[Illustration:
BASALTIC COLUMNS AT REGIA, IN MEXICO
]
GEOLOGICAL FACTS;
OR,
THE CRUST OF THE EARTH,
WHAT IT IS,
AND WHAT ARE ITS USES.
BY
THE REV. W. G. BARRETT,
ROYSTON.
“There is in this universe a stair,
or manifest scale of creatures,
rising not disorderly nor in
confusion, but with a comely method
and proportion.”—SIR THOMAS BROWNE,
_Religio Medici_, 1642.
LONDON:
ARTHUR HALL, VIRTUE, & CO.
25, PATERNOSTER ROW.
1855.
LONDON:
R. CLAY, PRINTER, BREAD STREET HILL
PREFACE.
Last written, and generally last read, a Preface has nevertheless become
so integral a part of every book, that I may presume, I trust, upon the
attention of my readers while I ask them to indulge me with a little
prefatory egotism.
This book of mine goes forth into the world with many misgivings on the
part of its author. How he came to write it was thus-wise. He was
settled in a quiet country town in Cambridgeshire, Royston to wit, as a
Dissenting Minister; around him he found a number of young persons, who
did not believe they had “finished their education” because they had
left school, and who were anxious to avoid the usual littleness and
small talk of such towns, by earnest attention to actual study. And so
it came to pass that a Geological class was formed, which, meeting every
week, afforded real stimulus for private work, and led to the
consultation of the best standard works, happily available through the
well-conditioned library of the town.
The result of those classes is this little book. What is written here
was mostly, if not all, said there; and, urged to publish, the author
feels a pleasure in dedicating this book to the class, composed almost
entirely of young ladies, who found in these studies one of their chief
delights, and whose private collections have been greatly assisted by
the hints thus obtained.
I do not pretend to _teach the Science of Geology_; I aspire simply to
give a taste for this noble and elevating physical study; and, imperfect
as this little manual, written in the few hours of capricious leisure
snatched from an incessant strain of engagements, must be, I shall only
be too happy, if one and another lay aside _my_ book, and go up higher
to Lyell, Sedgwick, Buckland, Murchison, Ansted, Miller, and others.
Possibly my stand-point as a minister of religion may have given
unconsciously a too theological tone to some of the chapters, especially
the last; if such is the case, I beg leave to apologise for such an
error by the candid statement, that I have come into contact frequently
with minds who have not hesitated to express the doubts I have
endeavoured to resolve.
I am quite sure that if we, whose calling is with the greatest and the
deepest truths that can touch the heart of the real world in which we
live and move and have our being, encourage those whom we meet in the
free intercourse of social life, to express their doubts, however
painful the form of that expression may sometimes be, we shall be far
better prepared to meet the wants of our age than if we shut ourselves
up in our studies, and exclude ourselves by conventional devices from
God’s great world of thought and action that is vibrating so palpably
around us, many of whose most painful throbs are occasioned by a
supposed contradiction between Science and Scripture.
At the feet of the Master I desire to serve, I lay this little book,
beseeching Him to regard it as a labour of love, and to use it as an aid
to the faith of others in the inspired books of Nature and of
Revelation.
Removed from the happy town where this book was written, it only remains
to add, that for many of the fossils figured in the following pages I am
indebted to the kindness of the Rev. Mr. Meeke, at that time the
Unitarian Minister of Royston, whose cabinet was always open to my use,
and whose courtesy and catholic kindness I thus desire to record; while
to Miss Butler, one of my Geological class, I am indebted for all the
drawings and devices which will doubtless make this book more attractive
than it could otherwise have been.
In the words of Archdeacon Hare, I close this brief prelection: “So
imperfectly do we yet understand the redemption wrought for us by
Christ; and so obstinate are we in separating what God has united, as
though it were impossible for the Tree of Knowledge to stand beside the
Tree of Life. Yet in the redeemed world they do stand side by side, and
their arms intermingle and intertwine, so that no one can walk under the
shade of the one, but he will also be under the shade of the other.”
W. G. B.
MANCHESTER,
_July, 1855_.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
INTRODUCTORY 1
CHAPTER II.
