Andesite

“ Organic Life.—In all the enormously thick masses of gneiss and mica schist, and in all the included limestones and quartz rocks, we find probably no traces of organic beings. [1] To judge from this extraordinary, and, perhaps, complete deficiency, we should say there were neither plants nor animals in existence on the globe at the time of the deposition of these rocks. ”

“ The suite of rocks which compose the carboniferous system is one clearly of pre-arrangement, and designed for man’s use. The strata, now beneath us, as undeniably evince a like beneficent purpose. The treasures of saline rock, gypseous marls, iron sands, and pyritous clays, may be mysterious all, in their origin: but their uses and their ends, human wants and frailties have long since established. The cravings of appetite satisfied, every creature has an instinct, which unerringly leads it to seek a remedy against injury and disease ”

“ Hereby a comparison can be distinctly instituted, and a parallelism observed betwixt the peculiar work of each day and the leading phenomena displayed in the earth’s crust—from the first appearance of dry land, when organic bodies had not been as yet created, and the primary rocks in which none have been detected—up through the silurian, devonian, and carboniferous series, in all which plants and marine organisms only are found—and onward until we reach the tertiary strata, where, in succession, the revealed order of animal life is so remarkably coincident. ”

“ The history of organic remains forms an interesting branch of descriptive geology, where, it may be said, we find the medal-stamps of creation in the first forms of organic life that came from the hands of the Creator. The fact is all important, and the science is prepared to announce it, that in the lowest fossiliferous strata of the earth, vegetables appear among the first of all living things: the impressions of plants, and entire beds of carbonaceous matter, are found in the most ancient strata of the Silurian group of rocks. ”

“ The term “colony” is, perhaps, inappropriate, as the whole mass of cells arises from a single one, and may properly be looked upon as an individual plant.
[3] Algæ (sing. alga) .
[4] “Host,” the plant or animal upon which a parasite lives.
[5] The antheridia, when present, arise as branches just below the oögonium, and become closely applied to it, sometimes sending tubes through its wall, but there has been no satisfactory demonstration of an actual transfer of the contents of the antheridium to the egg cell. ”

“ Now, here let there be but the substitution of a few terms—“fortuitous concourse” for the “nucleated vesicle”—“atoms” that whirl in mazy dance through indefinite time, for the “stardust” revolving through infinite space—“transmutation of species” for “the lucky projection of so many letters”—and the overthrow of the one hypothesis is as ruinously complete as the demolition of the other.
Thus geology, while it reveals a succession of animal types, pronounces each after its kind perfect in its own degree and measure of organic development. ”

“ Nevertheless there are certain varieties or compounds which prevail so largely in nature, and preserve so much uniformity of aspect and composition, that it is useful in geology to regard them as distinct rocks, and to assign names to them, such as basalt, greenstone, trachyte, and others, already mentioned. ”

“ The petrifaction of an animal form or structure has always appeared to me a most singular process in Nature. The change of such substances as cellular tissue, or fish-bone, or cartilage, or a light, leathery skin, into minerals such as silex and agate, seems at first like magic. ”

“ Of the Disease of the Stone in Human Creatures, there are many sorts: for, though the Stone of the Bladder, of the Kidneys, and in the Gaul, be all of one kind of Disease called the Stone, yet they are of different sorts: but, whether the Disease of the Stone be produced of Hot or Cold Motions, I cannot judg: but 'tis probable, some are produced of Hot Motions, others of Cold; and perchance, others of such sorts of Motions as are neither perfectly Hot, nor Cold: for, the Stone is produced, as all other Creatures, by such or such sorts of Figurative Motions. ”

“ Some of the original ligneous, osseous, or other organic elements may remain mingled in certain parts, or the lapidifying substance itself may be differently coloured at different times, or so crystallised as to reflect light differently, and thus the texture of the original body may be faithfully exhibited. ”

