr. Darwin, and other naturalists have sent
bones of the megatherium, and other allied genera, to England. The model
of the megatherium has been constructed with great care from the
original bones, in the Wall-cases 9, 10, and in the Hunterian Museum.
The attitude given to the skeleton, with the right arm clasping a tree,
is, of course, hypothetical; and the position of the hinder toes and
feet does not appear to be natural. Altogether, however, the
construction is highly satisfactory; and a better idea of the colossal
proportions of the original is conveyed by this model, than could
otherwise be obtained.”[119]

[Illustration:

SKELETON OF THE MASTODON OHIOTICUS, FROM NORTH AMERICA.
(Height, 9½ feet; length, 20 feet.)
]

We give below a drawing of the “_Mastodon Ohioticus_;” for the following
account of which we are indebted to the same source. It will be found in
Room 6, figure 1.—“This fine skeleton was purchased by the trustees of
the British Museum of Albert Koch, a well-known collector of fossil
remains; who had exhibited, in the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, under the
name of the Missourium, or Leviathan of the Missouri, an enormous
osteological monster, constructed of the bones of this skeleton,
together with many belonging to other individuals—the tusks being fixed
in their sockets so as to curve outwards on each side of the head. From
this heterogeneous assemblage of bones, those belonging to the same
animal were selected, and are articulated in their natural
juxtaposition.”[120]

[Illustration:

FOSSIL HUMAN SKELETON, FROM GUADALOUPE. (The original 4 feet 2 inches
long, by 2 feet wide.)
]

[Illustration:

PLAN OF THE CLIFF AT GAUDALOUPE.
]

In Wall-case D of the British Museum, may be seen a fossil skeleton of a
human being, brought from the island of Guadaloupe, the consideration of
which must for ever remove any idea that may exist about man being
contemporaneous with the theroidal mammals of which we have been
speaking.[121] Professor Whewell has remarked that the “gradation in
form between man and other animals is but a slight and unimportant
feature in contemplating the great subject of the origin of the human
race. Even if we had not revelation to guide us, it would be most
unphilosophical to attempt to trace back the history of man, without
taking into account the most remarkable facts in his nature: the facts
of civilization, arts, government, speech—his traditions—his internal
wants—his intellectual, moral, and religious constitution. If we will
attempt a retrospect, we must look at all these things as evidence of
the origin and end of man’s being; and we do thus comprehend, in one
view, the whole of the argument—it is impossible for us to arrive at an
origin homogeneous with the present order of things. On this subject,
the geologist may, therefore, be well content to close the volume of the
earth’s physical history, and open that divine record which has for its
subject the moral and religious nature of man.”

“Mysterious framework of bone, locked up in the solid marble,—unwonted
prisoner of the rock! an irresistible voice shall yet call thee out of
thy stony matrix. The other organisms, thy partners in the show, are
incarcerated in the lime for ever,—thou but for a term. How strangely
has the destiny of the race to which thou belongest re-stamped with new
meanings the old phenomena of creation!... When thou wert living,
prisoner of the marble, haply as an Indian wife and mother, ages ere the
keel of Columbus had disturbed the waves of the Atlantic, the high
standing of thy species had imparted new meanings to death and the
rainbow. The prismatic arch had become the bow of the covenant, and
death a great sign of the unbending justice and purity of the Creator,
and of the aberration and fall of the living soul, formed in the
Creator’s own image,—reasoning, responsible man.”[122]

FINIS:—THE GEOLOGIST’S DREAM.

[Illustration:

ALARM, BUT NO DANGER.
]

CHAPTER XIII.
SCRIPTURE AND GEOLOGY; OR, APPARENT CONTRADICTIONS RECONCILED.

“By Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in
earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions,
or principalities, or powers; all things were created by Him, and for
Him; and He is before all things, and by Him all things
consist.”—PAUL.

We have in the course of the previous volume alluded to certain
discrepancies, supposed to exist between the statements of Scripture,
and the teachings of Geology. We have more than once intimated our
intention of discussing at some length these questions, that have so
long been tabooed by truly religious people, and often needlessly
exaggerated by those who have possessed a “microscopic eye,” in the
discovery of the weak points of Christian faith or opinion. Dropping the
convenient and euphonious form of egotism, which allows sovereigns and
authors to adopt the plural, we shall crave to stand before our readers
in our personal and singular, rather than in our impersonal and plural,
form of speech.

* * * * *

To the reader let me first say, that while I do not wish to appear
before him as an advocate, as if I held a brief or had a retaining fee
on behalf of Moses, I nevertheless feel rather keenly that the
“reverend” put before my name may give something like this aspect to all
my remarks. It may be thought, and that honestly enough, that because
mine is the clerical profession, I am bound, _per fas aut nefas_, to
contend for the authority of Scripture. It may be thought—in fact, it is
daily alleged against us—that the particular “stand-point” we occupy is
an unfair one, inasmuch as a preacher is bound to “_stick to the
Bible_;” and indeed that he always comes to it with certain _à priori_
conclusions, that to a great extent invalidate his reasonings, and
destroy the morality of his arguments.

Possibly there may be more truth in this than any of us dream of: _fas
est ab hoste doceri_. I therefore make no professions of honesty, and
appeal to no one’s feelings; let us go and look at the Bible, and at the
earth’s crust, and be guided by our independent researches. Should this
happen to be read by any one whose mind is out of joint with Scripture;
who no longer reposes with satisfaction on the old book of his childhood
and his youth; who has begun to fear,—perhaps to think that it is only a
collection of “cunningly devised” fables; and who is on the verge of
giving up Christianity and all “that sort of thing;” to such an one I
shall speak, supposing him to be as honest in his doubts as I am in my
convictions. I cannot deal with man as if he had no right to doubt; I
have never yet “pooh-poohed” any one’s unbelief; but I have always
striven to regard all doubts expressed in courteous phrase, as the
result of investigation, even though it may be partial, as the fruit of
study, although it may have been misguided, and as the painful
conclusions of a thinking mind, and not cherished for the sake of
“having a fling” at moral truth or a righteous life, or at the mothers
and sisters whose life “remote from public haunt” has saved them from
ever doubting the truth of revelation.

