THE
COURSE OF CREATION:
BY
JOHN ANDERSON, D.D.
WITH A GLOSSARY OF SCIENTIFIC TERMS.
“In these morning-days of existence, Nature at once stamped,
with her plastic hand, her lineaments of beauty and adaptation
on everything she made. There is nothing omitted to be
afterward supplied—nothing formed defective in a single part
or organ that required to be corrected. The first discoveries
in Geology at once speak conclusively of a plan or Course of
Creation devised from the beginning—a power, not delegated,
but linked forever with the first intelligent Cause—a world,
through all its changes, continually presided over and ruled by
Him who made it.”
CINCINNATI:
WM. H. MOORE & CO., PUBLISHERS,
118 MAIN STREET.
1851.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1851, by
WM. H. MOORE & CO.,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court for the District of Ohio.
E. MORGAN & CO.,
STEREOTYPERS, PRINTERS AND BINDERS,
111 MAIN STREET.
PREFACE.
It is no mitigation of an author’s temerity in publishing, that he can
say for himself he had no intention, when collecting and arranging
his materials, of ever submitting them to the eye of the public, or
of provoking criticism by his speculations. Certain it is, however, I
have often, and with severity at times, questioned myself as to the
propriety of my geological pursuits, my ardent love of them, and their
compatibility with the strict discharge of professional duty. My answer
generally was, I sought not these things of themselves; they were hung
up and displayed before me, wherever I went on pleasure, on business, or
on duty. I simply inquired after their names; and of all the geological
phenomena that have passed under my review, I can safely affirm of them,
in their darkest, deepest places, they have uniformly led me “from
nature up to nature’s God,” and have inscribed upon them in brightest
characters—BENEDICTUM SIT NOMEN DEI.
How often, I have argued, in the leisure hours of life do we find men
idling away their time, wasting it in vain talk, or consuming it in
the most trifling pursuits, when a most interesting branch of science
can be learned by wandering over the green fields, the rocky dell, the
mountain side, or by the walk at even-tide, and there to hold converse
with the Creator’s works and the records of his will? I have recalled
the list of great and good men, whose names are imperishably connected
with the science of geology, who have given much of their time to these
researches, and who have reaped laurels from their discoveries. Can
Buckland, Conybeare, Sedgwick, Sumner, Smith, Fleming, and Chalmers—all
either explorers or expositors—and other eminent divines, have been
engaged in improper pursuits, or have given the sanction of their
authority to tenets and views connected with the scheme of nature that
do not accord with the religious principle? Often on such occasions
have I dwelt upon, and compared with my own humble pursuits, the lofty
and impassioned descriptions of the Psalmist, where, sometimes in a
single piece, he takes a magnificent sweep of the great master-keys
of creation—the foundations of the steadfast earth—the course of the
fluid waters—the revolutions of the sun and moon—the vicissitude of the
seasons—the habits and instincts of the lower animals—the earthquake and
volcano—and all recited as demonstrations of Divine wisdom and goodness,
and all calculated to awaken and to sustain the devotional feelings of
the heart.
Having, under the influence of such impressions, gathered, and now put
together in this form, the notes of my researches, I do not mean to aver
that I have visited every locality referred to, or personally observed
everything noticed in the publication. Where so much has been done by
others I have carefully examined their works. Where the field is so
boundless, and the course of illustration necessarily so discursive, I
have freely made use of their collected materials. Still, I have been
chiefly induced to adopt the line of description from the Grampians
to the Alps, because, at sundry though often distant periods, I have
examined the various suites of rocks comprised betwixt these mountain
boundaries. If there be any novelty in the volume, it will be found,
not in the subject-matter itself nor in the mode of treating it, but by
following the geographical sequence in the descriptions of the several
geological formations, and their relations to each other in the countries
passed over.
