 CHAPTER III HOOK 1688 The posthumous works of Robert Hooke, M.D., well known as a great mathematician and natural philosopher, appeared in 1705, containing a discourse of earthquakes which, we are informed by his editor, was written in 1668, but revised at subsequent periods. Hooke frequently refers to the best Italian and English authors who wrote before his time on geological subjects, but there are no passages in his works implying that he participated in large views of Steno and Lister or of his contemporary woodward in regard to the geological extent of certain groups of strata. His treatise, however, is the most philosophical production of that age in regard to the causes of former changes in the organic and inorganic kingdoms of nature. However trivial a thing he says a rotten shell may appear to some, yet these monuments of nature are more certain tokens of antiquity than coins or metals since the best of those may be counterfeited or made by art and design, as may also books, manuscripts, and inscriptions as all the learned are now sufficiently satisfied, has often been actually practiced, etc. And though it must be granted that it is very difficult to read them, the records of nature, and to raise a chronology out of them, and to state the intervals of the time wherein such or such catastrophes and mutations have happened, yet it is not impossible. Respecting the extinction of species, Hooke was aware that the fossil ammonites, Nautilie, and many other shells and fossil skeletons found in England, were of different species from any then known, but he doubted whether the species had become extinct, observing that the knowledge of naturalists of all the marine species, especially those inhabiting the deep sea, was very deficient. In some parts of his writing, however, he leans to the opinion that species had been lost, and in speculating on this subject, he even suggests that there might be some connection between the disappearance of certain kinds of animals and plants, and the changes wrought by earthquakes in former ages. Some species, he observes, with great suggestivity, are peculiar to certain places, and not to be found elsewhere. If then such a place had been swallowed up, it is not improbable, but that those animate beings may have been destroyed with it. And this may be true both of aerial and aquatic animals. For those animated bodies, whether vegetables or animals, which were naturally nourished or refreshed by the air, would be destroyed by the water, etc. Turtles, he adds, and such large ammonites, as are found in Portland, seem to have been the productions of hotter countries, and it is necessary to suppose that England once lay under the sea within the torrid zone. To explain this in similar phenomena, he indulges in a variety of speculations concerning changes in the position of the axis of the Earth's rotation. A shifting of the Earth's center of gravity analogous to the revolutions of the magnetic pole, etc. None of these conjectures, however, are proposed dogmatically, but rather in the hope of promoting fresh inquiries and experiments. In opposition to the prejudices of his age, we find him arguing against the idea that nature had formed fossil bodies for no other end than to play the mimic in the mineral kingdom. Maintaining that figured stones were really the several bodies they represent, or the moldings of them petrified, and not, as some have imagined, a leucis natura, sporting herself in the needless formation of useless beings. It was objected to Hook that his doctrine of the extinction of species derogated from the wisdom and power of the omnipotent creator, but he answered that, as individuals die, there may be some termination to the duration of a species, and his opinions, he declared, were not repugnant to holy writ, for the scriptures taught that our system was degenerating and tending to its final dissolution, and as, when that shall happen, all the species will be lost, why not some at one time and some at another? And his principal object was to account for the manner in which shells had been conveyed into the higher parts of the Alps, Apennines, and Pyrenean hills, and the interior of continents in general. These and other appearances, he said, might have been brought about by earthquakes which have turned planes into mountains, and mountains into plains, seas into land, and land into seas, made rivers where there were none before, and swallowed up others that formerly were, et cetera, et cetera, and which, since the creation of the world, have wrought many great changes on the superficial parts of the earth, and have been the instruments of placing shells, bones, plants, fishes, and the like in those places where, with much astonishment, we find them. This doctrine, it is true, had been laid down in terms almost equally explicit by Strabo to explain the occurrence of fossil shells in the interior of continents, and to that geographer and other writers of antiquity Hook frequently refers, but the revival and development of the system was an important step in the progress of modern science. Hook enumerated all the examples known to him of subterranean disturbance from the sad catastrophe of Sodom and Gomorrah down to the Chilean earthquake of 1646, the elevating of the bottom of the sea, the sinking and submersion of the land, and most of the inequalities of the earth's surface might, he said, be accounted for by the agency of these subterranean causes. He mentions that the coast near Naples was raised during the eruption of Montenovo, and that in 1591 land rose in the island of St. Michael during an eruption. And although it would be more difficult, he says, to prove, he does not doubt but that there had been as many earthquakes in the parts of the earth under the ocean as in the parts of the dry land, in confirmation of which he mentions the immeasurable depth of the sea near some volcanoes. To attest the extent of simultaneous subterranean movements, he refers to an earthquake in the West Indies in the year 1690 where the space of earth raised or struck upwards by the shock exceeded, he affirms, the length of the Alps and Pyrenees. Hook's deluvial theory. As Hook declared the favorite hypothesis of the day, that marine fossil bodies were to be referred to Noah's flood to be wholly untenable, he appears to have felt himself called upon to substitute a deluvial theory of his own, and thus he became involved in countless difficulties and contradictions. During the great catastrophe, he said, there might have been a changing of that part, which was before dry land into sea by sinking, and of that which was sea into dry land by raising, and marine bodies might have been buried in sediment beneath the ocean in the interval between the creation and the deluge. Then follows a disquisition on the separation of the land from the waters mentioned in Genesis, during which operation some places of the shell of the earth were forced outwards and others pressed downwards or inwards, etc. His deluvial hypothesis very much resembled that of Steno and was entirely opposed to the fundamental principles professed by him, that he would explain the former changes of the earth in a more natural manner than others had done, when in despite of this declaration he required a former crisis of nature and taught that earthquakes had become debilitated and that the Alps, Andes, and other chains had been lifted up in a few months, he was compelled to assume so rapid a rate of change that his machinery appeared scarcely less extravagant than that of his most fanciful predecessors. For this reason perhaps his whole theory of earthquakes was met with undeserved neglect. Ray, 1692, one of his contemporaries, the celebrated naturalist Ray, participated in the same desire to explain geological phenomena by reference to causes less hypothetical than those usually resorted to. In his essay on chaos and creation he proposed a system agreeing in its outline and in many of its details with that of Hook, but his knowledge of natural history enabled him to elucidate the subject with various original observations. Earthquakes, he suggested, might have been the second causes employed at the creation in separating the land from the waters and in gathering the waters together into one place. He mentions, like Hook, the earthquake of 1646 which had violently shaken the Andes for some hundreds of leagues and made many alterations therein. In assigning a cause for the general deluge he preferred a change in the Earth's center of gravity to the introduction of earthquakes. Some unknown cause, he said, might have forced the subterranean waters outwards, as was perhaps indicated, by breaking up of the fountains of the great deep. Ray was one of the first of our writers who enlarged upon the effects of running water upon the land and of the encroachment of the sea upon the shores. So important did he consider the agency of these causes that he saw in them an indication of the tendency of our system to its final dissolution. And he wondered why the Earth did not proceed more rapidly towards a general submersion beneath the sea when so much matter was carried down by rivers or undermined in the sea cliffs. We perceived clearly from his writings that the gradual decline of our system and its future consummation by fire was held to be as necessary an article of faith by the orthodox as was the recent origin of our planet. His discourses, like those of Hook, are highly interesting as attesting the familiar association in the minds of philosophers in the age of Newton