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brief tenure of public opinion. Will it be pine mountain side, or scaled the cordillesaid that the principles of this science have ras of the Andes. We have never peneeven yet acquired consistence? or that the trated the caverned mine, even to the depth system now generally received is not des- of one solitary fathom; nor have we ever tined at some future and not remote time to sallied forth with the rising sun, with basgive place to another? ket on back and hammer in hand, smashing the boulders along our path-much to the amazement and not a little to the amusement of the good, simple, unscientific country folk-to return at the close of day with good store of fossil fish, forbidding indeed

The greatest advance made by geology has been since the commencement of the present century. It has enlisted in its service the aid of many other sciences, such as mineralogy, anatomy, and chemistry; and, prosecuted by such men as Cuvier, to the cravings of our carnal, but furnishBrogniart, Lamarck, Agassiz, it has made ing much gratification to our intellectual more progress than it did for centuries be- appetite. Whatever little knowledge we fore. The usual method of beginning by possess of the condition of the material a theory was abandoned, and each phe- world, we have derived almost exclusively nomenon was subjected to a rigorous and from the labors of others. Their statesearching examination. New views soon ments are before the public, unquestioned began to be developed, and new discove- and uncontradicted; we have no reason to ries made, more especially in the nature of suppose, nor are we inclined to believe, that its organic remains. This is the depart- they have asserted any thing untrue. ment in which the French school has most The difficulties that present themselves distinguished itself, and in which it has to the geological student are principally left all others immeasurably behind. Such derived from the distribution of organic is the accuracy which the study of compar-life, and the extent of time which seems ative anatomy is believed to have attained necessary for its development. We shall in its application to fossils, that, from the endeavor to state these difficulties as clearexamination of the smallest bone, it pro-ly, yet as concisely, as we can. We feel fesses to decide with certainty on the nature that we should be doing an injustice to our and form of the animal, and to declare the cause, and practising an imposition on our very genus and species to which it once readers, were we to conceal any of the geobelonged. The value of such an assistant logical phenomena, or suppress one tittle to the geologist will be at once perceived. of the difficulty which they are supposed to It has led to some of the most important present.

and wondrous discoveries yet achieved. The part of the substance of our globe These men have been assisted by many of which man has yet penetrated is not more our countrymen. We shall mention only than the sixteen-thousandth part of the dithe names of Lyell, Phillipps, Smith, Buck-ameter of the earth, that diameter being land, in England, and Portlock and Grif- very nearly eight thousand miles, and the fiths in Ireland. Judging from the pro- deepest mine ever excavated not reaching gress made for the last thirty years, it would more than half-a-mile in a line perpendicube hard to tell what its advance or condi-lar to the surface. If a person were to run tion shall be in as many more. It is not our intention, nor would our limits permit us, to give even an outline of the principles which are now generally admitted. Those who seek information on the subject, would do well to consult the work of Dr. Buckland, in the Bridgewater Treatises, or the more extended details in Lyell's Principles of Geology. Our purpose is with the particulars of this science that may seem to be at variance with the Scripture narrative.

his nail along the surface of a ball of wood twelve inches in diameter, he would go deeper in proportion to its size than man has ever done, or probably ever will do, into the earth. It is evident, therefore, that he can know but comparatively little of what is contained or done in the unfathomable and unknown depths beneath him. The small portion to which his observation extends, is found to be a crust foliated like the external coating of an onion-these foliations consisting of strata of different min

In describing the various geological phe-eral structure, and each containing pecunomena, we do not of course pretend to liar organic remains. These are distributhave derived our knowledge from any pered with such regularity that each class of sonal examination. We are not of the stratified rock has its own peculiar remains. number of those who have explored the Al- There are no less than twenty principal

