CHAPTER I.INTRODUCTORY.

GEOLOGY.

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”Moses.

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”

Moses.

Geology is the history of thecrustof this planet. This history we compile, not from old records or moth-eaten state papers, not from antiquarian research or the study of ancient coins, but from actual and painstaking examination of the materials composing this crust. How suitable is this wordcrust, will be seen at once, when it is considered that its thickness in all probability does not exceed eighty miles, a mere fraction of the distance to the earth’s centre. Of this eighty miles we know pretty accurately the character and arrangement of some seven oreight miles; not that we have ever penetrated so far beneath the surface in a straight line, the deepest mines not exceeding 1800 or 1900 feet; but, by putting together the thicknesses of the various strata, with which we are well acquainted, we reach this conclusion without much hesitation. Professor Whewell has well observed, that “an earth greater or smaller, denser or rarer, than the one on which we live, would require a change in the structure and strength of all the little flowers that hang their heads under our hedges. There is something curious in thus considering the whole mass from pole to pole and from circumference to centre, as employed in keeping a snowdrop in the position most suited to its vegetable health.”[1]When we come to examine this crust, several appearances of a striking character reward our toil. At first, and before we proceed in our investigations more minutely, we find that there are only two varieties of rocks in all the vast arrangements spread out before us. Some rocks we find to be unstratified, and others we find to be stratified: from the absence of all fossils in the former of these, and from their crystalline character, weconclude that these were formed by the action offire, and therefore we call themIgneousorPlutonicrocks. From the sedimentary character and from the numerous fossils of the stratified rocks, we conclude these to have been formed by the action ofwater, and we therefore call theseAqueousorNeptunianrocks. Following out these investigations, we meet with other facts equally interesting: we find that the Plutonic or unstratified rocks lie generally at the base of all the others, and that where they come up to the surface and crop out from other rocks, or rise in towering mountain heights above them, this has been the result of igneous action from beneath, and that this elevation has disturbed the surrounding strata from the horizontal position in which we imagine them to have been first arranged. The extent of the Plutonic rocks is immense; inEurope, the Scandinavian mountains, the Alps, the Pyrenees, and the Carpathians; inAsia, the Himalayan, the Caucasian, and the Altai mountains; inAfrica, the Atlas mountains and the Cape of Good Hope; inAmerica, nearly the whole of the two continents, and inAustralia, its southern part;—all these wide regions of the globe are composedof those igneous or Plutonic rocks to which we give the names of granite, basalt, porphyry, trap, &c. &c. Finding the surrounding strata disturbed by depression, or upheaval in consequence of the giant claims of these older rocks that appear to have risen out of the centre of the earth in a red-hot or semifluid condition, and then suddenly to have cooled down, we begin to examine this upper and sedimentary strata, and here the most delightful and romantic results are obtained. We find no two courses or formations in these sedimentary rocks alike. Rising up from the granite, we meet in the clay strata corals and trilobites, the first fossil forms of ancient life with which we are acquainted: we rise higher still, for our imaginary start is from the bottom of the earth’s crust, and we meet in other rocks fossil fishes of an extraordinary shape, and once, doubtless, possessed of extraordinary functions; higher yet, and touching the coal measures, we come to vast forests of palms and ferns, that by chemical changes and mechanical pressure have been converted into our mineral coal, the vast fields of which constitute the real diamond mines of Great Britain; higher yet, exploring the Liasand Oolitic groups, the huge remains of ancient saurians (animals of the lizard species) fill us with awe and wonder, and make us rejoice that they had no successors in the next strata; higher yet, and we reach the last period of the earth’s history, previous to the introduction of man, and enormous “four-footed beasts,” the mastodon, the megatherium and others, astonish us by their gigantic proportions, and evidently herbivorous habits; and last of all we rise to the surface and breathe freely in company with our fellow man, made in the image of God, to inhabit this world as his palace, and to interpret its mysteries as its priest.

We may probably put these general results into a more popular form,—for we reserve the details to a seriatim examination of each formation,—by the following quotation from a modern and extensively useful writer: “We distinguish four ages of nature, corresponding to the great geological divisions, namely—

“1. Theprimaryorpalæozoic[2]age, comprising the Lower Silurian, the Upper Silurian, and the Devonian. During this age there were no air-breathing animals. The fishes were the mastersof creation. We may therefore call it theReign of Fishes.