of questions in physics and divinity. Ray gave an unequivocal proof of the sincerity of his mind by sacrificing his performant in the church rather than taking oath against the covenanters which he could not reconcile with his conscience. His reputation, however, in the scientific world placed him high above the temptation of courting popularity by pandering to the physical theological taste of his age. It is therefore curious to meet with so many citations from the Christian fathers and prophets in his essays on physical science to find him in one page proceeding by the strict rules of induction to explain the former changes of the globe and in the next gravely entertaining the question whether the sun and stars and the whole heavens shall be annihilated together with the earth at the era of the grand conflagration. Woodward, 1695. Among the contemporaries of Hook and Ray Woodward, a professor of medicine, had acquired the most extensive information respecting the geological structure of the crust of the earth. He had examined many parts of the British strata with minute attention and his systematic collection of specimens bequeathed to the University of Cambridge and still preserved there as arranged by him shows how far he had advanced in ascertaining the order of superposition. From the great number of facts collected by him we might have expected his theoretical views to be more sound and enlarged than those of his contemporaries but in his anxiety to accommodate all observed phenomena to the scriptural account of the creation and deluge he arrived at most erroneous results. He conceived the whole terrestrial globe to have been taken to pieces and dissolved at the flood and the strata to have settled down from this promiscuous mass as any earthly sediment from a fluid. In corroboration of these views he insisted upon the fact that marine bodies are lodged in the strata according to the order of their gravity the heavier shells and stone the lighter and chalk and so of the rest. Ray immediately exposed the unfounded nature of this assertion remarking truly that fossil bodies are often mingled heavy with light in the same stratum and he even went so far as to say that Woodward must have invented the phenomena for the sake of confirming his bold and strange hypothesis. A strong expression from the pen of a contemporary, Burnett 1690. At the same time Burnett published his theory of the earth the title is most characteristic of the age the sacred theory of the earth containing an account of the original of the earth and of all the general changes which it have already undergone or is to undergo till the consummation of all things. Even Milton had scarcely ventured in his poem to indulge his imagination so freely in painting scenes of the creation and deluge paradise and chaos. He explained why the primeval earth enjoyed a perpetual spring before the flood showed how the crust of the globe was fissured by the sun's rays so that it burst and thus the deluvial waters were let loose from a supposed central abyss. Not satisfied with these themes he derived from the books of the inspired writers and even from heathen authorities prophetic views of the future revolutions of the globe gave a most terrific description of the general conflagration and proved that a new heaven and a new earth will rise out of a second chaos after which will follow the blessed millennium. The reader should be informed that according to the opinion of many respectable writers of that age there was good scriptural ground for presuming that the garden bestowed upon our first parents was not on the earth itself but above the clouds in the middle region between our planet and the moon. Burnett approaches with becoming gravity the discussion of so important a topic he was willing to concede that the geographical position of paradise was not in Mesopotamia yet he maintained that it was upon the earth and in the southern hemisphere near the equinoctial line butler selected this concede as a fair mark for his satire when amongst the numerous accomplishments of Hutabras he says he knew the seat of paradise could tell in what degree it lies and as he was disposed could prove it below the moon or else above it. Yet the same monarch who is said never to have slept without butler's poem under his pillow was so great an admirer and patron of Burnett's book that he ordered it to be translated from the Latin into English the style of this sacred theory was eloquent and the book displayed powers of invention of no ordinary stamp it was in fact a fine historical romance as Buffon afterwards declared but it was treated as a work of profound science in the time of its author and was panagerized by Addison in a Latin ode while Steele praised it in the spectator. Whiston 1696 another production of the same school and equally characteristic of the time was that of Whiston entitled a new theory of the earth wherein the creation of the world in six days the universal deluge and the general conflagration as laid down in the holy scriptures are shown to be perfectly agreeable to reason and philosophy. He was at first a follower of Burnett but his faith in the infallibility of that writer was shaken by the declared opinion of Newton that there was every presumption in astronomy against any former change in the inclination of the earth's axis this was a leading dogma in Burnett's system though not original for it was borrowed from an Italian Alessandro Degli Alessandro who had suggested it in the beginning of the 15th century to account for the former occupation of the present continents by the sea Laplace has since strengthened the arguments of Newton against the probability of any former revolution of this kind. The remarkable comment of 1680 was fresh in the memory of everyone when Whiston first began his cosmological studies and the principal novelty of his speculations consisted in attributing the deluge to the near approach to the earth of one of these erratic bodies having ascribed an increase of the waters to this source he adopted Woodward's theory supposing all stratified deposits to have resulted from the chaotic sediment of the flood. Whiston was one of the first who ventured to propose that the text of Genesis should be interpreted differently from its ordinary acceptation so that the doctrine of the earth having existed long previous to the creation of man might no longer be regarded as unorthodox he had the art to throw an air of plausibility over the most improbable parts of his theory and seemed to be proceeding in the most sober manner and by the aid of mathematical demonstration to the establishment of his various propositions. Locke pronounced a panageric on his theory commending him for having explained so many wonderful and before inexplicable things. His book as well as Burnett's was attacked and refuted by Keel. Like all who introduced purely hypothetical causes to account for natural phenomena Whiston retarded the progress of truth diverting men from the investigation of the laws of subliminary nature and inducing them to waste time in speculations on the power of comets to drag the waters of the ocean over the land on the condensation of the vapors of their tails into water and other matters equally edifying Hutchinson 1724. John Hutchinson who had been employed by Woodward in making his collection of fossils published afterwards in 1724 the first part of his Moses's Principia wherein he ridiculed Woodward's hypothesis. He and his numerous followers were accustomed to to claim loudly against human learning and they maintained that the Hebrew scriptures when rightly translated comprised a perfect system of natural philosophy for which reason they objected to the Newtonian theory of gravitation. Celsius. Andrea Celsius the Swedish astronomer published about this time his remarks on the gradual diminution and sinking of the waters in the Baltic to which I have occasion to advert more particularly in the sequel chapter 29. Schuster 1708. In Germany in the meantime Schuster published his complaint and vindication of the fishes 1708. Piscium Quarelle at vindicay a work of zoological merit in which he gave some good plates and descriptions of fossil fish among other conclusions he labored to prove that the earth had been remodeled at the deluge. Plouche also in 1732 wrote to the same effect while Holbach in 1753 after considering the various attempts to refer all the ancient formations to the flood of Noah expose the inadequacy of this cause. Italian geologist Valisneri. I return with pleasure to the geologists of Italy who preceded as has already been shown the naturalists of other countries in their investigations into the ancient history of the earth and who still maintained a decided preeminence. They refuted and ridiculed the physical theological systems of Burnett Winston and Woodward while Valisneri in his comments on the Woodwardian theory remarked how much the interests of religion as well as those of sound philosophy had suffered by perpetually mixing up the sacred writings with questions in physical science. The works of this author were rich in original observations. He attempted the first general sketch of the marine deposits of Italy their geographical extent and most characteristic organic remains. In his treatise on the origin of springs he explained their dependence on the order and often on the dislocations of the strata and reasoned philosophically against the opinions of those who regarded the disordered state of the earth's crust as exhibiting signs of the wrath of God