The lecturer of the afternoon, Colonel Daniels, of Virginia, was
introduced.
COLONEL DANIELS: Your commander-in-chief and shepherd of this flock
asked me to talk about “How to Teach Geology.” I did not come down here
for any such purpose. I came to have a little rest and have a good
time, and get acquainted with Chautauqua. But as I am here, I am glad
to be set at work in any way to keep me out of mischief.
He said on a subsequent occasion that he did not want me to give a
written lecture. That reminds me of a story that I heard Senator Nye
tell years ago in a speech. He told of one of those excellent boys that
die young, standing by the roadside, and a man was on a prancing steed.
The man said, “Boy, when I get up to you, don’t you take off your
hat and make a bow and scare this colt; he will throw me off.” Said
the boy, with rustic simplicity, “I was not going to.” [Applause and
laughter.]
I suppose that my excellent friend has to keep on guard. There are
prowling around through these trees people with their pockets stuffed
full of old sermons and lectures, and he is always on guard to keep
them from firing them off to scare his pet C. L. S. C. So I was not mad
a bit. [Laughter.]
Well, now, to plunge _in medias res_, it is a beautiful thing to study
geology. This planet was our birth place. It is the way of God. And
here in its strata is written by the finger of God himself the history
of all that mighty series of events through which it passed from
the time it emerged from primary chaos until to-day. It is scarcely
possible that any person should believe in studying the works of God,
and fail to see that this portion of his work, which lies in immediate
contact with us, from which in so many ways we draw sustenance, in
connection with which we have our being, and from out of which flows
the stream of that abundant supply which God has provided for his
children, and which for all our time is to be the theater of action of
our race, should be studied.
But how, how taught? Don’t give any written lectures now. I will tell
you how not to do it. If you are going to teach geology, don’t deliver
written lectures. Write all you can about it, but don’t deliver it.
I delivered a written lecture once, and that is the reason I never
delivered any more.
I began studying geology when a boy, when I was put to studying a
hoe-handle and ten acres of corn for about three weeks. There were
lots of these pieces of stone, and my uncle, a good old Methodist
class-leader, told me that God put those stones there at the time of
the deluge. That satisfied me. But when I was on a government survey
away in the West, I saw hundreds and thousands of feet of those rocks,
such as I saw this morning when I picked up these stones. Here you
see a complete mass of shells. Such rocks make up the bluffs of the
Mississippi River. We have twenty thousand feet of these in Colorado.
Major Buell told me that he got in one place twenty-seven thousand
feet. Then I was not satisfied. I began to look a little further.
By-and-by, in the district school library, I got hold of Randall’s
Geology, that blessed old book, and it began to open my mind a little.
I was on these surveys, and I began to have more and more practical
lessons. Among the lead mines of Wisconsin I found the miners wanted
practical knowledge, and I undertook to teach them a little. I remember
my first attempt on a slate; then I took my bristol-board and made some
diagrams. And then in a store, and then in a church; in the basement
first, and then I got up into the church. So I taught the rudest kind
of people, and from one lecture, I gave two, three, four, five, and
on up to fifteen. I gained a local reputation, and got to be State
Geologist of Wisconsin, and was tolerably well known in that country as
a practical geologist. But I had no scientific knowledge of geology.
A good friend of mine wanted to see me advanced in life, and so sent
word to me if I would come and deliver a lecture on geology before
the board of their college, he thought I would get a professorship.
It was an Old School Presbyterian college. I prepared myself without
regard to expense. I went down to Boston, and saw Prof. Hitchcock and
Prof. Agassiz, and I hunted through the books, and I made a lecture.
You ought to have heard it. [Laughter.] You would not be here now.
[Laughter.] It treated of all the cosmogonies; it went through primal
chaos, through the azoic, the silurian, the devonian, and the various
strata, until it introduced man on the scene. It took me two hours. It
was a cold night, and they all shivered, and looked as if they wished
I was in some warmer place. I did not get the professorship, and the
college died the next year. [Laughter.]
