Tracery

“ It is wonderful how rapidly yet perfectly the sand organizes itself as it flows, using the best material its mass affords to form the sharp edges of its channel. Such are the sources of rivers. In the silicious matter which the water deposits is perhaps the bony system, and in the still finer soil and organic matter the fleshy fibre or cellular tissue. What is man but a mass of thawing clay? The ball of the human finger is but a drop congealed. The fingers and toes flow to their extent from the thawing mass of the body. ”

“ Thayer is going to put us through a big course in a little time. We shan't like all the work, perhaps, but we shall each like something,—-for it touches so many things. There are the long tramps in the fresh air, the measuring of distances, the analyzing of the soil, the naming of the trees and plants, the locating of mineral deposits, and the working out of problems. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is necessary to guard the reader against disappointment, when he proceeds to examine the existing relation between the soils and the rocks on which they lie, or to infer the quality of the soil from the known nature of the rock in conformity with what has been above laid down,—by explaining another class of geological appearances which [Pg 109] present themselves not only in our own country but in almost every other part of the globe. ”

“ From a consideration of a classification such as the foregoing, together with a detailed study of the physical and chemical properties of the material as a whole, and also of the various portions into which it may be divided—particularly that which has been isolated by mechanical methods of purification and separation—it is not difficult to gain a fairly accurate idea of the nature of any clay. ”

“ Do you not see that the chief teaching of geology—the piling of stratum upon stratum, the conversion of disrupted rock and decayed plant and animal into rock again—is here exemplified in the history of a domestic toy, which contains already one example of stratification in the silence of watery submergence? ”

“ 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. ”

“ If I look around I see that the soil is composed of the remains of just such stumps, ancestors to this. The earth is covered with mould. I thrust this stick many æons deep into its surface, and with my heel make a deeper furrow than the elements have ploughed here for a thousand years. If I listen, I hear the peep of frogs which is older than the slime of Egypt, and the distant drumming of a partridge on a log, as if it were the pulse-beat of the summer air. I raise my fairest and freshest flowers in the old mould. Why, what we would fain call new is not skin deep ”

“ We may consider the history of secondary, and also of tertiary strata, in two points of view: the one, respecting their actual state as dry land, destined to be the habitation of man; the other, regarding their prior condition, whilst in progress of formation at the bottom of the waters, and occupied by crowds of organic beings in the enjoyment of life. ”

“ The keen, invigorating mountain air, the hardy types of trees and shrubs, the absence of the myriads of insects that would have made a grove on the plains a place of anything but rest at that hour—these things were an open book to one accustomed to life in the jungle. ”

“ When beds of sand, clay, and marl, containing shells and vegetable matter, are found arranged in a similar manner in the interior of the earth, we ascribe to them a similar origin; and the more we examine their characters in minute detail, the more exact do we find the resemblance. Thus, for example, at various heights and depths in the earth, and often far from seas, lakes, and rivers, we meet with layers [p.4] of rounded pebbles composed of different rocks mingled together. ”

“ Independently of those ascending and descending movements which have given rise to the superposition of the limestones and clays, and by which the position of land and sea are made in the course of ages to vary, the geologist has the difficult task of allowing for the contemporaneous thinning out in one direction and thickening in another, of the successive organic and inorganic deposits of the same era. ”

“ I shall not here examine whether the reddish colour of vegetable earth proceeds from the iron which is contained in the earths that are deposited by the rains and dews, but being of importance, shall take notice of it when we come to treat of minerals; it is sufficient to have explained our conception of the formation of the superficial strata of the earth, and by other examples we shall prove, that the formation of the interior strata, can only be the work of the waters. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In many parts if you could dig straight downwards through the earth for thousands of feet, you would come to layer after layer of these stratified rocks, one kind below another, some layers thick, some layers thin, here a stratum of gravel, there a stratum of sandstone, here a stratum of coal, there a stratum of clay. ”

“ The foundations of all sound generalisations in geological science are accurate and mutually explanatory sections and maps of the whole series of stratified and igneous rocks existing in each natural geological district; a term by which we wish to express a part of the earth's crust, whether large or small, in which the formation of aqueous deposits has followed, amidst many local irregularities, one general law of succession. ”

“ The series of mineral substances and strata represented in the [IV-8] smaller island have been called by geologists “secondary formations,” because they lie between an older series termed “primary,” and a newer series termed “tertiary:” the term “formation” meaning any assemblage of rocks or layers which have some character in common, whether of origin, age, or composition. [43]
[43] Lyell, “Manual of Elementary Geology.” ”

“ 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 ”