"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,

forms of stratification, and it is only in one by their diminutive proprietors, but the or two, and these the uppermost of all, that greater part are in a state of very minute any remains resembling those of existing disintegration. They are invisible to the animals are to be found. In the other, and, naked eye; indeed so minute are they that as they are called, earlier strata, the spe- more than a million are contained in one cies, and in most instances the genera, are cubic inch, and more than ten millions in altogether extinct, and seem to have been a pound weight of chalk. The manner in extinct before man or any of the existing which these minute artificers raised their races of animals appeared upon the earth. stupendous work, is very analogous to that It is only in the very uppermost and latest of the coral formations of the Red Sea or alluvial deposits that any vestiges of man the Pacific Ocean Who can tell the time are to be found. Each of these masses of these extensive beds occupied in their forstratified rocks would appear to be the re- mation? whilesult of aqueous deposition, or, in other words, to be a sediment deposited from water, sometimes salt and sometimes fresh, as may be inferred from its shells, which To swell the heightening, brightening, gradual mound, By marvellous structure climbing towards the day." are sometimes of marine and sometimes of lacustrine formation. It is only rarely that Yet it is a more remarkable proposition salt and fresh-water shells are mixed up to- in geology, that, even before these vast forgether. Each of these strata (and they mations began, there was animal and vegeare in many instances thousands of yards table life upon the earth. The very bed of in thickness) is the result of slow and these primeval oceans was, it is said, at gradual deposition, for the shells which are some earlier period, dry and solid land, and found therein would seem to have been covered thick with foliage and with verdure, formed in the very spot in which they are such as not even the banks of the Niger or discovered, some of them being of so frail the Oronoco can equal in luxuriance.— and delicate a texture, or composed of so Such it was when the coal beds of England many delicate articulations-as, for in- were formed. These beds are exclusively stance, the enclinites and crinoides,*-or of vegetable origin. The very leaves or so covered with slender and finely pointed branches can still be traced, and the speprickles, that they could not survive unin- cies of tree to which they belonged can jured the least violence or friction, and still be discerned. These species are found would assuredly be broken to pieces if re-nowhere on the present surface of the moved by violence to any distance;-and globe. Their nearest living types are as one generation can be proved to have found only beneath the burning sun and in succeeded another, they must, according the vigorous vegetations of the tropics.— to the ordinary laws of production, have Hence it has been inferred that when these required ages to reach their present num- forests grew, the climate of England was of bers and immense extent. Such are the a far different and higher temperature than contents of the oolitic beds of England. it is at the present day. Nor are these We have still more remarkable instances carboniferous beds the result of one period, of this state of things in the beds of the or of one uninterrupted growth. They are cretacious system. The chalk is found found one above the other, separated by from the Giant's Causeway, along both sides thick beds of sandstone, and sometimes of of the Mediterranean, to the very entrance limestone formation, which contain marine of the Red Sea, interrupted only by a few fossils, and which, in any ordinary process, mountain chains, and is in many places must have been formed by aqueous deposimore than three hundred yards in thick- tion. These would lead us to suppose that ness; yet this immense mass has been de- the land which bore this luxuriant vegetamonstrated, by Dr. Ehrenberg of Berlin, ble was alternately depressed beneath, and after long and minute microscopical exam-elevated above, the sea. Thus it is that ination, to be composed almost entirely of geologists account for the alternating laythe shells of small animalcula of the infu- ers of the carboniferous strata. Yet how soria kind. Some of these shells are entire and perfect as when they were tenanted *One specimen of the crinoides consists of 150,000 minute articulations, yet it is found en

tire and unbroken.

great a period must, according to all the known laws of nature, be required for such mighty and stupendous revolutions; and these are but a few of the phenomena which the geological structure of the globe exhib

present condition of the earth is, to some extent, at variance with the scriptural record. The period of 6000 years, said to have elapsed since the creation, will not afford time, they say, for the production of such results; nor will the changes which are said to have occurred since then account for the phenomena we witness. The one would not have afforded sufficient time for the formation of the earth, nor the deluge for the destruction and entombment of so many species of organic life, and so deep in the heart of the solid rock. It is not by one sudden convulsion that they were destroyed, for each such division of organic life increased and multiplied and possessed the earth for an indefinite, but long period, and thus passed away before it was succeeded by another.

its to us, and which, no less than any of of the mammalia, mostly of extinct, but some these, would appear to require a period far of living genera,-the pachydermata, or greater than the Mosaic record seems at thick-skinned animals, of which the elefirst sight to allow for their production. phant is a living representative. The paleThe distribution of organic life is also otherium somewhat resembled a rhinoceros. very remarkable. In the very earliest and The living but diminutive types of the most ancient rocks no organic remains of animals of this period are now only to be any kind are to be met with. The first to met with in the countries bordering on the be seen are in the upper strata of the silu- equator. The shells of this period also, rian system. After a long interval, which are found in great abundance in the which is ascribed to the formation of the Apennines, are equalled in size only by old red sandstone, and during which but those of the Indian seas. It is, as before few fossils are discovered,-we have the observed, only in the very latest formations umbrageous forests of the carboniferous that any remains of men are found upon period, and then the new red sandstone the earth. The inference which some and oolitic beds, which are remarkable for would draw from, these facts, and they the number and variety of their remains. are, as our scientific readers will immeIn these we have the earliest specimens of diately perceive, but indiscriminately and reptiles, which existed and multiplied in hastily selected from the many which geogreat abundance. Some of these were of logical science furnishes,-is, that the a size and form very different from any that exist at the present day. The icthyosaurus is said by Mr. Owen to have presented the external form of a large predatory fish. It resembled the dolphin in the form of its scull, and the crocodile in its formidable jaw and teeth, and had four paddles not unlike those of the whale tribe. The eye of some individuals of this species exceeded in size the head of a man, and the body must have been at least thirty feet in length. The plesiosaurus, without attaining this size, had a neck equal in length to its head and tail together, and equalling in flexibility the body of a serpent. The crocodiles which tenanted the waters of the primeval world would scarcely admit of comparison for a moment with the mightiest gavial of the Ganges. Had man been an inhabitant of the earth at Such are the leading geological difficulthis period, he must have disputed its sov- ties presented by the scriptural narration of ereignty with the megalosaurus, an enor- the creation. In applying ourselves to the mous carnivorous lizard-like animal some examination of them, we must carry with fifty feet in length, and with the pterodac- us a few preliminary principles. tylus, one of the most wonderful creatures that ever tenanted this world of ours. was a flying lizard, with the head and neck of a bird; the eyes were of an enormous size. It had the wings of a bat and the jaws of a crocodile. The iguanodon of a later period differed from the megalosaurus in being a graminivorous animal. It sometimes attained the enormous length of seventy feet. The remains of all these animals are found embedded in the solid rock, thousands of feet below the surface. Subsequent to these, and seemingly when they had all lived and moved, and ceased to exist upon the earth, are found the remains