Write all you can, it tends to make you accurate and fixes your
knowledge, and then do with it as a good old Methodist presiding elder
told me once on a time. We had planted some melons and cucumbers, but
he did not seem to be pleased with them. He told the folks that we had
splendid cucumbers, and he knew how to fix them: slice them up thin,
put them in water, turn off the water, and put on pepper and salt,
and throw them out of the window. That is what you are to do with the
written lectures, read, write, and, as Emerson says, get drunk with
your subject. You will not hear anything more of the dryness of your
subject. It makes a subject dry because a man has not got enough of
it in him to see the great connecting principles in him, so that he
is aroused and sees the ultimate of it as well as the details, and
the ultimate of it is man. It is for man and made for man. This being
created here and being put in the midst of all of these things, is to
make him greater, grander, and bring him into relation with the truth,
and then by symmetrizing his being and aligning him with God in the
great work of God, that is to make of this globe a heaven.
Geology will help you to do that, as the Bishop said yesterday, it will
give you visions of the infinite possibilities of yourselves when you
once align yourselves with God and live up to the truth. God has put
into your hands the power to subordinate this globe, its storms, its
climates, and their condition; you want geology for that. You want to
begin to know these rocks at Chautauqua. I would like to put in your
collection first, all the stones in the vicinity of Chautauqua. Go
out into the quarry, with its masonry that God has built. Here you
find the stones all covered over with God’s hieroglyphics, here they
are, corals, shells, and things that were alive. If you knew a way
of petrifying these trees and plants, would you not think it was a
pleasing way and do it? Here it is done. Here you have a study, a whole
natural history, a whole natural creation that God made in order to
make man possible, and capable of producing grain and grass and flower
to make man live, all depending upon the fact that these rocks were
built up as you find them to-day.
You find the old rocks arranged in strata, layers. You have them there
by the depot. How was that? Go by the hillside. Let a portion of the
drops of rain get together and make a stream, and they will form a
gulley. What do you see? The soil has been washed out, and the material
of the soil has been spread out. A pond, perhaps, will be there, such
as you and I used to navigate, and then it dries up on the surface,
and cracks at right angles. Here it is. There was a little mud puddle,
and it cracked when it dried up. If you will take up a piece of it,
you will find that it is arranged in layers. Here, see that. Through
all that summer, and the previous summer, there was a succession of
storms, and each one brought its contribution to the whole. If it was a
big storm, it was thick, if a little storm, it was thin. Just like the
exogenous trees. You count the lines of growth, and know the age of the
tree. We have one layer spread over the other, all little volumes, but
when it has quit growing, as in libraries, you will have a thick book.
So, I say the layers write the storms of the past.
What else would we find there? If there were snails, leaves and
sticks, they would be carried down and buried in the mud. If we take
a section, and take out all that loose stuff, we have a section which
gives a history of the different seasons, and the animals and plants
that washed in there during the time that little mud puddle had been
in existence. That is the beginning, the starting point of all the
knowledge of the rocks; to begin right by us and see what is done now,
and observe that wearing action. If you will go from that little gulley
on the hillside to a larger valley, and still larger, to the great
valley of the Mississippi, you will find the same thing repeated.
Here is a specimen that I got right here where they are ballasting
the road. Here you could see a mass of sand and gravel. It goes on
wherever there is sand and gravel and there is lime and water; it is
compounded together. We have there fossils. Here, for instance, you
have various forms of plants and corals, and so on, and you have here
in the rocks right about you shells, coral, seaweed, preserved in the
same way. Thus you get your petrefactions. Thus you get the layers that
you call strata. All these layers of rock are simply sediment that was
once carried down and spread out in a body of water. Is not that simple
enough?
Here is that slab, all covered over with seaweed and shells, that was
one time a bottom of the ocean; there was a volume of clay, and you
see resting in there rolls of seaweed. Trailing over this all along
these shores on the spot where we now stand, there were seaweed, and
coral, and all the animal life. Here is a head of a large animal, a
cephalopod, and here is a tail, and the rest of the body is probably
under the railroad track. Here is a curved shell. This rock abounds in
the ocean. They were the pirates of the ocean. They were the ancient
devilfish. They had enormous arms. They were very fine in their time,
but, as some one says about the Pilgrim Fathers, we should be thankful
that they did not come down to us.
We have another class of rocks in our boulders and hard heads. Here are
some without any section. Here is a mass of modern lava. Here you see
this huge mass. All these landscapes show the different kinds of rocks
in their relations. This irregular mass is the unstratified rocks.
They have been melted and cooled from a state of melting. We know them
to be crystals. They consist of quartz, feldspar, and mica, which are
the alphabet of mineralogy. We have the crystals, which we know only
exist when there has been a state of melting. These unstratified rocks
are the material of all our quarries and great rocks.