Doubting and scorning are very opposite phases of mind: we here address
the _doubter_; with the _scorner_ we have nothing to do; if _ridicule_
is his substitute for argument, by all means let him enjoy it; and if
_calling names_ is his substitute for patient investigation, let him
enjoy that pastime also—hard words break no bones; but for the
_doubter_, for the man who has his honest difficulties, and finds large
stumbling-blocks in the path of unresisting acquiescence in household
faiths, for such an one I have much to say in this chapter, if he will
read it,—to him I stretch forth my hand in cordial greeting, and invite
him to examine evidence, and consider facts; and then, whatever may be
the result, whether I shake _his doubts_ or he shake _my faith_, we
shall at least have acted a manly and a straightforward part. At any
rate, we ought ever to meet as friends, and to be candid and forbearing,
as men liable to err through manifold besetments and biasses.

Having thus thrown myself upon my reader’s candour, by a clear avowal of
the spirit in which such controversies ought to be conducted, let us
together proceed to the purpose of this chapter. Between Geology and
Scripture interpretation there _are_ apparent and great
contradictions—that all admit: on the very threshold of our future
remarks, let us allow most readily that between the usually recognised
interpretations of Scripture and the well-ascertained facts of
Geological science, there are most appalling contradictions; and the
questions arising thence are very important, both in a scientific and in
a theological point of view. Is there any method of reconciliation, by
which the harmony of the facts of science with the statements of the
Bible can be shown? Where is the real solution to be found? Are we
mistaken in our interpretations, or are we mistaken in our discoveries?
Have we to begin religion again _de novo_, or may the Bible and the Book
of Nature remain just as we have been accustomed to regard them; both as
equally inspired books of God, waiting only the service and worship of
man, their priest and interpreter?

These are questions surely of no common importance. Neither the
Christian nor the doubter act a consistent part in ignoring them. Should
the Christian say, “I want no teachings of science: I want no learned
phrases and learned researches to assist me in understanding my Bible:
for aught I care, all the ‘ologies’ in the world may perish as carnal
literature: I know the Book is true, and decline any controversy with
the mere intellectual disputant;” and if the Christian should go on to
add, as probably he would in such a state of mind, and as, alas! too
many have done to the lasting disgust and alienation of the thoughtful
and intelligent: “These are the doubts of a ‘philosophy falsely so
called:’ science has nothing to do with Revelation: they have separate
paths to pursue; let them each go their own way: and should there come a
collision between the two, we are prepared to give up all science once
and for ever, whatever it may teach, rather than have our views upon
Revelation disturbed:”—now, if the Christian talks like that, he is
acting a most unwise part. He is doing in his limited sphere of
influence what the Prussian Government intended to have done when
Strauss’ “Life of Christ” appeared. It was the heaviest blow that
unbelief had ever struck against Christianity, and the Government of
Prussia with several theological professors were disposed to prosecute
its author, and forbid the sale of the book. But the great Neander
deprecated this course, as calculated to give the work a spurious
celebrity, and as wearing the aspect of a confession that the book was
unanswerable. He advised that it should be met, not by _authority_, but
by _argument_, believing that the truth had nothing to fear in such a
conflict. His counsel prevailed, and the event has shown that he was
right.

If, on the other hand, the doubter should say, “The intelligence of the
day has outgrown our household faiths; men are no longer to be held in
trammels of weakness and superstition, or to be dragooned into
Religion;—the old story about the Bible, why, you know we can’t receive
that, and look upon those compilations that pass by that name as
divinely inspired Books; we have long since been compelled to abandon
the thought that Christianity has any historic basis, or that its Books
have any claim upon the reverence or faith of the nineteenth century, as
of supernatural origin.”

To such an one I should say, that this begging of the question, this
_petitio principii_, is no argument; these are statements that require
every one of them a thorough demonstration before they are admitted; you
deny the Christian one single postulate: you deny him the liberty of
taking _anything_ for granted; and then begin yourself with demanding
his assent unquestioned to so large a postulate as your very first
utterance involves, “that the intelligence of the age has outgrown our
household faiths.” Before you proceed you must prove that; and we must
know what is meant by those terms, before we can stand upon common
ground, and hold anything like argument upon these debated points.

From such general observations let us come to the precise objects before
us: Geology and Scripture are supposed to be at variance specially on
three points. _The age of the earth_: _the introduction of death_: and
_the Noachian Deluge_. These apparent contradictions are the most
prominent difficulties, and cause the most startling doubts among those
who imagine Science to be antagonistic to Christian revelation. I
propose to devote a little attention to each of these questions, while I
endeavour honestly to show how, in my opinion, apparent contradictions
may be reconciled. The questions are these, to state them in a popular
form: 1. _Is the world more than 6,000 years old?_ and if it is, how are
the statements of Scripture and Geology to be reconciled? 2. _Was death
introduced into the world before the fall of man?_ and if it was, how
are the truths of Scripture on this question to be explained? and, 3.
What was the character of the _Noachian Deluge_? was it partial or
universal? and what are the apparent discrepancies in this case, between
science and the Bible?

Perhaps before I proceed a step further I ought to add that, in my
belief, the age of the earth, so far as its material fabric, _i.e._ its
crust, is concerned, dates back to a period so remote, and so
incalculable, that the epoch of the earth’s creation is wholly
unascertained and unascertainable by our human arithmetic; whether this
is contradicted in the Scripture, is another question.

With regard to the introduction of death, I believe that death upon a
most extensive scale prevailed upon the earth, and in the waters that
are under the earth, ages, yea countless ages, before the creation of
man—before the sin of any human being had been witnessed; that is what
Geology teaches most indisputably: whether the Scriptures contradict
this statement, is another question.

With regard to the Noachian Deluge, I believe that it was quite partial
in its character, and very temporary in its duration; that it destroyed
only those animals that were found in those parts of the earth then
inhabited by man; and that it has not left one single shell, or fossil,
or any drift or other remains that can be traced to its action. Whether
the Scriptures teach any other doctrine, is another question.

By this time the ground between us is narrowed, and I may probably
anticipate that I shall have objections to answer, or misapprehensions
to remove, quite as much on the part of those who _devoutly believe_, as
on the part of those who _honestly doubt_ the Christian Scriptures.

First then,

I. _How old is the world?_ How many years is it since it was called into
being, as one of the planets? How many centuries have elapsed since its
first particle of matter was created?

The answer comes from a thousand voices, “How old? why, 6,000 years, and
no more, or closely thereabouts! Every child knows that;—talk about the
age of the world at this time of day, when the Bible clearly reveals
it!”

