It is recorded of Newton, that, toward the close of his wonderful

calculations, when it seemed that the arithmetical results were to be

in harmony with the dynamical problem to be solved, when he felt on the

verge of determining one of the most important laws ever discovered by

man, and which forever would bind the heavens to the earth—the nerves

of the calculator gave way for a time, and he was unable to finish his

task. He called in the aid of a friend, pacing the room in tumultuous

agitation while the few last terms were being added. It is impossible for

any other mind to realize the intensity of the geometer’s feelings when

the result was announced! Knowing how trifling a novelty will at times

agitate the finest minds, no wonder need be that Newton was affected by

an uncontrollable tremor, when he saw that the discovery was made and

tested, not only of the law that binds together the particles of matter

which compose our earth, but also that which unites the heavenly orbs

in all their majesty with the simplest of terrestrial phenomena; and

demonstrates that, over the descent of a leaf in the forest—the drooping

of a blade of grass—a pebble tossed upon the shore—a mote rising and

falling in the sunbeam—a drop issuing from the rain-cloud—there is the

same regulating power as that which retains the planets in their orbits,

and determines their course through infinite space. Cuvier, in simple

but eloquent words, has recorded, in the Introduction to his “Ossemens

Fossiles,” the state of _his_ feelings as he established his discoveries,

and proceeded in his task of reconstructing his singular menagerie

from the dry bones of Montmartre in the basin of Paris. “I at length,”

he says, “found myself as if placed in a charnel-house, surrounded by

mutilated fragments of many hundred skeletons, of more than twenty

kinds of animals, piled confusedly around me; and the task assigned me

was to restore them all to their original position. At the voice of

comparative anatomy, every bone and fragment of a bone resumed its place.

I cannot find words to express the pleasure I experienced in seeing, as

I discovered ONE CHARACTER, how all the consequences which I predicted

from it were successively confirmed; the feet were found in accordance

with the characters announced by the teeth; the teeth in harmony with

those indicated beforehand by the feet; the bones of the legs and thighs,

and every connecting portion of the extremities, were found set together

precisely as I had arranged them before my conjectures were verified by

the discovery of the parts entire; in short, each species was, as it

were, reconstructed from a single one of its component elements.”

Cuvier proceeded upon the principle, that every organized individual

forms an entire system of its own, all the parts of which mutually

correspond, and that none of these separate parts can change their forms

without a corresponding change on the other parts of the same individual

body. Where the viscera, for example, are so constructed as only to

be fitted for the digestion of recent flesh, it is requisite that the

jaws should be so formed as to fit them for devouring prey—the claws

for seizing and tearing it to pieces—the teeth for cutting and dividing

its flesh—the limbs or organs of motion for pursuing and overtaking

it—and the organs of sense for discovering it at a distance. But under

this general principle in the structure of carnivorous animals, the

ingenious anatomist further discovered that there are several particular

modifications, depending upon the size, the manners, and the haunts

of prey for which each species is destined or fitted by nature; and

that, from each of these particular modifications, there result certain

differences in the more minute conformations of particular parts. Hence

it follows, that there will exist distinct indications in every one of

their parts, not only of the classes and orders of animals, but also of

their genera and species.

Thus, in order that the jaw may be well adapted for laying hold of

objects, it is necessary that its condyle should have a certain form;

that the resistance, the moving power, and the fulcrum, should all

have a certain relative position with respect to each other. To enable

the animal to carry off its prey when seized, a corresponding force is

requisite in the muscles which elevate the head; and this again gives

rise to a determinate form of the vertebræ to which these muscles are

attached, and of the occiput into which they are inserted. The teeth of

a carnivorous animal require to be sharp, in proportion to the greater

or less quantity of flesh that they have to cut; their roots to be solid

and strong, in proportion to the quantity and the size of the bones that

have to be broken; and these conditions of structure will necessarily

influence the development and form of the several parts that contribute

to move the jaws.

The strength of the claws, in like manner, and the mobility of the

paws and toes, have a necessary relation to the forms of the bones in

the feet, and the distribution of the muscles and tendons by which

they are moved. As the bones of the forearm are articulated with the

humerus, no change can be made in the form and structure of the former

without occasioning correspondent changes in the form of the latter.

The shoulder-blade also, or scapula, requires a correspondent degree of

strength in all carnivorous animals, while the play and action of the

several parts are dependent on the muscles which set them in motion,

and the impressions formed by these muscles still further determine the

forms of all these bones. Again, the shape and structure of the teeth

regulate the forms of the condyle, of the scapula, and of the claws,

in the same manner as the equation of a curve regulates all its other

properties;—and, as in regard to any particular curve, all its properties

may be ascertained by assuming each separate property as the foundation

of a particular equation, in the same manner a claw, a shoulder-blade,

a condyle, a leg or arm bone, or any other bone separately considered,

leads to the discovery of the characters of teeth to which they have

belonged; and reciprocally from the teeth we are enabled to discover the

structure and forms of the other bones.

Thus, conducting his investigations by a careful survey of the bones and

organs individually and separately, the skillful anatomist was enabled

to reconstruct the whole animal to which they severally had belonged.

The orders likewise and subdivisions of herbivorous, ruminant, hoofed,

and cloven-hoofed animals, he determined with equal precision, and found

to result from the same constant laws of organization. By employing the

method of observation, where theory was no longer able to direct his

views, Cuvier was furnished with other astonishing results. The smallest

fragment of bone, even the most apparently insignificant apophysis,

he found to possess a fixed and determinate character, relative to

the class, order, and genus of the animal to which it belonged;

insomuch that, when he observed merely the articulating extremity of a

well-preserved bone, he could at once ascertain the species as certainly

as if the entire animal had been before him. Proceeding after this

method, assisted by analogy and exact comparison, Cuvier has been enabled

to determine the fossil remains of seventy-eight different quadrupeds, in

the viviparous and oviparous classes. Of these, forty-nine are distinct

species hitherto unknown, twenty-seven of which are referable to seven

new genera, and the other twenty-two new species belong to sixteen

genera, or sub-genera, already known; while the whole number of genera

and sub-genera, to which the fossil remains of quadrupeds investigated

belong, are thirty-six, including those both of known and unknown

species; some hoofed animals not ruminant, and some ruminant—others

_gnawers_ and others carnivorous—two, of the sloth genus, toothless—and

two, amphibious animals, of two distinct genera.

Such are the triumphs of science, which always lead to a profounder

admiration of the works of Nature, in the immensity and constancy of

those laws that have prevailed through all time, and where her wisdom

and foresight are demonstrated by a series of systematic contrivances

and mutual adaptations to which she invariably adheres. In the remote

invisible depths of space, slight oscillations have from time to time

been detected, and following up the researches, astronomy, as announced

beforehand, is rewarded by the discovery of a new planet. The earth gives

up its dead, entombed for ages in its stony matrix. At the bidding of

science their figures are restored, their habits determined, their very

food ascertained, their characters for ferocity or otherwise brought to

light, and they are all, each after their kind, called by their names.

What a mastery in all this over the extinct forms of organic nature,

as Newton manifested in a different way in his wonderful deductions

and calculations respecting the molecules of inorganic nature and the

physical heavens!

III. The Paris basin, which consists of the lower or eocene series of

the tertiary system, is inclosed nearly on all sides by the middle or

miocene group of strata. These, however, are most fully developed along

the district of the Loire and its tributaries, as the former are chiefly

confined to the water-shed of the Seine and the environs of Paris. We

thus advance a step upward in the Course of Creation, while so far as

geology has been able to mark the progress, the last stages of the

stupendous work, prior to the introduction of its noblest inhabitant,

are to be discovered in the PLEIOCENE deposits that immediately succeed,

stretching over the western shores from Bordeaux to Bayonne.

THE BASIN OF THE LOIRE. The rocks which compose these upper layers of the

earth’s crust, have all a family resemblance to the tertiaries already

described. In the district of the Loire the _miocene_ beds consist

generally of quartzose sand, gravel, and broken shells, mostly loose and

earthy, but in many places agglutinated by a calcareous or ferruginous

cement, so as to be fit for building purposes. The “faluns,” as they are

provincially termed, resemble the crag of England, abounding in shells,

and mammiferous remains incrusted with serpulæ, flustra, and balani, The

deposit is seldom above seventy feet in its greatest thickness. Betwixt

Sologne and the sea, patches are found to rest successively upon gneiss,

clayslate, the coal-measures, Jura limestone, greenstone trap, chalk,

and the upper beds of the eocene series. The _pleiocene_ beds are not

materially different in their lithological characters from those of the

miocene group: blue clays, marls, and osseous breccias are among the

prevailing strata; and siltings of sand and gravel, only distinguishable

by their organic remains from the alluvia and superficial drifts of

the current era. Volcanic products are often largely mixed up with

these pleiocene beds, and in districts where, in addition to the fossil

evidence, they clearly establish that they belong to the class of extinct

volcanoes, as the sedimentary deposits are themselves determined to

belong to the pleiocene age.

[Illustration: Restored Form of Dinotherium.]

The interesting peculiarity connected with these two groups of the

tertiary system is, that here all animal as well as vegetable life

approaches a step nearer to the existing family types. Analogous species

of molluscs are more numerous, the testacea in many instances being

identical with those of our modern seas. The mammalia are likewise more

akin to those of our domesticated tribes, where the horse is strikingly

prefigured in the hippotherium, the dog in the agnotherium, and the

cat in feline forms as large as lions. The glutton and the bear have

also their compeers, nor are the fox, hare, and mouse, without their

representatives. But the marvel of the formation is the DINOTHERIUM

or gigantic tapir, whose dimensions in every organ and member are

stupendous. The dinotherium was seemingly possessed of powers which

enabled him at once to exercise the digging propensities of the mole and

amphibious habits of the walrus, a trunk projecting nearly as long as

that of the elephant, and two enormous tusks depending from the lower

jaw. This animal was partly terrestrial and partly aquatic, and hence,

says Dr. Buckland, the tusks may also have been applied to hook on the

head to the bank, with the nostrils sustained above the water, so as to

breathe securely during sleep, while the body remained floating at ease

beneath the surface. Thus would he repose, moored to the margin of a lake

or river—the huge body, of eighteen feet in length, with a corresponding

thickness, indolently basking in the sun-beams, or quietly cooling after

exertion in the limpid wave—and these enormous tusks, ready to release

him at a bound, when attacked by the enemy beneath. The dinotherium

existed during the miocene period, and constitutes an intermediate link

between the tapir and the mastodon. It has left abundant remains in the

basin of the Rhine, in Bavaria and Austria, and in several districts of

the formation in France.

The tertiaries have a wide geographical distribution, and cover a vast

extent of superficial area. Stretching from the Rhone to the Danube,

they are found in every part of central and southern Europe, along the

Julian Alps, and over the interior of Italy, from Ancona to Turin.

The eocene group is ascertained, from the character of its fossils,

and especially by its nummulites and echinoderms, to extend from the

Mediterranean, through Egypt, Asia-Minor, and Persia, to Hindostan, and

there to occupy large regions forming the western and northern limits of

British India. This enormous mass of tertiary strata was drifted into

lakes or estuaries, whereby the mind is carried back to a period when

Europe was chiefly lacustrine, and all these countries eastward were as

yet submerged in their waters. What explanation can geology give of their

elevation to the surface? A scene of volcanic agency, now and _before_

the modern epoch extinct, remains to be noticed, which in part at least

will furnish a probable solution of the changes then in operation or

completed.

