Terra

“ True, geography has now mapped out into mere earth and water the space that lay beyond the narrower sea and land known to the older nations, and astronomy no longer recognizes the flat earth trodden by men as being the roof of subterranean halls, nor the sky as being a solid firmament, shutting out men’s gaze from strata or spheres of empyræan regions beyond. ”

“ It contains dwellings for its inmates of goodly architecture, ranged in pairs, at intervals, round a quadrangle of singular beauty, where the figures of those who enjoy its shady walks are seen through arches of the finest moulded brick, decorated with the most exquisite reliefs in terra-cotta. Every tenement has its rooms complete, and its separate garden and vineyard, while the library close by is of the noblest and fullest for a private institution. ”

“ Looking back through the long vista of the past, we see each continental area in a state of flux—land alternating with sea, and sea with land—mountains and plateaux appearing and disappearing—a constant succession of modifications, brought about by the antagonistic subterranean and sub-aërial agents. ”

“ But as the design of the inspired penman was to relate what especially belonged to our world and its inhabitants, therefore he passes by the rest of the planetary system, leaving it simply included in the plural word heavens. In the word earth every thing relative to the terraqueaerial globe is included, that is, all that belongs to the solid and fluid parts of our world with its surrounding atmosphere. ”

“ Prepossessions in regard to the duration of past time—Prejudices arising from our peculiar position as inhabitants of the land—Of those occasioned by our not seeing subterranean changes now in progress—All these causes combine to make the former course of Nature appear different from the present—Objections to the doctrine, that causes similar in kind and energy to those now acting, have produced the former changes of the earth's surface, considered. ”

“ They will remember that in comparing civilized man with the animal world, one is as the Alpine traveller, who sees the mountains soaring into the sky and can hardly discern where the deep shadowed crags and roseate peaks end, and where the clouds of heaven begin. Surely the awe-struck voyager may be excused if, at first, he refuses to believe the geologist, who tells him that these glorious masses are, after all, the hardened mud of primeval seas, or the cooled slag of subterranean furnaces—of one substance with the dullest clay, but raised by inward forces to that place of proud and seemingly inaccessible glory. ”

“ This primeval scene was the product of natural forces working through uncounted periods of time; the continent slowly rising and falling in the sea like the heaving breast of a world asleep; glaciers carving patiently through ages the deep estuaries; seasons innumerable clothing the hills with alternate bloom and decay. ”

“ When the foundations of the earth were laid, we know who it was that “measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out the heavens with a span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance;” ”

“ The Element of Earth, waste and inert, hears at last the cry of the Mother-globe.
Her crests and peaks, her vales and plains, lie white and whelmed with snow.
The mountain ranges draw their icy shrouds over the faces of dead continents. ”

“ But the skin of the earth is restless, as the inner fires waver in their long cooling. Beneath the volatile cloak of air, and the tidal robe of waters, the rocky layer encrusting the unknown vast core of the earth moves in its own hour. A slow adjustment, a period of planetary shudders, and a land is engulfed, a continent pressed upward. ”

“ Think of the solid earth, with trees and houses, cities and countries, mountains and seas—think of the vast tracts of land in Asia, Africa, and America—and then picture the whole mass spinning like a top, and rushing along its annual course round the sun at the rate of nineteen miles every second. ”

“ It is a singular and interesting thing to stand, as I do now, upon the confines of the earth, as it were, ‘at the green earth’s end,’ and gaze back through the vista of time, over Europe, and Africa, and Asia, upon the nations that have risen and flourished, and become extinct, each in its turn, like those animal races, whose story is sculptured, geologists tell us, upon the ribs and arches of the earth beneath us. ”

“ The land is of itself a sublime object; its stupendous mountains rising by steep acclivities from the very margin of the ocean to an immense height, terminating in rigid, conical, or pyramidical summits; its surface, contrasting its native protruding dark-coloured rocks, with its burden of purest snow;—the whole viewed, under the density of a gloomy sky, forms a picture impressive and grand. ”