“ And if we consider that not only Men, but even sucking Children are, but too often, Tormented with Solid Stones, but that divers sorts of Beasts themselves, (whatever Helmont against Experience think to the contrary) may be Troubled with great and Heavy stones in their Kidneys and Bladders, though they Feed but upon Grass and other Vegetables, that are perhaps but Disguised Water, it will not seem improbable that even some Concretes of a mineral Nature, may Likewise be form’d of Water. ”

“ We may, perhaps, consistently view the organic beings of the clay slate and Silurian periods, as belonging to one long succession of creative energy,—the first, if our views as to the origin of the gneiss and mica schist be correct, which was established upon the globe. ”

“ We have already stated that a progression is manifested in the order and arrangement of the rocky masses which compose the earth’s crust—in the nature and qualities of its mineral contents—and in the various revolutions which are indicated by the fossil organic remains that lie entombed in the strata of the interior. ”

“ The cause of this is a deposit from the air of the spores or germs of these creatures, and the nature of the decomposing substance into which they fall often determines the race or tribe which shall come to life and inhabit it, showing plainly that but a few of these only among many come to maturity, just as when a variety of seeds are thrown on any particular kind of soil, only those to which the soil may be suitable come to perfection. ”

“ The mineral substances are ready to return to the soil, the organic matter has passed into the air, and when all shall have become dry the spores of the moulds and the cysts of the infusoria will be borne away upon the wings of the wind, to recommence, elsewhere, their work of life and of destruction of life. ”

“ Rāhula, the interior earth element is said to be anything hard, solid, and organic that’s internal, pertaining to an individual. This includes: head hair, body hair, nails, teeth, skin, flesh, sinews, bones, bone marrow, kidneys, heart, liver, diaphragm, spleen, lungs, intestines, mesentery, undigested food, feces, or anything else hard, solid, and organic that’s internal, pertaining to an individual. ”

“ Almost the only relief to the sterility—sterile not only in respect to pleasing vegetation, but in any comfortable suggestiveness—is when the sun shines suddenly straight down some rift-like gulch in the precipitous walls, transmuting what seemed a crystal-clear atmosphere into a golden dust finer than any flakes that ever came out of the gravels. ”

“ As nature always presents itself to our minds as seeds deposited in soil and season to suit, and it is loyal to its own laws only, we are constrained by this method of reasoning to conclude that disease must have a soil in which to plant its seeds before gestation and development. ”

“ In unstratified crystalline rocks, wholly destitute of animal or vegetable remains, we search in vain for those most obvious evidences of contrivance, which commence with the first traces of organic life, in strata of the transition period ”

“ Rather quicker than andante; between that allegretto. μ Some, taking andante in its original sense of 1⁄2going, ̧ and andantino as its diminutive, or 1⁄2less going, ̧ define the latter as slower than andante. An¶daÏrac (?) , n. [A corruption of sandarac.] Red orpiment. Coxe. AÏde¶an , a. Pertaining to the Andes. An¶desÏine (?) , n. (Min.) A kind of triclinic feldspar found in the Andes. An¶desÏite (?) , n. (Min.) An eruptive rock allied to trachyte, consisting essentially of a triclinic feldspar, with pyroxene, hornblende, or hypersthene. An¶dine (?) ”

“ The nucleated vesicle, the fundamental form of all organization, we must regard as the meeting-point between the inorganic and the organic—the end of the mineral and beginning of the vegetable and animal kingdoms, which thence start in different directions, but in perfect parallelism and analogy. ”

“ The antheridia are formed of longitudinal cells, united in groups, whose contents by repeated divisions—transverse and longitudinal—are divided into a large number of small, colourless, motionless spermatia—round or elongated—which are set free by the dissolution of the wall of the antheridium. ”

“ The outer or animal layer, or ectoderm, always forms the chief organs of animal life—the skin, nervous system, sense-organs, etc.; the inner or vegetal layer, or entoderm, gives rise to the chief organs of vegetative life—the organs of nourishment, digestion, blood-formation, etc. ”