PRELIMINARIES 15
CHAPTER III.
THE ANCIENT EPOCH 33
CHAPTER IV.
THE PALÆOZOIC PERIOD 50
CHAPTER V.
THE OLD RED SANDSTONE 67
CHAPTER VI.
THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM 83
CHAPTER VII.
SECONDARY FORMATIONS. 1. _The New Red Sandstone_ 106
CHAPTER VIII.
SECONDARY ROCKS. 2. _The Oolitic System_ 123
CHAPTER IX.
SECONDARY ROCKS. 3. _The Oolite proper_ 145
CHAPTER X.
SECONDARY ROCKS. 4. _The Wealden_ 175
CHAPTER XI.
SECONDARY ROCKS. 5. _The Chalk. The Cretaceous System_ 198
CHAPTER XII.
THE TERTIARY SYSTEM 224
CHAPTER XIII.
SCRIPTURE AND GEOLOGY; OR, APPARENT CONTRADICTIONS RECONCILED 255
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
BY S. & G. NICHOLLS.
PAGE
BASALTIC COLUMNS, REGIA, MEXICO _Frontispiece._
SECTION OF THE EARTH’S CRUST 16
DITTO 21
LONDON BASIN 25
SECTION OF DITTO 25
ARTESIAN WELL 27
MINING DISTRICT 41
SECTION OF A MINE 43
TRILOBITE 56
DITTO 57
EYES OF DITTO 58
CRYSTALLIZATION ON CORNISH SLATE 60
BELLEROPHON 61
SILURIAN REMAINS 61
DITTO 62
CORALLINE 62
LAND’S END 66
FISH SCALES 74
FISH TAILS 75
CEPHALASPIS 76
COCCOSTEUS 77
PTERICHTHYS 78
OSTEOLEPIS 79
EXTINCT AND EXISTING FERNS 87
FLORA OF THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM 95
ASTEROPHYLLITE AND SPHENOPTERIS 97
PECOPTERIS, ODONTOPTERIS, AND NEUROPTERIS 98
CALAMITES 100
STIGMARIA FICOIDES 101
MINER AT WORK, AND LAMP 105
CASTS OF RAIN DROPS 111
FOOTPRINTS OF BIRD 113
DITTO 114
FOOTPRINTS OF LABYRINTHODON 116
AMMONITES 130
DITTO AND NAUTILUS 131
DITTO 132
ICHTHYOSAURUS 137
PLESIOSAURUS 140
DIRT-BED, PORTLAND 150
OOLITE CORAL 151
DITTO 152
PEAR ENCRINITES 164
DITTO 165
DITTO, WITH CORAL 166
AMMONITES JASON 166
OOLITE SHELLS 169
DISCOVERING THE PTERODACTYLE 170
THE PHILOSOPHER AND DITTO 171
PTERODACTYLE SKELETON 173
DITTO, RESTORED 174
FAUNA OF THE OOLITIC PERIOD 195
ROYSTON HEATH 206
FOSSIL TEETH (GREENSAND) 209
FOSSILS FROM THE GAULT (FOLKSTONE) 210
DITTO 211
FOSSILS FROM THE CHALK 212
FOSSIL FISH 214
DITTO 215
WALTONIAN AND MANTELLIAN FISHERMEN 223
FOSSILS FROM THE LONDON CLAY 238
WOOD PERFORATED BY THE TEREDINA 241
SEPTARIA 242
FOSSILS FROM RED CRAG 245
MEGATHERIUM 248
MASTODON 250
FOSSIL MAN 251
CLIFF, GUADALOUPE 252
THE GEOLOGIST’S DREAM 254
THE RECONCILIATION 288
GEOLOGY.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”
MOSES.