for the sins of man. He found himself under the necessity of contending in his preliminary chapter against Saint Jerome and for other principal interpreters of scripture besides several professors of divinity that springs did not flow by subterranean siphons and cavities from the sea upwards losing their saltiness in the passage for this theory had been made to rest on the infallible testimony of holy writ. Although reluctant to generalize on the rich materials accumulated in his travels phallus nary had been so much struck with the remarkable continuity of the more recent marine strata from one end of Italy to the other that he came to the conclusion that the ocean formerly extended over the whole earth and after abiding there for a long time had gradually subsided. This opinion however untenable was a great step beyond Woodward's deluvial hypothesis against which Vallus nary and after him all the Tuscan geologists uniformly contended while it was warmly supported by the members of the Institute of Bologna. Among others of that day Spada a priest of Grisana in 1737 wrote to prove that the petrified marine bodies near Verona were not deluvian. Mattani drew a similar inference from the shells of Volterra and other places while Constantini on the other hand whose observations on the valley of the Brenta and other districts were not without value undertook to vindicate the truth of the deluge as also to prove that Italy had been peopled by the descendants of Jaffet. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Dion Giants, Salt Lake City, Utah. Principles of Geology by Charles Lyle. Chapter 3. Part 4. Morro 1740. Lazarro Morro in his work published in 1740 on the marine bodies which are found in the mountains attempted to apply the theory of earthquakes as expounded by Strabo, Pliny and other ancient authors with whom he was familiar to the geological phenomena described by Valisneri. His attention was awakened to the elevating power of subterranean forces by a remarkable phenomenon which happened in his own time and which had also been noticed by Valisneri in his letters. A new island rose in 1707 from deep waters in the Gulf of Santorin in the Mediterranean during continued shocks of an earthquake and increasing rapidly in size grew in less than a month to be half a mile in circumference and about 25 feet above high water mark. It was soon afterwards covered by volcanic ejections but when first examined it was found to be a white rock bearing on its surface living oysters and crustacea. In order to ridicule the various theories then in vogue Morro ingeniously supposes the arrival on this new island of a party of naturalists ignorant of its recent origin. One immediately points to the marine shells as proofs of the universal deluge. Another argues that they demonstrate the former residents of the sea upon the mountains. The third dismisses them as mere sports of nature while a fourth affirms that they were born and nourished within the rock in ancient caverns into which saltwater had been raised in the shape of vapor by the action of subterranean heat. Morro pointed with great judgment to the faults and dislocations of the strata described by Valisneri in the Alps and other chains in confirmation of his doctrine that the continents had been heaved up by subterranean movements. He objected on solid grounds to the hypothesis of Burnett and of Woodward yet he ventured so far to disregard the protest of Valisneri as to undertake the adaptation of every part of his own system to the mosaic account of the creation. On the third day he said the globe was everywhere covered to the same depth by freshwater and when it pleased the supreme being that the dry land should appear volcanic explosions broke up the smooth and regular surface of the earth composed of primary rocks. These rose in mountain masses above the waves and allowed melted metals and salts to ascend through fissures. The sea gradually acquired its saltiness from volcanic exhalations and while it became more circumscribed in area increased in depth sand and ashes ejected by volcanoes were regularly disposed along the bottom of the ocean and formed the secondary strata which in their turn were lifted up by earthquakes. We need not follow this author in tracing the progress of the creation of vegetables and animals on the other days of creation but upon the whole it may be remarked that few of the old cosmological theories had been conceived with so little violation of known analogies, Generelli's illustrations of Moro 1749. The style of Moro was extremely Prolex and like Hutton who at a later period advanced many of the same views he stood in need of an illustrator. The Scotch geologist was hardly more fortunate in the advocacy of play fare than was Moro in numbering amongst his admirers Cirillo Generelli who nine years afterwards delivered at a sitting of academicians at Cremona a spirited exposition of his theory. This learned Carmelitan friar does not pretend to have been an original observer but he had studied sufficiently to enable him to confirm the opinions of Moro by arguments from other writers and his selection of the doctrines then best established is so judicious that a brief abstract of them cannot fail to be acceptable as illustrating the state of geology in Europe and in Italy in particular before the middle of the last century. The bowels of the earth says he have carefully preserved the memorials of past events and this truth the marine productions so frequent in the hills attest. From the reflections of Lazaro Moro we may assure ourselves that these are the effects of earthquakes in past times which have changed vast spaces of sea into terra firma and inhabited lands into seas. In this more than in any other department of physics are observations and experiments indispensable and we must diligently consider facts. The land is known wherever we make excavations to be composed of different strata or soils placed one above the other some of sand some of rock some of chalk others of marl, coal, pumice, gypsum, lime and the rest these ingredients are sometimes pure and sometimes confusedly intermixed within are often imprisoned different marine fishes like dried mummies and more frequently shells crustacea corals plants etc not only in Italy but in France Germany England Africa Asia and America sometimes in the lowest sometimes in the loftiest beds of the earth some upon the mountains some in deep mines others near the sea and others hundreds of miles distant from it woodward conjectured that these marine bodies might be found everywhere but there are rocks in which none of them occur as is sufficiently attested by phallus nary and marsillie the remains of fossil animals consist chiefly of their more solid parts and the most rocky strata must have been soft when such exuvia were enclosed in them vegetable productions are found in different states of maturity indicating that they were embedded in different seasons elephants elks and other terrestrial quadrupeds have been found in England and elsewhere in superficial strata never covered by the sea alternations are rare yet not without example of marine strata with those which contain marshy and terrestrial productions marine animals are arranged in the subterraneous beds with admirable order indistinct groups oysters here dentalia or corals there etc as now according to marsillie on the shores of the Adriatic we must abandon the doctrine once so popular which denies that organized fossils were derived from living beings and we cannot account for their present position by the ancient theory of Strabo nor by that of libnits nor by the universal deluge as explained by woodward and others nor is it reasonable to call the deity capriciously upon the stage and to make him work miracles for the sake of confirming our preconceived hypothesis i hold in utter abomination most learned academicians those systems which are built with their foundations in the air and cannot be propped up without a miracle and i undertake with the assistance of morrow to explain to you how these marine animals were transported into the mountains by natural causes a brief abstract then follows of morrow's theory by which says generally we may explain all the phenomena as valesnary so ardently desired without violence without fictions without hypothesis without miracles the carmelitan then proceeds to struggle against an obvious objection to morrow's system considered as a method of explaining the revolutions of the earth naturally if earthquakes have been the agents of such mighty changes how does it happen that their effects since the times of history have been so inconsiderable this same difficulty had as we have seen presented itself to hook half a century before and forced him to resort to a former crisis of nature but generally defended his position by showing how numerous were the accounts of eruptions and earthquakes of new islands and of elevations and subsidences of land and yet how much greater a number of like events must have been unattested and unrecorded during the last six thousand years he also appealed to valesnary as an authority to prove that the mineral masses containing shells bore upon the whole but a small proportion to those rocks which were destitute of organic remains and the latter says the learned monk might have been created as they now exist in the beginning generally then describes the continual waste of mountains and continents by the action of rivers and torrents and concludes with these eloquent and original observations is it possible