“ Fluviatile Deposits.
To discuss fully the origin and history of valleys, is an object reserved for a later section; we may now proceed to consider the effects produced, in valleys already formed, and partially filled with old detritus, by the water running therein. This is a large subject; for, besides the mechanical and chemical actions of the rivers and brooks, which vary according to the hardness and nature of the rocks, there is to be examined the influence of atmospheric vicissitudes, heat and cold, moisture, dryness, frost, &c. ”

“ The study of geology, the skilled inspection of the various strata of the land—the rocks, sand, clay, chalk, conglomerates—proves that the materials of the continents have been chiefly deposited at the bottom of the sea, and raised to their present position by the chemical or mechanical agencies which are constantly at work in the vast laboratory of nature. ”

“ Where a region has an earth which has recently passed from beneath the sea or a great lake, the surface is commonly covered by incoherent detritus which has escaped consolidation into hard rock by the fact that it has not been buried and thus brought into the laboratory of the earth's crust. ”

“ Thus we see that in the processes that go on in the crust of the earth new kinds of substances are developed and new kinds of formations produced, and the chemist finds these substances to be arranged in series, and the geologist finds that sedimentary formations are arranged in series. ”

“ In the geological strata, forming a continuous series, you find a set of animals, always typical and specific for every single stratigraphical horizon, but forming a series just as do those horizons. Would not the whole aspect of these facts lose very much of its peculiarity if you were to introduce the hypothesis that the animals changed with the strata? The continuity of life, at least, would be guaranteed by such an assumption. ”

“ Each geological formation, I repeat, beginning at the oldest known to us, and ending with those that are still forming in our lakes and seas, has its own set of organic remains whereby we can detect it wherever it may chance to occur, from the equator to the poles. ”

“ To attempt proof of such a proposition would be to outrage common sense: he who cannot supply to himself the proof that the lowest layers of sediment produced by the waters of a pond, lake, river, or ocean, were deposited before the upper ones, is incapable of apprehending any natural truth. ”

“ The soil under our feet is full of these micro-organisms. The smallest quantity of earth put in water reveals, through the microscope, besides the organic and mineral matter, a mass of beings more or less complex, moving more or less rapidly. ”

“ Deposited materials which have been in solution in water are described as chemical deposits, and those which have played a part in the life process as organic deposits. The organic deposits from vegetable sources are peat and the coals, while limestones and marls are the chief depositories of the remains of the animal life of the water. ”

“ The important facts of the intersection of veins are not seen; the segregations of ore in a vein, the change of the contents with the change of ground, with the depth, the underlie, and other influential conditions, must all be taken on the affirmation of the agent, in whose office the stranger expects in vain to find a complete record of the subterranean operations, with all the scientific data which they have revealed. ”

“ The different groups of strata, deposited in successive periods, are thus filled with distinct races of plants and animals, which lived at successive periods, and thus it is proved that in every region the land and the sea were covered and filled at successive times with new creations suited to the new physical conditions of the altered planet. ”

“ For as, by studying the external configuration of the existing land and its inhabitants, we may restore in imagination the appearance of the ancient continents which have passed away, so may we obtain from the deposits of ancient seas and lakes an insight into the nature of the subaqueous processes now in operation, and of many forms of organic life, which, though now existing, are veiled from sight. ”

“ The earth is not a mere fragment of dead history, stratum upon stratum like the leaves of a book, to be studied by geologists and antiquaries chiefly, but living poetry like the leaves of a tree, which precede flowers and fruit,—not a fossil earth, but a living earth; compared with whose great central life all animal and vegetable life is merely parasitic. ”

“ In all the series of stratified rocks, the systems of organic nature are found to be different, according to the period: these differences are sometimes gradually, and sometimes abruptly, produced between system and system: in any one clearly defined system, the strata differ as to their organic contents, according to their order of superposition, and the nature of the rock ”

“ Geologists classify rocks according to their mineral composition, their organic remains, and the order in which they follow or overlie one another. The Geologist, starting in Canada, and traveling through New York and Pennsylvania, notices continually as he advances southward the change in the minerals composing the rocks, and the different aspects of their organic remains. ”

“ All the great steppes and table-lands of the world, where the action of running water is feeble, would have become the grand repositories of organic matter, accumulated without that intermixture of earthy sediment which so generally characterizes the subaqueous strata. ”

“ I have already stated that a geologist must be on his guard, in a region of disturbed strata, against inferring repeated alternations of rocks, when, in fact, the same strata, once continuous, have been bent round so as to recur in the same section, and with the same dip. ”

“ This character of uniformity among the organic contents of a system of strata, augments continually from the modern period toward the older, and is greatest among the most ancient strata, whose organic contents, though less numerous, are more similar in all countries yet explored than those of later date. ”