Now I ask, Where does the Bible reveal it? Where is the chapter and the
verse in which its age is recorded? I have read my Bible somewhat, and
feel a deepening reverence for it, but as yet I have never read that. I
see the age of man recorded there; I see the revelation that says the
_human_ species is not much more than 6,000 years old; and geology says
this testimony is true, for no remains of man have been found even in
the tertiary system, the latest of all the geological formations. “_The
Bible, the writings of Moses_,” says Dr. Chalmers, “_do not fix the
antiquity of the globe; if they fix any thing at all, it is only the
antiquity of the species._”

It may be said that the Bible does not dogmatically teach this doctrine
of the antiquity of the globe; and we reply, Very true; but how have we
got the idea that the Bible was to teach us all physical science, as
well as theology. Turretin went to the Bible for _Astronomy_: Turretin
was a distinguished professor of theology in his day, and has left
behind him large proofs of scholarship and piety. Well, Turretin went to
the Bible, determined to find _his system_ of astronomy in it; and of
course he found it. “The sun,” he says, “is not fixed in the heavens,
but moves through the heavens, and is said in Scripture to rise and to
set, and by a miracle to have stood still in the time of Joshua; if _the
sun did not move, how could birds, which often fly off through an hour’s
circuit, be able to return to their nests, for in the mean time the
earth would move 450 miles_?” And if it be said in reply, that Scripture
speaks according to common opinion, then says Turretin, “We answer, that
the Spirit of God best understands natural things, and is not the author
of any error.”

We smile at such “ecclesiastical drum” noise now, and we can well afford
to do so: but when people go to the Bible, determined to find there, not
a _central truth_, but the truths of physics, in every department of
natural science, are we to be surprised that they come away disappointed
and angry? As Michaelis says, (quoted by Dr. Harris, in his “Man
Primeval,” p. 12,) “Should a stickler for Copernicus and the true system
of the world carry his zeal so far as to say, that _the city of Berlin
sets at such an hour_, instead of making use of the common expression,
that the sun sets at Berlin at such an hour, he speaks the truth, to be
sure, but his manner of speaking it is pedantry.”

Now, this is just the way to make thoughtful men unbelievers: and we
will not adopt that plan, because it is not honest, neither is it
clever; the Gordian knot of every question might easily be solved in
this way.

Bearing in mind that the question we are now trying to solve is this,
“What is the evidence afforded by Geology, as to the history of
creation, and in what way does the geological age of the world affect
the supposed statement of Scripture, that the world is only 6,000 years
old?” I reply thus, and I prefer to use the words of others rather than
my own, lest it should be supposed that I am introducing mere novelties
of opinion on this subject:—“That the first sentence in Genesis is a
simple, independent, all-comprehending axiom to this effect; that
matter, elementary or combined, aggregated only or organized, and
dependent, sentient and intellectual beings have not existed from
eternity, either in self-continuity or in succession: but had a
beginning; that their beginning took place by the all-powerful will of
One Being, the self-existent, independent and infinite in all
perfection, and that the date of that beginning is not made known.”

These are the words of Dr. Pye Smith,[123] of whose name as an
authority, both in matters of science and philology, no one need be
ashamed.

Dr. Redford says, “We ought to understand Moses as saying, indefinitely,
far back, and concealed from us in the mystery of eternal ages, prior to
the first moment of mundane time, ‘God created the heavens and the
earth.’”

“My firm persuasion is,” says Dr. Harris, “that the first verse of
Genesis was designed by the Divine Spirit to announce the absolute
origination of the material universe by the Almighty Creator, and that
it is so understood in the other parts of Holy Writ; that, passing by an
indefinite interval, the second verse describes the state of our planet
immediately prior to the Adamic creation; and that the third verse
begins the account of the six days’ work.”

Dr. Davidson, in his “Sacred Hermeneutics,” says,—“If I am reminded, in
a tone of animadversion, that I am making science, in this instance, the
interpreter of Scripture, my reply is, that I am simply making the works
of God illustrate His word in a department in which they speak with a
distinct and authoritative voice; that it is all the same whether our
geological or theological investigations have been prior, if we have not
forced the one into accordance with the other. And it may be deserving
consideration whether or not the conduct of those is not open to just
animadversion who first undertake to pronounce on the meaning of a
passage of Scripture, irrespective of all appropriate evidence, and who
then, when that evidence is explored and produced, insist on their _à
priori_ interpretation as the only true one.”

But I quote no more: such are some of the eminent theological
contributions to this department of science:—satisfactory in this
respect, that a fair interpretation of Scripture does not require us to
fix any precise date, much less the inconsiderable one of six thousand
years, as the period of the earth’s formation.

Geology teaches the same thing.—Of the various formations that compose
the earth’s trust, to the ascertained extent of ten miles, suppose we
select two,—the Old Red Sandstone and the Chalk formations. Laborious
and scientific men have been at the pains to calculate the gradual
increase of some of these _now proceeding deposits_,—such as the Deltas,
in course of formation at the mouth of the Nile, and at the gorges of
the Ganges; and they find that the progress of the depth of increase is
exceedingly small,—probably not more than a foot in many years. Mr.
Maculloch, a name standing very high for accurate investigation, states,
from his own observation, that a particular Scottish lake does not form
its deposit at the bottom, and hence raise its level, at the rate of
more than half-a-foot in a century; and he observes, that the country
surrounding that lake presents a vertical depth of far more than 3,000
feet, in the single series of the Old Red Sandstone formation; and no
sound geologist, he hence concludes, will, therefore, accuse the
computer of exceeding, if, upon the same ratio as the contiguous lake,
he allows 600,000 years for the production of this series of rock alone.

A last instance which may here be adduced, of the apparent length of
time required for the construction of a particular rock, offers itself
in the Chalk formation. The enormous masses of this rock, presenting
their tall white precipices in such simple grandeur to our view, might
well excite our astonishment at the periods which would seem needful for
their collection and deposition, even if they were mere _inorganic_
concretions of calcareous matter. But what shall we say when the
investigations of the microscope have lately revealed to us that these
mountains of chalk, instead of being formed of mere inert matter, are,
on the contrary, mighty congeries of decayed animal life,—the white
apparent particles, of which the chalk masses are composed, being each
grain a well-defined organized being, in form still so perfect, their
shells so entire, and all their characteristics so discoverable, as to
cause no doubt to naturalists as to the species in the animal economy to
which they belonged. How justly does Sir Charles Lyell, who in his
“Elements” records at length this surprising discovery, exclaim,—

“The dust we tread upon was once alive!”