CENTRAL FRANCE, consisting of the districts of Auvergne, Velay, and

Viverais, is universally admitted by geologists to be of volcanic

origin. The most cursory glance at the dome-shaped hills, the basalt,

trachyte, and scoriaccous ingredients of which they are composed, at

once satisfies the student of nature as to the class of rocks among

which he here treads. This region lies upon the river Rhone, nearly

in the angle formed by it with the Mediterranean, and covers an area

of forty or fifty leagues in diameter. Here are associated, perhaps,

the earliest and the latest products of Plutonic action, the primary

granites, and the basaltic lavas of comparatively recent times. The

granite is flanked on the south and west by immense overliers of gneiss.

It may be described as the highlands of the country, whence all the great

rivers, the Seine, the Loire, the Gironde, and their principal feeders,

take their rise. The mountains, though not remarkable for elevation,

now that we are approaching true Alpine peaks, reach the height of

four, five, and six thousand, and the Aurillac group to nearly seven

thousand feet above the level of the sea; but what a geological series

of events is embraced within the period of their physical history! The

great depository arrangements of the globe have, one and all, succeeded

to those paroxysmal movements that raised their tops above the primeval

seas. Race after race of living creatures have enjoyed their span of

existence, to be mixed up with the strata which during the interval have

been collected and arranged in their various systems. The crust of the

earth from time to time was disrupted. The depressions and fissures were

as repeatedly replaced with new matter. The tertiary period dawned upon

Creation, when plain, lake, and seas, were all teeming with an exuberance

of terrestrial and aquatic life,—and when again all in the region of

Central France was disturbed, and these newer molten rocks were erupted

from beneath. The subterranean fires, wherever seated, were thus, after

the lapse of geological epochs, still glowing with intense vigor. And,

just bordering on the advent of man, the two classes of rocks would

seem to have been placed in the closest proximity, as if to remind him,

that the same Omnipotent agency which created every single atom of his

earthly habitation, likewise determines every movement and advance of the

structure, and makes the near and the remote equally manifest the thunder

of his power.

There cannot exist a doubt that the district in question was the seat

of an extensive chain of lakes, imbosomed amidst the primary rocks, and

silted up during the currency of the tertiary age, partly by sedimentary

and partly by igneous matter. The unstratified masses which encircled

their waters, still stand out in bold relief from the well-defined strata

that now occupy their basins. A walk up any one of these valleys—and

they are innumerable—or among the cones, hundreds of which are scattered

over the high grounds in the vicinity of Gergovia, will present to you

in striking contrast these extremes of natural masonry. One can almost

trace, in some localities, the very fissures which opened in the sides of

the granite rocks, whence issued the molten flood that first perturbed

the waters of the pure silent lakes. No straining of the imagination is

indeed required to trace the whole progress of their silting—now in the

dark lava-current from the bowels of the earth, and now in the collected

debris from the mountain sides, hurried down by the torrent or by their

own convulsive throes—here the fine comminuted sand, gently carried in

by the stream, and there the waste of animal life forming entire beds

of calcareous marls of still unsullied freshness. In the whole range of

geology there is not, in fact, to be found anything more instructive

and interesting than is displayed in these lacustrine deposits, the

extreme thinness often of the beds, and the beautiful regularity of their

superposition. The lavas intermix, and alternate repeatedly, with the

alluvial and organic strata. A myriad of trickling rills fling themselves

from the upheaved ridges, so green and flowery to their summits; they are

collected into streams in the different ravines, and sweeping through

the deep-cut gorges, lay open the interior to the depth of many hundred

feet. Here the various igneous and aqueous groups can be read and studied

in detail, as they were quietly deposited or violently strewn upon one

another.

The hill of La Roche, in the Puy de Jussat, presents a face of a

variegated quartzose grit of nearly seven hundred feet in thickness. At

Chamalières, near Clermont, the same deposit is equally well exposed.

Green and white foliated marls are very abundant, attaining a thickness

sometimes of six to seven hundred feet, and consisting chiefly throughout

this immense depth of the shells of _Cypris_, a genus which comprises

several species, some of which are recent, and still existing in the

waters of our stagnant pools and ditches. The structure of these beds,

in this volcanic region, is as remarkable as the materials of their

composition. The strata divide into plates thin as paper, which are piled

up into laminated masses of several hundred feet, of various colors,

but the white and green prevailing, and the whole sometimes covered by

rocky currents of trachytic or basaltic lava. Gypseous marls, similar

to those of Montmartre, have also contributed to the silting up of the

lakes, where, as at St. Romain, they are worked, and extensively used

for ornamental purposes. A remarkable deposit occurs among the series,

termed the _indusial limestone_, from the circumstance of its containing

the cases or _inducia_ of a tubular-form species of insects; a creature

that not only assisted individually toward the increment of the rock,

but possessed the power, like its existing analogues, of attaching

to its body a load of shelly molluscs, in some cases no less than a

hundred of these minute shells being arranged around one tube, while

ten or twelve tubes are packed within the compass of a cubic inch. Some

beds of this limestone are six feet thick, and may be traced over a

considerable area, showing the countless number of insects and molluscs

which contributed their integuments and shells to compose this singularly

constructed rock. The fibular coralline rocks of the Keelan islands bear

some faint resemblance to these ancient organic deposits, where the

insects build from beneath, and gradually mount to the surface of the

ocean when their work is done, and they perish. The _Phryganeæ_ of the

tertiary age enjoyed their brief hour in the sunshine, fulfilled their

destiny, sank into the waters, and contributed to form rocks over their

bottom. They weaved not, like the existing races of builders, their own

shroud, though the materials in which they are entombed are mainly of

their own construction—concretionary plates of the finest texture, and

indestructible as marble.

The lacustrine deposits in the department of the Haute Loire are nearly

identical with those now described, but concealed very much by the lava

and scoriæ that have flowed out in immense quantities in the trough of

the river. The best sections are exposed near the town of Le Puy, where

the sedimentary and erupted rocks are beautifully interstratified.

The Aurillac basin, in Cantal, is filled with similar materials,

although there is a greater proportion of silicious strata mixed with

the calcareous marls. Indeed, so much in this district does the silex

predominate, that a bed of tertiary limestone is covered with nodules

of flint, and resembling in appearance the upper chalks of England. The

fossil remains, however, clearly mark the distinction, where we have the

shells of the _Planorbis_ for those of the _Echinus_, and other fresh

water testacea instead of the marine types of the Cretaceous formation.

IV. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. This district has been the theater of great

volcanic action. The epoch of its activity is clearly determined by the

undoubted tertiary character of the formations with which its porous

lavas and scoriæ are intermixed. Basalts and trachytes, of the same

age, texture, and qualities, are to be found in the various countries

through which the deposits have been traced. The granites, porphyries,

and greenstones we have seen successively employed in raising up the

symmetrical rocks of the grand palæozoic systems, and thereby giving

shape, stability, and access to the economic and gradually-augmenting

volume of the crust of the globe. Can we see in these last extinct

throes of the interior, the operations of the same great FINAL

CAUSE—the overruling hand of power, wisdom, and goodness in the mineral

arrangements and diversified ingredients of our earthly habitation?

Take a glance at the extent and geographical situation of this family of

rocks. Everywhere among the Andes and Cordilleras, there are evidences of

the elevation of large mountain-tracts, through the agency of volcanoes

now extinct, and probably of the age in question. A volcanic region in

the north of Spain, extending over twenty square leagues, from Amer to

Massanet in Catalonia, is situated among the lower beds of the system,

penetrating a nummulitic limestone and other strata, conjectured to

belong to the age of our green sand and chalk. The Drachenfels on the

Rhine and the Eifel chain of hills near Bonn, are likewise referable to

this class of volcanic ejections. The Katakekaumene tract of mountains,

in Asia-Minor, is composed of comparatively recent volcanoes, where Mr.

Hamilton conceives the great cones of Mont Dore, the Cantal, and Mont

Mezen in central France are represented by Ak Dàgh, Morad Dàgh, the

trachytic hills east of Takmak, Hassan Dàgh, and Mount Argæus. Similar

eruptive indications have been traced by Mr. Grant in the district of

Cutch, situated near the eastern branch of the Indus, and consisting of

large tracts of tertiary deposits. The elevated regions of the Tyrol,

the flanks of the Bernese and Swiss Alps, have been the scene of violent

disturbance, during and since the deposition of the tertiary formations;

and, in the peninsula of Italy, there are numerous groups of volcanic

origin, as in Tuscany the igneous rocks of Radicofani, Viterbo, and

Aquapendente, and those of the Campagna di Roma, which are of the same

chronological series, or probably not later than the pleiocene period.

The West India Islands, the Azores, Iceland, Owhyhee where the peaks of

Mauna-Roa and Mouna-Kaa rise to the height of between 15,000 and 16,000

feet above the sea, belong to the same class of phenomena. Thus in every

quarter of the globe there have existed Phlegræan fields of ancient

as well as of modern date, whose convulsions anterior to all historic

records are still traceable in the submergence and closing up of lakes,

the drainage of large tracts of land, the upheaval of mountains, and the

reduction of the earth to existing superficial arrangements.

The products of these tertiary extinct volcanoes are indeed vastly

inferior in amount to the ejections of the more ancient periods,

whose stupendous monuments are seen in the primary and secondary

mountain-chains of granite, porphyry, and greenstone; but still they

had force enough to influence very extensive tracts of country, to

convulse and move large portions of the crust of the earth. Even now it

is impossible to guess through how wide an extent, in the subterranean

regions, the shock of earthquakes is simultaneously felt. Not less than

100,000 square miles of country were permanently elevated by the Chili

earthquake of 1822, from two to six feet above its former level, and

part of the bottom of the sea remained dry at high water, with beds of

oysters, muscles, and other shells adhering to the rocks on which they

grew. The contemplation of volcanic phenomena in South America, has led

Mr. Darwin to remark that, in order to comprehend the vast surface which

was affected by the earthquake in Chili, and which destroyed Conception,

in February 1835, it had a north and south range equal in extent to the

distance between the North Sea and the Mediterranean—that we must imagine

the eastern coast of England to be permanently raised, and a train of

volcanoes to become active in the southern extremity of Norway—also

that a submarine volcano burst forth near the northern extremity of

Ireland—and that the long dormant volcanoes of the Cantal and Auvergne,

each sent up a column of smoke. It need, therefore, excite no wonder

that geologists have felt themselves warranted to ascribe the elevation

not only of the sedimentary formations in central France to the volcanic

movements of the district, but likewise those of the Paris and London

basins, as well as the general rise and dislocation of the strata along

the southern and eastern coasts of England. The cause, as compared with

recent and still daily observed phenomena, was abundantly adequate to

effect the results. Other districts would be simultaneously influenced;

the tertiary deposits in their various successive groups were all

arranged under similar circumstances and exposed to similar changes; and

hence a doubt can scarcely exist, that all these geological basins, and

this vast superficies of tertiary matter, were cotemporaneously elevated,

as well as subjected to one and the same range of subterranean convulsion.