Geology is the history of the _crust_ of this planet. This history we
compile, not from old records or moth-eaten state papers, not from
antiquarian research or the study of ancient coins, but from actual and
painstaking examination of the materials composing this crust. How
suitable is this word _crust_, will be seen at once, when it is
considered that its thickness in all probability does not exceed eighty
miles, a mere fraction of the distance to the earth’s centre. Of this
eighty miles we know pretty accurately the character and arrangement of
some seven or eight miles; not that we have ever penetrated so far
beneath the surface in a straight line, the deepest mines not exceeding
1800 or 1900 feet; but, by putting together the thicknesses of the
various strata, with which we are well acquainted, we reach this
conclusion without much hesitation. Professor Whewell has well observed,
that “an earth greater or smaller, denser or rarer, than the one on
which we live, would require a change in the structure and strength of
all the little flowers that hang their heads under our hedges. There is
something curious in thus considering the whole mass from pole to pole
and from circumference to centre, as employed in keeping a snowdrop in
the position most suited to its vegetable health.”[1] When we come to
examine this crust, several appearances of a striking character reward
our toil. At first, and before we proceed in our investigations more
minutely, we find that there are only two varieties of rocks in all the
vast arrangements spread out before us. Some rocks we find to be
unstratified, and others we find to be stratified: from the absence of
all fossils in the former of these, and from their crystalline
character, we conclude that these were formed by the action of _fire_,
and therefore we call them _Igneous_ or _Plutonic_ rocks. From the
sedimentary character and from the numerous fossils of the stratified
rocks, we conclude these to have been formed by the action of _water_,
and we therefore call these _Aqueous_ or _Neptunian_ rocks. Following
out these investigations, we meet with other facts equally interesting:
we find that the Plutonic or unstratified rocks lie generally at the
base of all the others, and that where they come up to the surface and
crop out from other rocks, or rise in towering mountain heights above
them, this has been the result of igneous action from beneath, and that
this elevation has disturbed the surrounding strata from the horizontal
position in which we imagine them to have been first arranged. The
extent of the Plutonic rocks is immense; in _Europe_, the Scandinavian
mountains, the Alps, the Pyrenees, and the Carpathians; in _Asia_, the
Himalayan, the Caucasian, and the Altai mountains; in _Africa_, the
Atlas mountains and the Cape of Good Hope; in _America_, nearly the
whole of the two continents, and in _Australia_, its southern part;—all
these wide regions of the globe are composed of those igneous or
Plutonic rocks to which we give the names of granite, basalt, porphyry,
trap, &c. &c. Finding the surrounding strata disturbed by depression, or
upheaval in consequence of the giant claims of these older rocks that
appear to have risen out of the centre of the earth in a red-hot or
semifluid condition, and then suddenly to have cooled down, we begin to
examine this upper and sedimentary strata, and here the most delightful
and romantic results are obtained. We find no two courses or formations
in these sedimentary rocks alike. Rising up from the granite, we meet in
the clay strata corals and trilobites, the first fossil forms of ancient
life with which we are acquainted: we rise higher still, for our
imaginary start is from the bottom of the earth’s crust, and we meet in
other rocks fossil fishes of an extraordinary shape, and once,
doubtless, possessed of extraordinary functions; higher yet, and
touching the coal measures, we come to vast forests of palms and ferns,
that by chemical changes and mechanical pressure have been converted
into our mineral coal, the vast fields of which constitute the real
diamond mines of Great Britain; higher yet, exploring the Lias and
Oolitic groups, the huge remains of ancient saurians (animals of the
lizard species) fill us with awe and wonder, and make us rejoice that
they had no successors in the next strata; higher yet, and we reach the
last period of the earth’s history, previous to the introduction of man,
and enormous “four-footed beasts,” the mastodon, the megatherium and
others, astonish us by their gigantic proportions, and evidently
herbivorous habits; and last of all we rise to the surface and breathe
freely in company with our fellow man, made in the image of God, to
inhabit this world as his palace, and to interpret its mysteries as its
priest.
We may probably put these general results into a more popular form,—for
we reserve the details to a seriatim examination of each formation,—by
the following quotation from a modern and extensively useful writer: “We
distinguish four ages of nature, corresponding to the great geological
divisions, namely—
“1. The _primary_ or _palæozoic_[2] age, comprising the Lower Silurian,
the Upper Silurian, and the Devonian. During this age there were no
air-breathing animals. The fishes were the masters of creation. We may
therefore call it the _Reign of Fishes_.
