of the resting of the ark on the mountain of Ararat, where Noah
himself, immediately after the deluge, erected an altar and offered
burnt offerings as testimonies of praise and gratitude. Thus, as every
sanctified high place was supposed to represent Mount Ararat, so the
sacred groves were symbols of Paradise; gloomy caves became the
representatives of the floating ark of Noah; and even islands acquired a
sacred character, because the top of Mount Ararat had once been
surrounded by the sea.”
_28th._--Caroline and I have had a delightful walk to-day with my uncle,
to a wild rocky valley, where the hill on one side appears as if a part
had been violently torn away, and shews several layers, or _strata_, of
different substances in the cliff. He pointed it out as a good example
of stratification; and made us observe that the strata, though parallel
to each other, were not parallel to the horizon, but more or less
inclined to it. The angle of inclination between these strata and the
horizon is called their _dip_.
“Now,” said my uncle, “if the strata _dip_ in one direction, they must
_rise_ in the opposite direction; and if they continue to rise, that is,
if their course is not interrupted or bent down, they must gradually
approach the surface, and in some place or other they must shew
themselves there. Look at that well marked stratum of reddish stone in
the opposite cliff; though it is partially covered here and there by
vegetation, yet you can easily trace it as it slopes upwards, till you
see it actually arrive at the upper edge of the cliff. It is the same
with all the strata, which lie either above or below it: you see they
rise successively towards the surface; and if there be numerous other
strata under the valley, and which therefore we cannot see, still they
also will reach the surface further off. The place where any stratum
makes its appearance on the surface is called its _out-crop_; and as
they range themselves there in regular succession, you must at once
perceive that in examining the surface, in a direction crossing the
strata, you would find as complete a section of them as you now see in
the face of the cliff, or as you could obtain by boring perpendicularly
through them.”
He said a great deal more on this subject, and helped us to follow with
our eyes several other strata to their out-crop. “This circumstance,” he
added, “is of immense importance to the geologist; for if the strata
were all horizontal, we should be ignorant of everything below the mere
external crust of the earth. Sometimes, indeed, a deep well, or the
workings of a mine, might reveal the nature of the interior for a few
hundreds of feet or yards; whereas by examining the out-crop of the
inclined strata, we can ascertain not only their succession, but their
composition, for many miles in thickness. Another important consequence
of this inclined distribution of the strata, is the variety of minerals
which it enables mankind to obtain. If they were all horizontal, one
country would be all marble, another all coal; but by this beautiful
irregularity of nature, everything that is useful approaches the surface
some where or other, and puts itself within reach of the industry of
man.”
“Are all the strata, then, sloped at this useful angle of which you
speak?”
“Oh no, Bertha,” my uncle replied; “they are inclined at every
conceivable angle, from perfect horizontality in some places, to a
vertical face in others.”
Caroline observed that even the strata at which we were looking did not
all appear to have the same dip, and wondered what could be the cause of
the difference. My uncle said she was quite right in the fact; the
strata at the eastern end of the valley had evidently a more sudden dip
than the rest. “But,” he continued, “it is to facts, my little
geologists, that we must at first confine ourselves: though causes and
theories are highly interesting, at present they would only bewilder
you. Those numerous strata, however, will afford some illustration of
what I told you a few days ago about _formations_. You see by the
frequent repetitions of the same substances in the cliff, that the same
strata are frequently repeated, and in the same order. When this order
is once known, the geologist is no longer perplexed by the number of
strata; each throws light upon the other, and the whole combination
receives the name of a _series_ or _formation_. By comparing several of
these series together, a resemblance in relation and position will be
observed between many of them, which will lead to a still greater
simplification of the different classes.”
My uncle then changed the conversation; we begged of him to go on with
his geology; but we could not persuade him; he said if we attempted to
remember too much, we should lose the whole. “Will you then give us a
little lecture on it every day?”