that this waste should have continued for six thousand and perhaps a greater number of years and that the mountains should remain so great unless their ruins have been repaired is it credible that the author of nature should have founded the world upon such laws as that the dry land should forever be growing smaller and at last become wholly submerged beneath the waters is it credible that amid so many created things the mountains alone should daily diminish in number and bulk without there being any repair of their losses this would be contrary to that order of providence which is seen to reign in all other things in the universe wherefore I deem it just to conclude that the same cause which in the beginning of time raised mountains from the abyss has down to the present day continued to produce others in order to restore from time to time the losses of all such as sink down in different places or are rent asunder or in other ways suffer disintegration if this be admitted we can easily understand why there should now be found upon many mountains so great a number of crustacea and other marine animals in the above extract I have not merely enumerated the opinions and facts which are confirmed by recent observation suppressing all that has since proved to be erroneous but have given a faithful abridgment of the entire treatise with the omission only of morrow's hypothesis which generally adopted with all its faults and excellences the reader will therefore remark that although this admirable essay embraces so large a portion of the principal objects of geological research it makes no allusion to the extinction of certain classes of animals and it is evident that no opinions on this head had at that time gained a firm footing in Italy that Lister and other English naturalists should long before have declared in favor of the loss of species while Silla and most of his countrymen hesitated was perhaps natural since the Italian museums were filled with fossil shells belonging to species of which a great portion did actually exist in the Mediterranean whereas the English collectors could obtain no recent species from such of their own strata as were then explored the weakest point in morrow's system consisted in deriving all the stratified rocks from volcanic ejections and absurdity which his opponents took care to expose especially Vito Amici morrow seems to have been misled by his anxious desire to represent the formation of secondary rocks as having occupied an extremely short period while at the same time he wished to employ known agents in nature to imagine torrents rivers currents partial floods and all the operations of moving water to have gone on exerting an energy many thousand times greater than at present would have appeared preposterous and incredible and would have required a hundred violent hypotheses but we are so unacquainted with the true sources of subterranean disturbances that their former violence may in theory be multiplied indefinitely without its being possible to prove the same manifest contradiction or absurdity in the conjecture for this reason perhaps morrow preferred to derive the materials of the strata from volcanic ejections rather than from transportation by running water marcelli marcelli whose work is alluded to by generale had been prompted to institute inquiries into the bed of the Adriatic by discovering in the territory of parma what Spada had observed near Verona and Shiavo in Sicily that fossil shells were not scattered through the rocks at random but disposed in regular order according to certain genera and species Vitaliano Donati 1750 but with a view of throwing further light upon these questions Donati in 1750 undertook a more extensive investigation of the Adriatic and discovered by numerous soundings that deposits of sand moral and tufaceous incrustations most strictly analogous to those of the sub-aponine hills were in the act of accumulating there he ascertained that there were no shells in some of these submarine tracks while in other places they live together in families particularly the genera arca pectin venus merex and some others he also states that in diverse localities he found a mass composed of corals shells and crustaceous bodies of different species confusedly blended with earth sand and gravel at the depth of a foot or more the organic substances were entirely petrified and reduced to marble at less than a foot from the surface they approached nearer to their natural state while at the surface they were alive or if dead in a good state of preservation baldasari a contemporary naturalist baldasari had shown that the organic remains in the tertiary marls of the sienese territory were grouped in families in a manner precisely similar to that above alluded to by donati buffon 1749 buffon first made known his theoretical views concerning the former changes of the earth in his natural history published in 1749 he adopted the theory of an original volcanic nucleus together with the universal ocean of libnits by this aqueous envelope the highest mountains were once covered marine currents then acted violently and formed horizontal strata by washing away solid matter in some parts and depositing it in others they also excavated deep submarine valleys the length of the ocean was then depressed by the entrance of a part of its waters into subterranean caverns and thus some land was left dry buffon seems not to have profited like libnits and morrow by the observations of steno or he could not have imagined that the strata were generally horizontal and that those which contain organic remains had never been disturbed since the era of their formation he was conscious of the great power annually exerted by rivers and marine currents in transporting earthy materials to lower levels and he even contemplated the period when they would destroy all the present continents although in geology he was not an original observer his genius enabled him to render his hypothesis attractive and by the eloquence of his style and the boldness of his speculations he awakened curiosity and provoked a spirit of inquiry amongst his countrymen soon after the publication of his natural history in which was included his theory of the earth he received an official letter dated january 1751 from the sarban or faculty of theology in paris informing him that 14 propositions in his works were reprehensible and contrary to the creed of the church the first of these obnoxious passages and the only one related to geology was as follows the waters of the sea have produced the mountains and valleys of the land the waters of the heavens reducing all to a level will at last deliver the whole land over to the sea and the sea successively prevailing over the land will leave dry new continents like those which we inhabit buffon was invited by the college in very courteous terms to send in an explanation or rather a recantation of his unorthodox opinions to this he submitted and a general assembly of the faculty having approved of his declaration he was required to publish it in his next work the document begins with these words i declare that i had no intention to contradict the text of scripture that i believe most firmly all therein related about the creation both as to order of time and matter of fact and i abandon everything in my book respecting the foundation of the earth and generally all which may be contrary to the narration of moses the grand principle which buffon was called upon to renounce was simply this that the present mountains and valleys of the earth are due to secondary causes and that the same causes will in time destroy all the continents hills and valleys and reproduce others like them now whatever may be the defects of many of his views it is no longer controversial that the present continents are of secondary origin the doctrine is as firmly established as the earth's rotation on its axis and that the land now elevated above the level of the sea will not endure forever is an opinion which gains ground daily in proportion as we enlarge our experience of the changes now in progress Targioni 1751 Targioni in his voluminous travels in Tuscany 1751 and 1754 labored to fill up the sketch of the geology of that region left by Steno 60 years before notwithstanding a want of arrangement and condensation in his memoirs they contain a rich store of faithful observations he has not indulged in many general views but in regard to the origin of valleys he was opposed to the theory of Buffon who attributed them principally to submarine currents the Tuscan naturalist labored to show that both the larger and smaller valleys of the Apennines were excavated by rivers and floods caused by the bursting of the barriers of lakes after the retreat of the ocean he also maintained that the elephants and other quadrupeds so frequent in the lacustrine and alluvial deposits of Italy had inhabited that peninsula and had not been transported thither as some had conceived by Hannibal or the Romans nor by what they were pleased to term a catastrophe of nature Lehman 1756 in the year 1756 the treatise of Lehman a German mineralogist and director of the Prussian mines appeared who also divided mountains into three classes the first those formed with the world and prior to the creation of animals and which contained no fragments of other rocks the second class those which resulted from the partial destruction of the primary rocks by a general revolution and a third class resulting from local revolutions and in part from the deluge of Noah a French translation