“ I. There is one important deduction to be established from these investigations which meets us at the threshold of the inquiry, namely, that geology clearly and distinctly shows there is a beginning to the course of creation as respects the crust of the earth and its organic forms of life. The stratified rocks all manifest succession in their order of deposition, and, therefore, also succession in time. Some are prior to and older in formation than others ”

“ In fact the presence of a certain amount of such matter is advantageous, supplying the mineral constituents necessary for the formation of the solid tissues of the body. The presence of organic matter, on the other hand, must always be regarded with suspicion. ”

“ In the distempers and diseases of soils, sourness, dryness, weeping, any kind of barrenness, the remedy and the physic is, for a great part, sometimes in themselves; sometimes the very situation relieves them; the hanger of a hill will purge and vent his own malignant moisture, and the burning of the upper turf of some ground (as health from [Pg 147] cauterizing) puts a new and a vigorous youth into that soil, and there rises a kind of phœnix out of the ashes, a fruitfulness out of that which was barren before, and by that which is the barrenest of all, ashes. ”

“ All that can be affirmed in the present state of the science is the composition and nature of the clay, gravel, and bowlders—the course of the currents concerned in their deposition—the fact of the land having a configuration of hill and valley, not differing much from what now exists—and the peculiar scantiness, if not total absence, of organic remains. ”

“ Hair, silk, scales, horns, fingernails, are owing to natural processes. Gall-stones, stones found in the intestines of horses, scurf of the skin in leprosy, stones of the kidnies and bladder, the callus from the inflamed periosteum, which unites broken bones, the calcareous cement, which repairs the injured shells of snails, the calcareous crust on the eggs of birds, the annually renewed shells of crabs, are all instances of productions from mucous membranes, afterwards indurated by absorption of their thinner parts. ”

“ Here is Ruth, a little growing girl, who wants phosphate of lime to build bones with; for as she grows, of course her bones must grow too. Very well, I answer, there is plenty of phosphate of lime in the earth; she can have all she wants. Yes, but does Ruth want to eat earth?—do you?—does anybody? ”

“ A mineral is not produced by a vegetable, nor the human by the brute. In reproduction, throughout the entire round of nature, the order of genus and species is preserved. This indicates the spiritual Truth and Science of Being. ”

“ The scientist, who wishes to understand a botanical specimen, pays as much attention to what is in the ground as to what is above ground. The seed and roots are as full of scientific interest as are stem, leaf and flower. Similarly, to understand the monophysite heresy, to be able to detect it and expose it, we must take it in the germ. ”

“ Salts are acrid, and dissolve in Water. These Fossils have neither of those Qualities: And who shall tell us that the Property of forming itself into regularly angulated Figures is peculiar to Salts? We have no Authority to believe it is wanting in Crystal, and Spar; and we have the Evidence of our Senses that they have it. ”

“ Pores that are too small in hard Ground, will not easily permit Roots to enter them.
Pores that are too large in any Sort of Land, can be of little other Use to Roots, but only to give them Passage to other Cavities more proper for them; and if in any Place they lie open to the Air, they are dry’d up, and spoil’d, before they reach them. ”

“ It matters not, indeed, whether we take the organic or the inorganic structures of the several periods as the gauge of their probable duration—the living tribes that existed throughout such periods, and whose relative ages we can approximate to—or the dead rock in which the remains are interred, and in the accumulation and arrangement of which so many extraordinary agencies have been demonstratively concerned. ”

“ The Pleiocene arrangements follow; and in the shells and terrestrial products of this group the modern characters and types are still more clearly discernible. When we reach the highest members, the difficulties of separation from the modern deposits begin to multiply; the mineral qualities and mere earthy beds are not distinguishable; while, on the other hand, in all the animal forms and huge colossal proportions of Mastodons and Theriums, there are the unequivocal markings of an extinct anterior age. ”

“ But, though placed in the most favorable environment, no mineral particle unassisted by the power incident to life can become part of a living organism such as the plant. The living plant, however, may reach down to the mineral plane, and by absorption and assimilation make the mineral part of its own organic tissue. ”