There are two great classes: the stratified, in layers, which came from
sediment deposited in the ancient seas, and the unstratified, which
were once melted masses thrown out of the interior of the earth. The
granite, the unstratified rocks, form the backbone of the continent;
they are the underlying rocks. They occur as veins, coming up through
the stratified rocks, and overflowing the surface.
Now, in this section of the rocks which we have as they are stratified,
formed in layers one above the other, we come to the idea of time. I
was going along this morning, with a basket and one of these stones
in my hand, and a man’s attention was attracted, and he asked how
long since those animals were alive. I said a million of years. He
looked rather astonished, and expressed himself that I could not know.
The idea of such great amounts of time strikes any one like the vast
areas of space. At the first step in geology we have got to expand our
notions of time. The six thousand years will not do. Some people think
there is something in the Bible about six thousand years. There is no
such thing. It is a chronology that has grown up like Milton’s Paradise
Lost. Many people think that Milton’s Paradise Lost is a part of the
Bible. In Genesis we are told of days, which everybody understands to
mean periods of time, and of time since the beginning, when the earth
was without form and void. We have nothing definite said in the Bible,
or any other book, except the approximate indications which are found
in the great stone book of Nature.
Let us look at the idea of time, and see how we get at it. If we should
come again to the mud puddle dried up, we should get an approximate
idea of how long it took to form the deposit. Suppose we do not know
the history, we know about the number of storms that are usual, and the
amount of rainfall, and we have some guide in that succession of layers
that are there. In the ancient rocks we have exactly the same guide.
Somebody says in answer to all this, that in some places deposits take
place very rapidly, and we can not judge. For instance, a flood in the
Mississippi bears down a vast amount of matter. There is a delta of the
Mississippi that has been built out during the memory of man. Whenever
we find coarse material in a delta we say it was rapidly formed; if it
is fine material, we say it was formed slowly. To-day the Mississippi
is bearing down a vast mass of material, and the coarser materials drop
by the mouth, but the finer are carried out over the sea, perhaps along
the shore. This fine silt settles down amid the corals, the sea-weed
and the ships. If the ocean could be drained, we would find on the
decks of the ships that have been sunk a hundred years, as the divers
tell us, this deposition on the bottom of the sea. No one can doubt
about these deposits which have so many shells, that the deposit was
made very slowly, because it would have been impossible for the shells
to have lived if the material had been thrown down rapidly.
Therefore, when we come to take the rate of deposit, and the vast
thickness of these rocks into account, we have a basis for determining
approximately the periods of the time during which these rocks have
formed. Of course, it is only to those who become minutely intelligent
in regard to the details that this thought will have weight. If,
for instance, I should go along where a man was cutting a tree, and
count the annular rings, and I had never seen a tree cut down; if he
should say an hundred years ago that tree was an acorn, I should be
astonished, and it would have no weight with me, for I would not have
the knowledge necessary. It is necessary to become familiar with this
class of phenomena. Therefore in the beginning we want to study the
phenomena that are taking place on the seashore, at the mouth of the
rivers, and compare these with the phenomena that we find in the rock.
I recall a notable instance of this: That grand man, President
Hitchcock, long since gone to rest, one of the greatest and most
eminent scientists of his State, discovered tracks in the valley of
the Connecticut River. He had to classify some sixty different classes
of tracks, which are found in the valley of the Connecticut sandstone
ledges, which, when it was soft, was admirably calculated to receive
impressions. His attention was called to them, and he made them out to
be bird tracks. The European naturalists were very reluctant to believe
it. They did not believe that any such discovery could be made by any
American. They sent over a man to see the alleged bird tracks, and he
went all over the museum, and he went down to the quarry and saw all
the specimens, and went away and came back again. President Hitchcock
asked him about it, and he said that he did not think there were any
bird tracks there. After dinner he took him out to the porch. A few
days before he had found a flat stone, on which mud had been deposited,
and a snipe had walked over it; the mud dried, and he thought it was
an exact parallel with his bird tracks. So he put it on his porch. The
gentleman said, “What have you got here?” There they were, the tracks
of a bird, and a wader. He said nothing. He went away, and said they
were bird tracks. He wrote afterward that he had for the first time to
study how a wading bird walked on both sides of a median line. And so
when he studied the habits of a bird, he saw that these fossils were
bird tracks. I speak of this because it is a key.
