Geological Society

“ Hooker, whom I have often cited in this chapter, Mr. Darwin has spoken in the Introduction to his 'Origin of Species,' as one 'who had, for fifteen years, aided him in every possible way, by his large stores of knowledge, and his excellent judgement.' This distinguished botanist published his 'Introductory Essay to the Flora of Australia' [7] in 1859, the year after the memoir on 'Natural Selection' was communicated to the Linnæan Society, and a few months before the appearance of the 'Origin of Species.'
Having, in the course of his extensive travels, studied the botany of arctic, temperate, and tropical regions, and written on the flora of India, which he had examined at all heights above the sea, from the plains of Bengal to the limits of perpetual snow in the Himalaya, and having specially devoted his attention to 'geographical varieties,' or those changes of character which plants exhibit, when traced over wide areas and seen under new conditions; ”

“ When we reflect, therefore, on the fractional state of the annals which are handed down to us, and how little even these have as yet been studied, we may wonder that so many geologists should attribute every break in the series of strata, and every gap in the past history of the organic world, to catastrophes and convulsions of the earth's crust, or to leaps made by the creational force from species to species, or from class to class. ”

“ If the location of mineral beds has anything to do with the order of formations, which no intelligent person questions, and if the study of fossils is a help in the study of the order of formations, which all geologists know to be true, then the Government is justified in ordering a complete survey of the fossils of the State, and the publication of their forms for the instruction of the people. ”

“ The outlines of American geology appear to be particularly grand, simple, and instructive; and a knowledge of the important facts, and general principles of this science, is of vast practical use, as regards the interests of agriculture, and the research for useful minerals. Geological and mineralogical descriptions, and maps of particular states and districts, are very much needed in the United States; and to excite a spirit to furnish them will form one leading object of this Journal. ”

“ Such effects, though attributable mainly to man, are produced in some degree by all other animals.
Besides these general effects, it is the existence of organic forms that has conferred on all the sedimentary rocks their fossiliferous character. The records of the climate of each geological period, of the physical geography, of the vegetable productions, and of the animal forms by which the earth was peopled, consist in the remains of the living beings of these several periods, imbedded in the contemporaneous rock formations. ”

“ When all our beds of this age from the Arctic sea to the 49th parallel have been ransacked for plants, and when the palæobotanists of the United States shall have succeeded in unravelling the confusion which now exists between their Laramie and the Middle Tertiary, the geologist of the future will be able to restore with much certainty the distribution of the vast forests which in the early Eocene covered the now bare plains of interior America. ”

“ Agriculture, which, of all branches of human industry, seems most directly dependent on the qualities of soil and substrata, has been hitherto very little benefited by the progress of geological science. Perhaps the expectations of those speculative farmers who desire to turn to good account the discoveries of botanical physiology, vegetable chemistry, and geology, require some better direction to attainable objects, than botanists, chemists, or geologists, are likely to furnish. ”

“ The elevation of a great expanse of new land at the close of the Middle Erian and the beginning of the coal period would, by permitting the extension of species over wide areas and fertile soils, and by removing the pressure previously existing, be eminently favourable to the production of new, and especially of improved, varieties. ”

“ These rocks contain the fossiliferous and organic remains of the early and primitive inhabitants of the earth, and indicate the order of man's moral and intellectual development; for as each successive layer or stratum of fossiliferous rocks, in which the organic remains of man are found, marks a distinct period in his history, and the growth of his moral and intellectual brain is found in all cases to correspond to the age and growth of these strata, the question is thus settled and demonstrate! by the facts of geological science. ”

“ But I have been renewedly impressed with the opinion, so very opposite to the present geological theory, that less than seven thousand years is sufficient, on scientific principles, to account for all the phenomena of fossil plants, shells, bones and organic remains, as well as the displacements, disruptions, subsidences and rising of strata, and other evidences of extensive physical changes and disturbances on the earth’s surface. And I hope to live to see some American geologist build up a theory on just philosophical and scientific principles, which shall bear the test of truth. ”

“ Animals and plants began their existence together, not long after the commencement of the deposition of the sedimentary rocks; and then succeeded one another, in such a manner, that totally distinct faunae and florae occupied the whole surface of the earth, one after the other, and during distinct epochs of time. ”

“ Is paleontology able to succeed where physical geology fails? Standard writers on paleontology, as has been seen, assume that she can. They take it for granted, that deposits containing similar organic remains are synchronous—at any rate in a broad sense ”

“ On the three principal tests of relative age — superposition, mineral character, and fossils — Change of mineral character and fossils in the same continuous formation — Proofs that distinct species of animals and plants have lived at successive periods — Distinct provinces of indigenous species — Great extent of single provinces — Similar laws prevailed at successive geological periods — Relative importance of mineral and palæontological characters — Test of age by included fragments — Frequent absence of strata of intervening periods — Principal groups of strata in western Europe. ”

“ Besides, such a collocation affords a sufficient period for the development of the rich and characteristic fauna and flora of the forest-bed—a widespread fossiliferous and carbonaceous deposit that must represent a lapse of time of geological importance. ”

“ In the present condition of our knowledge and of our methods, one verdict—"not proven, and not provable"—must be recorded against all the grand hypotheses of the paleontologist respecting the general succession of life on the globe. The order and nature of terrestrial life, as a whole, are open questions. Geology at present provides us with most valuable topographical records, but she has not the means of working them into a universal history. ”