“Look at the lofty precipices which lay naked a slight section of the
Chalk at the Culvers, or the Needles in the Isle of Wight, or the still
loftier Shakspeare Cliff at Dover, and let the mind form a conception,
if it can, of the countless generations of these minutest of living
creatures it must have required to build up, from their decayed bodies
and their shelly exuviæ, layer on layer, those towering masses thus
brought to our view. Who shall dare to compute the time for this entire
elaboration? The contemplation almost advances us a step towards forming
a conception of infinitude.”[124]

I need not dwell longer on the antiquity of the globe:—Geology and
Scripture present no conflicting testimonies on this subject. Our
_interpretation_ of Scripture has, undoubtedly, been modified; but the
living Word itself abideth, in all its grandeur and purity, for ever.
And “the time is not far distant when the high antiquity of the globe
will be regarded as no more opposed to the Bible than the earth’s
revolution round the sun and on its axis. Soon shall the horizon, where
geology and revelation meet, be cleared of every cloud, and present only
an unbroken and magnificent circle of truth.”[125]

The reader shall not be detained so long on the second point of inquiry,
which is

II. “Was death introduced into the world before the fall of man? and if
it was, how are the statements of Scripture, on this question, to be
explained?” To this I have replied by anticipation, that, in my opinion,
death, upon a most extensive scale, prevailed upon the earth, and in the
waters that are under the earth, countless ages before the creation of
man. Into the proof of this position allow me to go very briefly,
although I am well aware that I run the risk of incurring the charge of
heterodoxy, when I state my full conviction, that _death_, as well as
the _world_, was _pre-Adamite_. The general impression is the contrary;
but general impressions are not always right:—“general impression” is a
very unsubstantial ghost to deal with, very like that cant phrase we
spoke of at the beginning of this lecture,—“the intelligence of the
age.” “General impression” has it, that death was _not_ pre-Adamite;
that there was _no_ death before the fall; and that, to _say_ the
contrary, is, at least, to tread on very dangerous ground. In vain does
Geology—“now happily a true science, founded on facts, and reduced to
the dominion of definite laws”—lay bare the Silurian rocks, and discover
even _there_ extinct forms of life in exquisitely beautiful
preservation. In vain does Geology, after showing us the fossil
trilobite and coral, unfold the volume of the Old Red Sandstone, and
show us _there_ the fossil remains of fish—so perfect that we might
imagine them casts rather than fossils. In vain does Geology open its
vast Oolitic system, and show us _there_ other forms of extinct life in
fossil insects, tortoises, mighty saurians, and huge iguanodons. In vain
does Geology lay bare the Chalk, with its marine deposits; and the
Tertiary formation, with its enormous theroid mammalia, far surpassing
in size the largest animals we are acquainted with. In vain are all
these fossil remains exhibited imbedded in the earth; and in vain do we
search, amidst all these, for one fossil remain of man, or one fossil
vestige of man’s works. The easy, the cheap, the unreflective answer is,
“Oh! these things were created there, or else Noah’s flood left them
there.”

Of course, we can fall back upon a miracle as having done all this; but
to have recourse to miracles when no miracle is recorded, is just to
shake our faith in that all-inspired testimony, that supernatural Book,
the existence of which is the great miracle of time. But there are the
fossils! How did they come there if the forms of animal life, once
inhabiting those remains, had not previously lived and died? Created!
What? Created fossils? Then why not, when the Almighty created man, did
he not create, at the same time, some skeletons of _man_, and place them
in the earth, as he put skeletons of trilobites, fishes, reptiles, and
mammals there? Our common sense and reverence both reject the idea. As
to the puerile notion that Noah’s flood put them there, did not Noah’s
flood overwhelm man as well as animals? and as the bones of man are as
durable as the bones of animals, how is it that we never meet with a
fossil human skull or thigh bone, or house?

We believe that death was a part of the divine plan of God’s creation;
that death is a law of all organic life—a necessary law and a most
benevolent provision; that the living structure of all animals derives
its substance from dead organic matter. We believe that, altogether
apart from human sin, preceding and successive generations must be the
order of being; for if there were no death, animals would soon pass
beyond the limit of provision sufficient for nutritive support, or of
localities for suitable habitations. We believe that if there had been
no death prior to man’s sin, it would involve the supposition that all
animals were herbivorous; whereas, even the little _ladybird_ cannot
live without its meal of _aphides_; and, so believing, we find our faith
in Scripture deepened when, seeing on every hand the extensive proofs of
death, we find man, the moment he lost his lordship and proud eminence,
and reduced himself voluntarily to the condition of animalism,
immediately brought _penally_ within the influence of that law of death,
whose existence he must have recognised in the death of animals from the
first day of his creation.

Does any one reply, “This is contrary to Scripture?” I ask them what
Scripture teaches that the death of _animals_ is the result of man’s
sin?—rather would not Scripture sanction the thought that death was a
part of the divine plan of God’s creation, and that the certainty of
man’s transgression was the reason for giving this constitution to
nature? True, Milton sings, in his noble poem, that will live as long as
the English language lives—

“Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe:”

but we are not obliged to call the Paradise Lost our Bible; or to quote
Milton as a physiological authority, although the prevalence of the
opinion that death was not pre-Adamite, and a good deal of theology
besides, is more of Miltonic than of Scripture teaching.

I leave this branch of my subject far before it is exhausted: so far
from that, each of the three points enumerated might easily be expanded
into a lecture; and I can only hope that my brevity in treating these
topics will not be misconstrued into a desire to shirk any of the
difficulties with which their investigation is surrounded.

III. I come, lastly, to the question of the _Noachian Deluge_, and shall
again repeat my own words: “What was the character of the Noachian
Deluge?—was it partial or universal? and what are the apparent
discrepancies, in this case, between science and the Bible?” And I have
added to this my belief that the Noachian Deluge was quite partial in
its character, and very temporary in its duration: that it destroyed
only those animals that were found in those parts of the earth habitable
by man, and that it has not left a single shell or fossil, or any drift
boulders or pebbles, or any other remains that may be traced to its
action.

Very briefly we shall try and prove this; and perhaps the most popular
way will be the best remembered,—only that the reader will bear in mind
that this little book does not pretend to exhaust the subject, but only
to realize the idea expressed at the beginning of this chapter.
Presuming, that all have in their recollection the Scriptural account of
the Noachian Deluge, instead of quoting words with which all are
familiar, I will only remark, as the basis of my illustrations, that
rain descended, and probably the ocean overflowed, for forty days; that
the waters lay upon the land, and covered them one hundred and fifty
days; that at the end of that time they began to subside, and that in
twelve months and twenty-seven days they were gone from the face of the
earth, and the Noachian family liberated from the ark.