“2. The _secondary_ age, comprising the carboniferous formation, the
trias, the oolitic, and the cretaceous formations. This is the epoch in
which air-breathing animals first appear. The reptiles predominate over
the other classes, and we may therefore call it the _Reign of Reptiles_.
“3. The _tertiary_ age, comprising the tertiary formations. During this
age, terrestrial mammals of great size abound. This is the _Reign of
Mammals_.
“4. The _modern_ age, characterized by the appearance of the most
perfect of created beings. This is the _Reign of Man_.”[3]
From this brief but necessary outline of “the treasures of the deep”
which lie before us we may proceed to make a few preliminary remarks on
the moral and theological aspects of this science. Many persons have
supposed that the statements of Scripture and the alleged facts of
Geology are at variance, and, forgetful that some of the devoutest minds
of this and other countries have been equal believers in both, have too
summarily dismissed geology from their notice as a study likely to lead
to infidelity. To such we would briefly remark, that it is utterly
impossible there can be any contradiction between the written volume of
Inspiration and the outspread volume of Creation. Both are books written
by the same hand, both are works proceeding from the same ever blessed
and beneficent Creator. We believe in the plenary inspiration of the
Bible, and we believe equally in the plenary inspiration of Nature; both
are full of God, for in them both He is all and in all; and he who is
the deepest and the most reverent student of both will not be long
before he comes to the conclusion that not only is there no disharmony,
no discrepancy and no contradiction between them, but that they are both
harmonious utterances of the one infinite and ever blessed God.
“In reason’s ear they _both_ rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice;
For ever singing as they shine,
‘The hand that made us is divine.’”
Let us remember that Geology has nothing to do with the history of man,
nor with God’s government of man; to the Bible, and only there, do we go
for information on these points. Geology gives us the history and the
succession of _the things and beings_ that were created and made, we
believe, incalculable ages before man was placed on the face of the
earth. Possibly at times some new discovery in geology may appear to
contradict our long received interpretations of isolated passages in
Scripture, in which case the modesty of science compels us to reexamine
our data, while our reverence for the word of God teaches us to revise
our interpretations. As Dr. Chalmers once remarked, “_the writings of
Moses do not fix the antiquity of the globe; if they fix anything at
all, it is only the antiquity of the species_.” We believe that the same
God who, in anticipation of the spiritual wants of the human race,
graciously promised from the beginning of man’s transgression, that “the
seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head,” laid up for him “in
the bowels of the earth those vast stores of granite, marble, coal,
salt, and the various metals, the products of its several revolutions;
and thus was an inexhaustible provision made for his necessities, and
for the developments of his genius, ages in anticipation of his
appearance.”[4]
Truth is, and always must be, coincident. There can be no real
contradiction between the truth of Scripture and the truth of Science.
Whatever is true in one department of God’s agency, must be true when
compared with his works in any other department. As an illustration we
may notice one particular in which Geology and Scripture move towards
the same point in proving the recent introduction of man. We take up a
chart of the earth’s crust, and examine it so far as that crust is open
to our investigation: eight miles depth or height we know pretty
accurately, and in all these accumulations we find one concurrent
testimony. If we take the Azoic period of the earth’s crust, and search
through the granitic rocks of Scotland, Wales, or Cornwall; or if we
pass on to the Palæozoic period, and examine the Old Red Sandstone, the
Carboniferous system, or other formations; or, extending our researches,
investigate the secondary formations, the Lias, the Oolite, and the
Chalk, and so on until we arrive at the Tertiary period of the earth’s
history; _all the testimony is one_; there is no contradiction; there
are no fossil boats or sofas; no fossil beds or books; no fossil boys
and girls; no fossil knives and forks; so far as the teachings of
Geology go throughout all these vast periods it says, “there was not a
man to till the earth;” they declare that man is not so old as the
earth, and that all its fossil remains are pre-Adamite.