I have to express my acknowledgments to Messrs. W. and R. Chambers for a
considerable number of the figures contained in the volume, and which
have already appeared in one or other of their numerous publications. To
Mr. David Page, than whom I do not know a better practical geologist, I
am indebted for much valuable information, gleaned by him in an extensive
acquaintance with most of the ground passed under review. The errors of
the volume are my own, and these, I doubt not, in a science subject to
such daily mutations and receiving daily such additions as the science of
geology, will be found neither few nor venial.
NEWBURGH MANSE, May, 1850.
CONTENTS
PART I.
GEOLOGY OF SCOTLAND.
CHAPTER I.
Introductory—General Sketch of the Science, 13
CHAPTER II.
Primary System.—Ben-Mac-Dhui.—The Grampians, 22
CHAPTER III.
The Silurian System.—First Traces of Organic Life, 34
CHAPTER IV.
The Devonian System.—Fossils of the Old Red Sandstone, 43
CHAPTER V.
The Yellow Sandstone.—Dura Den—Fossils of, 62
CHAPTER VI.
The Trap Rocks.—The Sidlaws and Ochils, 79
CHAPTER VII.
The Carboniferous System.—Period of Gigantic Vegetables, 93
CHAPTER VIII.
The Carboniferous System—_continued_.—Geographical Distribution
of Coal.—The Great Coal-Field of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and
Ohio.—Coal Deposits of Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, and
Michigan.—Economic History of Coal.—Conditions of Formation, 115
CHAPTER IX.
The Geological Structure of Fifeshire, 132
CHAPTER X.
Geology of Edinburgh and its Environs.—Mid-Lothian
Coal-Basin.—The Pentlands, 138
CHAPTER XI.
The Lammermuirs.—The Border Land.—Reptilian Foot-Prints in
Old Red Sandstone of Pennsylvania.—General Structure of
Scotland, 150
PART II.
GEOLOGY OF ENGLAND.
CHAPTER I.
General Sketch.—Geology of the Lake District, 160
CHAPTER II.
The Permian System.—The New Red Sandstone.—Foot-Prints near
Pottsville, Pennsylvania—In Connecticut, Massachusetts, and
Virginia.—Rock-Salt.—Exhumation of immense Skeletons of Birds, 168
CHAPTER III.
The Oolite System.—Period of Gigantic Reptiles, 183
CHAPTER IV.
The Wealden Formation—Remarkable Fossils of, 198
CHAPTER V.
The Cretaceous System.—General Reflections, 206
CHAPTER VI.
The Tertiary System—Eocene and Miocene Formations of.—London
Basin, 216
CHAPTER VII.
The Mammoth Period.—Remains of, on Banks of Missouri.—Concluding
Remarks, 229
PART III.
FRANCE AND SWITZERLAND.
CHAPTER I.
Physical Union of France with England.—Basins of Paris and the
Loire.—Volcanic District of Central France—Auvergne, 241
CHAPTER II.
Geological Structure of Switzerland—The Alps—Mont Blanc—Bowlder
Formation—Glaciers, 265
CHAPTER III.
Thickness of the Earth’s Crust.—Central Heat—Theories of, 279
PART IV.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES.
CHAPTER I.
Résumé, 286
CHAPTER II.
Theories of Organic Life—“Vestiges of the Natural History of
Creation,” 293
CHAPTER III.
Analogical Order—Physical and Moral—of Progression, 311
CHAPTER IV.
The Extinction of Organic Life, 320
CHAPTER V.
Time, and the Geological Epochs, 328
CHAPTER VI.
The Mosaic Account of Creation—Geology, how reconcilable with, 348
CONCLUSION.
THE CREATOR, 366
Glossary, 377
THE COURSE OF CREATION.
GEOLOGY OF SCOTLAND.
PART I.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
Geology is that branch of science which comprehends the knowledge of all
that relates to the form, structure, mineral and fossil constituents, of
the earth. The Scottish Grampians, it is generally admitted, form part of
the lowest sections of its crust, to which the researches of geologists
extend. We must go to other countries for any coeval, and, to North
America for any older, competing land: and still, there, the rocks are
of the same mineral qualities and arrangement. The Ben-Mac-Dhui group
form the highest and most prominent masses in the whole range of these
crystalline mountains.