The question is, was this flood universal, and were all kinds of animals
preserved in the ark? To which my answer, as involving my belief, is
this, that the flood was _local_, and that only the animals peculiar to
Armenia were provided for in Noah’s ark.

“_Oh! but the Bible says it was universal_,” says everybody. Yes; but
that, you know, is just the question between us. The terms “all the
earth” _seem_ to imply universality, but they do not necessarily involve
this. “_All_ countries came to Egypt to buy corn;” certainly not all the
world literally, but all the surrounding countries. So there were once
dwelling at Jerusalem devout Jews “from out of _every nation_ under
heaven;” but not _literally_ out of every nation, for the names of the
nations are immediately given, and we find the nations to have been a
few between Egypt and the Black Sea, and between Italy and Palestine.
There are many other illustrations of a similar character: these will
suffice: I only adduce these to show that at the beginning Scripture
does not oblige us to consider “all” as meaning “every one;” or to
understand literally “all the inhabitants of the earth” as meaning every
creature.

Now, looking at the structure and composition of the earth’s crust,
especially its fossiliferous rocks, I am driven to one of three
conclusions, each of them involving difficulty, I acknowledge, but the
one that involves the least is, of course, the most preferable. Either I
must admit—

1. That the fossils in these rocks were all deposited in order and in
succession, without injury, through a crust of rocks ten miles in
thickness, during twelve months’ violent diluvial action:

2. Or that they were all deposited there during the 15,000 or 16,000
years that had elapsed since the creation of man prior to the Deluge;
that is, supposing the creation of man and the creation of the earth to
have been synchronous. Or, lastly, which theory I accept—

3. That the date of the earth’s physical being is unknown to us, and
that the fossiliferous rocks were deposited in decades of ages before
the creation of man.

For, on the other hand, let us suppose the flood to have been universal,
in the strict and literal sense of the term; then let me suggest some of
the consequences and difficulties of such a theory.

1. One consequence would be that some remains of man or of his works
would have been found; but nothing of this kind has occurred. Even
Armenia has been geologically examined, and no human remains have been
found; and surely man’s bones would last as long as the shells of a
trilobite or terebratula?

2. And, secondly, the organic remains, the fossils themselves, would
have been found confusedly heaped together; whereas, the remains in the
crust of the earth are as carefully arranged as the contents of a
well-ordered cabinet. We know always to a certainty what fossils will be
found in any rock before we examine that rock.

3. Besides which, some, at least, of the organic remains found ought to
correspond with existing beings and species: yet the contrary is the
case, except only a few fossils found near the surface of the earth, in
that portion of the earth’s crust occupied by the tertiary system.

Nor is this all. Consider the _vast difficulties_ the universal flood
theory has to contend with, all of which are removed by the theory we
have adopted.

1. _There is the quantity of water required._ If all over the earth the
water rose twenty-two feet six inches above the tops of the highest
mountains, the quantity of water required would be eight times the whole
quantity of water now existing. Where all this could have come from
first and gone to afterwards, are prodigious stumbling-blocks. Of course
we can resort to miracle; but this is not the way to get rid of
difficulty in a manly and honest spirit.

2. _Then consider the number of animals the ark must have contained._
There are 1,000 species of mammalia, 5,000 species of birds, 2,000
species of reptiles, and 120,000 well-ascertained and distinct species
of insects. Do we pretend that all these were housed and fed for nearly
thirteen months in a vessel that was only 450 feet long, 75 feet broad,
and 45 feet high; and that such a vessel contained room for them, and
their food, besides that of man, for such a long period. The little toys
of Noah’s ark are certainly pretty, but very mischievous, and most of
the popular notions of the flood have grown up from our nurseries as
much from the use of this toy in this case, as from the reading of
Paradise Lost in the other: and the result is, the Bible is made
responsible for it all.

3. Then consider the subsequent distribution of animals: the polar bear
and the tropical elephant, the ferocious tiger and a young fawn, going
out together in order, and without violence: of course we can suppose
another miracle to repress passions and violence. Besides which, in
addition to the fauna, the animal kingdom, we must ask what became of
the flora or vegetable kingdom during this period, if the flood were
universal? We have at least twenty-five botanical provinces, with their
peculiar and numberless farms of vegetable life; what became of them?
Were they preserved in the ark, or under the water?—for such questions
must be answered by those who charge us with inconsistency in attempting
to reconcile the facts of science with the words of Scripture. And as a
last difficulty, (suggested first, I believe, by Dr. Pye Smith, and
which I shall therefore state in _his_ words, lest it should seem that I
use “plainness of speech,”) let us look at the descent from Ararat out
of the ark, into Armenia, with all these animals, birds, insects, plants
and trees. “That mountain is 17,000 feet high, and perpetual snow covers
about 5,000 feet from its summit. If the water rose, at its liquid
temperature, so as to overflow that summit, the snows and icy masses
would be melted; and on the retiring of the flood, the exposed mountain
would present its pinnacles and ridges, dreadful precipices of naked
rock, adown which the four men and the four women, and with hardly any
exception the quadrupeds, would have found it utterly impossible to
descend. To provide against this difficulty, to prevent them from being
dashed to pieces, must we again suppose a miracle? Must we conceive of
the human beings and the animals as transported through the air to the
more level regions below; or that, by a miracle equally grand, they were
enabled to glide unhurt adown the wet and slippery faces of the rock?”

Such are some of the difficulties and some of the consequences that must
flow from an acceptance of any other theory than the one I have
proposed: that the flood was partial in its character, extending only
over the habitable parts of the earth; and that it was so temporary in
its character as not to have left a single trace of its influence
visible on rock or fossil.

I have thus endeavoured to suggest points of reconciliation between the
accepted facts of Geology and the recorded statements of Scripture; and
if this slight contribution be accepted as an aid to faith, and a proof
of candour on my part to meet those who linger on the border land of
doubt, my purpose will be fully answered.