of this work appeared in 1759 in the preface of which the translator displays very enlightened views respecting the operations of earthquakes as well as of the aqueous causes end of chapter three part four chapter three part five of principles of geology this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Dion Jines Salt Lake City Utah principles of geology by Charles Lyle chapter three section five Gessner 1758 in this year Gessner the botanist of Zurich published an excellent treatise on petrifactions and the changes of the earth which they testify after a detailed enumeration of the various classes of fossils of the animal and vegetable kingdoms and remarks on the different states in which they are found petrified he considers the geological phenomena connected with them observing that some like those of an engine resembled the tastacea fish and plants indigenous in the neighboring region while some such as ammonites graphites bellamnites and other shells are either of unknown species or found only in the indian and other distances in order to elucidate the structure of the earth he gives sections from veranias buffon and others obtained in digging wells distinguishes between horizontal and inclined strata and in speculating on the causes of these appearances mentions Donati's examination of the bed of the Adriatic the filling up of lakes and seas by sediment the embedding of shells now in progress and many known effects of earthquakes such as the sinking down of districts or the heaving up of the bed of the sea so as to form new islands and lay dry strata containing petrifactions the ocean he says deserts its shores in many countries as on the borders of the Baltic but the rate of recession has been so slow in the last 2000 years that to allow the apanines whose summits are filled with marine shells to emerge to their present height would have required about 80 000 years a lapse of time 10 times greater or more than the age of the universe we must therefore refer the phenomenon to the command of the deity related by moses that the waters should be gathered together in one place and the dry land appear gessner adopted the views of libnates to account for the retreat of the primeval ocean his essay displays much erudition and the opinions of preceding writers of italy germany and england are commented upon with fairness and discrimination arduino 1759 in the year following arduino in his memoirs on the mountains of padua facenza and verona deduced from original observations the distinction of rocks into primary secondary and tertiary and showed that in those districts there had been a succession of submarine volcanic eruptions michel 1760 in the following year 1760 the reverend john michel woodwardian professor of mineralogy at cambridge published in the philosophical transactions an essay on the cause and phenomena of earthquakes his attention had been drawn to this subject by the great earthquake of lisbon in 1755 he advanced many original and philosophical views respecting the propagation of subterranean movements and the caverns and fissures wherein steam might be generated in order to point out the application of his theory to the structure of the globe he was led to describe the arrangement and disturbance of the strata their usual horizontality in low countries and their contortions and fractured state in the neighborhood of mountain chains he also explained with surprising accuracy the relations of the central ridges of older rocks to the long narrow slips of similar earth stones and minerals which are parallel to these ridges in his generalizations derived in great part from his own observations on the geological structure of yorkshire he anticipated many of the views more fully developed by later naturalists catcott 1761 michel's papers were entirely free from all physical theological disquisitions but some of his contemporaries were still earnestly engaged in defending or impugning the woodwardian hypothesis we find many of these writings referred to by catcott a hutch and sonian who published a treatise on the deluge in 1761 he labored particularly to refute an explanation offered by his contemporary bishop clayton of the mosaic writings that prelate had declared that the deluge could not be literally true save in respect to that part where noah lived before the flood catcott insisted on the universality of the deluge and referred to traditions of inundations mentioned by ancient writers or by travelers in the east indies china south america and other countries this part of his book is valuable although it is not easy to see what bearing the traditions have if admitted to be authentic on the bishop's argument since no evidence is adduced to prove that the catastrophes were contemporaneous events while some of them are expressly represented by ancient authors to have occurred in succession fortice odewarty 1761 the doctrines of arduino above adverted to were afterwards confirmed by fortice and desmartis in their travels in the same country and they as well as baldasari labored to complete the history of the sub apenine strata in the work of odewarty there was also a clear argument in favor of the distinct ages of the older apenine strata and the sub apenine formations of more recent origin he pointed out that the strata of these two groups were unconformable and must have been the deposits of different seas at distant periods of time raspe 1763 a history of the new islands by raspe a hanoverian appeared in 1763 in latin in this work all the authentic accounts of earthquakes which had produced permanent changes on the solid parts of the earth were collected together and examined with judicious criticism the best systems which had been proposed concerning the ancient history of the globe both by ancient and modern writers are reviewed and the merits and defects of the doctrines of hook ray morrow buffon and others fairly estimated great admiration is expressed for the hypothesis of hook and his explanation of the origin of the strata is shown to have been more correct than morrow's while their theory of the effects of earthquakes was the same raspe had not seen michelle's memoirs and his views concerning the geological structure of the earth were perhaps less enlarged yet he was able to add many additional arguments in favor of hook's theory and to render it as he said a nearer approach to what hook would have written had he lived in later times as to the periods wherein all the earthquakes happened to which we owe the elevation of various parts of our continents and islands raspe says he pretends not to assign their duration still less to defend hook's suggestion that the convulsions almost all took place during the deluge of noah he adverts to the apparent indications of the former tropical heat of the climate of europe and the changes in the species of animals and plants as among the most obscure and difficult problems in geology in regard to the islands raised from the sea within the times of history or tradition he declares that some of them were composed of strata containing organic remains and that they were not as buffon had asserted made from mere volcanic matter his work concludes with an eloquent exhortation to naturalists to examine the aisles which rose in 1707 in the grecian archipelago and in 1720 in the azores and not to neglect such splendid opportunities of studying nature in the act of parturition that hook's writings should have been neglected for more than half a century was matter of astonishment to raspe but it is still more wonderful that his own luminous exposition of that theory should for more than another half century have excited so little interest fuchsall 1762 and 1773 fuchsall a german physician published in 1762 a geological description of the country between the thuringerwald and the hearts and a memoir on the environs of rudelstadt and afterwards in 1773 a theoretical work on the ancient history of the earth and of man he had evidently advanced considerably beyond his predecessor layman and was aware of the distinctness both as to position and fossil contents of several groups of strata of different ages corresponding to the secondary formations now recognized by geologists in various parts of germany he supposed the european continents to have remained covered by the sea until the formation of the marine strata called in germany muschelkalk at the same time that the terrestrial plants of many european deposits attested the existence of dry land which bordered the ancient sea land which therefore must have occupied the place of the present ocean the pre-existing continent had been gradually swallowed up by the sea different parts having subsided in succession into subterranean caverns all the sedimentary strata were originally horizontal and their present state of derangement must be referred to subsequent oscillations of the ground as there were plants and animals in the ancient periods so also there must have been men but they did not all descend from one pair but were created at various points on the earth's surface and the number of these distinct birthplaces was as great as are the original languages of nations in the writings of fucel we see a strong desire manifested to explain geological phenomena as far as possible by reference to the agency of known causes and although some of his speculations were fanciful his views coincide much more nearly with those now generally adopted than the theories afterwards promulgated by warner and his followers brander 1766 gustavus brander published in 1766 his