When I first stood on the broad flat top of Ben-Mac-Dhui, I had no
thought or purpose of ever recording its geological history. The
excursion was undertaken simply for recreation, and a delightful one it
proved. I longed to plunge into the deep recesses of the old forest,
and to see the trees which nature had strewed with careless hand, ere,
perhaps, Caledonia was tenanted by the human family. I looked down from
its rugged sides, as I ascended, with awe and wonder—snatched a little
alpine as I drew breath for the next spring—chipped a piece of granite
as I obtained a footing over a yawning chasm, or breasted along by
jagged precipitous defile,—and when, having fairly scaled the summit,
I gazed out upon the world beneath, the feeling which for a moment
flitted across my mind was one of no merely vain complacency, that I was
then the most elevated subject of all the twenty-six or twenty-seven
millions inhabiting the British Islands—and the lowest, too, in their
stony regions! The mountains of the earth serve to inspire some of
the loftiest sentiments that can fill the breast of its intelligent
inhabitants. Imbosomed in their deep solitudes, man feels his own
littleness, and is forced to inquire who made these wonders, and who
sustains them? We are all the better, morally speaking, for leaving
occasionally our daily-trodden haunts, where we see only human things,
and hear only of the triumphs of human craft, the excitement of human
passions, the littleness and vanity of even the noblest human daring.
There is an image of Jehovah’s greatness impressed upon the outward face
of nature, which for a time will awaken and sustain the most salutary
reflections, breathing, as it were, a new life into the soul of the
wayfarer. A man escapes from himself, forgetting the burden of a thousand
petty cares, and rising above his sensual condition, when he looks upon
the physical world in these its grander features and secluded scenes,
which irresistibly speak to the inner sense of divinity, wisdom, and
omnipotence.
The philosophy of the mountains, in the classic ages of Greece and Rome,
inclined but little to any analysis of their grosser materials of earth
and stone. The poetic and ideal were exclusively associated with their
structures and form. The dii majores dwelt upon, and thundered from,
their lofty summits. The clouds hovered in peaceful majesty over their
council of sage or fierce debate. The elements were the ready ministers
of their will; and Oreads, Dryads, and Naiads, peopling all the hills,
forests, and streams, were the creations of that principle of the inner
man, which has always searched for the spiritual behind and beyond the
tangible attributes of Nature. Hence, too, the gnomes of the caverns,
the spirits of the mists, the fairies of the glens, the kelpies of the
torrents, were all the embodiment of forms, which fancy, in her later
superstitions, has cast around the mountain landscape, with the witchery
at once of the terrible and beautiful. The charm that spell-bound the
human mind for ages, is not dissolved when, with ruder intent, we
traverse these rocky solitudes, listening to the echo of our obedient
hammer, learning the secrets of the universe amidst the voices of the
everlasting hills, and seeing the wonders of the material world throwing
light on the wonders of the spiritual.
We are reminded, among the mountains, of one of the first and loveliest
of all material things, the creation of light. Loving them for their own
sakes, as well as for the legends of the old world with which they are
everywhere inscribed, the geologist takes to the hills with the first
faint fresh streak of dawn. Emerging with earliest day from the somber
shades of the forest which, like night, invests the prospects with its
own sadness and gloom, speedily a scene of joy and activity bursts upon
the sight. The light comes upon you like a real tangible thing. You see
it glinting and breaking on the lofty ridge, then nearing down along the
brown slope of the mountain, here projecting in long bright lines through
the trees, and there—delicious, golden morn! first-born of Nature’s
children, harbinger of life and gladness. How beautiful are thy first
footsteps upon the heath-clad mountains! What a brood of gloomy thoughts
thou dispellest, chasing them before thee, like yonder envious mists
rising lazily from the plains, valleys, and streams, which they would
fain hide from the eyes that now revel amid their exuberant loveliness.