Now why should this truth be supposed to lie against the teaching of
Scripture? The object of Moses in the first chapter of Genesis, is to
teach us that all existing matter owes its origin to the God of the
Bible, and not to any of the idols of the heathen. “In the beginning,”
says that oldest historical record with which we are acquainted, “God
created the heaven and the earth;” that is, we apprehend, at some period
of the earth’s history, in all probability an undefined and incalculable
distance from the present time, God created all matter out of nothing,
the universe, these heavens and this earth, began to be at the word of
God.
“_But afterwards_,” says Dr. Pye Smith, in his translation of these
words, “the earth was without form and void;” undergoing, we believe,
those vast geological changes, those deposits of metal, and those slow
accumulations of mineral wealth, by which it was fitted to become the
temple, the palace, the workshop, and the home of man. “The first
sentence in Genesis is a simple, independent, all-comprehending axiom to
this effect, that matter elementary or combined, aggregated only or
organised, and dependent, sentient, and intellectual beings, have not
existed from eternity either in self-continuity or succession; but had a
beginning; that their beginning took place by the all-powerful will of
one Being, the Self-existent, Independent and Infinite in all
perfection; and that the date of that beginning is not made known.”[5]
Dr. Redford says, “We ought to understand Moses as saying, that
indefinitely far back and concealed from us in the mystery of eternal
ages prior to the first moment of mundane time, God created the heavens
and the earth;” and Dr. Harris in the same strain writes thus, “The
first verse in Genesis was designed by the Divine Spirit to announce the
absolute origination of the material universe by the Almighty Creator;
and it is so understood in the other parts of holy writ; passing by an
indefinite interval, the second verse describes the state of our planet
immediately prior to the Adamic creation, and the third verse begins the
account of the six days’ work.”
On this subject we will quote but one brief sentence more—and we have
preferred using these quotations to stating the question in our words,
thoroughly accordant as they would have been. In Dr. Hitchcock’s
valuable work, entitled “The Religion of Geology,” he says, “The time is
not far distant when the high antiquity of the globe will be regarded as
no more opposed to the Bible than the earth’s revolution round the sun
and on its axis. Soon shall the horizon where Geology and Revelation
meet be cleared of every cloud, and present only an unbroken and
magnificent circle of truth.”
Let these thoughts be borne in mind while we pursue our examination of
the solid crust of this globe. We do _not_
“drill and bore
The solid earth, and from its strata thence
Extract a register, by which we learn
That He who made it and revealed its date
To Moses was mistaken in its age.”
Nowhere do we find the age of the globe revealed either to Moses or any
other inspired writer; we believe that as science has nothing to fear
from the Bible, so the Bible has nothing to fear from the widest
intellectual range of study. We ponder in devout amazement over these
unwritten records of the earth’s bygone history: we find ‘sermons in
stones’ as we light on some delicate fern, or elegant vertebrate animal,
preserved in the deposits of past ages, and the hieroglyphics of nature
and the distincter utterances of the Bible prompt the same
exclamation,—“How marvellous are thy works, O God, in wisdom hast thou
made them all!” “Waste, and disorder, and confusion we nowhere find in
our study of the crust of the earth; instead of this we find endless
examples of economy, order, and design; and the result of all our
researches carried back through the unwritten records of past time, has
been to fix more steadily our assurance of the existence of one Supreme
Creator of all things; to exalt more highly our conviction of the
immensity of His perfections, of His might and majesty, His wisdom and
His goodness, and all-sustaining providence; and to penetrate our
understandings with a profound and sensible perception of the high
veneration man’s intellect owes to God. The earth from her deep
foundations unites with the celestial orbs that roll through boundless
space, to declare the glory and show forth the praise of their common
Author and Preserver; and the voice of natural religion accords
harmoniously with the testimonies of revelation, in ascribing the origin
of the universe to the will of one Eternal and Dominant Intelligence,
the Almighty Lord and supreme First Cause of all things that subsist;
the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever; before the mountains were
brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made, God from
everlasting and world without end.”—_Buckland’s Bridgewater Treatise._
“Come, frankly read the rocks, and see
In them the Earth’s biography;
Let mountain piled on mountain tell
Its antique age; and every shell
In fossil form its tale unfold,
Of life’s bright day through time untold;
And gathering use from great and small,
See good in each, but God in all.”