As an approximation to the period when this district was last subject to

volcanic action, it may be noticed that the craters of Auvergne and the

Cantal had all ceased to emit fire or were just expiring, when those of

Etna and Vesuvius _began_ their operations. From whatever cause, it would

appear that the incandescent elements had here parted with their caloric

or had shifted their position, and that new vents were opened for them

in the basin of the Mediterranean. These latter volcanoes may have been

in activity _before_ the historical epoch, although the evidence must

still be regarded as inconclusive, and the violent efforts to fasten

a collision upon revelation have utterly failed. But in Auvergne, on

the contrary, little doubt exists of the priority of all the volcanic

emissions to the human epoch. When Cæsar encamped among these narrow

defiles, his Commentary is silent as to any eruptions save the irruption

of his own legions. The inhabitants, as now, were cultivating the vine

or peacefully engaged in rural occupations, as little dreaming of any

disturbances from the interior, as they were unprepared to resist the

torrent of mail-clad warriors that poured through their valleys and

devastated their fields. The poet Sidonius Apollinaris had his residence

on the borders of Lake Aidat, but he sung not of the “sublime” in these

upthroes of his native province. Nevertheless, an immense degree of

historic interest must ever attach to these volcanic rocks, inasmuch as

they are infinitely modern when compared with the primary and secondary

formations, the granites and the traps of Britain. They keep continually,

too, before our eyes the fact of a succession of igneous operations, and

remind us that plutonic agencies have prevailed through all time, and

over regions which have only recently been liberated from their ravages;

that at any moment, and at any place, they may again burst forth, when

islands will be raised, continents submerged, the fertile plain laid

waste, and lakes, estuaries, and seas converted into dry land.

Nor are there evidences wanting, in existing volcanoes, of the intensity

of the fires which still glow within the interior of our earth. There are

at present more than TWO HUNDRED volcanoes in active operation; these

are not confined to any particular zone, but are distributed like those

of the older families through the different quarters of the world. The

greater centers of action are situated in the mountain-ranges of South

America, along the western coast of North America, and in the numerous

islands of the Southern Pacific; but at the same time there is scarcely

a portion of the earth’s crust that is not subjected to the shock of

volcanic influence and the movement of earthquakes. There are two

theories by which all volcanic phenomena are attempted to be explained.

The more prevailing one among geologists is that which connects them

with one great source of central heat—interior lakes of molten stone—the

residue of that incandescent condition in which the globe originally

appeared, and out of which the primary crystalline strata were formed.

The other mode of explanation is that which supposes the internal heat

to be the result of chemical and galvanic action among the materials

composing the earth’s crust. The metallic and earthy bases, upon contact

with water, everywhere transmitted through fissures and apertures on

the surface, burn, melt, and are converted into lavaform matter, and

which acting again as fuel, serve to fuse the rocks among which they

occur. Hence various gases will be generated sufficient to occasion much

local disturbance; though certainly not upon a scale to correspond with

the magnitude, universality, and perpetuity of those changes that have

resulted in the igneous products of the primary, secondary, or even

tertiary formations.

But whatever be the source or cause, the heat and the elements of

heat have been in constant activity, volcanoes and earthquakes, like

the hurricane and disease, subserving important necessary purposes in

the economy of nature. Humboldt was the first to remark the linear

distribution of volcanic domes, which he considered as vents placed along

the edge of vast fissures, communicating with reservoirs of igneous

matter, and extending across whole continents. Lyell, considering that

the earthquake and the volcano are probably the effects of the same

subterranean process, and that the subterranean movements are least

violent in the immediate proximity of volcanic vents, observes, “that

if the fused matter has failed several times to reach the surface, the

consolidation of the lava first raised and congealed will strengthen the

earth’s crust, and become an additional obstacle to the protrusion of

other fused matter during subsequent convulsions.” Thus, needful in all

past time, these igneous phenomena are needful still—in supplying and

indurating new lands—in repairing the waste and continual encroachments

of the sea—in keeping up a salutary degree of heat over the earth’s

crust, and thereby perhaps essential toward maintaining the necessary

volume of the earth’s bulk. Nor will the fires within have fulfilled

their law and purpose of inclosure until the ordinance of Heaven in its

creation be completed, when the earth and the works therein shall be

burnt up.

CHAPTER II.

THE ALPS—MONT BLANC.

The Pennine or Western Alps constitute the loftiest group of mountains

in Europe. They consist of a vast chain of isolated peaks, all of which

are elevated above the region of perpetual snow. Mont Blanc, Mont Cervin,

and Mont Combin attain respectively to the heights of fifteen thousand

seven hundred and thirty-two feet, fourteen thousand eight hundred and

fifty-five feet, and fourteen thousand one hundred and twenty-five feet,

above the level of the sea. This group is succeeded by that of the

Bernese Alps, of which the Jungfrau is the most conspicuous, reaching

the altitude of thirteen thousand seven hundred and eighteen feet. The

Helvetian Alps lie to the east and south of these two ranges, rising in

Mont Rosa to the height of fifteen thousand one hundred and fifty feet

into the same aerial frozen regions. The rivers Rhine and Rhone spring

from the glaciers which occupy the valleys intermediate betwixt the

Bernese and Helvetian mountains, while the Po, rising among the Cottian

Alps on the south-west, derives its principal tributaries from the same

alpine sources with its larger twin-sisters.

Switzerland, thus bounded on the south, is walled in along the entire

northern frontier by the range of the Jura mountains, whose loftiest

point, the Le Reculet, is five thousand six hundred and twenty-seven feet

above the sea level. The mountains of Savoy stretch along the left bank

of the Lake of Geneva. Mont Pilatus, the Rigi, and other noted hills

of tourists, occupy the eastern central division of the country, among

which are situated the largest cluster as well as the most celebrated

of the lakes. The great valley of Switzerland, the territory proper of

the cantons Vaud, Fribourg, Berne, and Soleure—within which lie all the

principal towns, those of the old Roman and all of modern times—forms

an extended plateau or basin, inclosed by an amphitheater of mountain

land, diversified at intervals by low swelling ridges, undulating hills,

precipitous ravines, the deep-set channels of turbid streams, and lovely

lakes imbosomed in orchards, vineyards, and meadows of the most luxuriant

pasturage.

The two great rivers, embracing the entire drainage of the country and

of all the lakes, debouch through narrow gorges at opposite sides of

the Swiss territory, and pursue, nearly at right angles to each other,

their respective courses until they mingle their waters—the one in the

Mediterranean, and the other in the Northern Ocean.

The little town of Neufchâtel, so often alluded to, lies on the north

bank of the lake of the same name, the Jura mountains gently sloping up

behind. In the suburbs, forming one of a row of detached unpretending

houses, is situated the neat château of M. Agassiz in the middle of

a small garden, which rests against the hills, and is bounded on the

south by the waters of the lake. A most fitting habitation for the great

ichthyologist, surrounded as it is with the noblest scenery, and replete

in every locality with the richest treasures of his favorite study. I

visited the place in the autumn of 1846, unfortunately when M. Agassiz

had just left for America: in a beautiful evening strolled through the

garden and adjoining inclosures, and was pleased to observe numerous

traces in the rocks, and in some fossil relics lying about, of his

studies and researches.

The geology of the Alps, the last stage in our self-elected course, is

of the most complicated character. The researches of Studer, Escher,

and Brunner, natives of the country, have served to establish the

general superposition and normal arrangement of the various groups of

strata, as those of the illustrious De Saussure had long before been

directed to determine their mineral distinctions, and chiefly their

classification upon mineralogical principles, into separate crystalline

masses. The labors again of Brongniart, Deshayes, Agassiz, D’Orbigny,

and Brown, have been mainly employed upon their organic remains, with

a view to ascertain the geological epochs within which the several

suites of rocks have originated. Our own countrymen, Buckland, Lyell,

Sedgwick, and Murchison, have attempted to systematize still further

the alpine deposits, as well as those of Italy and Germany, by showing

their relations to the well-marked divisions of our British systems; and

the result is, that over all these widely-extended regions, and amidst

all the metamorphism, contortion, dislocation, and upheaval of such

lofty ranges, there is a true transition from the Silurian, Devonian,

and Carboniferous rocks existing in the eastern Alps into the higher

secondary and tertiary strata of the western or Swiss Alps.

It would be impossible within our limits to furnish even a moiety of the

details and evidences by which the intricate structure of the Alps has

been so successfully unraveled, and the arrangement of nature in the due

order of superposition so persistently maintained. We shall simply advert

to the equivalents of the English strata which have been satisfactorily

ascertained, and shall then consider some of the more interesting

phenomena connected with the age, elevation, erratic blocks, and glaciers

of this Alpine country.

I. GENERAL STRUCTURE. The great central axis of the Alpine region,

stretching from the Rhone to the Danube, consists mainly of the primary

crystalline rocks. The granite is everywhere accompanied by gneiss,

mica-schist, chlorite-schist, silicious and serpentine limestones. The

upper silurian, devonian, and carboniferous systems are distinctly

represented in the eastern Alps; but no traces of the Permian deposits

have been detected in them or in any part of southern Europe; while

again in following the central parts of the chain from Austria into

Switzerland and Savoy, all fossil evidences of the four sedimentary

systems disappear. The conclusion arrived at by geologists, therefore,

is that for these palæozoic and triassic formations there exist no

representatives among any of the vast piles of strata of the western

Alps; or, if they ever had a place in this part of the chain, that they

have been obliterated by the powerful transmuting action of metamorphism,

or plunged to inaccessible depths beneath the upraised edges of the

primary series. Coal plants, and anthracite coal itself, have both indeed

been found in the valley of the Arve in Savoy, at Tarentaise, Maurienne,

and along the base of Mont Blanc; but as they occur in connection with

belemnites, these beds have been referred by M. E. de Beaumont and others

to the Lias formation, which is clearly determined by its numerous animal

fossils to exist in this part of the chain. The remarkable picturesque

rocks of Varennes, Duron, and the Col de Balme belong to the lias

deposit—the grandest specimens, perhaps, of natural architecture anywhere

to be seen.

But, making allowance for all the uncertainties of their lithological

complement, and quitting all points of a doubtful character, it has been

satisfactorily established that the flanks of the Swiss Alps are covered

by a series of sedimentary deposits of vast thickness, which form a true

transition from the newer secondary into the older tertiary strata. The

normal arrangement of rocks within these limits is complete, beginning

with the lias and terminating in distinctly recognized beds of the

tertiary pleiocene group.

The lias formation is largely developed along the northern, eastern, and

south-western side of the chain, forming an immense belt from near the

foot of the Jungfrau, in the central district of Switzerland, to Savona

in the Gulf of Genoa. The oolitic formation succeeds, on a scale of still

greater magnitude, having a continuous stretch from the Mediterranean at

Toulon to Vienna, on the Danube; again constituting an enormous deposit

along the Jura range of mountains; and then by Ulm, Altmuhl, and Amberg,

to Beyruth, with its celebrated bone caves, in the heart of Germany. The

Oxfordian group are represented by the “Neocomian” limestones, a series

of hard subcrystalline strata, abounding in fossils of the gault and

upper green-sand. To these succeed beds of red, gray, and white marly

limestones, containing _Gryphææ_, _Inocerami_, and _Ananchytes_, and

regarded as the equivalents, as they are undoubtedly in the position,

of the white chalks of England. A supercretaceous group, consisting of

nummulitic and shelly rocks, the “flysch” of the Swiss, constitutes the

close of the secondary, and graduates conformably and insensibly upward,

by mineral and zoological passages, into the eocene system. The vast beds

of strata, which are termed the “molasse” and “nagelflue,” contain in the

_lower_ series a large proportion of living species of marine shells,

while the associated and _overlaying_ strata of terrestrial origin

are loaded with forms all of which are extinct. In this group there is

nevertheless shadowed forth a type of rocks characteristic both of a

miocene and pleiocene age; but so anomalous is their arrangement, that

the younger are often found to dip under the older rocks out of which

they have been formed. And as of these, so generally of the entire Alpine

series now referred to, the position of the various groups in particular

localities can only be unraveled in their flexures, dislocations, and

displacements, by means of the organic remains with which they severally

abound.

