Louis Figuier

“ In Derbyshire the formation constitutes rugged, lofty, and fantastically-shaped mountains, whose summits mingle with the clouds, while its picturesque character appears here, as well as farther north, in the dales or valleys, where rich meadows, through which the mountain streams force their way, seem to be closed abruptly by masses of rock, rising above them like the grey ruins of some ancient tower; while the mountain bases are pierced with caverns, and their sides covered with mosses and ferns, for the growth of which the limestone is particularly favourable. ”

“ After the terrible tempests of the primitive period—after these great disturbances of the mineral kingdom—Nature would seem to have gathered herself together, in sublime silence, in order to proceed to the grand mystery of the creation of living beings.
During the primitive epoch the temperature of the earth was too high to admit the appearance of life on its surface. The darkness of thickest night shrouded this cradle of the world; the atmosphere probably was so charged with vapours of various kinds, that the sun’s rays were powerless to pierce its opacity. ”

“ Can the actual state of the earth be considered as definitive? The revolutions which have fashioned its surface, and produced the Alps in Europe, Mount Ararat in Asia, the Cordilleras in the New World—are they to be the last? In a word, will the terrestrial sphere for ever preserve the form under which we know it—as it has been, so to speak, impressed on our memories by the maps of the geographers? ”

“ Alphonse Esquiros thus eloquently closes the chapter of his work in which he treats of this formation in England: “We have seen seas, vast watery deserts, become populated; we have seen the birth of the first land and its increase; ages succeeding each other, and Nature in its progress advancing among ruins; the ancient inhabitants of the sea, or at least their spoils, have been raised to the summit of lofty mountains. In the midst of these vast cemeteries of the primitive world we have met with the remains of millions of beings; entire species sacrificed to the development of life. ”

“ We love to quote the sentiments of a great writer—but how much more eloquent would the words of the naturalist have been, if he had added to his own grand eloquence of language, the knowledge which science has placed within reach of the writers of the present time—- if he could have painted man in the early days of his creation, in presence of the immense animal population which then occupied the earth, and fighting with the wild beasts which filled the forests of the ancient world! ”

“ It is now that we can imagine that the formation of the primary strata commenced, while by some of the internal forces of matter the earth was elevated and stood above the waters.
Immediately the dry land is raised above and separated from the waters the fiat goes forth, “Let the earth bring forth grass, and herb and tree;” vegetable life begins to exist, and the world is first decorated with its beauteous flora, with all its exquisite variety of forms and brilliancy of colouring, with which not even Solomon in all his glory can compare. ”

“ The mind can scarcely realise the immense and verdant plains of this earlier world, animated by the presence of an infinity of such [418] inhabitants. In its burning temperature, Pachyderms of monstrous forms, but of peaceful habits, traversed the tall vegetation, composed of grasses of all sorts. Deer of gigantic size, their heads ornamented with enormous horns, escorted the heavy herds of the Mammoth; while the Horse, small in size and compact of form, galloped and frisked round these magnificent horizons of verdure which no human eye had yet contemplated. ”

“ Afterwards comes the articulated fore-foot of the terrestrial mammalia, which, after attaining remarkable perfection in the hand of the ape, becomes, finally, the arm and hand of man, an instrument of wonderful delicacy and power, belonging to an enlightened being gifted with the divine attribute of reason! Let us, then, dismiss any idea of monstrosity with regard to these antediluvian animals; let us learn, on the contrary, to recognise, with admiration, the divine proofs of design which they display, and in their organisation to see only the handiwork of the Creator. ”

“ One is no doubt struck with surprise on learning, for the first time, that all the limestone rocks, all the calcareous stones employed in the construction of our dwellings, our cities, our castles and cathedrals, were deposited in the seas of an earlier world, and are only composed of an aggregation of shells of Mollusca, or fragments of the testaceous coverings of Foraminifera and other Zoophytes—nay, that they were secreted from the water itself, and then assimilated by these minute creatures, and that this would appear to have been the great object of their creation in such myriads. ”