It

I. It is impossible not to be struck by the numberless coincidences with the Mosaic account of the creation, which the geological phenomena present. The earliest and most ancient rocks bear on their surface, and in their mineral structure, the evidence of that beginning when the earth was void and empty; and in the total ab sence of the appearances of life, that once there was darkness upon the face of the abyss. The vast geographical extent of the primary stratified rocks, and the proofs they afford of aqueous deposition, bring to our minds the primeval condition of the globe, when the Spirit of God was abroad,

and the firm earth was divided from the and rolled pebbles, which in all regions waters of the deep. As we ascend through are spread over its surface; the large each successive stratum, we find the re- quantities of marine shells and fishes (often mains of life in the very order in which of the same species as now inhabit the the lawgiver of Israel declared them to neighboring seas) found on the summits have been created. In the carboniferous of the highest mountains; the scooping series, the green herb and the tree yielding out of valleys in horizontal strata; the fruit according to its kind; in the oolitic transporting of large boulders and massive group the creeping things that have life in rocks many miles from the hills of which the waters, and the winged fowl that was to they once formed portions, and which fly under the firmament of heaven, and we prove, by the abrasion of their sides and find they did increase and multiply and fill angles, that they were borne along by a the earth with multitudinous profusion. rushing flood; the undulating surface of As we draw near the tertiary formations, a the alluvial strata of every land, which exnew class of animal life begins to be dis- hibits in most places a delicacy of flexion covered; to wit, the mammalia of science, and outline, as if the waters had but just the beasts of the earth according to their retreated; are all convincing proofs that kinds, and cattle and things that walk upon at a period, comparatively recent, the earth the earth; and when these things were was subjected to the action of some mighty done and were seen to be good, a new and torrent, by which its plains were inuna more perfect organization is developed, dated, and its loftiest mountains subsuch as the older earth did not witness, and such as the primary and secondary Thus we find that in many important formations never bore. It is only in the particulars geology and revelation speak the latest diluvial deposits of the tertiary pe- same language. The same narrative told riod. and which are the newest on the by the ruler of Israel 4000 years ago, is earth's crust, that the remains of men are also told in its own expressive and intellito be found. We thus find that science gible language by the very earth on which confirms what revelation had previously we tread, by every mountain chain, and by declared that the palace was prepared every stream that flows onward to the ere the king appeared; that the empire ocean. † This accurate knowledge of the was put in order ere the sovereign was sacred writer, both as to the age and strucappointed, who was to have dominion over ture of the globe, could not be obtained by all, and to whom the fishes of the sea, and any scientific inquiry or personal investigathe fowls of the air, and the beasts of the tion. He could not have procured it from whole earth, and every creeping thing, the wise men of Egypt or Chaldea. He were to be subject and obey. Cuvier re- could not obtain it by any known means marks that this order of the succession of then in existence, and therefore he could organic life is one of the most striking

merged.

