The object of “The World before the Deluge” is to trace the progressive
steps by which the earth has reached its present state, from that
condition of chaos when it “was without form and void, and darkness was
upon the face of the deep,” and to describe the various convulsions and
transformations through which it has successively passed. In the words
of the poet--
“Where rolls the deep, there grew the tree;
O Earth, what changes hast thou seen!
There, where the long street roars, hath been
The silence of the central sea.”
It has been thought desirable that the present edition of the work
should undergo a thorough revision by a practical geologist, a task
which Mr. H. W. Bristow has performed. Mr. Bristow has however confined
himself to such alterations as were necessary to secure accuracy in the
statement of facts, and such additions as were necessary to represent
more precisely the existing state of scientific opinion. Many points
which are more or less inferential and therefore matters of individual
opinion, and especially those on which M. Figuier bases his
speculations, have been left in their original form, in preference to
making modifications which would wholly change the character of the
book. In a work whose purpose is to give the general reader a summarised
account of the results at which science has arrived, and of the method
of reasoning regarding the facts on which these generalisations rest, it
would be out of place, as well as ineffective, to obscure general
statements with those limitations which caution imposes on the
scientific investigator.
In the original work the Author had naturally enough drawn most of his
facts from French localities; in the translation these are mostly
preserved, but others drawn from British Geology have been added, either
from the translator’s own knowledge, or from the works of well-known
British writers. It was considered desirable, for similar reasons, to
enlarge upon the opinions of British geologists, to whom the French work
scarcely does justice, considering the extent to which the science is
indebted to them for its elucidation.
In the original work the chapter on Eruptive Rocks comes at the end of
the work, but, as the work proceeded, so many unexplained allusions to
that chapter were found that it seemed more logical, and more in
accordance with chronological order, if the expression may be used, to
place that chapter at the beginning.
A new edition of the French work having appeared in the early part of
1866, to which the Author contributed a chapter on Metamorphic Rocks, a
translation of it is appended to the chapter on Eruptive Rocks.
A chapter on the Rhætic (or Penarth) beds has been inserted (amongst
much other original matter), the stratigraphical importance of that
series having been recognised since the publication of the First
Edition.
In the present Edition the text has been again thoroughly revised by Mr.
Bristow, and many important additions made, the result of the recent
investigations of himself and his colleagues of the Geological Survey.
THE
WORLD BEFORE THE DELUGE.