“ In England the Lias constitutes a well-defined belt about thirty miles broad, extending from Dorsetshire, in the south, to Yorkshire, in the north, formed of alternate beds of clay, shales, and limestone (with layers of jet) , on the coast near Whitby. It is rich, as we have seen, in ancient life, and that in the strongest forms imaginable. From the unequal hardness of the rocks it comprises, it stands out boldly in some of the minor ranges of hills, adding greatly to the picturesque beauty of the scenery in the centre of the country. In Scotland the formation occupies a very limited space. ”

“ Hopkins continues, “a few millions of centuries, with a command over the agencies of Nature to be brought into operation when and how they please, and they think they can form a world with every variety of rock and vegetation, and even transform a worm into a man! Yet the wisest of our philosophers would be puzzled if called upon to explain why fluids become spheres, as dew-drops; why carbonate of lime acquires in solidifying from a liquid the figure of an obtuse rhomboihedron, silica of a six-sided prism; and why oxygen and hydrogen gases produce both fire and water. ”

“ The great Wood-stag, with other great animals of the epoch, occupies the farthest shore of a small lake, where some small hills rise out of a valley crowned with the trees and shrubs of the period. Mountains, recently upheaved, rise on the distant horizon, covered with a mantle of frozen snow, reminding us that the glacial period is approaching, and has already begun to manifest itself. ”

“ An immense wave has been thrown suddenly on the surface of the earth, making great ravages in its passage, furrowing the earth and driving before it débris of all sorts in its disorderly course. Geologists give the name of diluvium to a formation thus removed and scattered, which, from its heterogeneous nature, brings under our eyes, as it were, the rapid passage of an impetuous torrent—a phenomenon which is commonly designated as a deluge. ”

“ What are the causes which have produced the present inequalities of the globe—the mountain-ranges, continents, and waters? The primordial cause is, as we have had frequent occasion to repeat, the cooling of the earth, and the progressive solidification of the external crust, the nucleus of which still remains in a fluid or viscous state. These have produced the contortions, furrows, and fractures which have led to the elevation of the great mountain-ranges and the depression of the great valleys—which have caused some continents to emerge from the bed of ocean and have submerged others. ”

“ These distinguishing features are found in the enormous reptiles with lizard’s head, crocodile’s conical teeth, the trunk and tail of a quadruped, whale-like paddles, and the double-concave vertebræ of fishes; and this strange form, on such a gigantic scale that even their inanimate remains are examined with a curiosity not unmixed with awe. The country round Lyme Regis, in Dorsetshire, has long been celebrated for the curious fossils discovered in its quarries, and preserved in the muddy accumulations of the sea of the Liassic period. ”

“ Many organic beings have left no trace of their existence in Nature, except their impressions, which we find perfectly preserved in the sandstone and limestone, in marl or clay, and in the coal-measures; and these moulds are sufficient to tell us the kind to which the living animals belonged. We shall, no doubt, astonish our readers when we tell them that there are blocks of sandstone with distinct impressions of drops of rain which had fallen upon sea-shores of the ancient world. ”

“ Geology explains to us the various transformations which the earth has passed through before it arrived at its present condition. We can determine, with its help, the comparative epoch to which any beds belong, as well as the order in which others have been superimposed upon them. Considering that the stratigraphical crust of the earth with which the geologist has to deal may be some ten miles thick, and that it has been deposited in distinct layers in a definite order of succession, the dates or epochs of each formation may well be approached with hesitation and caution. ”

“ Time, which has overthrown the monuments of their victories, has also effaced the marks of their footsteps; and of the many millions of men whose invasions have spread desolation throughout Europe, not even a trace of a footprint is left. Those reptiles, on the other hand, which crawled thousands of ages ago on the surface of our planet when it was still in its infancy, have impressed on the soil indelible proofs of their existence. ”

“ Such is the distinction which separates the human race so widely from the animals—which makes him a creation apart and absolutely new upon the globe. A being capable of comprehending the ideal and the infinite, of creating poetry and algebra, such is man! ”