I allude again to that sermon of Bishop Simpson’s, where Job asks these
questions, and the Lord tells him to find out that right next to him.
Why don’t you study that, and interpret it in that manner so sensible?
You find everywhere we are doing that. On that account people can not
get a knowledge of geology, because geology asks you to commence right
at the door. Stoop and pick up the pebble there; learn the soil, and
teach yourselves and your children what it was. This is a progressive
world where we have all got to begin. It seems wonderful that we have
not done that before. If you will try it, if you will get the first
weed by your door, and teach your children about it, and go out further
and study geology and all the other ologies in that way, life will be
lifted on the highest plane for all. [Applause.] Everybody that has
tried that has found an exceeding great reward.
I remember years ago a poem by James Russell Lowell, in which he
describes the prophet going up to the hoary mountain to go and learn
from God.
“Worn and footsore was the prophet,
When he gained the holy hill;
‘God has left the earth,’ he murmured,
‘Here his presence lingers still.’
‘God of all the olden prophets,
Wilt thou speak with men no more?
Have I not as truly served thee
As thy chosen ones of yore?
Hear me, Guider of my fathers,
Lo! a humble heart is mine;
By thy mercy I beseech thee,
Grant thy servant but a sign!’
Bowing then his head, he listened
For an answer to his prayer;
No loud burst of thunder followed,
Not a murmur stirred the air:
But the tuft of moss before him
Opened while he waited yet,
And, from out the rock’s hard bosom,
Sprang a tender violet.
‘God, I thank thee,’ said the prophet,
‘Hard of heart and blind was I,
Looking to the holy mountain
For the gift of prophecy.
Still thou speakest with thy children
Freely as in eld sublime;
Humbleness, and love, and patience,
Still give empire over time.
Had I trusted in thy nature,
And had faith in lowly things,
Thou thyself wouldst then have sought me,
And set free my spirit’s wings.
But I looked for signs and wonders,
That o’er men should give me sway;
Thirsting to be more than mortal,
I was even less than clay.
Ere I entered on my journey,
As I girt my loins to start,
Ran to me my little daughter,
The beloved of my heart;
In her hand she held a flower,
Like to this as like may be,
Which beside my very threshold,
She had plucked and brought to me.’“
[Applause.]
Now, I simply say, if there are those who wish to pursue the study of
geology, I will be very glad while I stay here to be of any assistance
I can to you. I know the difficulty of starting without some help.
The geology published here by Prof. Packard is an admirable little
treatise, but with the reading of that you need observation and the
knowledge to be gained by handling the specimens. If there are those
who would like to learn, I am at liberty after 5 o’clock in the morning
for a few days. I get up at 5 and keep very still. If you could keep
those bells still that keep me awake until about 11:30: I like babies,
but if you could put the babies in some babies’ retreat for a little
while——.
The geological charts are excellent for teaching in a circle or a
school. These are the charts that are published with Prof. Packard’s
Geology. With the book they will enable one to get a very good idea
of geology. If you will take up geology now, and start here, we will
start from the quarry. These specimens will decay; one-half of them
will go down into the lake very soon. I went out here and saw these
splendid books being wasted, so I made use of a few of them. These will
be a starting point in your museum, and then every C. L. S. C. on this
continent will send from his locality a box of specimens, two or three
of them, express paid, to your museum, and I will send my quota from
West Virginia. And I will come over here some time and help label them.
[Applause.]
[Pointing to the charts behind him.] Here is a section of rocks from
below, and here are the different phenomena of volcanic action. Here
is a picture of the ancient seas. There is one of these valleys. There
are vast species of chambered shells. We have now only one species
living, the chambered nautilus. The animal had the power of increasing
or diminishing his density by absorbing or casting out water. Here is
another representative of the animals that have been restored by the
laws of comparative anatomy. Cuvier, or Agassiz, by a bone, or scale,
even, could restore an animal. Here are some of your ancestors. Here
is a specimen of the plesiosaurus and the iguanodon. These are marine
animals. These are more modern. This is the period of bone caves. This
was a great clawed animal, that was for a long time supposed to be a
lion. Here is a representation of the ice period, of which you hear so
much, the period when the huge boulders were brought down. The entire
collection will be one of value.