“ Geology, or the natural history of the earth, as a planet revolving in space round a central orb of light and heat, surrounded by an atmosphere, and partially or wholly begirt by water, includes all the phenomena produced on the land, in the sea, and within the mass of the globe, by the operation of those mechanical, chemical, electrical, and vital forces, which are termed natural agencies, from the earliest epoch of which monuments remain, down to the present hour. ”

“ Oceans and continents, islands and lakes, hills and valleys, have come and gone with all their successive races of living things, and that same planet has marked them all. She has seen, too, as but a thing of yesterday, the appearance of man upon the scene, with all the successive centuries that have elapsed since then. ”

“ We have now seen, that in every quarter of the globe, and in every climate of the earth, there is formed, by means of the decay of solid rocks, and by the transportation of those moveable materials, that beautiful system of mountains and valleys, of hills and plains, covered with growing plants, and inhabited by animals. ”

“ The mind is delighted, and the imagination charmed, by contemplating the physical arrangements of the earth from such points of view as this is which we now have before us; from it the sea, and the air, and the land, appear each as a part of that grand machinery upon which the well-being of all the inhabitants of earth, sea, and air depends; and which, in the beautiful adaptations that we are endeavouring ”

“ To us north and south, east and west are of equal interest and importance. Our desire now is to understand, if haply we may, the complex system of which we ourselves form a part. The distribution of land and water—the configuration of continental areas and oceanic basins—the circulation of oceanic and terrestrial waters—earth-movements and volcanoes—ice-formations—the atmosphere—climatology—the geographical distribution of plants and animals—in a word, the world as one organic whole now forms the subject of our contemplation. ”

“ The just view is this, that when the former land of the globe had been complete, so as to begin to waste and be impaired by the encroachment of the sea, the present land began to appear above the surface of the ocean. In this manner we suppose a due proportion to be always preserved of land and water upon the surface of the globe, for the purpose of a habitable world such as this which we possess. We thus also allow time and opportunity for the translation of animals and plants to occupy the earth. ”

“ Now, the earth as a planet is in process of evolution. Not many things are more certain than this. The earth has come out of fire. It has grown to be what it is. Its mountains, valleys, plains, seas, shores, islands, lakes, rivers, and continents—these were not always here. They have been evolved. Not only the earth, but the entire family of spheres of which the earth is a member—the solar system—are all evolving. ”

“ There is, above all this thought of parts, of features, of phenomena, the conception of the Earth as a whole, existing in itself, and for itself, an organic thing, advancing by growth, and becoming more and more perfect and beautiful. Without trying to impose on you anything vague and transcendental, I wish to lead you to view the globe as almost a living thing,—not a crystal, assuming new grace by virtue of an external law,—but a world, taking on grandeur and worth, by virtue of an inward necessity. The individuality of the earth must be the watchword of re-created Geography. ”

“ There, remote from human habitation, the geologist sees as it were two conditions of the world,—the one, the shattered framework and fragments of its early convulsions, huge mountains prostrate and crumbling beneath his feet,—and the other, the spring-heads of renewed vitality collecting in countless dripping rills, each to sustain its own little plot of pasturage and flowerets, not the less welcome that they are all so rare and alpine, and looking in their freshness as if they were there purposely to cicatrize and heal up the deep scars in the rugged precipices around. ”

“ That science aims at nothing less than to embrace the most complete and the most cosmical view of the Earth; to sum up and organize into a beautiful unity all that we know of the globe. The whole body of facts revealed by past and present discovery must be marshaled into harmony, before we gain the high pinnacle of Geographical Science. The Earth, in all its parts, must be known in all its relations, before we can speak of it as the scholars of our day ought to speak of the world they inhabit. ”