“I will with great pleasure occasionally converse on the subject with
both of you, my dear children,” said he; “and in our walks, or whenever
a proper opportunity occurs, I will endeavour to give you a few general
ideas of the structure of the globe. Hereafter we may perhaps enter more
minutely into the details of the science, and then it will be time
enough to talk of daily lectures.”
_March 1st._--My dear mamma has often laughed at me for my love of
little coincidences; and I have now a new one to tell her. I very lately
mentioned in my journal some remarks, made by Dr. Walker of Edinburgh,
on the seasons of the flowering of foreign plants; and this morning my
uncle happened to see in the newspaper the following extract from an
address to the Agricultural Society of St. Helena by General Walker, who
is the son of that ingenious doctor. My uncle desired me to read it, and
said that these speculations are very useful to inquiring minds; they
furnish hints, and they naturally lead to new experiments, which elicit
new facts.
“The functions of plants, as well as animals, depend on the air in which
they live. I have observed that those of St. Helena which have been
brought from another hemisphere, are very irregular in their annual
progress; many of them, in the developement of their foliage, have
adopted the law of nature peculiar to the country into which they have
been transplanted--others, more obstinate, remain faithful to their
former habits, and continue to follow the stated changes to which they
had been accustomed. They all appear to maintain a struggle either
before they adopt the habits which belong to the seasons of their new
country, or decide on retaining their relations with the old. In
yielding to external circumstances, they appear to have different
tempers.
“This is often observed in plants of the same species appearing to
hesitate before they adopt the mode of performing their functions. And
when their decision is made, we are at a loss to discover an adequate
cause. For instance, an oak raised from English seed, loses its leaves
in a St. Helena winter of 68°; yet it experiences nothing like the
difference of temperature, which, by analogy, might be supposed to cause
that change.
“It would add to the natural history of vegetation, and improve our
knowledge of the geography of plants, were the facts concerning their
habits and changes, under different temperatures, carefully collected.”
_2nd._--Miss Perceval, with whom I recollect you used to wish me to be
acquainted, has come to spend a few weeks here; and I shall now not only
have the pleasure of knowing a person you like, but of taking many a
botanising walk with her as the Spring advances. She seems very gentle,
and so unwilling to put herself forward, that my uncle is obliged to
reproach her for withholding the stores of knowledge which she
possesses; and he generally leads the conversation to such subjects as
will make her display them a little, in spite of her diffidence.
She disclaims all over-modesty, but says that such has been the progress
of knowledge within the last ten years, and so greatly has it become
diffused through all classes, and particularly amongst females, that she
feels that almost everybody knows as much as she does; besides, she
added, “I have lived so completely out of the world of late, that I
have really much more to learn than to teach.”
She speaks of you, dear mamma, as of an old and valued friend; and I
think she will be kind to me for your sake.
_4th._--Miss Perceval has been so much interested by a letter which my
aunt received yesterday from her friend in Upper Canada, that she
petitioned for some of her former letters; and my aunt has permitted me
also to see them, and to make some extracts for you, dear mamma.
During their progress in open boats up the St. Lawrence, Mrs. * * * soon
began to feel the hardships of a Canada life; she and her family
generally preferred sleeping on fresh hay, the beds at the inns were so
full of vermin. Sometimes they even slept on the ground, sheltered from
the night air only by an awning;--and more than once in their open boat
under a heavy dew. She speaks of the farmers with great gratitude;
whenever she stopped at their houses she was received with the kindest
hospitality, and her children plentifully supplied with milk and good
bread. Throughout her journal, which I wish you could read, and in all
her letters, there is the most amiable disposition to make the best of
everything, and to enjoy whatever little comfort she could find in her
situation, without looking back on her former very different life. In
October they settled at the town of Cobourg, near Lake Ontario, as a
temporary residence while a house was building for them on the land they
had obtained. She describes her house thus:--
“_Cobourg, Oct 30._
“There are three rooms on the ground floor, and four above, but
they are so small they are like little closets; we contrive,
however, to squeeze into them, and though we shall be here two
months, we can easily reconcile ourselves to these little
inconveniences.