“ So, in Geology, if we could assume that it is part of the plan of Nature to preserve, in every region of the globe, an unbroken series of monuments to commemorate the vicissitudes of the organic creation, we might infer the sudden extirpation of species, and the simultaneous introduction of others, as often as two formations in contact are found to include dissimilar organic fossils. But we must shut our eyes to the whole economy of the existing causes, aqueous, igneous, and organic, if we fail to perceive that such in not the plan of Nature. ”

“ From time to time too much emphasis may have appeared to be laid upon applied geology as contrasted with pure science, yet the report of the National Academy to Congress in terms placed the stress upon economic resources and referred to paleontology as “necessarily connected” with general and economic geology. The practical purpose of geologic research under Government auspices must be recognized by the administrator, whether he be the paleontologist like Walcott, 211the philosopher like Powell, or the mining geologist like King. ”

“ I IN this chapter it is our purpose to briefly consider geology in its direct relations to the arts and industries. When we realize that the value of strictly geologic products taken from the earth each year in the United States alone amounts to billions of dollars, we can better appreciate the practical application of geological science. ”

“ But modern observations have tended continually to dispel this delusion, and the geologist is now convinced that at no given era of the past have the boundaries of land and sea, or the height of the one and depth of the other, or the geographical range of the species inhabiting them, whether of animals or plants, become fixed and unchangeable. ”

“ And again, "As geologists, we learn that it is not only the present condition of the globe which has been suited to the accommodation of myriads of living creatures, but that many former states also have been adapted to the organisation and habits of prior races of beings. The disposition of the seas, continents and islands, and the climates, have varied; the species likewise have been changed; and yet they have all been so modelled, on types analogous to those of existing plants and animals, as to indicate, throughout, a perfect harmony of design and unity of purpose. ”

“ If the facts have been given with sufficient clearness and detail to convey a correct general idea of the crust of the earth, we are prepared to inquire what are the agencies employed, and how they have operated in producing it. It is the province of the geologist to question every known power in nature, and to ascertain what geological effects each one is now producing; and, observing what effects are produced by given causes, he is to judge of the causes which have produced like effects in past geological periods. ”

“ The celebrated Mullion Cove is the end of a valley which very nearly defines the northern limit of this mass of serpentine; it is, however, cut everywhere through the hornblende schist. The actual junction is masked by debris; so this also is inconclusive.
The serpentine at the northern end varies: most of it is dark dull green to black; but in one place it assumes a redder tint. A common variety has a dark, almost black, matrix, full of small scales of glittering mineral, similar to, but darker than, those at Pradanack (no. 8) . A fine sea-cave here well repays a visit. ”

“ Obviously, if the earliest fossiliferous rocks now known are coeval with the commencement of life, and if their contents give us any just conception of the nature and the extent of the earliest fauna and flora, the insignificant amount of modification which can be demonstrated to have taken place in any one group of animals, or plants, is quite incompatible with the hypothesis that all living forms are the results of a necessary process of progressive development, entirely comprised within the time represented by the fossiliferous rocks. ”

“ A study of the land-surfaces and sea-floors of the present time shows that there are so many chances against the conservation of the remains of either terrestrial or marine animals and plants that if, as is probable, the same conditions existed in former geological periods, we should regard the occurrence of organic remains among the stratified formations of the earth’s crust as generally the result of various fortunate accidents. ”

“ Thus in the closest connection, geologically speaking, are we presented with the most striking examples of other great principles developed by geological research, viz., the extinction of old and the introduction of new species.—In consequence of the system of observation and close investigation now established, geology lost its highly speculative character, and rapid progress continued to be made in acquiring correct information of the arrangement of the strata of different countries. ”

“ When we discover a constant and regular assemblage of organic Remains, commencing with one series of strata, and ending with another, which contains a different assemblage, we have herein the surest grounds whereon to establish those Divisions which are called geological formations, and we find many such Divisions succeeding one another, when we investigate the mineral deposites on the surface of the Earth. ”

“ This rock also shows a banded structure.
On the eastern side of the headland we come at once on the serpentine as the predominant rock, though it is broken through by many veins of coarse gabbro. The mineral composition of these resembles that just described. Some are of considerable thickness; but others die away as mere strings. The material of the gabbro, therefore, must have been injected in a very fluid condition, and, as even the strings are coarsely crystalline, must have made its way into rock of high temperature, and have cooled down very slowly. ”

“ The other mineral, which is colourless with ordinary light, is now seen to be of more than one species. One part exhibits the characteristic cleavage of augite; this occurs in somewhat rounded grains; very thin veins of serpentine frequently traverse the crystal, following the lines of its cleavage-planes. This mineral does not seem the result of change of the augite, but to have formed in the cracks; and the generally open condition of the cleavage-planes rather bears out the idea. The colours of the augite are generally dull ”

“ A geological survey of its territory is one of the first cares of an enlightened government, and [pg 18] a geologist is the one scientific official the leading States of the Union agree in maintaining. The science has moved forward steadily from its original office of studying buried deposits and classifying extinct organisms, until the hard and fast line between fossil and recent has disappeared, the continuous action of ordinary causes in past and present been established, and an unbroken domain assigned to the laws of the visible creation. ”