“ It is enough, from our present point of view, to be assured that the main features of the country were chalked out, as it were, at a very distant geological period, and that all the infinite variety in the relief of our land has been brought about directly, not by titanic convulsions and earth-movements, but by the long-continued working of rain and rivers—of frost and snow and ice, supplemented from time to time by the action of the sea. ”

“ Not only were the sun and moon and stars created as appanages of the earth, but the earth itself in all its details of sea and land, hills and valleys, mountains and precipices, swamps and deserts, was made and fashioned just as we now see it, and every feature of its surface was supposed to have some purpose in connection with man. ”

“ The Earth, considered as one of those spheres which circulate round the sun amidst the wide expanse of the firmanent, holds but an insignificant position among them, especially when compared with those great and magnificent orbs, Jupiter and Saturn; but, in another point of view, as the dwelling-place of all the animated beings, vegetables, and minerals, with which we have any practical knowledge, it holds to us a position in creation far above all the others. ”

“ If we shall suppose the continent of our earth to be a solid rock, on which the rain might fall, and the wind and waves might dash perpetually, without impairing its mass or changing its constitution, what an imperfect world would we have! ”

“ I must feel that, wet or dry, high or low, it is the genuine surface of the planet, and not a little chip-dirt or a compost-heap, or made land or redeemed. Where I can sit by the wall-side and not be peered at by any old ladies going a-shopping, not have to bow to one whom I may have seen in my youth,—at least, not more than once. ”

“ Tilted and convoluted, broken and crushed by myriad earth-movements—scarred, furrowed, worn and degraded by — 348 — the frosts, the rains, the rivers, and the seas of countless ages—the rocks of our Continent are yet eloquent of design. Where the ignorant sees nothing save confusion and discord, the thoughtful student beholds everywhere the evidence of a well-ordered evolution. ”

“ What I want to lay before you for your very earnest consideration is this—that we should take a profounder and broader view of Geography, of its fundamental conception, and of its scope and aim, than we have hitherto taken; and should regard the Earth as Mother-Earth, and the Beauty of her features as within the purview of Geography.
I will state my case as clearly and briefly as I can. Geography is a science. Science is learning, knowing, understanding. The object of geographical learning, knowing, understanding is the Earth. ”

“ Geology, I should thus conclude, admits us a step nearer than any of the other sciences, even than astronomy itself, to the actings of the divine Architect. The revolution of every season demonstrates a providence—the workings of a perpetual miracle—in its sustaining energies. But geology shows us, not the mere annual renovation of things already existing, but the circumstances under which they began to exist. The fiat of Omnipotence peals through the bounds of creation. The earth and the seas obey. We see new things starting into being. ”

“ We are reminded, among the mountains, of one of the first and loveliest of all material things, the creation of light. Loving them for their own sakes, as well as for the legends of the old world with which they are everywhere inscribed, the geologist takes to the hills with the first faint fresh streak of dawn. Emerging with earliest day from the somber shades of the forest which, like night, invests the prospects with its own sadness and gloom, speedily a scene of joy and activity bursts upon the sight. The light comes upon you like a real tangible thing. ”

“ If life was not brought to the earth from another planet, then life was created, or originated, on the earth. Some of the conditions which attended its birth have been considered, and they amount to this: that the temperature of the earth, the elements of the earth, the conditions of the earth's surface, oceans, and atmosphere were exactly those which favoured the origination, the continuance, and the development of living things. ”

“ While, therefore, the geological doctrine that the present order of Nature must be our guide to the interpretation of the past remained as true and fruitful as ever, it had now to be widened by the reception of evidence furnished by a study of the earth as a planetary body. ”

“ The grandest objects in nature are blank and void of life;—the mountain-peaks that stand, ridge beyond ridge, serene in the region of perpetual snow;—the summer-clouds, images of such mountain tracts, even upon a grander scale, and tinted with more gorgeous colors;—the thunder-cloud with its dazzling bolt;—the stormy ocean with its mountainous waves;—the Aurora Borealis, with its mysterious pillars of fire;—all these are sublime ”