“There is a nice grassy place in front of the house, it is paled
in, and the children can play in it with safety: that is one great
comfort. We found some boards in the barn, and Mr. * * *, whose old
tastes as an amateur mechanic are now very useful, has made
temporary shelves and tables of them. We have at present neither
table, chair, nor bedstead, the carriage of these articles was too
expensive for us; but we have screws and all things ready, to make
them when we are settled in our loghouse, for which I long as
ardently as if it was a palace.
“Our bed-rooms have no doors, but we hang up blankets, which answer
the purpose. Fortunately we have plenty of these, and the air is so
dry that we do not suffer from the cold, though the nights are
frosty, and not a fire-place in the house, except that in the
kitchen. The frost has given the woods a grey look, instead of the
beautiful orange autumnal tints they had before.
“Four years ago there were but two houses here; now it is a nice
thriving town, with a neat church, a large school-house, and some
very good shops, or _stores_, as they are called; and the houses
are in general very neat.
“We have been visited by several respectable families. There is a
gentleman here who was for twenty-five years engaged in the
North-west, or fur trade, and during that time he never once
returned to his family. He had left home at the age of thirteen,
and underwent all kinds of adventures and hardships.--One winter,
when their provisions fell short, he and his companions were
obliged to eat their leather aprons, and even the leather of their
shoes!”
“_Cobourg, Jan. 1st._--We have been detained here longer than we
intended; first by the illness of my eldest girl, and next, waiting
for snow to make the roads fit for travelling; at present they are
in such a state of roughness from the hard frost after the heavy
rains of last month, that the jolting of either cart or waggon
could not be borne. There are no covered carriages here. In winter,
_sleighs_ (sledges) are used, or waggons, which are neither very
nice nor easy. They are very roughly made, with two seats placed
across, one before the other, and have rather an odd appearance
for gentlemen’s _carriages_.
“This new year’s day, I hope you are all as well and happy as I am;
and I am sure it will give you pleasure to know, my beloved
friends, that we could indulge ourselves by going to church on
Christmas-day, and receiving the sacrament. Do not imagine that in
this banishment, as I fear you still consider it, these duties are
neglected; far from it; we have a church near us, and I thank God,
the inclination to make use of it.”
_5th, Sunday._--The subject of Balaam was continued this morning; and I
took an opportunity of asking the meaning of the word _parable_, as it
is used in Numbers xxiii. 7.
“It has more significations than one,” said my uncle, “in both the Old
and the New Testaments. It sometimes implies that sort of address to the
people, which, from its tone of authority as well as from its elevated
language, seems to have been the effect of inspiration. Thus Balaam is
said to have taken up his parable, when, contrary to his own wishes and
in a style approaching to poetry, he uttered his sublime prophecies. The
Psalmist also, after saying, ‘I will open my mouth in a parable,’ gives
a rapid, but magnificent sketch of the wonders that God performed for
the children of Israel. Secondly, we find it applied in the Greek
Septuagint (1 Kings, iv. 32.) to those short sententious sayings of
Solomon, which in the English version are called proverbs. And in
Ecclesiasticus, our translators have rendered the same Hebrew word in
some places by “parables,” and in others by “wise sentences.” Thirdly,
in the Gospel it is used in the sense of an apologue or fable; a mode of
conveying instruction, or of explaining certain doctrines, which our
Lord thought proper to adopt; and which had been frequently employed by
the Prophets in the Old Testament.
“It was in the first of these three senses,” continued my uncle, “that
Balaam appears to have taken up his parable. Having stated why he had
come to Moab, and having confessed that he could not curse those whom
God had not cursed, he immediately prophesies the increase and power of
Israel. ‘Lo, this people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned
among the nations.’ Had he not been inspired, how could he, on a distant
view of a people he had never seen before, have discovered the
peculiarities which distinguished the Israelites and their posterity to
the latest ages? Their religion and government were then unknown; yet he
foretold their entire separation from all other nations; and the present
state of the Jews, and all history, confirm the truth of his
prediction.”