These lofty peaks are worthy altars for the beacon-fires of the orb of
day, after he has finished his journey through the nations; and comes
back to us, over the floating splendor of the sea, in the eastern
heavens. And see! he hath lit a hundred on these splintered summits,
which blaze now as they blazed centuries ago, and diminish not!
The view from this remarkable group of mountains—the most remarkable by
far in the island—differs much from any other with which I am acquainted.
The impressions at first are all very confused, and some time is required
to resolve into distinct pictures the wondrous panorama before you.
We have stood upon Skiddaw, where everything is clear, distinct, and
palpable in distance and form; on Ben Lomond, where the far-stretch of
perspective over lakes, rivers, and plains, is like a first lesson in
painting; on Ben Lawers, where the eye sweeps rapidly over well known,
familiar objects, spots of wood, glen, and mansion; on Ben Nevis, where
you fancy yourself in mid-air, every object is so separate and apart,
and so disposed the whole you are looking on, that the view is all
_downward_ upon the picture. But here, these dark giant masses crowd as
it were against you. There is a struggle for the post of elevation. You
are highest, no doubt of that; but so jealous all are these proud somber
peaks, that every one seems to overlook, though yet actually beneath,
the broad ample table-head of the center of the group. Sometimes one is
tempted to leap across the narrow dells of separation, and at once master
the geology of the district, so near seems every hill-top as almost to be
touched. But as you approach their several positions, expanding valleys,
deep fathomless chasms, and the channels of noble rivers, bar farther
approach, and attest the wide, independent domains of each. They are
monarchs every one of them—Brae-Riach, Cairn-Toul, Cairn-Gorm, Ben-Avon,
Ben-y-Bourd—each holds his own regal court, over tarn, lake, and stream;
torrents, cataracts, and all the appurtenances of the boldest mountain
scenery.
After one has time to gather up his thoughts and perceptions, the scene
resolves itself, still indeed as of one whole, but of distinct component
parts. In the far distance you attempt in vain to number the peaks that
everywhere rise against the sky line; but more closely around, five or
six summits are seen to spring from a single root; a common circumference
marks out the limits of the group; and, by no unreasonable liberty with
the imagination, you easily replace the old materials into the vacant
interstices, before the water had begun its work of abrasion, or the
earthquake coming to its assistance shivered their solid rounded forms
into these hideous, precipitous gorges and chasms. The great hills here
stand, every one of them, upward of four thousand feet above the level
of the sea; and when entire, one aggregated whole, as possibly they
originally were, the center mass may have towered thousands more into the
overhanging firmament. The scene is utterly unmatched, as it cannot be
described, by any other in Great Britain: and make your ascent when you
may, there are sights and objects to be met with at every step, in every
salient dell, that will cause you evermore to rejoice you commenced your
travels among the Aiguilles of Ben-Muich-Dhui.
It is in the great mountain groups that the true key is to be found to
the science of geology, as well as all those collateral circumstances
which impart so much charm to it as a healthful and invigorating exercise
to mind and body. Here, amidst these piled-up masses, we are furnished
with the lowest ascertained sections of the earth’s crust, from which
we can at once study the nature of its rocky divisions, and the laws
which prevail in the order of their superposition. When the world was
in its primeval state of chaos, without form and void, we are warranted
to assume that the mountains as yet had no place on its surface, but
subsequently arose out of the bosom of the deep; and lifted up, as they
emerged above the waters, the rocky strata already enveloping the globe.
These strata are still to be seen folded round the central masses,
disrupted and torn like a garment too tight for the body, and displaying
through innumerable cracks and fissures the inclosed rocks. This fact
lies at the foundation of all geological inquiries, gives to the subject
all its pretensions as a science, and before proceeding on our “Course” a
word of explanation will be in place.