Let me add, in the words of Chenevix Trench—words uttered in the
University of Cambridge not long since: “May we in a troubled time be
helped to feel something of the grandeur of the Scriptures, and so of
the manifold wisdom of that Eternal Spirit by whom it came; and then
petty objections and isolated difficulties, though they were multiplied
as the sands of the sea, will not harass us. For what are they all to
the fact, that for more than 1,000 years the Bible collectively taken,
has gone hand in hand with civilization, science, law—in short, with the
moral and intellectual cultivation of the species, always supporting and
often leading the way? Its very presence as a believed book, has
rendered the nations emphatically a chosen race; and this, too, in exact
proportion as it is more or less generally studied. Of those nations
which in the highest degree enjoy its influences, it is not too much to
affirm that the differences, public and private, physical, moral, and
intellectual, are only less than what might be expected from a diversity
in species. Good and holy men, and the best and wisest of mankind, the
kingly spirits of history enthroned in the hearts of mighty nations,
have borne witness to its influence, and have declared it to be beyond
compare the most perfect instrument and the only adequate organ of
humanity: the organ and instrument of all the gifts, powers, and
tendencies, by which the individual is privileged to rise beyond
himself, to leave behind and lose his dividual phantom self, in order to
find his true self in that distinctness where no division can be,—in the
Eternal I AM, the ever-living WORD, of whom all the elect, from the
archangel before the throne to the poor wrestler with the Spirit until
the breaking of day, are but the fainter and still fainter echoes.”

[Illustration: Logo]

M. CLAY, PRINTER HEAD STREET HILL.

-----

Footnote 1:

Whewell’s Astronomy and Physics, p. 48.

Footnote 2:

From παλαιός, _ancient_, and ζωόν, _life_; ancient-life period.

Footnote 3:

Hughes, Physical Geography. 3d ed. p. 21.

Footnote 4:

Hughes, Physical Geog. p. 22.

Footnote 5:

Dr. Pye Smith.

Footnote 6:

As Chimborazo in South America, 21,414; Ararat, 16,000; Dhawalagiri,
in the Himalayas, 28,000 feet above the level of the sea; compared
with which what a mole-hill is Vesuvius, only 8,947 feet; or Blue
Mountain Peak, 8,600, or even Mont Blanc, that monarch of mountains,
which is 15,816 feet above the sea!

Footnote 7:

Hughes, p. 16.

Footnote 8:

Chambers’ Rudiments of Geology, p. 71.

Footnote 9:

These wells are so frequently spoken of as to need no explanation,
further than to remind the reader that they are so called from having
been first introduced in the province of Artois, the ancient Artesium
in France.

Footnote 10:

The deepest Artesian well is the famous one in the Plaine de Grenelle,
Paris. This well yields 516 gallons a minute; its temperature is 81°
Fahr.; and its depth is nearly 1,800 feet.

Footnote 11:

How truly hieroglyphics—sacred carvings; (_ieros_, sacred, _glupho_, I
carve;) and in this sense there is a holier meaning than Shakspeare
could have dreamt of in his well-known lines, when applied by the
geologist to his researches:—

“And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
_Sermons in stones_, and good in everything.”

Footnote 12:

And I may say, _my friend_ also, to whom, during my residence in
Jamaica, I was frequently indebted for contributions on natural
history to the _Jamaica Friendly Instructor_, of which I was Editor.

Footnote 13:

A Naturalist’s Sojourn in Jamaica, by P. H. Gosse, Esq. pp. 496–7.

Footnote 14:

So called because of its _grained_ or _granular_ appearance.

Footnote 15:

First brought from Syene, in Egypt.

Footnote 16:

Feld-spar, written also felspar, a compound of _feld_, field, and
spar.

Footnote 17:

See Ansted’s Ancient World, p. 21.

Footnote 18:

Memnon, or Ramesis. This famous head is in the British Museum; the
body is of greenstone, the head of syenite, and the bust one
continuous mass.

Footnote 19:

From _dis_ and _integer_. The separation of the whole parts of a rock,
without chemical action, by means of the light, the air, or the rain,
is called disintegration.

Footnote 20:

Lieut. Portlock on Geology, p. 93.

Footnote 21:

Ansted’s Geology, Descriptive and Practical, vol. ii. pp. 290, 291.

Footnote 22:

Ansted’s Geology, p. 291.

Footnote 23:

As the ancients did not know or use the compound metal brass, though
bronze was common amongst them, we must in this verse, and all others
in which the word “brass” is used, understand it to mean
copper.—Hughes’ Scripture Geography, Art. Geology of Palestine, p.
133.

Footnote 24:

Murray’s Hand-book for Cornwall, p. 199.

Footnote 25:

Ansted, vol. ii. p. 418.

Footnote 26:

Whewell, Anniversary Address to Geol. Society, 1839.

Footnote 27:

In Memoriam.

Footnote 28:

Dr. Pye Smith says 140,000 feet.

Footnote 29:

See a valuable map of fossils published by the Christian Knowledge
Society.

Footnote 30:

Trilobite: _treis_, three, and _lobos_, a lobe; having three lobes.

Footnote 31:

Bridgewater Treatise, vol. i. p. 396.

Footnote 32:

A fossil shell allied to the Argonauta and Carinaria.

Footnote 33:

“Man has no tail, _quantum mutatus_; but the notion of a
much-ridiculed philosopher of the last century is not altogether
without foundation; for the bones of a caudal extremity exist in an
undeveloped state in the os coccygis of the human subject.” Poor
_man_!—Vestiges of Creation, p. 71.

Footnote 34:

Sedgwick, p. 216, “On the Studies of the University of Cambridge.”

Footnote 35:

“My School and Schoolmasters,” by Hugh Miller.

Footnote 36:

“Old Red Sandstone; or, New Walks in an Old Field;” by Hugh Miller, p.
48.

Footnote 37:

“By mind, by hand, and by hammer.”

Footnote 38:

“Old Red Sandstone,” p. 66.

Footnote 39:

Ichthyolite: _ichthus_, a fish, _lithos_, a stone: fossil fish, or the
figure or impression of a fish in the rock.

Footnote 40:

“Old Red Sandstone,” pp. 41, 42.

Footnote 41:

“Old Red Sandstone,” p. 69.

Footnote 42:

From _akanthos_, a thorn, and _pterugion_, the fin.

Footnote 43:

From _malakos_, soft, and _pterugion_, the fin.