II. The SUPERFICIAL ACCUMULATIONS embrace a wide-spread class of

geological phenomena. These have originated in causes some of which are

still in active operation, others are dormant, and others again may be

considered as belonging to agencies which may be termed extraordinary, or

permitted only at intervals to display themselves. The effects of their

operations are visible, less or more, in every part of the surface of the

globe. They have been termed the PLEISTOCENE group, and consist of both

marine and fresh water materials. To these are referred the bowlder-clay

formation, the vast deposits of sand and gravel heaped up in valleys, the

erratic blocks spread over hill-tops, and the various kinds of detrital

matter which, although often laminated, is loose and unstratified, and

clearly distinguishable from the more indurated and subjacent beds

composing the earth’s crust. Nor in gathering up the links of this

extended field of review, will it be possible to omit all mention of

glaciers and their moraines, so intimately connected with Alpine scenery.

The sand, gravel, and drift accumulations of every kind are common to

every country where waters flow or valleys exist. They cover the great

straths of Scotland, the low steppes of Russia, the lofty gorges of the

Himalaya, the desert wastes of Africa, and the elevated plateaux of

North and South America. Among the Rocky Mountains they are of the most

varied character, and are spread over extensive areas in those sterile

regions, high up among the sources of the great American rivers. Wherever

a stream falls into another stream, a stream into a lake, a lake into

a river, or a river into the sea, bars, gravelly shoals, and deltas

are found to exist, or to be in the act of formation. Accumulations of

this class, therefore, are to be regarded as of various periods, as they

are evidently the results of causes of continual operation, ordinary as

well as extraordinary. Many of such phenomena, however, are as clearly

the indication of a state of things which no longer exists. Whether by

a subsidence in the sea-bottom, or an elevation of the land, they are

now raised far above the influence of the element within which they

were collected, and to whose abrading powers they owe their laminated

structure. Such, in particular, are those regular-shaped terraces as

well as detached hillocks of sand and gravel, several hundred feet in

depth, so common in the straths of Scotland and valleys of Switzerland,

through which arms of the sea or of great inland lakes once penetrated,

and over whose shores and bottoms the debris of the mountains gradually

accumulated. “The Sea Margins,” the work of the accomplished Robert

Chambers, contains a minute and interesting detail of these facts,

gleaned from varied sources of reading and most extensive personal

observation, and clearly warranting the inference that the sea at no very

remote period covered vast districts of country from which it has now

receded.

THE BOWLDER CLAY immediately underlies the gravelly beds which have

been noticed. Betwixt the two classes of drift there is a clear line of

demarkation, although both sand and gravel are often in considerable

masses included in the plastic mud which chiefly characterizes the

bowlder clay. This formation is of great extent, covering the whole of

the north of Europe, a large portion of northern Asia, and in America

extending from the Arctic Sea to Boston; massed up in every ravine, and

ranging from the lowest valleys to two thousand feet on the mountain

slopes, where it is often accumulated to a great depth. One striking

peculiarity of the bowlder clay is, that huge blocks of stones of all

ages are imbedded in the mass in every region and country where it is

found: hence the name. The bowlders are not always of local origin;

on the contrary, the parent rock is more generally situated at remote

distances, even from five to eight hundred miles. Thus the Scottish

Grampians furnish the greater proportion of the huge blocks which

are scattered over the lowland and midland counties of Scotland. The

Lammermuirs, the Cheviots, the Lake Mountains of Cumberland, have strewed

their wreck over the vales of the Tweed and Northumberland, through

Yorkshire and the midland plains of England. The chalks of Denmark and

Norway are spread out on every shoal and bank in the German Ocean to the

British shores; while again, through all Friesland and central Germany,

the primary rocks of Scandinavia are as distinctly to be traced. The

erratic-block family have in like manner traveled over France, those of

Britanny and Normandy penetrating to the basin of the Loire; the Cantal

down even to the shores of the Mediterranean. Switzerland, perhaps,

contains the most interesting specimens of this universal drift-wreck;

as, on the sides of the Jura, at an elevation of four thousand feet, at

Monthey, where they give a feature to the landscape, and on the east

bank of the lake of Geneva, lies the celebrated _Pierre de Gouté_, which

figures in the Huttonian controversy, measuring about ten feet in height

by fifteen to twenty in breadth and length. Mont Blanc is conjectured

to have been the source of most of these _pierres roulés_, which have

been transported across the valley of the Rhone, or lifted sheer over

the mountains of Savoy, and are now at the distance of sixty and seventy

miles, lying in all the passes and ridges of the Jura.

Various explanations have been given of the origin and deposition of

the bowlder-clay formation, as well as of the erratic block-drift, for

the two can scarcely be separated in the question of cause and effect.

The bowlders, for example, are sometimes in the mass of clay itself,

sometimes they are lying loose on the surface, in many instances they are

spread over areas where no clay exists; but in most cases maintaining

their unmistakable character of being water-worn, rounded, and covered

with striæ. Both classes of phenomena, therefore, are supposed to be

referable to the same period of time, as they probably have originated

in the same series of causes. One theory advanced in explanation of

both, is the agency of powerful currents that swept over Britain and the

adjacent continents, generally in a north and north-westerly direction,

bearing along with them soil, gravel, and the larger debris of rocks;

and as obstructions occurred, or the violence of the currents subsided,

the heterogenous materials were deposited in the various countries and

at the different elevations in which they are found. The direction of

the currents, often from different centers, is indicated clearly by the

position and lithology of the mountains from which the blocks have been

transported, no less than by the fact that the greatest accumulations of

drift and bowlders are to be observed at the south-eastern extremities

of such gorges and valleys as were open to the diluvial action. But the

hypothesis fails in giving a satisfactory account of the transport of the

larger blocks, often of sixty to a hundred tons weight, over a course of

many hundreds of miles, plunging through hollows, and now stranded on

mountain slopes several thousand feet above. The theory of icebergs, as

the transporting agency, meets this difficulty; and accordingly, in one

form or other, such a cause or agent, of widely-prevailing influence,

is almost universally adopted into the creed of geologists. This theory

implies, that those portions of Europe now covered with the bowlder-clay

formation were submerged after the deposition and consolidation of

the tertiary strata—that this submergence was the result of a change

in the earth’s axis or some extraordinary alteration in its planetary

relations—that a great arctic glacial continent subsided and disappeared

beneath the waters—and that vast floating masses of ice, inclosing

rock loosened from the sinking land, penetrated southward, grazing and

polishing the harder substances that lay in their course, or carrying

along with them the more yielding and transportable materials. Admit

all or even a limited number of such assumptions, and we know from what

is occurring in recent times, that the cause is quite adequate to the

production of the effect. Sir James Ross, in his late humane exploratory

expedition, encountered in the polar regions icebergs from a hundred

to three hundred feet in height, and from a quarter to half a mile in

length. Two-thirds of every iceberg float beneath the water. What a

carrier power, at once for erosion and transport, in every one of these

frozen floating mountains! The Polar ocean still maintains its great

southward current to the equatorial seas, modified by the headlands and

inequalities of bottom which occur in its progress; and then, as now, the

icebergs driven along this highway of waters would drop, at intervals,

portions of their stony load, to take up at other stations whatever was

prepared to adhere to them. Hence the difficulty vanishes as to the large

detached blocks so often found on the elevated sides of mountains. Hence,

too, the explanation of those collected groups which are entirely free

from any admixture of clay. And hence, upon the retreat of the waters and

the elevation of the land, it is reasonable to infer that many districts

would be swept bare again of their mud, while the bowlders would remain,

and that in other quarters ridges and the deeper accumulations would be

formed. “Both theories,” however, as stated by Mr. Page in his excellent

treatise, “Rudiments of Geology,” “are beset with difficulties; and

though the latter accounts more satisfactorily for most of the phenomena

of the erratic block group, still there are many points respecting the

distribution and extent of the deposit to be investigated before either

can be finally adopted. All that can be affirmed in the present state

of the science is the composition and nature of the clay, gravel, and

bowlders—the course of the currents concerned in their deposition—the

fact of the land having a configuration of hill and valley, not differing

much from what now exists—and the peculiar scantiness, if not total

absence, of organic remains.”

Whether this mysterious cataclysm occurred before or within the modern

epoch is a question which, as yet, has not by any means been determined.

The few organic remains detected in the deposit are of marine origin—one

or two species of shells—but all identical with species now existing.

The presumption is that the climate which prevailed over these northern

regions during the period was extremely low. But how long it lasted, and

why there are no types preserved, in all that congeries of materials

of the _terrestrial_ fauna and flora of the period, are points both of

them of a very perplexing kind. Whether just dawning upon the advent

of man, or within the actual era of his history, certain it is that

these are the results of a chaotic condition over a large portion of

our planet, of which, if we except the deluge, we have no record nor

memorials in any of the after changes and modifications of its surface.

Shall we add, as indicative of a FINAL CAUSE appearing in and overruling

the tumultuous agitation, that to this source is to be traced great

part of the soil which covers the valleys and mountain sides of all the

submerged districts? that hereby extensive lakes were silted up, the

flinty rock concealed by fertile earth, and the steep acclivity made

accessible to the husbandman? One thing is clear, that all the latest

tertiary strata in this alpine region have, after their consolidation,

been disturbed and broken up: it is upon their inverted edges that the

superficial accumulations have been deposited and now rest: and whether

the submergence of Europe, and other parts of the globe, was simultaneous

or not with the cause of their movement and overthrow, a superintending

wisdom and purpose are unquestionably discernible in those accessions of

soil and other economic arrangements that resulted from the change.

There is another theory, however, which has been applied to the

explanation of these phenomena—namely, the THEORY OF GLACIERS, as

illustrated in the works of Venetz, Charpentier, Agassiz, and Forbes.

A glacier is a moving stream of ice formed in the transverse valleys

and furrowed gorges of alpine chains. They are of great depth and

indefinite length; and as they proceed slowly but progressively in

their courses they carry along with them all the loose and prehensible

mountain debris with which they come in contact. On their surface they

bear every falling splinter, small and great, from the overhanging

rocks. The sides and bottom of the ravines through which they pass are

stripped, polished, and striated. The avalanche breaks upon them with

its accumulated load; and every mountain rill, upon the melting of the

snows in summer, deposits over their flanks the materials with which

they are charged. Immense masses of matter are, in these various ways,

collected and transported from the higher into the lower valleys: these

at the outgoing of the glacier generally assume a ridge shaped form, and

are termed _moraines_. The underlying blocks are all rounded and grooved:

those borne on the surface are sharp and angular, until they are swept

away by the torrents into the rivers, where they are in turn subjected

to their smoothing operations. There can be no doubt, therefore, either

as to the disintegrating or transporting power of this mighty agent.