The first condition of the earth, of which we have any historical notice,
is that which is represented in Genesis, where, after the initial
declaration that God was creator of all things, we are told of a period
when the whole of its materials were as yet unarranged, “and darkness was
upon the face of the deep.” The Divine Spirit moved upon the surface of
the shapeless mass, when the various elements of air, earth, and water
gradually assumed their respective positions. The form which the earth
had impressed upon it, as philosophy has demonstrated, was that of a
spherical body, flattened at the poles, a figure resembling as nearly as
possible that of an orange. There is reason to believe, therefore, that
every part of the solid mass of earth is symmetrically arranged, and that
every individual particle occupies the position which Divine wisdom has
assigned it.
Rocks, let the reader be assured, have not been indiscriminately heaped
together. Everything here, amidst all the apparent confusion which
surrounds us, is in the most perfect order, following one uniform law
of superposition. When God fixed the foundations of the earth, stretched
his compass “upon the face of the deep,” and laid “the beams of his
chambers in the waters,” he completed the mighty edifice agreeably to the
plan which he had determined upon “from the beginning:” the different
portions of the building rise one above another in regular succession;
and the work, so far as we can survey the interior, displays the several
_courses_ into which the materials have been thrown. These constitute
what geologists call the strata of the earth, layers of varying
thickness, such as our slates, sandstones, and limestones exhibit, and
which nearly envelope the circumference of the globe. The order in which
the strata are disposed is uniform from below upward, and this order is
never inverted. From the blue slates of the Grampians to the Chalk cliffs
at Dover, there is a regular succession of intermediate rocks, piled one
upon another like the mason-work of our houses; and while to many there
appears nothing but confusion, to the scientific eye every portion of
the series, although the same ingredients enter into several classes of
rocks, is as well defined and as easily recognized, as the two members at
the extreme points are by the common observer.
But beside the stratified rocks, there is another class of rocks equally
extensive, and which occupy an important place in the economy of nature.
These are the granites and whinstones of which the highest mountain
ranges are usually composed. There are many subordinate varieties
belonging to both classes, which are characterized by slight shades
of texture and composition and distinguished by different names. One
thing is common to the members of each group. They are not disposed in
layers, and exhibit no lines of stratification, except in the granite
rarely, throughout the entire mountain chain. These rocks occupy no
fixed place in the order of superposition, but seem to be intruded in
the most irregular manner among the stratified rocks, separating one bed
from another, filling up fissures and rents; and binding and interlacing
the various deposits more closely and firmly together. They are often
composed of the fragments of other rocks, agglutinated into a compound
mass by a base of clay. Remarkable changes are also produced upon all
the strata where they come in contact with granite and whinstone—chalk
being converted into crystalline limestone—limestone into chert—clay
and sandstone into a substance as hard and compact as flint—and coal is
deprived of its bitumen or the quality which renders it so useful as a
combustible body.
From these, and other appearances, geologists have been led to the
conclusion, that these rocks are of later origin than those which are
stratified, that they have been injected among them in a state of fusion;
and by the expansive force of internal heat, that they have burst through
the stony crust of the earth, and elevated and disrupted the strata
which compose it. They are, if we may use the expression, the _levers_
which the Almighty has employed in bringing up the lower deposits to
the surface, in laying open the interior chambers, and in producing all
that infinite variety in our earthly habitation which ministers to the
comfort and well-being of man. Much seeming confusion and disturbance
mark everywhere the course of these rocks, similar, though upon a more
extensive scale, to the disorders attendant upon the irruption of a
modern volcano; but throughout the whole there reigns such a harmony of
purpose, that the conclusion is irresistible, these operations could
only have taken place by Divine permission, and are in accordance with
the Divine plan, controlling the most refractory agencies of nature, and
causing them to contribute to the general good.
