Transcriber’s Note:
This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical effects.
Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as _italic_.
A complex full-page chart, ‘TABULAR GEOLOGICAL PROFILE’, appeared as p.
3, in mid-paragraph, and has been moved slightly forward.
In general, the position of illustrations have been adjusted slightly,
where necessary, to avoid falling in mid-paragraph.
Minor errors in punctuation and formatting have been silently corrected.
Please see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text for details
regarding the handling of any textual issues encountered during its
preparation.
THE
SUBTERRANEAN WORLD.
LONDON: PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
AND PARLIAMENT STREET
[Illustration: CARBONIFEROUS FOREST, CARBONIFEROUS PERIOD.]
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THE
SUBTERRANEAN WORLD.
BY
DR. GEORGE HARTWIG,
AUTHOR OF
‘THE SEA AND ITS LIVING WONDERS,’ ‘THE TROPICAL WORLD,’ ‘THE POLAR
WORLD,’
AND ‘THE HARMONIES OF NATURE.’
_WITH THREE MAPS AND NUMEROUS ENGRAVINGS ON WOOD._
NEW YORK:
SCRIBNER, WELFORD, AND CO.
1871.
PREFACE.
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Nature displays her wonders not only in the starry heavens or in the
boundless variety of animal and vegetable life on the surface of our
earth. In the dark regions underground she likewise shows us much that
is remarkable or beautiful, or carries on gigantic operations, which are
sometimes beneficent and sometimes disastrous to mankind.
There lie concealed the mysterious laboratories of fire, which reveal to
us their existence in earthquakes and volcanic explosions. There, in
successive strata, repose the remains of extinct animals and plants.
There many a wonderful cavern may be seen, with its fantastic
stalactites, its rushing waters, and its noble halls. There have been
deposited the rich stores of mineral wealth—the metals, the coals, the
salt, the sulphur, &c.—without whose aid man would never have been more
than a savage.
The aim of the present work has been to describe the wonders of this
hidden world in their various relations to man, now raising him to
wealth, and now dooming him to destruction.
The author trusts that he may have succeeded in giving a sketch of the
phenomena resulting from the action of subterranean forces, which, with
his account of the wonders of the sea, of the tropics, and of the frozen
regions, may impart to the reader a fair idea of the history and present
condition of the wonderful world in which we live.
SALON, NEAR LUDWIGSBURG:
_July 6, 1871_.
CONTENTS.
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CHAPTER I.
GEOLOGICAL REVOLUTIONS.
The Eternal Strife between Water and Fire—Strata of
Aqueous Origin—Tabular View of their Chronological
Succession—Enormous Time required for their Formation—
Igneous Action—Metamorphic Rocks—Upheaval and
Depression—-Fossils—Uninterrupted Succession of Organic
Life Page 1