Footnote 44:

1. Ganoid, from _ganos_, splendour, because the scales are coated with
a bright enamel.

Footnote 45:

2. Placoid, from _plax_, a plate; sometimes large, sometimes reduced
to a point; _e.g._ shark.

Footnote 46:

3. Ctenoid, from _kteis_ (gen. _ktenos_, a comb); scales jagged like a
comb.

Footnote 47:

4. Cycloid, from _kuklos_, a circle; scales smooth and simple: _e.g._
salmon, &c.

Footnote 48:

From _kephalē_, the head; _aspis_, a buckler.

Footnote 49:

Coccosteus, from _kokkos_, a berry, and _osteon_, a bone.

Footnote 50:

“Old Red Sandstone,” p. 86.

Footnote 51:

Pterichthys: _pteron_, a wing, and _ichthus_, a fish.

Footnote 52:

“Old Red Sandstone,” pp. 80, 81.

Footnote 53:

Osteolepis: _osteon_, a bone, and _lepis_, a scale.

Footnote 54:

Operculum, the flap which covers the gill.

Footnote 55:

“Old Red Sandstone,” p. 111.

Footnote 56:

“Vast quantities:” let any reader go and turn over the non-bituminous
shale lying on the waste heaps of every coalpit, and he will see that
this is no exaggeration.

Footnote 57:

Capillus Veneris.

Footnote 58:

Corruption of _arrière-dos_, a fire-place. See a view and description
of one in “A Visit to Penshurst,” in Howitt’s “Visits to Remarkable
Places,” Second Series.

Footnote 59:

Juicy and soft, as peas, beans, plantains, bananas, &c.

Footnote 60:

“Ancient World,” pp. 76, 77.

Footnote 61:

This may seem strange at first; but I have journeyed through tropical
forests that realized completely this sketch, so far as stillness and
silence are concerned. A modern and most accomplished naturalist says
of a Jamaica virgin forest, “Animal life is almost unseen; the
solitude is scarcely broken by the voices of birds, except that now
and then the rain-bird or the hunter (large cat-tailed cuckoos that
love the shade) sound their startling rattle, or the mountain
partridge utters those mournful cooings which are like the moans of a
dying man.”—Gosse’s Jamaica, p. 198.

Footnote 62:

From κάλαμος (_calamus_), a reed.

Footnote 63:

Ansted’s “Ancient World,” p. 82.

Footnote 64:

Mesozoic: _i.e._ middle life period; _mesos_, middle, _zoos_, life.

Footnote 65:

The Religious Tract Society.

Footnote 66:

Lyell’s “Manual of Elementary Geology.” Postscript, p. 13.

Footnote 67:

Ansted’s Geology, vol i. p. 306.

Footnote 68:

Ichnites; from _ichnon_, a footstep, and _eidos_, like.

Footnote 69:

_Ornithos_, a bird, and _ichnon_.

Footnote 70:

Marsupial, from _marsupium_, a pouch; animals of the fourth order of
Cuvier, that have a pouch in which the young are carried.

Footnote 71:

Batrachian, from _batrachos_, a frog; animals in Cuvier’s fourth class
of reptiles.

Footnote 72:

_Cheir_, the hand, _therion_, a wild beast; a wild beast with a foot
like a hand.

Footnote 73:

From _labyrinthus_, a labyrinth, and _odous_, a tooth; so called from
the labyrinthine structure of the tooth.

Footnote 74:

In some cases we find, corresponding to a set of footmarks, a
continuous furrow, presumed to be the impression of a tail dragged
along the sand by the animal while walking.

Footnote 75:

Ansted’s Ancient World, pp. 125–127.

Footnote 76:

Knight’s Cyclopædia of Arts, &c.

Footnote 77:

Quarterly Review, May, 1852. Article on Roger de Coverley.

Footnote 78:

This is a corruption, we are inclined to think, of the word “layers;”
one of those provincial corruptions of the Queen’s English that get
stereotyped.

Footnote 79:

Buckland’s Bridgewater Treatise. pp. 351, 352.

Footnote 80:

A fossil bivalve, allied to the oyster, and very abundant in the
secondary strata.

Footnote 81:

Belemnite, from _belemnos_, a dart, and so called from its
arrow-headed shape.

Footnote 82:

Saurian, from _sauros_, a lizard, the name by which the great family
of lizards is designated.

Footnote 83:

From _ichthus_, a fish, and _sauros_, a lizard; so called from its
resemblance to both.

Footnote 84:

Heteroclite; _heteros_, another, and _klitos_, inclining; a word
applied to any thing or person deviating from common forms.

Footnote 85:

Very unlike the alligator, whose eyes are placed at a considerable
distance behind the nose.

Footnote 86:

From _pleiōn_, more, and _sauros_, a lizard; because it is more like a
lizard than the Ichthyosaurus.

Footnote 87:

Mantel’s Fossils of the British Museum, p. 341.

Footnote 88:

This formation is sometimes called the Jurassic system.

Footnote 89:

Lyell’s Manual of Elementary Geology, p. 12, ed. 1852.

Footnote 90:

“So vast an expanse!” Mr. Darwin traced coral reefs in the Pacific,
4,000 miles long and 600 broad. Between the coasts of Malabar and
Madagascar there is a chain of coral reefs, called the Maldives and
Laccadives, 480 miles long and 50 miles wide. On the east coast of
Australia there is an unbroken reef of 350 miles long; and between
Australia and Guinea, coral reefs extend 700 miles in length. Truly
the coral animals, like the “conies,” are a “feeble folk,” but their
habitations survive our proudest monuments.

Footnote 91:

Hugh Miller’s First Impressions, pp. 203, 204.

Footnote 92:

Brash is s Wiltshire word for short or brittle; and thus a
quick-tempered, irritable person, is said to have a _brashy_ temper.

Footnote 93:

Geology for Beginners (Weale’s Series), p. 147.

Footnote 94:

Juke’s Popular Geology, pp. 42–44.

Footnote 95:

From _krinos_, a lily, and _eidos_, like; lily-shaped animals of the
Radiated division, forming a link between the animal and vegetable
world.

Footnote 96:

From _trochos_, a wheel; wheel-shaped crinoideans.

Footnote 97:

From _pteron_, a wing, and _dactulos_, a finger; the wing-fingered
animal.

Footnote 98:

The term _Weald_ or _Wold_ is the old Saxon for our present _Wood_;
and now, altered by pronunciation, is found in connexion with many
words and names of places: _e.g. Waltham_ (Weald-ham), the wood house
or home; Walthamstow, the wood house store, and so on. Thus it is that
words are “fossil poetry.”