When I stood upon the Mer de Glace I saw before me, in one gorge of the

mountain, a continuous stretch of icy machinery fourteen miles in length

by two to three in breadth, and several hundred feet in depth. The whole

was in motion; and, whether we adopt as the principle of translation

the mechanical pressure of Agassiz, or the hydraulic law of Forbes, the

instrument of an incalculable carriage-power was there. And yet, upon the

first glance, it shrank into a span, or appeared but as a small lake, as

we viewed the glacier pouring down that deep gorge of Mont Blanc; a sheer

depth of dark perpendicular rocks rising on its edges many thousand feet

in height; several of the sharp-pointed Aiguilles, the Grandes Mullets,

and above all, the Peak de Dru, unrivaled in symmetrical grandeur,

penetrating still higher into the clear sky above. How many such glaciers

are dispersed through that vast alpine chain; and how immense, upon any

rule of calculation, have been the earthy and rocky materials which they

have borne downward in the lapse of time!

Familiarized to such gigantic operations among his native Alps, M.

Agassiz came to the conclusion that not only the bowlder drift of

Switzerland, but nearly all the superficial accumulations of northern

Europe, were to be ascribed to glacial action. In the straths and glens

of Scotland he fancied a moraine in every talus of a mountain, and in

every bar of a river. He saw the polishing of glaciers in the pass of

Killiecrankie, on the sides of Ben Nevis, and the steep promontories

of Morven. The parallel roads of Glenroy originated in the same cause.

From the Mediterranean to the Arctic zone a polar climate universally

prevailed, and the whole was covered with a mantle of ice; vast fields

of ice, too, depending from the mountains penetrated into the adjacent

valleys; the plains in succession were invaded, and erratic blocks were

scattered in every direction; when at last, upon a change of temperature

consequent upon other changes in the planetary relations of the earth,

all these erosive influences were for a time increased, and the glacial

power attained its maximum. Not only the upper and transverse furrows

in the Alps but all the lower and great longitudinal valleys of the

Cantons were the seats of glaciers during this period. Along the passes

of the Rhine, the Rhone, the Drance, the Doire, the Arve, and the Isêre,

the irrepressible tide of ice maintained its course, leaving portions

of the drift at different elevations, and dropping bowlders on the

intermediate hills and on the more distant and loftier barriers of the

Jura. Sir R. Murchison opposes all these speculations of Agassiz and

others. The elevation of the alpine chain, of which there is abundant

evidence in comparatively recent times, he regards as cotemporaneous

with the translation of the bowlder-drift, and considers that during the

sub-aqueous condition of northern Europe, the Alps and the Jura were from

two to three thousand feet below their present altitude. He finds that

the famous blocks of Monthey opposite Bex are composed exclusively of

the granite of Mont Blanc—that they have been transported on ice-rafts

through the gorge of St. Maurice to their present locality—and reasons

with justice that had they formed part of a moraine the debris of all the

intervening rocks, along the valley through which the glacier passed,

must have been associated with them. None of the glaciers of the Alps, he

thinks, could have been of the extent implied in the transport through

their agency of the Jura blocks, nor have ever the upper longitudinal and

flanking valleys around Mont Blanc been filled with general ice-streams.

The materials, likewise, of true glacier moraines he conceives can be

readily distinguished, on the one hand, from the more ancient alluvia,

and, on the other, from tumultuous accumulations of gravel bowlders

and far-transported erratic blocks. And, looking at the various causes

which have affected the surface, Sir Roderick concludes, that all the

chief difficulties of the bowlder-clay formation are removed, when

it is admitted that frequent and vast changes of the land and waters

have taken place since the distribution of large erratics—that a great

northern glacial continent has subsided—that the bottom of the sea over

Britain and the adjacent continent has been raised into dry land, while

the Alps and Jura, formerly at lower levels, have been considerably and

irregularly elevated.

The elevation of this stupendous chain of rocks, not by one but by a

succession of upheavals and depressions ere they assumed their present

position and grouping, is a point generally admitted, and not difficult

to demonstrate. The Alps, for example, are folded all round with

successive belts or zones of sedimentary matter, marking, as so many

milestones at different points of altitude, the measure of increment

attained during the intervals of their deposition. These belts contain

each their own peculiar class of fossils which determine their relative

ages. In succession, the several suites or families of rocks rest upon

the inverted outcrop or inclined edges of the older groups. Thus the

history of organic life upon the globe, the incoming of new races and

the extinction of old ones, as contained in these deposits, becomes a

scale of measurement of the elevations, disruptions, and ever-varying

conditions of the inorganic crust, while in the inverted, dislocated

state of the crust itself, we mark the several throes by which it was

lifted above the waters. Not one of the fossiliferous beds enveloping

the granitic and crystalline nucleus of the chain of the Alps but has

been shifted out of its original horizontal position, and the shift of

the subjacent having always preceded the deposition of the overlying

formation, it follows that, in addition to the intumescence of the chain,

there must have been a series of oscillatory and elevatory movements

before attaining its final altitude. But after the consolidation of the

whole rocky strata, and while the waters were still many thousands of

feet in depth, the superficial accumulations were being deposited—the

bowlder drift, and erratic blocks, either by icebergs or other causes,

were floated into position—and it was not until every one of these

traveled stones, fresh even now as when torn from the living rock, were

quietly settled down into the bottom of the sea, that Mont Blanc had

displayed a moiety of its massive outline, or towered to one-half of its

present colossal grandeur. The elevation of Ben-Mac-Dhui dates from the

era of the old red sandstone formation. Mont Blanc was invaded on all

sides by a sea that received the latest of the tertiary deposits. Both

were submerged during the cataclysm which produced the bowlder clay; but

as no increment to its bulk was derived from this cause, Ben-Mac-Dhui

falls geologically to be reckoned a completed, and therefore a far older,

mountain than Mont Blanc, which had not attained its full altitude and

bulk until the expiration of the Pleiocene age!

Such are the mighty agencies contemplated by the geologist in the various

later changes which have affected the surface of our globe. The rill,

the river, the torrent, the glacier, the earthquake, the volcano, are

still in operation, but only as faint images of the enormous powers which

in the more ancient times have been at work. That the earth has been

repeatedly encroached upon by the waters every principle of his science

goes to establish; but out of every convulsion he sees a better and

more stable condition of things to have emerged. If the bowlder drift

and the cold plastic clay formation point to a continuance of sunless,

lifeless seasons, he forgets not, as the products of the period, that

two-thirds of the soil of Great Britain and of the grain-bearing lands of

the continent, have been derived from these accumulations—the industrial

monuments of their invasion in every quarter of the world.

CHAPTER III.

THICKNESS OF THE EARTH’S CRUST—CENTRAL HEAT.

The question arises, since upon geological grounds it is demonstrable

that the crust of the earth has been repeatedly upheaved and broken, have

we reason to conclude that similar states of paroxysm and convulsion

may not again return? This brings us to the consideration of two very

interesting problems, namely,—THE THICKNESS OF THE EARTH’S CRUST—And THE

DOCTRINE OF CENTRAL HEAT. Have we any means of determining either of

these points? The doctrine of the igneous origin of granite and other

rocks proceeds upon the assumption of a vast reservoir of heat existing

somewhere within the interior; and the question to be solved is—What is

the thickness of the solid crust beneath which the molten rocks have

their origin? and what the cause of their fusion?

I. An opinion has long prevailed among geologists of a certain school,

that the crust of the earth is of very limited dimensions. A thin coating

of primary crystalline rock is interposed betwixt the sedimentary strata

above, and the intensely incandescent mass of which the interior is

composed. The experiments of Fourier establish a formula of increasing

temperature of the strata in a descending series, and from the rate of

this increase, it is inferred, that about one hundred miles below the

surface the entire nucleus is in a state of complete fusion. Some have

even assumed the melting point to be less than thirty miles, when “the

next contiguous matter is in a state of fusion, at a temperature probably

higher than any that man can produce by artificial means, or any natural

heat that can exist on the surface.”[11] Sir John Leslie attempted a

demonstration of the ultimate resolution of the materials into light,

as the only element capable of resisting the vast pressure of the outer

crust; and, erroneously assuming the _modulus_ of compressibility of air,

water, the metals, and all known earthy substances to be invariable,

however greatly the pressure may be increased, this ingenious philosopher

came to the conclusion, that, instead of Tartarean darkness, the

offspring of superstition, the inner chambers of the earth are filled

with luminous ether, the most pure, concentrated, and resplendent. Darwin

believes that much of the vast continent of South America is suspended

over an inner sea of liquid fire, and says, that, “daily it is forced

home on the mind of the geologist, that nothing, not even the wind that

blows, is so unstable as the level of the crust of the earth.”

With the fires of Etna and Vesuvius raging on the one side, and the

recent though extinct volcanoes of Auvergne and the Cantal seated so near

on the other side, what security is there, amidst so many undoubted facts

of the mobility of the land, that these vast piles of Alpine mountains

may not again, through mere mechanical weight, break through the film

of crust on which they rest, and sink into the abyss from which they so

lately emerged! The doctrine of central heat, it may be replied, does

not necessarily imply the universal _fluidity_ of the central mass, an

opinion supported by Lyell, Poisson, and other eminent philosophers;

while there is reason to infer, as repeatedly stated, that there is

no identity of scale and mechanism between volcanoes now active, and

the igneous causes which gave birth to these and other stupendous

mountain-chains.

But astronomy gives a different and more comfortable solution of the

problem. The influence of the moon alone, it would appear, acting upon

our planet, requires a thickness of crust of at least ONE THOUSAND MILES,

to prevent the fabric of the globe from being severed into fragments. The

earth, considered in connection with its own planetary system, has three

distinct motions in space, a fact in science usually illustrated by the

movements of the common spinning-top. A more striking illustration may be

seen in the steam-vapor which has aided you onward, that living cloud of

light and heat which towers and floats away in these beautifully curling

wreaths. Like the trail of the comet, how gracefully it sweeps over the

plains in its forward movement: then it turns to the right or left in the

direction of the wind: and then, in a third convolution, every globule

of the airy mass is twirling on an axis of its own. Equally buoyant is

the earth, hung upon nothing, and cleaving the liquid firmament. It

turns on its axis, causing the vicissitude of day and night; it moves

through its orbit, making the circuit of the sun and the diversity of

the seasons; and, in addition, there is an oscillatory motion like the

unsteady zig-zag twistings of the carriage-train, occasioned by the

excess of the equatorial over the polar diameter. This excess amounts

to about a three-hundredth part. But, small as it is, it exerts an

assignable influence over the cohesion or attraction of the solid

framework. Now, by a nice mathematical demonstration, resting on the sun

and moon’s attraction, Mr. Hopkins infers, as indicated by the phenomena

of _precession and nutation_, that the minimum thickness of the earth’s

crust cannot be less than one-fourth or one-fifth of the earth’s radius.

The theorem is of too abstract a nature to be here introduced; but it

appears from it that the observed amount of _precession_ requires this

degree of solid matter, which gives a clear depth of solid arch over

either vacuum, resplendent light, or fiery fluid, of from eight hundred

to a thousand miles. This may well allay the fears of the most timid as

to the stability of the ground beneath his feet, whatever be the state of

the interior, or under whatever modifications the materials therein may

exist.

II. But if this thickness of crust is required now, it must have been

equally required in all past time: hence, it may be argued, no security

is thereby afforded against the bursting out of the pent-up fires, or

disruption of the outer crust? Now, it has been questioned whether there

be such a thing as a CENTRAL fluid heat at all, while the solidity of

the earth throughout has been maintained as more in unison with the

principles of established science.