facilia hentenian sea containing excellent figures of fossil shells from the more modern or eocene marine strata of hamsher various opinions he says in the preface had been entertained concerning the time when and how these bodies became deposited some there are who conceive that it might have been affected in a wonderful length of time by a gradual changing and shifting of the sea etc but the most common cause assigned is that of the deluge this conjecture he says even if the universality of the flood be not called in question is purely hypothetical in his opinion fossil animals and testesia were for the most part of unknown species and of such as were known the living analogs now belonged to southern latitudes soldani 1780 soldani applied successfully his knowledge of zoology to illustrate the history of stratified masses he explained that microscopic testesia and zoophytes inhabited the depths of the Mediterranean and that the fossil species were in like manner found in those deposits wherein the fineness of their particles and the absence of pebbles implied that they were accumulated in a deep sea or far from shore this author first remarked the alternation of marine and freshwater strata in the Paris basin fortus testa 1793 a lively controversy arose between fortus and another Italian naturalist testa concerning the fish of monti bolca in 1793 their letters written with great spirit and elegance show that they were aware that a large proportion of the sub apennine shells were identical with living species and some of them with species now living in the torrid zone fortus proposed a somewhat fanciful conjecture that when the volcanoes of the vicentan were burning the waters of the Adriatic had a higher temperature and in this manner he said the shells of warmer regions may once have people their own seas but testa was disposed to think that these species of testesia were still common to their own and to equinoctial seas for many he said once supposed to be confined to hotter regions had been afterwards discovered in the Mediterranean Cortesi, Balanzani, Valerius, Whitehurst while these Italian naturalists together with Cortesi and Spalanzani were busily engaged in pointing out the analogy between the deposits of modern and ancient seas and the habits and arrangement of their organic inhabitants and while some progress was making in the same country in investigating the ancient and modern volcanic rocks some of the most original observers among the English and German writers Whitehurst and Valerius were wasting their strength in contending according to the old Woodwardian hypothesis that all the strata were formed by Noah's deluge but Whitehurst's description of the rocks of Derbyshire were most faithful and he atoned for false theoretical views by providing data for their refutation Pallas, Sausure, towards the close of the 18th century the idea of distinguishing the mineral masses on our globe into separate groups and studying their relations began to be generally diffused Pallas and Sausure were among the most celebrated whose labors contributed to this end after an attentive examination of the two great mountain chains of Siberia Pallas announced the result that the granitic rocks were in the middle the schistos at their sides and the limestones again on the outside of these and this he conceived would prove a general law in the formation of all chains composed chiefly of primary rocks in his travels in Russia in 1793 and 1794 he made many geological observations on the recent strata near the Volga and the Caspian and adduced proofs of the greater extent of the latter sea at no distant era in the earth's history his memoir on the fossil bones of Siberia attracted attention to some of the most remarkable phenomena in geology he stated that he had found a rhinoceros entire in the frozen soil with its skin and flesh an elephant found afterwards in a mass of ice on the shore of the North Sea removed all doubt as to the accuracy of so wonderful a discovery the subjects relating to natural history which engaged the attention of Pallas were too multifarious to admit of his devoting a large share of his labors exclusively to geology Sausure on the other hand employed the chief portion of his time in studying the structure of the Alps and Jura and he provided valuable data for those who followed him he did not pretend to deduce any general system from his numerous and interesting observations and the few theoretical opinions which escaped from him seem like those of Pallas to have been chiefly derived from the cosmological speculations of preceding writers end of chapter three part five chapter four part one of principles of geology this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Jennifer Painter Principles of Geology by Charles Lyle chapter four part one history of the progress of geology Verna's application of geology to the art of mining excursive character of his lectures enthusiasm of his pupils his authority his theoretical errors Demarests map and description of Au Verne controversy between the volcanists and neptunists in temperance of the rival sects Hutton's theory of the earth his discovery of granite veins originality of his views why opposed playfares illustrations influence of Voltaire's writings on geology imputations cast on the Huttonians by Williams Kerwin and Deluc Smith's map of England geological society of London progress of the science in France growing importance of the study of organic remains Verna the art of mining has long been taught in France Germany and Hungary in scientific institutions established for that purpose where mineralogy has always been a principal branch of instruction Verna was named in 1775 professor of that science in the School of Mines at Freyberg in Saxony he directed his attention not merely to the composition and external characters of minerals but also to what he termed geognasy or the natural position of minerals in particular rocks together with the grouping of those rocks their geographical distribution and various relations the phenomena observed in the structure of the globe had hitherto served for little else than to furnish interesting topics for philosophical discussion but when Verna pointed out their application to the practical purposes of mining they were instantly regarded by a large class of men as an essential part of their professional education and from that time the science was cultivated in Europe most ardently and systematically. Verna's mind was at once imaginative and richly stored with miscellaneous knowledge he associated everything with his favorite science and in his excursive lectures he pointed out all the economical uses of minerals and their application to medicine the influence of the mineral composition of rocks upon the soil and of the soil upon the resources wealth and civilization of man the vast sandy plains of Tartary and Africa he would say retained their inhabitants in the shape of wandering shepherds the granitic mountains and the low calcareous and alluvial plains gave rise to different manners degrees of wealth and intelligence the history even of languages and the migration of tribes had been determined by the direction of particular strata the qualities of certain stones used in building would lead him to descant on the architecture of different ages and nations and the physical geography of a country frequently invited him to treat of military tactics the charm of his manners and his eloquence kindled enthusiasm in the minds of his pupils and many who had intended at first only to acquire a slight knowledge of mineralogy when they had once heard him devoted themselves to it as the business of their lives in a few years a small school of minds before unheard of in Europe was raised to the rank of a great university and men already distinguished in science studied the German language and came from the most distant countries to hear the great oracle of geology Werner had a great antipathy to the mechanical labor of writing and with the exception of a valuable treatise on metalliferous veins he could never be persuaded to pen more than a few brief memoirs and those containing no development of his general views although the natural modesty of his disposition was excessive approaching even to timidity he indulged in the most bold and sweeping generalizations and he inspired all his scholars with the most implicit faith in his doctrines their admiration of his genius and the feelings of gratitude and friendship which they all felt for him were not undeserved but the supreme authority usurped by him over the opinions of his contemporaries was eventually prejudicial to the progress of the science so much so as greatly to counterbalance the advantages which it derived from his exertions if it be true that delivery be the first second and third requisite in a popular orator it is no less certain that to travel is of first second and third importance to those who desire to originate just and comprehensive views concerning the structure of our globe now Werner had not traveled to distant countries he had merely explored a small portion of Germany and conceived and persuaded others to believe that the whole surface of our planet and all the mountain chains in the world were made after the model of his own province it became a ruling object of ambition in the minds of his pupils to confirm the generalizations of their great master and to discover in the most distant parts of the globe his universal formations which he supposed had been each in succession simultaneously