“2. Thesecondaryage, comprising the carboniferous formation, the trias, the oolitic, and the cretaceous formations. This is the epoch in which air-breathing animals first appear. The reptiles predominate over the other classes, and we may therefore call it theReign of Reptiles.

“3. Thetertiaryage, comprising the tertiary formations. During this age, terrestrial mammals of great size abound. This is theReign of Mammals.

“4. Themodernage, characterized by the appearance of the most perfect of created beings. This is theReign of Man.”[3]

From this brief but necessary outline of “the treasures of the deep” which lie before us we may proceed to make a few preliminary remarks on the moral and theological aspects of this science. Many persons have supposed that the statements of Scripture and the alleged facts of Geology are at variance, and, forgetful that some of the devoutest minds of this and other countries have been equal believers in both, have too summarily dismissed geology from their noticeas a study likely to lead to infidelity. To such we would briefly remark, that it is utterly impossible there can be any contradiction between the written volume of Inspiration and the outspread volume of Creation. Both are books written by the same hand, both are works proceeding from the same ever blessed and beneficent Creator. We believe in the plenary inspiration of the Bible, and we believe equally in the plenary inspiration of Nature; both are full of God, for in them both He is all and in all; and he who is the deepest and the most reverent student of both will not be long before he comes to the conclusion that not only is there no disharmony, no discrepancy and no contradiction between them, but that they are both harmonious utterances of the one infinite and ever blessed God.

“In reason’s ear theybothrejoice,And utter forth a glorious voice;For ever singing as they shine,‘The hand that made us is divine.’”

“In reason’s ear theybothrejoice,

And utter forth a glorious voice;

For ever singing as they shine,

‘The hand that made us is divine.’”

Let us remember that Geology has nothing to do with the history of man, nor with God’s government of man; to the Bible, and only there, do we go for information on these points.Geology gives us the history and the succession ofthe things and beingsthat were created and made, we believe, incalculable ages before man was placed on the face of the earth. Possibly at times some new discovery in geology may appear to contradict our long received interpretations of isolated passages in Scripture, in which case the modesty of science compels us to reexamine our data, while our reverence for the word of God teaches us to revise our interpretations. As Dr. Chalmers once remarked, “the writings of Moses do not fix the antiquity of the globe; if they fix anything at all, it is only the antiquity of the species.” We believe that the same God who, in anticipation of the spiritual wants of the human race, graciously promised from the beginning of man’s transgression, that “the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head,” laid up for him “in the bowels of the earth those vast stores of granite, marble, coal, salt, and the various metals, the products of its several revolutions; and thus was an inexhaustible provision made for his necessities, and for the developments of his genius, ages in anticipation of his appearance.”[4]

Truth is, and always must be, coincident. There can be no real contradiction between the truth of Scripture and the truth of Science. Whatever is true in one department of God’s agency, must be true when compared with his works in any other department. As an illustration we may notice one particular in which Geology and Scripture move towards the same point in proving the recent introduction of man. We take up a chart of the earth’s crust, and examine it so far as that crust is open to our investigation: eight miles depth or height we know pretty accurately, and in all these accumulations we find one concurrent testimony. If we take the Azoic period of the earth’s crust, and search through the granitic rocks of Scotland, Wales, or Cornwall; or if we pass on to the Palæozoic period, and examine the Old Red Sandstone, the Carboniferous system, or other formations; or, extending our researches, investigate the secondary formations, the Lias, the Oolite, and the Chalk, and so on until we arrive at the Tertiary period of the earth’s history;all the testimony is one; there is no contradiction; there are no fossil boats or sofas; no fossil beds or books; no fossil boys and girls; no fossil knives and forks;so far as the teachings of Geology go throughout all these vast periods it says, “there was not a man to till the earth;” they declare that man is not so old as the earth, and that all its fossil remains are pre-Adamite.

Now why should this truth be supposed to lie against the teaching of Scripture? The object of Moses in the first chapter of Genesis, is to teach us that all existing matter owes its origin to the God of the Bible, and not to any of the idols of the heathen. “In the beginning,” says that oldest historical record with which we are acquainted, “God created the heaven and the earth;” that is, we apprehend, at some period of the earth’s history, in all probability an undefined and incalculable distance from the present time, God created all matter out of nothing, the universe, these heavens and this earth, began to be at the word of God.