The doctrine of a central heat is as old as the days of Bishop Burnet,

who imagined that the internal fire, pre-existent in the bowels of the

earth, was the agent employed in breaking up the fountains of the deep

for the production of the deluge. Leibnitz and Buffon regarded the

earth as an extinguished sun or vitrified globe, which, according to

the calculations of the latter, required seventy-five thousand years

to cool down to its present temperature; and that, in ninety-eight

thousand years more, the heat will be utterly exhausted, and productive

nature extinguished. Whiston fancied that the earth was created from

the atmosphere of one blazing comet, and deluged by the humid tail

of another. And Whitehurst, one of the oldest of modern geologists,

regarded all the strata of every formation, as concentrically arranged

over the surface of the globe, and then employed the expansive agency of

internal fire to account for their upheaved disrupted condition. These

cosmogonies, it is needless to remark, all now rank with the speculations

of the alchemists, and that Behmen and their authors are considered as of

equal authority in the sciences of chemistry and geology.

The searching tests of experiment, as already noticed, have been

brought to illustrate the subject of internal heat, but the results

have not been decisive, nor very satisfactory. It has been stated, as

a general rule in the mines examined, that, in proportion to their

depth, the heat increases as we descend; and the mean result of all the

best observations, as given by Cordier, amounts to one degree of heat

for every forty-five feet of depth. Different mines, however, it has

been ascertained, vary in their degrees of downward temperature; as in

the Durham and Newcastle coal-pits, the increase is estimated at one

degree for every forty-four feet,—in the Cornwall iron-mines at one in

seventy-five feet,—and in Saxony some of the mines give an increase of

only one degree in one hundred and eighty or one hundred and ninety feet

of perpendicular descent. Much of this difference may, indeed, be readily

accounted for by the nature of the contents of the mines themselves,

their position in the system, and the quality of the rocks among which

they are situated. But a difficulty will remain, how to dispose of the

increasing ratio of temperature, and the changes that must necessarily

result from it in the bowels of the earth. Thus, assuming it to be a

uniformly increasing ratio in proportion to the depth, it will follow

from this law of increase that we reach a point, about twenty-four miles

down, hot enough to melt iron: at double that distance, such a heat as

will fuse every substance with which we are acquainted: and at a hundred

miles, that a temperature will exist, of whose resolving powers we have

no experience, and cannot even conjecture. The astronomical theory of

a thousand miles of crust melts into airy nothing in its presence, and

the formula of Fourier, before it has reached the required hundred, will

have found a nucleus in complete fusion, acting intensely upon the thin

external crust, and seeking through every crevice of these “flagrantia

mœnia mundi,” to issue forth in torrents of fire.

It has been farther objected to a central fluidity, that such a fluid

must be in constant circulation by the cooling of its exterior—a fact

ascertained in the case of all fused metals. Tides too, it has been

argued, would be produced in the fluid matter, however deeply seated,

through the influence of the sun and moon, and which _tides_ would

necessarily occasion such oscillatory and expansive movements as

astronomy has neither noticed nor accounted for. Again, the supposition

of a central heat of the earth, prevailing from the beginning and through

all the phases of its history, implies that its cooling is still going

on; and that, in consequence, a contraction in the mass or bulk of the

earth will follow the law observed by all other bodies in parting with

their heat. Hence this contraction might lead to the shortening of

the day and other mechanical results. But Laplace satisfied himself,

by reference to ancient astronomical records, that there had been no

alteration in the length of the day, even to the smallest calculable

degree or point of a second; and that thence, the hypothesis of a fluid,

or even primitive heat of the earth, had here no confirmation.

An objection to the theory has likewise been urged, from the well-known

property and tendency of heat to become equally diffused through all the

particles of any body in which it exists. Thus, it is an established

principle, that heat not only diffuses itself on all sides, but passes

continually from bodies in which the temperature is greater to those

in which it is less; and that if a body be placed in a medium having

a temperature different from its own, the momentary variations of its

temperature will be as the differences between the temperature of the

body and of the medium. Hence, when the heat beneath the surface of the

earth, at whatever depth, becomes of sufficient intensity to melt iron,

it cannot pass beyond this until the whole surrounding mass is heated to

the same degree of intensity. The law of increment and transmission of

caloric, it is argued, must be the same below as above; and, assuming the

nucleus of the earth to be fluid, no solid crust could thus be formed

upon the surface until every particle of the heated fluid mass was cooled

down to the point of consolidation. This principle is well understood

in the formation of a crust of ice upon water. If extendible to other

bodies, and to subterranean distances, then the simple fact of an

existing outer crust, solid and cooled down to the existing temperature,

militates against the probability of a central fire, and is utterly

repugnant to the hypothesis of a liquid central mass.

It is maintained, however, on the other hand, that the central caloric,

however intense at any depth, has long ago arrived at the point at which

the conducting power of the rocky crust has either entirely ceased or

permits no further sensible decrease; that this point was reached some

time before the creation of man, when the process of cooling had acquired

a maximum or stationary condition, and that it formed a part of the

processes by which the earth was adapted to its high destination among

the works of God. But may not the adaptation have been effected by the

gradual conduction of the heat outwardly, not by suffering it to remain

and glow in opposition to its known properties in the inner regions?

It may be maintained as a safe principle in physical science, that if

there be heat in the center of the globe, it must have the properties

of heat and none other. No geologist hesitates to admit, upon evidence

amounting to demonstration, that a vast source of heat exists in the

interior of the earth, widely spread beneath the stony pavement, and

that it has existed at all times. But whether that heat is local or

generally diffused—whether it is central or infra-superficial—whether

it is constantly maintained, or is excited at intervals by certain

combinations—are questions as yet of mere speculation, and for the

solution of which we have no data to lead us, beyond probable inferences.

Upon the whole, as the known density of the earth is considerably

greater than that of a solid sphere, composed of any such rocks as we

are acquainted with, the presumption is, that heavier materials, in an

increasing ratio, than any constituting the superficial crust, enter

into the composition and structure of the central parts. All the great

mountain systems in the different zones of the globe are the product

of palæozoic times. The fires which cast them out have gradually

diminished by every succeeding effort. A steadier equilibrium betwixt

the conflicting elements of the upper and the lower world, appears

to have taken place—once only disturbed, at the deluge, since man’s

occupation—and for the repetition of which there exists no preparation

in the established course of nature. The very convulsions which have

shattered the earth to its foundations, while they are evidences of

benevolent wisdom, furnish, at the same time, the best guarantee against

blind fortuitous derangements to come; the result, as they are, of

periodical causes, acting in a way and with an intensity of which we have

no experience, and for which, indeed, we have no expression in any of the

sciences.

GENERAL PRINCIPLES.

PART IV.

CHAPTER I.

RÉSUMÉ.

Geology, as will be seen from the preceding details, is among the most

comprehensive of the sciences. It invades the province of every one

of them, and lays them all under contribution while following out its

own peculiar researches. A dry description of rocks, in their simple

mineral qualities, does not limit or exhaust its ample resources. Botany,

zoology, meteorology—a part, in short, of every branch of natural

history, as well as chemistry, physics, and astronomy, are severally

enlisted in its service, and all give interest and importance to its

discursive investigations. And thus, receiving gifts from every walk of

science, geology gives back in turn, and imparts to each, illustrations

new and rare, from its own wonderful storehouse.

Geology, considered in itself, may be pursued in three different ways, as

it resolves into three great leading branches of investigation. Observing

the arrangement and superposition of rocks, as exhibited in the crust of

the earth, along with their mineral distinctions and fossil contents,

we embrace all the objects included in _descriptive_ or _phenomenal_

geology. The exposition, again, of the general principles by which such

phenomena can be produced, constitutes what has been termed _geological

dynamics_,—by which are traced the laws of action of known causes, and

their relation to such changes as those which geology considers. The

last branch leads to a consideration of the causes in which the phenomena

have originated and the doctrines deducible from them. This has been

called _physical geology_, and embraces all that is theoretic in the

science. These three branches, while thus definitively distinct in

themselves, are yet frequently combined in the works of writers on the

subject; nor is it easy, or even possible, in practice, to separate them,

as few will be content to describe without attempting also to explain.

It has been no part of our vocation in these investigations to inquire

into the _origin_ of a material universe;—what was its pre-existent

state, and by what process this globe at first was brought into an

earthy concrete form. Astronomy has tried various solutions. But

whether by the splintering of other worlds, or the evolution of matter

from a Saturnian ring, or by the condensation of gaseous star-dust

diffused through infinite space, no astronomical hypothesis has proved

satisfactory. Geology is better employed when she assumes a beginning

to her researches upon the visible crust of the globe. The mystery of

_creation_ is not within the range of her legitimate territory; and,

while the investigation of laws and of the influence of secondary causes

falls within the province of both, it may be safely admitted that neither

astronomy nor geology are, of themselves, capable of giving us any real

or precise account of the origin of the universe, or of any of its parts.

That we have begun with the primary rocks of the Grampians, as the most

ancient division of systematic lithology, was more with a view to have

some ‘principia’ for description than assumptions for theory, and because

no geological research has penetrated deeper. The crust of the earth,

as far as observation extends, is proved to consist in its lower parts

of a series of crystalline rocks, some of which are stratified, and

others unstratified, intercalating one with another, and maintaining the

same relative position, each to each, as a system, in every region of

the globe. Granite, gneiss, micha-schist, quartz-rock, and limestone,

constitute these first outwork courses of creation; one uniform cause

acting simultaneously over the earth, appears to have placed them all

in position; and as no breathing animal or blossoming plant witnessed

this morn-dawn of nature, the rocks belonging to the period are termed

the primary or azoic series. The fossiliferous deposits follow in their

due order of superposition, arranged into groups and systems according

to the organic remains by which they are respectively characterized,

and preserving, in their geographical distribution, the same uniform

and persistent vertical arrangement as the former. Amorphous rocks, of

all ages and extent, are distributed among the stratified portions of

the crust, whether crystalline or sedimentary, whereby the latter are

dislocated and upheaved, and the inequalities of the surface, and all the

pleasing diversity of plain, hill, and mountain have been produced. It

is the special object of descriptive or phenomenal geology to note all

the facts connected with these appearances and changes, to collate and

compare them one with another, and finally, to systematize them according

to their natural affinities and relations.

Dynamical and theoretical geology, again, inquires into the supposed

principles and causes in which all these arrangements have originated,

and by which they have been modified. The agencies, processes, and

changes which we now observe in the existing course of nature, furnish

the grounds and analogies by which alone we can speculate respecting the

past condition of things, subject always to the consideration that, in

proportion to the difference of effects and changes in the two periods,

so are the causes and agencies which produced them, as well in relation

to time as to force. The enormous magnitude of the results witnessed

during the more ancient geological epochs, demonstrates the intensity of

the causes then in operation; and, admitting these causes to be the same

in kind with such as prevail at present, we are yet warranted to infer

their more violent activity, as likewise to assume a more rapid increment

in their effects. Thus the geologist, from observation of the laws of

crystallization now manifested in the aggregation of the elementary

particles of bodies, reverts to the existence of similar forces, whatever

they be, which produced the crystalline texture of the primary rocks,

their fissile structure, and the separation of all those materials which

exist among them in the form of gems, agates and metalliferous veins.