I asked my uncle why Balak desired the prophet to go with him to
_another_ place to curse them?
My uncle said, “that it was the opinion of the heathens, that if one
victim failed, or if the Deity was unpropitious at one place, he should
be importuned by a repetition of the sacrifice elsewhere. Balaam,
therefore, to gratify the king, repeated the same experiment a second
and a third time; but still with the same disappointment.”
Caroline made some remark on these words, “He hath as it were the
strength of the Unicorn;” and my uncle said, “it is not known with
certainty to what animal the strength of Israel is here compared; some
have supposed the unicorn to be a kind of single-horned antelope, others
think that it is the rhinoceros; but if any of you will remind me of the
subject some other day, we will endeavour to see which is the best
founded opinion. Balaam afterwards compares the power of Israel to that
of the lion; and both seem to allude to the victories by which the
Israelites should gain possession of the land of Canaan. It is
remarkable, that the inspired language of Balaam very much resembles
that which Jacob had used in his predictions respecting Judah. Such is
the harmony and connexion between the prophecies of Scripture.”
_6th._--We were resolved not to defer the subject of the unicorn; and
this morning we began by searching for as much light on the subject as
our books could give us, that we might be the better qualified to
discuss it with my uncle.
I found in Perceval’s Cape of Good Hope, that notwithstanding all the
assertions he had heard of the existence of this animal in Southern
Africa, he never met any person who had seen one. A horn, nearly three
feet long, was indeed shewn him, as being that of the unicorn, but it
evidently belonged to a large species of antelope. My uncle afterwards
told us, that there is an antelope of this kind in the mountains of
India, which the natives used to pretend had only a single horn; but
since the conquest of Nepaul, those mountains have been visited by
English officers, who have seen the animal alive with both its horns.
Frederick produced Mr. Barrow’s description of a drawing he had seen at
the Cape, representing a single horn projecting from the forehead of an
animal, which he says, resembles a horse, with an elegantly shaped body,
marked, from the shoulders to the flanks, with longitudinal stripes or
bands.
Mary had collected a great many facts about the rhinoceros; and she made
it appear pretty clearly, that the allusion in Scripture to the strength
and untameableness of the unicorn, are much more applicable to the
rhinoceros than to any species of antelope, all of which are remarkably
deficient in strength, and naturally timid. She found in some book, that
the derivation of the Scripture name _Reem_, both in the Hebrew and the
Ethiopic, implies erectness; and though the rhinoceros is by no means a
very erect animal, yet his horn certainly is so, as it stands
perpendicular to the face; and in that respect, it differs from the
horns of all other animals. “The upright direction of the horn,” Mary
said, “as well as the power and fierceness of the rhinoceros, would
equally justify the metaphor in the Psalms, ‘my horn shalt thou exalt
like the horn of a unicorn.’”
Caroline then brought forward her authorities to prove, that in
Abyssinia the name of the rhinoceros signifies the beast with _the
horn_, implying that it has but one; whereas, in Nubia, the name
expresses _horn upon horn_. But as the Septuagint translates the word
_reem_ into _monoceros_ or unicorn, we may suppose that if the
rhinoceros had always two horns, the writers of the Septuagint, who
probably must have seen the animal at Alexandria, at the exhibition
given by Ptolemy Philadelphus, would not have called it monoceros.