precipitated over the whole earth from a common menstruum or chaotic fluid it now appears that the Saxon professor had misinterpreted many of the most important appearances even in the immediate neighborhood of Freyberg thus for example within a day's journey of his school the porphyry called by him primitive has been found not only to send forth veins or dikes through strata of the coal formation but to overlie them in mass the granite of the heart's mountains on the other hand which he supposed to be the nucleus of the chain is now well known to traverse the other beds as near Goslar and still near a Freyberg in the Erzgeberge the micro slate does not mantle round the granite as was supposed but a butt subruptly against it fragments also of the gray bucka slate containing organic remains have recently been found entangled in the granite of the hearts by monsieur de secondorff the principal merit of Verna's system of instruction consisted in steadily directing the attention of his scholars to the constant relations of superposition of certain mineral groups but he had been anticipated as has been shown in the last chapter in the discovery of this general law by several geologists in Italy and elsewhere and his leading divisions of the secondary strata were at the same time and independently made the basis of an arrangement of the British strata by our countryman William Smith to whose work I shall refer in the sequel controversy between the volcanists and neptunists in regard to basalt and other igneous rocks Verna's theory was original but it was also extremely erroneous the basalts of Saxony and Hesse to which his observations were cheaply confined consisted of tabular masses capping the hills and not connected with the levels of existing valleys like many in Auverne and the Viva These basalts and all other rocks of the same family in other countries were according to him chemical precipitates from water he denied that they were the products of submarine volcanoes and even taught that in the primeval ages of the world there were no volcanoes his theory was opposed in a two-fold sense to the doctrine of the permanent agency of the same causes in nature for not only did he introduce without scruple many imaginary causes supposed to have once affected great revolutions in the earth and then to have become extinct but new ones also were feigned to have come into play in modern times and above all that most violent instrument of change the agency of subterranean heat so earlier 1768 before Verna had commenced his mineralogical studies Draspa had truly characterized the basalts of Hesse as of igneous origin Arduino we have seen had pointed out numerous varieties of trapped rock in the Vicentin as analogous to volcanic products and as distinctly referable to ancient submarine eruptions De Mares as before stated had in company with Fortis examined the Vicentin in 1766 and confirmed Arduino's views in 1772 banks Solander and Troil compared the columnar basalt of Heckler with that of the Hebrides Colini in 1774 recognized the true nature of the igneous rocks on the Rhine between Andernach and Bonn in 1775 Guitare visited the Viveret and established the relation of basaltic currents to Lavres Lastly in 1779 Pius published his description of the volcanoes of the Viveret and Vellet and showed how the streams of basalt had poured out from craters which still remain in a perfect state De Mares when sound opinions had thus for 20 years prevailed in Europe concerning the true nature of the ancient trapped rocks Verna by his simple dictum caused a retrograde movement and not only overturned the true theory but substituted for it one of the most unphilosophical that can well be imagined the continued ascendancy of his dogmas on this subject was the more astonishing because a variety of new and striking facts were daily accumulated in favor of the correct opinions previously entertained De Mares after a careful examination of Auvern pointed out first the most recent volcanoes which had their craters still in tire and their streams of lava conforming to the level of the present river courses he then showed that there were others of an intermediate epoch whose craters were nearly afaced and whose lavres were less intimately connected with the present valleys and lastly that there were volcanic rocks still more ancient without any discernible craters or scoriae and bearing the closest analogy to rocks in other parts of Europe the igneous origin of which was denied by the school of Freiburg De Mares map of Auvern was a work of uncommon merit he first made a trigonometrical survey of the district and delineated its physical geography with minute accuracy and admirable graphic power he contrived at the same time to express without the aid of colors many geological details including the different ages and sometimes even the structure of the volcanic rocks and distinguishing them from the freshwater and the granitic they alone who have carefully studied Auvern and traced the different lava streams from their craters to their termination the various isolated basaltic cappings the relation of some lavres to the present valleys the absence of such relations in others can appreciate the extraordinary fidelity of this elaborate work no other district of equal dimensions in Europe exhibits perhaps so beautiful and varied a series of phenomena unfortunately De Mares possessed at once the mathematical knowledge required for the construction of a map skill in mineralogy and a power of original generalization Dolomur Montlossier Dolomur another of Verna's contemporaries had found prismatic basalt among the ancient lavas of Etna and in 1784 had observed the alternations of submarine lavas and calcareous strata in the Valdinotto in Sicily in 1790 also he described similar phenomena in the Vincentin and in the Tyrol Montlossier published in 1788 an essay on the theories of volcanoes of Auvern combining accurate local observations with comprehensive views notwithstanding this massive evidence the scholars of Verna were prepared to support his opinions to their utmost extent maintaining in the fullness of their faith that even obsidian was an aqueous precipitate as they were blinded by their veneration for the great teacher they were impatient of opposition and soon imbibed the spirit of a faction and their opponents the volcanists were not long in becoming contaminated with the same intemperate zeal ridicule and irony were weapons more frequently employed than argument by the rival sects till at last the controversy was carried on with a degree of bitterness almost unprecedented in questions of physical science Demeres who had long before provided ample materials for refuting such a theory kept aloof from the strife and whenever a zealous nectonist wished to draw the old man into an argument he was satisfied with the replying go and see Hutton 1788 it would be contrary to all analogy in matters of graver import that a war should rage with such fury on the continent and that the inhabitants of our island should not mingle in the affray although in england the personal influence of banner was wanting to stimulate men to the defense of the weaker side of the question they contrived to find good reason for espousing the bernierian errors with great enthusiasm in order to explain the peculiar motives which led many to enter even with party feeling into this contest it will be necessary to present the reader with a sketch of the views unfolded by Hutton a contemporary of the Saxon geologist the former naturalist had been educated as a position but declining the practice of medicine he resolved when young to remain content with the small independence inherited from his father and thenceforth to give his undivided attention to scientific pursuits he resided at Edinburgh where he enjoyed the society of many men of high attainments who loved him for the simplicity of his manners and the sincerity of his character his application was unwearied and he made frequent tours through different parts of england and Scotland acquiring considerable skill as a mineralogist and consequently arriving at grand and comprehensive views in geology he communicated the results of his observations unreservedly and with the fearless spirit of one who was conscious that love of truth was the sole stimulus of his exertions when at length he had matured his views he published in 1788 his theory of the earth and the same afterwards more fully developed in a separate work in 1795 this treatise was the first in which geology was declared to be in no way concerned about questions as to the origin of things the first in which an attempt was made to dispense entirely with all hypothetical causes and to explain the former changes of the earth's crust by reference exclusively to natural agents Hutton labored to give fixed principles to geology as Newton had succeeded in doing to astronomy but in the former science two little progress had been made towards furnishing the necessary data to enable any philosopher how ever great is genius to realize so noble a project Hatonian theory the ruins of an older world said Hutton are visible in the present structure of our planet and the strata which now compose our continents have been once beneath the sea and were formed out of the waste of pre-existing continents the same forces are still destroying by chemical decomposition or mechanical violence even the hardest rocks and transporting the materials to the sea where they are spread out and form strata analogous to those of more ancient