“But afterwards,” says Dr. Pye Smith, in his translation of these words, “the earth was without form and void;” undergoing, we believe, those vast geological changes, those deposits of metal, and those slow accumulations of mineral wealth, by which it was fitted to become the temple, the palace, the workshop, and the homeof man. “The first sentence in Genesis is a simple, independent, all-comprehending axiom to this effect, that matter elementary or combined, aggregated only or organised, and dependent, sentient, and intellectual beings, have not existed from eternity either in self-continuity or succession; but had a beginning; that their beginning took place by the all-powerful will of one Being, the Self-existent, Independent and Infinite in all perfection; and that the date of that beginning is not made known.”[5]

Dr. Redford says, “We ought to understand Moses as saying, that indefinitely far back and concealed from us in the mystery of eternal ages prior to the first moment of mundane time, God created the heavens and the earth;” and Dr. Harris in the same strain writes thus, “The first verse in Genesis was designed by the Divine Spirit to announce the absolute origination of the material universe by the Almighty Creator; and it is so understood in the other parts of holy writ; passing by an indefinite interval, the second verse describes the state of our planet immediately prior to the Adamic creation, andthe third verse begins the account of the six days’ work.”

On this subject we will quote but one brief sentence more—and we have preferred using these quotations to stating the question in our words, thoroughly accordant as they would have been. In Dr. Hitchcock’s valuable work, entitled “The Religion of Geology,” he says, “The time is not far distant when the high antiquity of the globe will be regarded as no more opposed to the Bible than the earth’s revolution round the sun and on its axis. Soon shall the horizon where Geology and Revelation meet be cleared of every cloud, and present only an unbroken and magnificent circle of truth.”

Let these thoughts be borne in mind while we pursue our examination of the solid crust of this globe. We donot

“drill and boreThe solid earth, and from its strata thenceExtract a register, by which we learnThat He who made it and revealed its dateTo Moses was mistaken in its age.”

“drill and bore

The solid earth, and from its strata thence

Extract a register, by which we learn

That He who made it and revealed its date

To Moses was mistaken in its age.”

Nowhere do we find the age of the globe revealed either to Moses or any other inspired writer; we believe that as science has nothing tofear from the Bible, so the Bible has nothing to fear from the widest intellectual range of study. We ponder in devout amazement over these unwritten records of the earth’s bygone history: we find ‘sermons in stones’ as we light on some delicate fern, or elegant vertebrate animal, preserved in the deposits of past ages, and the hieroglyphics of nature and the distincter utterances of the Bible prompt the same exclamation,—“How marvellous are thy works, O God, in wisdom hast thou made them all!” “Waste, and disorder, and confusion we nowhere find in our study of the crust of the earth; instead of this we find endless examples of economy, order, and design; and the result of all our researches carried back through the unwritten records of past time, has been to fix more steadily our assurance of the existence of one Supreme Creator of all things; to exalt more highly our conviction of the immensity of His perfections, of His might and majesty, His wisdom and His goodness, and all-sustaining providence; and to penetrate our understandings with a profound and sensible perception of the high veneration man’s intellect owes to God. The earth from her deep foundations unites with the celestial orbs that rollthrough boundless space, to declare the glory and show forth the praise of their common Author and Preserver; and the voice of natural religion accords harmoniously with the testimonies of revelation, in ascribing the origin of the universe to the will of one Eternal and Dominant Intelligence, the Almighty Lord and supreme First Cause of all things that subsist; the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever; before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made, God from everlasting and world without end.”—Buckland’s Bridgewater Treatise.

“Come, frankly read the rocks, and seeIn them the Earth’s biography;Let mountain piled on mountain tellIts antique age; and every shellIn fossil form its tale unfold,Of life’s bright day through time untold;And gathering use from great and small,See good in each, but God in all.”

“Come, frankly read the rocks, and see

In them the Earth’s biography;

Let mountain piled on mountain tell

Its antique age; and every shell

In fossil form its tale unfold,

Of life’s bright day through time untold;

And gathering use from great and small,

See good in each, but God in all.”

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