We proceeded with our gleanings to my uncle, who seemed pleased with our
industry. He observed, that notwithstanding the translation in the
Septuagint, it was not quite certain that the reem or unicorn of the
Hebrew Scriptures was always mentioned there as having but one horn; and
he pointed out a passage in Deuteronomy, where horns in the plural are
distinctly expressed. “But,” said my uncle, “it is classed with the
behemoth and leviathan, which are supposed to be the elephant and
crocodile, and the savage rhinoceros seems to be a more suitable
companion to those huge and terrific creatures than the delicate
antelope. Every body knows that there are two species of that animal,
the R. unicornis, and the R. bicornis; and that the latter is only found
in certain parts of Africa. The former, or one-horned species, is common
not only in Abyssinia but all over Asia, and in Arabia is called by the
name of _reem_, to the present day. Why then should we doubt that this
untamed and destructive animal, which, in every respect, answers to the
description in Scripture, should be the unicorn mentioned there; and
having a horn, or horns, according to the different countries where the
allusion was made?”
My uncle then shewed us Sparrman’s account of the two-horned rhinoceros,
which he killed and dissected at the Cape. The longest horn, which is
close to the nose, measured about eighteen inches in length, and seven
in diameter. The uppermost horn was much smaller, and much worn, and the
Hottentots told the Doctor, that these animals had the power of turning
the long horn aside out of the way, while they employed the other in
rooting up the plants on which they feed. But my uncle does not believe
that there is any truth in this assertion.
_7th._--I have just had a little geological lecture, and hasten to write
the substance while it is fresh in my memory.
In examining the materials of which our great mineral masses are
composed, we are immediately struck by the difference of the _older
formations_, which proceeded from causes that have long ceased to
operate, and those _newer_ formations, the causes of which are still at
work under our own observation.
Compared with the former, these recent formations are of very limited
extent; they consist of the sand and stones that are accumulated on the
sea coast by tides and currents; of the land washed away from one bank
of a river, and thrown up on the opposite bank by the winding stream; of
the earth and gravel, and fragments of rock, carried down by all rivers,
and forming deposits at their mouths; and of the constant increase of
marsh land, in consequence of the growth of aquatic plants. All these
appear to have proceeded uninterruptedly from the period when our
continents assumed their present form, and may be all designated by the
general term _alluvial_. There are vast alluvial formations at the
mouths of the Ganges, the Nile, the Mississippi, the Amazons, and other
great rivers; and an evident change has been effected by these means in
many sea-coast countries, of which there are innumerable instances.
The overflowing of the Rhine, the Arno, and the Po, formerly dispersed
the soil they carried down over the neighbouring land; but ever since it
has been confined within dykes, their deposits have not only elevated
the beds of these rivers, but are also rapidly pushing forward their
mouths into the sea. The low alluvial plains through which they run were
themselves produced by ancient deposits; and the progress of this
continually increasing formation may be easily estimated from various
historic records. From Strabo we learn that Ravenna was situated, in the
time of Augustus, at the head of a bay connected with the Adriatic, and
that it had then a good harbour; yet it is now three miles from the
coast. By comparing the old maps with the present state of the Duchy of
Ferrara, which is flooded annually by the Po, it appears that the coast
has gained from the sea 14,000 yards in breadth since the year 1604,
giving an average of sixty yards for its advance per annum. And the town
of Adria, which in ancient times was a sea-port, is now sixteen miles
inland!
The same causes have produced similar effects along the branches of the
Rhine and Maëse; and for many leagues from their mouths the country
exhibits the singular spectacle of having its largest rivers held up by
dykes at the height of twenty or thirty feet above the level of the
land. The alluvial depositions on the north coasts of Friesland and
Groningen, and the increase of land which they have effected, are very
considerable: the first dykes were formed in 1570; and in only one
hundred years afterwards, the deposits had accumulated to the extent of
nearly three miles on the outside of the dykes. A large part of the
United Provinces has thus been actually formed by materials washed down
from the interior of Germany; and many populous cities now stand where
the sea once rolled its waves.
_8th._--Of the various buds which are beginning to open, none advance so
rapidly as those of the peach blossoms. On the 14th of February I first
observed a little streak of red at the tops of a few; they are now quite
opened, and looked very pretty last week, when the ground was slightly
covered with snow.