Igneous causes he still finds in operation, as volcanoes, earthquakes,

and chemical agencies closely connected with both; and the same forces

he hesitates not to connect with the elevation of mountain-chains, the

vast masses of plutonic matter everywhere diffused through the earth’s

crust, and the disturbance, dislocation, and other changes produced upon

all the stratified rocks through which this matter has penetrated. A

mighty power in continual action, he further perceives in the waters of

the ocean, of the atmosphere, of the rills and rivers that issue from

the mountains’ side: and to such aqueous causes, operative in the past

as in the present day, he refers the transport, lamination, and detrital

structure of the materials of all the sedimentary deposits. Nor does he

leave out of estimation the effect of assumed cosmical changes upon the

temperature of the planet, and the laws that regulate the distribution of

heat over the surface: causes such as these the geologist sees greatly to

influence, at present, the conditions of organic life in every quarter of

the globe; and hence, he justly calls for their assistance in explaining

the history of those remarkable organic remains which characterize the

several geological epochs.

When the geologist proceeds systematically to trace the series of these

phenomena, to ascertain their causes, and to connect together all the

indications of change that are found in the organic and inorganic

kingdoms of nature, he attempts the structure of a THEORY OF CREATION,

which shall embrace the whole course of the world, from the earliest to

the present times; and which, it may reasonably be concluded, may be

resolved into one great cycle, yet unfinished. But for this the materials

of the science are by no means prepared, nor is its progress sufficiently

advanced.

The history of organic remains forms an interesting branch of descriptive

geology, where, it may be said, we find the medal-stamps of creation in

the first forms of organic life that came from the hands of the Creator.

The fact is all important, and the science is prepared to announce

it, that in the lowest fossiliferous strata of the earth, VEGETABLES

appear among the first of all living things: the impressions of plants,

and entire beds of carbonaceous matter, are found in the most ancient

strata of the Silurian group of rocks. Nor less important is the fact,

that the fossils which next arrest the attention are the remains of

marine animals, myriads of shells, and vast numbers of fishes. Then,

in the ascending series of strata, the foot-prints of birds are lower

down than the impressions of the beasts of the earth. The sea, it is

next discovered, swarmed with huge reptilian bodies, before mammalian

quadrupeds and cattle had yet a place on dry land; and man, the noblest

specimen of organic structure, the crowning apex of the pyramid of

terrestrial being, is, according to the geological narrative, precisely

in his place—no bone nor fragment of his kind, having been detected in

the solid frame of the globe.

Such is the vista into the past opened up through these rocky

entablatures of the globe. Compared with other branches of knowledge,

in point of mere exciting topics of interest, geology occupies a

distinguished position. Nay, the truth here, to those not conversant

with the science, is even more incredible than fiction. As a study into

the records of creation, geology has disclosed views, and elicited

discoveries, of the works of the Divine Architect of the world, which

the religious inquirer will as cordially embrace, as ignorance only

can overlook or misapprehend.—Newton imagined, so porous is all earthy

matter, that this terrene globe could be crushed into the size of two

or three cubic inches of solid substance. Geology now shows that the

most concrete rocks, chains of hills and even of mountains, the soft

clays of Virginia, and loose floating deserts of sand, are many of

them composed of the shields and skeletons of animalcules; evidences,

through all past time, of the wondrous prodigality of nature, and of

the superabundant goodness of its Author. Nothing, indeed, at first

sight can appear more barren of every point of interesting illustration

than the rocky masses of the earth. Tear off the grassy covering which

conceals, while it freshens, the outer crust of the globe, and to mere

disorder and confusion there seems to be superadded the more repulsive

features of sterility and death. But examine a little deeper, and you

will see order, symmetry, and beauty; what is now frigid and motionless,

was once animated with the breath of life; these stony chambers beneath,

the necropolis of a buried world. The study of the Course of Creation,

therefore, when read aright—whether in its organic or inorganic

lessons—cannot fail to present the most varied and sublime illustrations

of the power, wisdom, and goodness of Him who reared the stupendous

fabric, and made our earth one of the bright rolling planets of the

universe.

There are many points, however, and questions of the deepest importance,

that are far from being satisfactorily determined.—The progress of

vegetable and animal life, for example, is supposed to correspond with

the varying conditions and changes of the earth’s surface, when the races

are summoned into existence, not at once, nor after short intervals, but

successively, and after ages of unfathomable extent. The record, even as

a chronicle of mere life and death, is a marvelous one, full of singular

revelations, and disclosing types of organized being that have long been

obliterated. But when as yet there was no rational head in this mundane

scene, the assumption is, that the inferior tribes were for MILLIONS

of years the sole living occupants of the planet! Can all the data be

sound, rightly understood, and properly interpreted, that lead to such

conclusions? The epic of this lengthened series of events is yet, it may

be said, without a hero. The tragedy of wild revolution and carnage lacks

romance in the very monotony of its devastation. And destitute alike of a

_moral_, and of a fitting audience, the brilliancy of the representation

loses half its attractions in losing all its humanity.

One established principle of the science connected with this point is,

that there are certain groups of animal species found fossil in the

different sets of strata which compose the earth’s crust, and that these

demonstrate something like a series of distinct faunas corresponding

to the number of formations. Seven or eight sets of rocks, at least,

are as distinctly characterized by particular sets of fossils. But the

exceptions to the law are likewise very numerous, inasmuch as both

species and genera have been carried forward, and are identically the

same, from one formation and epoch into another. Hence, points neither

of difference nor of resemblance, from age to age, are absolute, and

cannot very minutely be applied as regards the several formations and

their organic contents. The types of one formation are repeatedly mingled

with those of another. And the value of all the evidence collected from

fossil remains, while it establishes undeniably a succession in the

mineral deposits, leaves the question as to the limits of the epochs, and

their relation to Time, still partially undetermined. The theory too

of progressive development, or that of independent acts of creation—the

causes of the extinction of old, and the introduction of new races—the

extent of time implied or indicated in the whole series of events—and

the all-important point involved in this chronology, whether all or

any of the geological series are alluded to in the Mosaic account of

creation—are questions that necessarily press upon the attention, as

we would solve or not the inquiries suggested. The sounding-line of

geology is not to be despised, or cast at once aside, should it fail in

furnishing a just estimate and measure of such profound investigations.

Every failure will only prove a stimulus to renewed exertion, as every

discovered path of error leads one step in advance toward the path of

truth, and that in turn to harmony with the Book of ALL TRUTH.

CHAPTER II.

THEORIES OF ORGANIC LIFE.

After inquiring into their _order_ of succession, the _relation_ which

organic fossils have to each other, as genera and species, falls

naturally to be considered. How have these various families of creatures,

brought to light by geology, been formed? In what manner have they become

extinct? Have they all proceeded from a few original types, which have

been modified by circumstances, increased in variety, and perfected in

form, as they advance from the older to the newer formations? And does

geology furnish any data on which to build a theory of their extinction

as the higher and succeeding kinds emerged into being? A learned author,

Professor Pictet of Geneva, has spoken of these speculations in terms of

a rule or law, as follows:—“_The faunas of the most ancient formations

are made up of the less perfectly organized animals, and the degree of

perfection increases as we approach the more recent epochs._”

This was long held as a favorite dogma among geologists, when, in

proportion to the scantiness of facts, there was an increasing

eagerness to magnify their value, and to build upon them the widest

generalizations. But now, since accurate observations are more and more

multiplied, and the principles of palæontology are better understood,

the doctrine of a gradual advance of animal organization toward higher

and more perfect forms as we ascend through the successive deposits of

the earth’s crust, is daily losing ground among the cultivators of the

science. The notion is based upon the theory of _a scale of beings_, in

which all animals are supposed to form a series, or to constitute links

of an unbroken chain, whereof each species is more perfect than that

which precedes it, and the varying degrees of perfection constantly

increasing until they reach their maximum in man, the highest link in the

chain. M. Pictet himself regards this theory as vague and unsupported

by facts, as well in the organization of the extinct as of the existing

races of animals. These beings, he says, are divided into a certain

number of groups, each of which exhibits a peculiar type; but while some

of the groups are manifestly superior to others when we consider their

organization generally, it happens also that the result of a comparison

sometimes fails to establish any real superiority. The faunas of the

more ancient formations he holds to be far less imperfect than has been

often supposed, where the vertebrate type is represented by the fishes,

and whose structure is as complicated and finished as the most recent of

their kind; while the invertebrate again furnishes numerous examples of

fossilized gasteropoda and cephalopoda, the most perfect orders of the

molluscous class. As with these, so with the relics of every succeeding

epoch, in which all the types, the genera, and species of every family of

the animal kingdom, are represented by organic structures as perfect as

those of the present day.

We quote the following important cautionary remark by the same

author:—“We ought not,” says Professor Pictet, “to be too hasty in

assuming the absence of certain more perfect types in the older faunas,

merely because we have not yet discovered any remains of them. We

hardly know anything of these faunas, except with regard to some of

the inhabitants of the sea; and it is well known, that in the present

condition of the globe, those animals living on land exhibit the higher

forms of structure. Is it not possible that in these first ages of the

world, terrestrial animals also existed, more highly organized than

their marine cotemporaries, although their remains either have not been

preserved, or are still to be discovered? The existence of didelphine

mammals in the oolites has been made out by the discovery of a very small

number of fragments; and the remains of land animals generally are hardly

fossilized, except by sudden deluges and inundations, which are always

trifling in their results, compared with the slow but unceasing deposits

from the water of the sea. May we not yet expect new discoveries in these

ancient strata, revealing to us the existence of primeval animals at

present little suspected?”

The same mode of reasoning may be extended to the ancient floras, or

terrestrial plants of the primeval ages. What a revelation, for instance,

is made in the recently discovered coal deposits of Oporto and the Upper

Douro, where, along with the orthides, trilobites, and graptolites of the

lower silurian rocks, are found vegetable impressions strongly resembling

the ferns of the carboniferous age? The Cromarty fossil pine, from the

lower old red sandstone, has been already noticed. While these pages

have been passing through the press we have to record the discovery of a

specimen, nearly two feet in length and half a foot in thickness, from

the beds of the middle old red and immediately underlying the yellow

sandstone of Dura Den. This fossil is considerably flattened and furred

with the scars or markings so characteristic of the decorticated trees

belonging to the coal formation. Does not this warrant the expectation

of a richer harvest to be yet gleaned in these ancient fields than the

marine fuci and algæ that have hitherto been mainly gathered in by the

geological sickle?