“ It is there, where Nature is so rich and vigorous, in the brilliant climate and under the radiant sky of Asia, in the shade of its luxuriant masses of verdure and its mild and perfumed atmosphere, that man loves to represent to himself the father of his race as issuing from the hand of his Creator. ”

“ We can hardly walk any great distance along the coast, either of England or Scotland, without remarking some flat terrace of unequal breadth, and backed by a more or less steep escarpment—upon such a terrace many of the towns along the coast are built. No geologist now doubts that this fine platform, at the base of which is a deposit of loam or sandy gravel, with marine shells, had been, at some period, the line of coast against which the waves of the ocean once broke at high water. ”

“ But in all those countries whose area is limited by water, or surrounded by high mountains, these small nations, becoming too numerous, have been in time forced to parcel out the land between them; and from that moment the earth has become the domain of man; he has taken possession of it by his labour, he has cultivated it, and attachment to the soil follows the very first act of possession; the private interest makes part of the national interest; order, civilisation, and laws succeed, and society acquires force and consistency. ”

“ From the Equatorial regions up to Melville Island, in the Arctic Ocean, where in our days eternal frost prevails—from Spitzbergen to the centre of Africa, the carboniferous flora is identically the same. When nearly the same plants are found in Greenland and Guinea; when the same species, now extinct, are met with of equal development at the equator as at the pole, we cannot but admit that at this epoch the temperature of the globe was nearly alike everywhere. What we now call climate was unknown in these geological times. There seems to have been then only one climate over the whole globe. ”

“ Let us pause for a moment, and consider the general characters which belonged to our planet during the Carboniferous period. Heat—though not necessarily excessive heat—and extreme humidity were then the attributes of its atmosphere. The modern allies of the species which formed its vegetation are now only found under the burning latitudes of the tropics; and the enormous dimensions in which we find them in the fossil state prove, on the other hand, that the atmosphere was saturated with moisture. ”

“ These imprints may be perceived as distinctly on the rocks, as the traces left on moist sand or in newly-fallen snow by some animal walking under our own eyes. What grave reflections should be awakened within us at the sight of these blocks of hardened earth, which thus carry back our thoughts to the early ages of the world! ”

“ Nothing that we know of in the existing scenery of the globe surpasses the rich vegetation which decorated the continents of the Jurassic period. A temperature still of great elevation, a [239] humid atmosphere, and, we have no reason to doubt, a brilliant sun, promoted the growth of a luxuriant vegetation, such as some of the tropical islands, with their burning temperature and maritime climate, can only give us an idea of, while it recalls some of the Jurassic types of vegetation. ”

“ But the best reply that can be made to this strange objection raised by the learned, is to show how extensively these fossil bones of Elephants are scattered, not in Europe only, but over the world—there are few regions of the globe in which their remains are not found. In the north of Europe, in Scandinavia, in Ireland, in Belgium, in Germany, in Central Europe, in Poland, in Middle Russia, in South Russia, in Greece, in Italy, in Africa, in Asia, and, as we have seen, in England. In the New World remains of the Mammoth are also met with. ”

“ The Fauna and Flora of the Permian period did not differ essentially from the Fauna and Flora of the Coal-measures, which shows that no general revolution occurred to disturb the entire globe between these two epochs. Here, then, as in all analogous [184] cases, it is unnecessary to recur to any general cataclysm to explain the passage from one epoch to another. Have we not, almost in our our own day, seen certain species of animals die out and disappear, without the least geological revolution? ”

“ All these fossil bones, belonging to the great Mammalia which we have been describing, are found in the Quaternary formation; but the most abundant of all are those of the Elephant and the Horse. The extreme profusion of the bones of the Mammoth, crowded into the more recently formed deposits of the globe, is only surpassed by the prodigious quantity of the bones of the Horse which are buried in the same beds. The singular abundance of the remains of these two animals proves that, during the Quaternary epoch, the earth gave nourishment to immense herds of the Horse and the Elephant. ”