date although loosely deposited along the bottom of the ocean they become afterwards altered and consolidated by volcanic heat and then heaved up fractured and contorted although Hutton had never explored any region of active volcanoes he had convinced himself that basalt and many other track rocks were of igneous origin and that many of them have been injected in a melted state through fissures in the older strata the compactness of these rocks and their different aspect from that of ordinary lava he attributed to their having cooled down under the pressure of the sea and in order to remove the objections started against this theory his friend Sir James Hall instituted a most curious and instructive series of chemical experiments illustrating the crystalline arrangement and texture assumed by melted matter cooled under high pressure the absence of stratification in granite and its analogy in mineral character to rocks which he deemed of igneous origin led Hutton to conclude that granite also must have been formed from matter in fusion and this inference he felt could not be fully confirmed unless he discovered at the contact of granite another strata a repetition of the phenomena exhibited so constantly by the track rocks resolved to try his theory by this test he went to the grampians and surveyed the line of junction of the granite and super incumbent stratified masses until he found in glen tilt in 1785 the most clear and unequivocal proofs in support of his views veins of red granite are there seen branching out from the principal mass and traversing the black miacaceous schist and primary limestone the intersected stratified rocks are so distinct in color and appearance as to render the example in that locality most striking and the alteration of the limestone in contact was very analogous to that produced by trap veins on calcareous strata this verification of his system filled him with delight and called forth such marks of joy and exaltation that the guides who accompanied him says his biographer were convinced that he must have discovered a vein of silver or gold he was aware that the same theory would not explain the origin of the primary schists but these he called primary rejecting the term primitive and was disposed to consider them a sedimentary rocks altered by heat and that they originated in some other form from the waste of previously existing rocks by this important discovery of granite veins to which he had been led by fair induction from an independent class of facts Huffman prepared the way for the greatest innovation of the systems of his predecessors fallus neary had pointed out the general fact that there were certain fundamental rocks which contained no organic remains and which he supposed to have been formed before the creation of living beings moro generale and other italian writers embraced the same doctrine and layman regarded the mountains called by him primitive as parts of the original nucleus of the globe the same tenet was an article of faith in the school of Freiburg and if anyone ventured to doubt the possibility of R being enabled to carry back our researches to the creation of the present order of things the granitic rocks were triumphantly appealed to on them seemed written in legible characters the memorable inscription and no small sensation was excited when Hutton seemed with unhallowed hand desirous to erase characters already regarded by many as sacred in the economy of the world said the scotch geologist i can find no traces of a beginning no prospect of an end a declaration the more startling when coupled with the doctrine that all past ages on the globe had been brought about by the slow agency of existing causes the imagination was first fatigued and overpowered by endeavoring to conceive the immensity of time required for the annihilation of whole continents by so insensible a process and when the thoughts had wandered through these interminable periods no resting place was assigned in the remotest distance the oldest rocks were represented to be of a derivative nature the last of an antecedent series and that perhaps one of many pre-existing worlds such views of the immensity of past time like those unfolded by the Newtonian philosophy in regard to space were too vast to awaken ideas of sublimity unmixed with a painful sense of our own incapacity to conceive a plan of such infinite extent worlds are seen beyond worlds immeasurably distant from each other and beyond them all innumerable other systems are faintly traced on the confines of the visible universe the characteristic feature of the Huttonian theory was as before hinted the exclusion of all causes not supposed to belong to the present order of nature but Hutton had made no step beyond hook morrow and rusk in pointing out in what manner the laws now governing subterranean movements might bring about geological changes if sufficient time be allowed on the contrary he seems to have fallen far short of some of their views especially when he refused to attribute any part of the external configuration of the earth's crust to subsidence he imagined that the continents were first gradually destroyed by aqueous degradation and when their ruins had furnished materials for new continents they were upheaved by violent convulsions he therefore acquired alternate periods of general disturbance and repose and such he believed had been and would forever be the course of nature generally in his exposition of morrow's system had made a far nearer approximation towards reconciling geological appearances with the state of nature as known to us for while he agreed with Hutton that the decay and reproduction of rocks were always in progress proceeding with the utmost uniformity the learned caramelite represented the repairs of mountains by elevation from below to be affected by an equally constant and synchronous operation neither of these theories considered singly satisfies all the conditions of the great problem which a geologist who rejects cosmological causes is called upon to solve but they probably contain together the germs of a perfect system there can be no doubt that periods of disturbance and repose have followed each other in succession in every region of the globe but it may be equally true that the energy of the subterranean movements have been always uniform as regards the whole earth the force of earthquakes may for a cycle of years have been invariably confined as it is now to large but determinant spaces and may then have gradually shifted its position so that another region which had for ages been at rest became in its turn the grand theater of action play fairs illustrations of Hutton the explanation proposed by Hutton and by play fair the illustrator of his theory respecting the origin of valleys and of alluvial accumulations was also very imperfect they ascribed none of the inequalities of the earth's surface to movements which accompanied the upheaving of the land imagining that valleys in general were formed in the course of ages by the rivers now flowing in them while they seem not to have reflected on the excavating and transporting power which the waves of the ocean might exert on land during its emergence although Hutton's knowledge of mineralogy and chemistry was considerable he possessed but little information concerning organic remains they merely served him as they did Werner to characterize certain strata and to prove their marine origin the theory of former revolutions in organic life was not yet fully recognized and without this class of proofs in support of the antiquity of the globe the indefinite periods demanded by the Huttonian hypothesis appeared visionary to many and some who deemed the doctrine inconsistent with revealed truths indulged very uncharitable suspicions of the motives of its author they accused him of a deliberate design of reviving the heathen dogma of an eternal succession and of denying that this world ever had a beginning playfair in the biography of his friend has the following comment on this part of their theory in the planetary motions where geometry has carried the eye so far both into the future and the past we discover no mark either of the commencement or termination of the present order it is unreasonable indeed to suppose that such marks should anywhere exist the author of nature has not given laws to the universe which like the institutions of men carry in themselves the elements of their own destruction he has not permitted in his works any symptom of infancy or of old age or any sign by which we may estimate either their future or their past duration he may put an end as he no doubt gave a beginning to the present system at some determinate period of time but we may rest assured that this great catastrophe will not be brought about by the laws now existing and that it is not indicated by anything which we perceive the party feeling excited against the Hatonian doctrines and the open disregard of candor and temper in the controversy will hardly be credited by the reader unless he recalls to his recollection that the mind of the English public was at that time in a state of feverish excitement a class of writers in France had been laboring industriously for many years to diminish the influence of the clergy by sapping the foundations of the Christian faith and their success and the consequences of the revolution had alarmed the most resolute minds while the imagination of the more timid was continually haunted by dread of innovation as by the phantom of some fearful dream end of chapter 4 part 1