These eruptive rocks have been produced under the sea, at a period, many
of them, when the waters and the dry land were not as yet separated
from each other. They are therefore termed sub-aqueous products, and
are, in consequence of the pressure to which they have been subjected,
hard, compact, and heavy. They differ in this respect from the products
of modern volcanoes, which are light and porous, as being formed under
the simple pressure of atmosphere, and are denominated sub-aerial. The
most prevailing ingredient both in ancient and modern lavas is feldspar:
this, combined with hornblende, quartz, and augite, characterizes the
whole of the two families of the trap and granitic rocks; and completely
establishes their claim to be regarded as originating in submarine
volcanoes. Geology is thus in its first step, and initial principles,
in perfect accordance with the scripture record; and, in walking over
the varied fields of creation, we shall tread all the firmer, and enjoy
our recreations all the more, that we find the word and works of God
illustrative of each other, revelation never contradicted, and science
bearing enlightened testimony to the wonderful truth—that the hills
melted like wax before the Lord.
Two reasons, therefore, are to be assigned for the starting point of
our investigations, and the route fixed upon in following them out.
This center group of mountains comprises the first or lowest phenomena
connected with the science of geology: here the earliest lessons are
inscribed; and here, developed on a great scale, we are presented with
the axis of elevation which has given character and outline to the whole
surrounding district. Ben-Mac-Dhui is the most prominent type of our
primary mountains, and has been mainly instrumental in lifting up a large
portion of the Grampian range. Looking abroad from its summit, over all
that varied landscape of plain and valley, and further than the eye can
reach, summoning in imagination before us the successive strata as they
recede in the far distance, a diagram which would faithfully represent
the order of the rocks and their relation and proximity to the granite,
would be quite correct in making Ben-Mac-Dhui a pyramidal basis, and the
other formations as steps to the apex of the pyramid.
This lofty chain of primary rocks on the one hand, and the Alpine region
of Switzerland on the other, may likewise be regarded as constituting
the barriers or edges of one great basin, within which are inclosed
members of almost every rock formation, fossiliferous as well as
non-fossiliferous, existing anywhere on the face of the earth. Along
the line of tour indicated, you pass over every intermediate deposit,
from below upward; and have laid before you, for inspection, specimens
of all that is interesting and curious in the science. Betwixt the
two points, selected as our termini, lie strata upon strata, organic
bed upon bed, not piled up in one colossal mass, but drawn out and
slipped over the edges of one another, and so arranged and disposed
at successive intervals as most happily to suit the convenience and
successive stages of the journey. This is one of the most remarkable
facts in descriptive geology, whereby we learn that a depth of nearly
ten miles of solid rock can be duly examined, every particle and fossil
of it, not by perforation _downward_ to the bottom, but by the natural
inclination of the beds, and their several outcrops rising to the surface
like the inverted tiles on a roof. In consequence of this persistent
arrangement, objects, both new and strange, will at every step meet the
view. There the whole system of geology, page after page, is spread out
before you. Every day opens up a new chapter geographically, as well as
mineralogically divided. And when you have gained the summit of Mount
Blanc, you can leisurely, in the mind’s eye, look back over the whole
COURSE OF CREATION.
It is a reproach, I am aware, sometimes cast upon geological researches,
that the portion of the earth’s surface exposed to view is as nothing
compared with the entire mass, and that another portion, by far the
largest segment, is concealed by the ocean, and its own debris. In
addition to these disadvantages, it may now be objected that the line
of description indicated narrows the field of research still farther,
and that a few disconnected materials only are all that can therefrom
be extracted. It may be answered,—“That the earth is constructed with
such a degree of uniformity, that a tract of no very large extent may
afford instances, in all the leading facts, that we can ever observe
in the mineral kingdom. The variety of geological appearances which a
traveler meets with, is not at all in proportion to the extent of country
he traverses; and if he take in a portion of land sufficient to include
primitive and secondary strata, together with mountains, rivers, and
plains, and unstratified bodies, in veins and in masses, though it be not
a very large part of the earth’s surface, he may find examples of all the
most important facts in the history of fossils.”[1] We shall, however,
along with our lineal descriptions of the mineral kingdom, notice the
occurrence, position, and fossil contents of the strata as represented in
other parts of the world.