Fragments of the Alps are found on the Jura mountains, though the lake of Geneva intervenes. The ruins of the Scandinavian mountains are to Germany, at the other side of the Baltic; and be seen on the plains of Prussia and Northern

and remarkable phenomena of the geologi- géologie, c'est que la surface de notre globe a cal world. "The books of Moses show été victime d'une grande et subite révolution us," we quote his own words, "that he dont la date ne peut remonter beaucoup au-delà had very perfect ideas respecting several de cinq ou six mille ans." of the highest questions of natural philoso-dian lakes are scattered over the United States. * Fragments of the rocks north of the Canaphy. His cosmogony especially, considered in a purely scientific point of view, is extremely remarkable, inasmuch as the order which he assigns to the different epochs of creation, is precisely the same as that which has been deduced from geological considerations." He also admits, and from the present appearance of the earth it is impossible not to admit, that at some comparatively recent period, it was the scene of some powerful and extensive diluvial action. The beds of sand, gravel,

stones which can be traced to the hills of Cumberland, lie in vast masses on the plains of the southern counties of England.

The annual increase of the deltas of the Nile, the Ganges, the Mississippi, the Po, the Rhone, and several other rivers, has been nicely calculated, and all the measurements combine to prove that the commencement of their growth cannot be dated further back than five or six thousand years. The same conclusion is come to by the measured annual retreat of the falls of Niagara, "Je pense donc avec MM. de Luc et Dolo-consequent on the wasting away of the limestone mien que s'il y a quelque chose de constaté en rock over which it flows.

from the earth, it was because they had seen the dark-faced man of Egypt and of Nubia bend him down before the lotus flower of the Nile. If he told them how beasts and cattle and creeping things were

only have obtained it from God. And if he |nity. If he told them how the green herb was divinely guided in any one important and flowering tree sprung into existence statement which he has placed upon the page of his venerable record, shall we say that he is not inspired and divinely led in all? His inspiration in any one particular may be taken as a conclusive proof that he was inspired in every other; and that, how-made of old, and sent forth to wander and ever much opposed to many of our geological conclusions his cosmogony may seem to be, more accurate investigation and more enlarged knowledge, will prove that the same Spirit which suggested to him the order of the creation, has not forsaken him in the other details of his narration.

alone of created nature was made to the image and likeness of God. The object of the Mosaic narrative was moral not physical truth. The writer meant to make his people firm in their faith, not proficients in philosophy.

multiply upon the earth, it was because they had seen them deified and worshipped in gorgeous temples, and honored in many a sanctuary of that land from which they came. To wean them from the worship of Baal and Astarte, they were told that the sun and moon and host of heaven, to whom II. The communication of physical truth, sacrifice was offered on every mountain or the advancement of science, was no part top, were appointed as the servants of man of the purpose of the sacred writers. by one mightier than they, and placed in Where they have occasion to mention any the heavens to be unto him as signs for natural occurrence, they do not express seasons, for years and for days; and that themselves in the language of the schools. the very corporeal frame which they would Their words were addressed to a simple, degrade by their idolatry before the likeuneducated, pastoral people, and according-ness of any graven thing, was that which ly their language was adapted to their capacity. It is thus they tell us that the sun stood still over against Gibaon, and the moon over the valley of Ajalon. For it is only such an expression that would be understood by those for whom it is intended, and it was thus that Moses, in his account III. Nor should we forget, in reference of the creation, employed only the popular to this subject, and when we are called on language of the time in which he lived. to reconcile apparently conflicting stateEven if he knew the full particulars of the ments, that it is as likely that cpposition beginning of things, and he may have may be the result of our ignorance as of known only so much as he was appointed our knowledge. We may not be able, with to communicate,-its declaration was no our present information, to explain the seempart of the mission to which he was called. ing contradiction, but it would be rash to His was a mission of far other and higher conclude that it cannot be explained by excellence than the imparting of physical any other person, or at any other time. truth; it was the revealing of God's merci- How often has some recently discovered ful and wondrous dispensations to men, to fact, or some long forgotten document deliver the children of Israel from bondage, brought to light, been a means of reconcilto rescue them from the corrupting influ- ing statements which had long been in ence of that idolatry which, in the gorgeous opposition to one another! How many fanes of Thebes, enchained the worship- particulars of the Mosaic narrative, inexpers of Apis and Serapis, and whose volup- plicable by science, a century ago, have tuous remembrance followed them into the been recently confirmed by geology! The wilderness, and made them forget, even in Mosaic record is but a chronicle of certain sight of Sinai's smoking top, their allegi- facts relating to a certain purpose, and it ance to Jehovah. Whatever was not sub- by no means excludes the possibility of servient to that object, was alien to his other facts, perhaps equally important in purpose, and was banished from his pages. themselves, though not pertinent to his If he told them how in the beginning God purpose, having occurred in the interval to created the heavens and the earth and all which it refers. The book of Genesis aftheir varied adornment, it was because the fords us but a partial view of the primeval Egyptian priesthood told them how that condition of our globe, and we obtain that earth existed for ever, and had been revolv-view through a long and distant perspective; ing in ever recurring cycles of life and but how many circumstances are there that motion from the fathomless depths of eter- come not within the line of vision! And

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