Another mode of accounting for the succession of organized beings on the

surface of the globe, and consequently also their successive extinction

and outgoing, as seen in the fossiliferous rocks, is that which is

termed THE THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT, or the doctrine of the transmutation

of species. The same has been a very ancient and favorite notion among

mankind. Early in this century it assumed the form of a system, under

the adaptive principle of Lamarck, who conceived that animals, according

to the circumstances in which they are placed, by the use or disuse of

certain organs, the frequency and degree of exertion or strain upon

particular parts of the body, were themselves the agents in inducing

all the variety of structures by which they are distinguished into so

many orders and families. The aquatic fowl, for example, is attracted

to the waters in quest of food, and so in time becomes web-footed. The

heron dislikes to plunge into the flood, or will only venture into the

shoals, and hence he becomes a wader, and is equipped with long legs. The

woodpecker rejoices in those little aphides and creatures that nestle

under the bark of trees, and thus, from constant exercise, acquires his

strength of bill. The eagle seeks the blaze of the sun, and soars to

the gates of heaven, and hence his penetrating eye and speed of descent

upon his all-unconscious victim beneath. And, in like manner, through

the whole range of animated nature, and in all past ages, genera and

species have all acquired their adaptive powers, and distinctive forms

of organization, arising from a certain plastic character in their

different constitutions, and their own voluntary attempts to supply

their constantly increasing wants. There were a few great leading stamps

or dies of nature’s own molding; but all the rest—even man himself—are

merely offsets from the primitive type, with such extension of organs and

modification of excrescences as were required in each particular case;

succeeding races always retaining a strong affinity to their immediate

predecessors, and a tendency to impress their own features on their

kindred which succeed them. There is a limit of divergence; but within

that limit, the human family have their place assigned them among the

monkeys and wild men of the woods.

It is the same extravagant idea, _that of a constant progression toward

animal perfection_, which has become so popularized in “The Vestiges

of the Natural History of Creation.” This author, indeed, has taken a

wider and bolder flight than even the French philosopher, M. Lamarck.

He brings the rudimentary elements and molecular forms of all creation

before him. He expatiates through infinite space, and amidst the original

fire-mist of the astral worlds. He finds but one grand law pervading the

whole universe of being, operating in the self-same way in the production

of planets and suns, as in the germination of insects and animalcules,

the life-impregnating principle in the one being only a modification of

the aggregating and rotary tendencies that rule in the other—the blind

and casual evolution of some agency of a material system, substituted

for the creative will of an intelligent ever-active First Cause. “A

nucleated vesicle” is the fundamental form of all organization, as nuclei

of luminous matter are the sources of the stars; this is the meeting

point between the organic and the inorganic, the end of the mineral and

beginning of the vegetable and animal kingdoms; whence they start in

different directions, but in a general parallelism and analogy. Assuming

the vast indefinite periods of the geological epochs to be correct,

the author makes great account of time, and the mighty changes which

will be produced in the lapse of countless ages, and thus rebuts the

argument against his theory that is so obviously furnished from the fixed

unaltered characters of organization that have prevailed throughout the

entire modern epoch. This he argues is merely a point, an infinitesimal

fraction, when compared with the epochs of geology. The eye detects

not the changes which all specific forms are slowly but unceasingly

undergoing within limited portions of time, even as the nicest

instruments cannot always enable the astronomer to note the changes of

position among the heavenly bodies. Hence the _appearance_ of so many of

the stars as unchangingly fixed in their relations to each other. The

whole solar system, too, upon the ground of imperfect unrecording vision,

_seems_ to be anchored in one portion of space. And hence likewise the

argument against the motion of the earth itself, which so long prevailed,

derived from the fact of there being no sensible parallax, and now so

easily accounted for by the insignificant smallness of its orbit, as

compared with the remoteness of the stars. Limited, in like manner, to

the narrow field of observation afforded within the human period, the

modifications of species and their transmutations into the higher grades

of animals are not appreciable, _because_ its six thousand years are as a

moment, in comparison with those incalculable ages of geology which have

been concerned in the phenomenon!

Thus does the author of the “Vestiges” revel amidst the sublimities and

copious materials of his subject. Time and space, the elements of the

astral heavens and the earth, are alike indefinitely in his grasp. That

he has failed to frame a better system of things than the one we see

actually around us, is a necessary consequence of the restraints imposed

on human investigation. Facts will not be supplanted by any heights, or

depths, or ingenuities of speculation. And as existing nature is all

against the doctrine of transmutation and development, so the discoveries

of geology through all its formations are equally opposed to such views

of creation. A short sketch of both will abundantly illustrate this.

As to the course of living nature, the development theory is there at

once repudiated in the now clearly established fact, that the first

germinal vesicles are different in the different tribes of animals.

A non-identity of type is discoverable in the minutest microscopical

beginnings of organic life. And “by no change of conditions can two

ova of animals of the same species be developed into different animal

species; neither by any provision of identical conditions can two ova

of different species be developed into animals of the same kind.”

Corresponding to these differences in their fœtal forms, there are in all

the stages toward parturition a similarity of progress in the various

organs and appendages in the same kinds of animals. Fishes, birds,

quadrupeds, all manifest a divergence from each other in the first action

of the respirating organs—in the nervous system—and in all the apparatus

connected with the movements of the heart and blood-vessels. There is

no structural interchange, in the minutest part, that distinguishes the

orders of the perfect animal in any of the antecedent fœtal conditions;

the organic contrivances within the egg being as complete and as

thoroughly prospective to the future use and habits of the bird, as are

the petals of the flower inclosed within the bud, the arms of the giant

oak within the acorn, or man in his evolving capacity toward intellectual

being.

What is thus true in all the rudimentary stages of organic development is

strikingly confirmed by the unalterable condition of all living nature.

Plants and animals never diverge, beyond small ascertained limits, from

the fixed characters of their families, resisting the effects of every

kind of influence, whether proceeding from natural causes or human

interference. The lapse of three thousand years has left the embalmed

carcasses of men and animals, in Egypt, wrapped and swathed in a material

woven from the same species of plants which still flourish on the banks

of the Nile. The crocodile and the ibis still drink of its waters.

Nothing changed in form or appearance, the swarthy Arab repairs to its

cooling fountains to quench his thirst. Nature has been tortured in a

thousand ways, to cause her to depart from her long beaten paths; but she

is obdurate on every point. Man would improve her kinds, and hybrids are

produced; but there the variety ends. Crosses are constantly attempted;

but “the hitherto and no farther” is soon approached. Our fruit-bearing

trees are coaxed with all the appliances of horticultural skill; and

yet in all their seminal and floral organs, the texture of their leaves

and bark, the structure of their roots and stem, the rudimentary stock

remains one and the same. Domestication has, indeed, wrought wonderful

changes and improvements in the breed of many creatures. Horses, oxen,

sheep, pigs, dogs, and poultry of all sorts, are increased in bulk,

tamed, ameliorated in habit and disposition. But the skeletons of all

continue essentially as they were in their natural state; and even

the individuals the most widely removed from the primitive type, as

exemplified in the canine race, never present any real difference of form

in the important organs.—When again abandoned to their own guidance, and

the restraints imposed by man are removed, the domesticated animals,

one and all, return to their former condition, and speedily resume the

instincts and appearance of the jungle and the forest.

If such are the unvarying laws of physiology now, the presumption is that

they have been the same in all past ages. Creatures are brought from the

extremities of the earth—the polar, temperate, and tropical denizens,

all mixed up and crossed with each other—food, climate, and treatment,

all changed—and, through all, the type of every species continues as

before—no transmutation of one kind into another under all the violent

tutoring agencies to which they have been subjected. For thousands of

years such has been the unswerving course of nature. Would it not clearly

be a solecism in reasoning to argue differently over the geological

epochs, however indefinite in extent, because, in the far-off regions of

space, our eyes can note no change in the relative position of the stars?

The things will not compare. Time and space are not co-ordinate terms.

And an appeal from positive knowledge to supposed, assumed ignorance does

not meet the question.

Meanwhile, the amplitude of the current epoch, if we may so speak, gives

scope and verge enough for all the requirements of the problem to be

solved, the conditions of the argument to be established, the process

of reasoning to be employed. An experience not merely of six thousand

years, but an experience embracing a uniformity of results in all the

hundreds of thousands of instances into which animate nature is divided,

in all the countless species of plants and animals which have existed

successively throughout the whole of that period, furnishes proof of

such a cumulative kind as approaches, if not to demonstration, at least

to the nearest possible degree of certainty. There is no instance of a

single transmutation of a vegetable species into another species, of

algæ into fuci or conversely, of grasses into cereals, of endogens into

exogens, of the pine into the oak; and the same of animal species, where,

through all the living tribes, the fixity of family law has maintained

its steady, unchanging course since Adam gave names to them, down to the

present hour. What link in the chain is wanting? The course of creation

is verified and complete. The exception would be a miracle. And we are

not at liberty, upon just principles of ratiocination, to refuse our

assent, where all the facts, indefinite as to number, are exclusively on

one side, and none upon the other. Our belief in the case is defined and

restrained by the absolute uniformity of stubborn, unbending nature; and

an appeal from the known to the unknown, from the human to the geological

epochs, is just to relinquish reason for the dominion of imagination, the

evidences of the senses for the visions of fancy. The shark, rapacious as

ever, holds the empire of the seas—the lion, the domain of the forest—the

eagle, the region of the air—and man, progressive man, alone looks unto

the heavens and blesses his Maker.

Hume was so impressed with the force of this argument, as to maintain,

upon the ground of it, the absolute impossibility of establishing the

truth of a single _miraculous_ event, or of any event that did not

harmonize with the existing course of nature. The Laws of Nature have

been so uniform, within the entire range of human experience, as that

no testimony or reasoning of man, says that subtile dialectitian, can

invalidate their authority, or render credible any alleged case of

discrepancy or of deviation.—The author of the “Vestiges,” for the first

time, has cast the whole weight of this evidence aside, or holds it as

even scarcely relevant in a question of proof. And thus outstripping, as

he does, both the measure and the requirements of the Christian’s faith,

he may be safely left to the logic of its most merciless adversary in

dealing with the phenomenal or imaginary transmutations of the geological

epochs.

But the facts of geology, from its remotest periods, are in themselves

no less strongly opposed to this extravagant, untenable hypothesis. This

might be presumed from the distinct teachings of geology, as already

stated, against the theory of a scale of beings becoming more perfect as

we ascend from the faunas of the older to those of the newer formations.

The families of the various formations are distinct, and consist of real

non-interchanging forms of structure, whether they die out and disappear

with a particular formation, or are carried forward and intermixed

with the fossils of another. The fishes of the silurian rocks, are as

perfect after their kind as those of the Devonian, Carboniferous, or

Cretaceous deposits; and not less perfect than they are genuine types

of all their successors. The _sauroids_ of the old red sandstone have

reptilian resemblances, but yet the _saurians_ of the oolite age have no

affinities of true kindred descent; while, again, of all the mammalia of

the tertiary period, there is not one that boasts a likeness, in habit or

organization, to a single creature of an antecedent or posterior epoch.

“Thus between the _palæotherium_ and the species of our own days,” says

Cuvier, “we should be able to discover some intermediate forms: and yet

no such discovery has ever been made. Since the bowels of the earth have

not preserved monuments of this strange genealogy, we have a right to

conclude, that the ancient and now extinct species were as permanent in

their forms and characters as those which exist at present: or at least,

that the catastrophe which destroyed them did not leave sufficient time

for the production of the changes that are alleged to have taken place.”

Agassiz, in his own department of fishes, is equally opposed in all

his deductions to the transformation of species from one formation to

another, which he asserts, “the imagination invents with as much facility

as the reason refutes.” Professor Owen, after minutely examining the

organic structure of the nine orders of fossil reptiles, declares no less

strongly against the theory, and adds—“The nearest approximation to the

organization of fishes is made by the _Ichthyosaurus_, an extinct genus

which appears to have been introduced into the ancient seas subsequent

to the deposition of the strata inclosing the remains of the thecodont

lizards. But by no known forms of the fossil animals can we diminish

the wide interval which divides the most sauroid of fishes from an

_Ichthyosaurus_.”[12]