Footnote 99:

Alison’s description of South America, in History of Europe (Article,
South American Revolution); vol. viii.

Footnote 100:

“Our disposition is, and has been, not to multiply miracles after the
sort in which this has been done by many more _zealous_ than _wise_
friends of revelation. In all cases we allow the miracle without
question, which is distinctly claimed to be such in the Scriptures,
and where the circumstances clearly indicate that a miracle was
necessary,—we say ‘necessary,’ because we are persuaded that the
Almighty has almost invariably chosen to act through natural agencies,
and under the laws which he has imposed on nature, whenever they are
adequate to produce the required result. We believe it is one of the
beautiful peculiarities of the Bible, that it has none of those
gratuitous and barren wonders, which form the mass of the pretended
miracles which the various systems of false religion produce.... For
our own part, we do not wish to hear of small miracles, which leave us
doubtful whether there be any miracle at all. If we are to have
miracles, let them be decidedly miraculous, and let not our veneration
for the Divine character be offended by exhibitions of the Almighty,
as laying bare his holy arm to remove the small remaining difficulty
which theorists leave him to execute.”—_Dr. Kitto’s Biblical History
of Palestine._

Footnote 101:

We have a fine specimen before us which we brought from Demerara,
answering well to Gosse’s description of the iguana found in Jamaica.
“In the eastern parts of the island the great iguana (_Cyclura
lophoma_), with its _dorsal crest, like the teeth of a saw, running
all down its back_, may be seen lying out on the branches of the
trees, or playing bo-peep from a hole in the trunk.” It is considered
a great delicacy by many, but it never seemed Christian food to us,
and we never ventured to provoke our palate with a taste.

Footnote 102:

_Enaliosaurians_ are _sea_ lizards, such as those found in the Lias;
and _deinosaurians_ are _terrible_ lizards, such as those found in the
Wealden.

Footnote 103:

Ansted’s Ancient World, pp. 164–168.

Footnote 104:

Just published by Bohn, in his valuable “Scientific Library;” a marvel
of cheapness and value.

Footnote 105:

Since writing the above we have met with the following, which proves
that this origin of chalk is not so fabulous as some think it:—“Lieut.
Nelson, Mr. Dance, and others have shown, that the waste and débris
derived from coral reefs produces a substance exactly resembling
chalk. I can corroborate this assertion from my own observations, both
on some very white chalky limestones in Java and the neighbouring
islands, which I believe to be nothing else than raised fringing coral
reefs, and on the substance brought up by the lead over some hundreds
of miles in the Indian Archipelago, and along the north-east coast of
Australia, and the coral sea of Flinders,”—_Juke’s Physical Geology_,
p. 263.

Footnote 106:

We take the origin of the word Folkstone to mean, that that old town
was once built of the brick that may be made of the galt: it was the
folk’s-stone.

Footnote 107:

“The Religion of Geology,” &c., by E. Hitchcock, LL.D. &c. p. 70.

Footnote 108:

Mantell’s “Geological Excursions,” p. 145.

Footnote 109:

Richardson, p. 391.

Footnote 110:

_Under-borne_ rocks; _upo_, below, and _ginomai_, to be formed.

Footnote 111:

_Middle life_ period: _mesos_, middle, and _zoos_, life.

Footnote 112:

Recent-life period: _kainŏs_, recent, and _zoos_, life.

Footnote 113:

Juke’s Practical Geology, p. 265.

Footnote 114:

Lyell’s Manual of Geology, pp. 97, 98.

Footnote 115:

Ansted’s Geology, vol. ii. p. 14.

Footnote 116:

Even Hitchcock’s good book is sadly disfigured and damaged, by trying
to make geology prove too much. How can geology teach or suggest sin
and the resurrection?

Footnote 117:

British Quarterly, Feb. 1852.

Footnote 118:

Owen’s British Fossil Mammals and Birds, p. 255.

Footnote 119:

Mantell, pp. 477–479.

Footnote 120:

Mantell, p. 471.

Footnote 121:

The skeleton is not more than 150 years old, and is probably one of an
Indian who fell in war; and has been covered with carbonate of lime,
held in solution in some spring.

Footnote 122:

Hugh Miller’s “First Impressions of England and its People,” p. 362.

Footnote 123:

No sooner did geology give signs of being able to speak from her
subterranean abode, and say something new about the history of this
old world, than Dr. Smith was among the foremost of the geologists,
intent upon the interpretation of these mysterious, and at first
incoherent sounds. At times the sounds seemed unscriptural, but his
faith never failed; at other times it seemed in confirmation of
Scripture, and he was filled with delight. There were sepulchres older
than what he had accounted the era of death, and he must solve the
mystery. Mineralogy, to which from his youth he had given considerable
attention, became to him history more ancient than that of Moses, and
poetry more fascinating than that of Homer. His minerals became books
of wonderful tales; his fossils, before riddles of nature, the
pictures of things in ancient worlds. The earth was a land of
monuments, and the rock which before seemed nothing more than the
solid masonry of the foundation on which men might build their
dwellings, became the enduring chronicle of the millions of years in
which extinct ages had risen, flourished and decayed. From that time
he suffered no discovery of the geologists to escape his attention;
and every valuable book upon the subject in English, German, or
French, contributed its supplies to mitigate his insatiate craving
after further information.

Dr. Smith had another reason for devoting a large proportion of his
time to geological studies. The new science had something to say about
Holy Scripture. It threatened, as many understood its first ambiguous
words, to contradict the book of Genesis.

Whatever affected theology was of supreme importance in the estimation
of the Homerton professor. Having full confidence in the truth of
God’s word, he was sure that nature and revelation, however they
appeared to superficial observers, could not be really at variance. In
that confidence he patiently listened to every word the new science
had to say about the creation of the world. To him belongs the honour,
in the opinion of the most eminent geologists, of having relieved
their science of every appearance of hostility to Scripture. Of his
book on this subject, Dr. Mantell said, “It is, indeed, the dove sent
out from the ark of modern geology; and it has returned with the olive
branch in its mouth.”—_British Quarterly, Jan. 1854. Art._ DR. PYE
SMITH.

Footnote 124:

Gray’s Antiquity of the Globe, pp. 57–59.

Footnote 125:

Hitchcock, p. 70.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

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------------------------------------------------------------------------

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
spelling.
2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
4. Denoted superscripts by a caret before a single superscript
character, e.g. M^r.

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Geological facts; or, the crust of the earth, what it is, and what are its uses" ***

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