FOOTNOTES:

Fig. 135.Fig. 135.

Fig. 136.Fig. 136.

Fig. 137.Fig. 137.

Fig. 138.Fig. 138.CONE.

With the leaves of the Eathie Zamia, we find, in thisnorthern outlier of the Lias, cones of a peculiar form, which, like the leaves themselves, are still unfigured and undescribed, and some of which could scarce have belonged to any coniferous tree. In one of these (Fig. 138), the ligneous bracts or scales, narrow and long, and gradually tapering till they assume nearly the awl-shaped form, cluster out thick from the base and middle portions of the cone, and, like the involucral appendages of the hazel-nut, or the sepals of the yet unfolded rose-bud, sweep gracefully upwards to the top, where they present at their margins minute denticulations. In another species the bracts are broader, thinner, and more leaf-like: they rise, too, more from the base of the cone, and less from its middle portions; so that the whole must have resembled an enormous bud, with strong woody scales, some of which extendedfrom base to apex. The first described of these two species seems to have been more decidedly aconethan the other; but it is probable that they were both connecting links between such leathern seed-bearing flowers as we find developed inCycas revoluta, and such seed-bearing cones as we find exemplified inZamia pungens. The bud-like cone, however, does not seem to have been that of a Cycadaceous plant, as it occupied evidently not a terminal position on the plant that bore it, like the cones of Zamia or the flowers of Cycas, but a lateral one, like the lateral flowers of some of the Cactus tribe. Another class of vegetable forms, of occasional occurrence in the Helmsdale beds, seems intermediate between the Cycadaceæ and the ferns: at least, so near is the approach to the ordinary fern outline, while retaining the stiff ligneous character of Zamia, that it is scarce less difficult to determine to whichof the two orders of plants such organisms belonged, than to decide whether some of the slim graceful sprigs of foliage that occur in the rocks beside them belonged to the conifers or the club mosses. And I am informed by Sir Charles Lyell, that (as some of the existing conifers bear a foliage scarce distinguishable from that of Lycopodiaceæ), so a recently discovered Zamia is furnished with fronds that scarce differ from those of a fern. EvenZamia pectinatamay, as Sternberg remarks, have been a fern. Lindley and Hutton place it merely provisionally among the Cycadaceæ, in deference to the judgment of Adolphe Brogniart, and point out its resemblance toPolypodium pectinatum; and a small Helmsdale frond which I have placed beside it bears the impress of a character scarce less equivocal. The flora of the Oolite was peculiarly a flora of intermediate forms.

Fig. 139.Fig. 139.

Fig. 140.Fig. 140.

We recognize another characteristic of our Oolitic flora in its simple-leaved fronds, in some of the species not a little resembling those of the recent Scolopendrium, or Hart's-Tongue fern,—a form regarded by Adolphe Brogniart as peculiarly characteristic of his third period of vegetation. These simple ferns are, in the Helmsdale deposits, of three distinct types. There is first a lanceolate leaf, from two and a half to three inches in length, of not unfrequent occurrence, which may have formed, however, only one of the four leaflets, united by their pseudo-footstalks, which compose the frond of Glossopteris,—a distinctive Oolitic genus. There is next a simple ovate lanceolateleaf, from four to five and a half inches in length, which in form and venation, and all save itsthricegreater size, not a little resembles the leaflets of a Coal Measure neuropteris,—N. acuminata. And, in the third place, there are the simple leaves that in general outline resemble, as I have said, the fronds of the recent Hart's-Tongue fern (Scolopendrium vulgare), except that their base is lanceolate, not cordate. Of these last there are two kinds inthe beds, representative of two several species, or, as their difference in general aspect and detail is very great, mayhap two several genera. The smaller of the two has a slender midrib, depressed on its upper side, and flanked on each side by a row of minute, slightly elongated protuberances, but elevated on the under side, and flanked by rows of small but well marked grooves, that curve outwards to the edges of the leaf. The larger resemble a Tæniopteris of the English and Continental Oolites, save that its midrib is more massive, its venation less at right angles with the stem, its base more elongated, and its size much greater. Some of the Helmsdale specimens are of gigantic proportions. From, however, a description and figure of a plant of evidently the same genus,—a Tæniopteris of the Virginian Oolite, given by Professor W.B. Rogers of the United States,—I find that some of the American fronds are larger still. My largest leaf from Helmsdale must have been nearly five inches in breadth; and if its proportions were those of some of the smaller ones of apparently the same species from the same locality, it must have measured about thirty inches in length. But fragments of American leaves have been found more than six inches in breadth, and whose length cannot have fallen short of forty inches. The Tæniopteris, as its name bears, is regarded as a fern. From, however, the leathern-like thickness of some of the Sutherland specimens,—from the great massiveness of their midrib,—from the rectilinear simplicity of their fibres,—and, withal, from, in some instances, their great size,—I am much disposed to believe that in our Scotch, mayhap also in the American species, it may have been the frond of some simple-leaved Cycas or Zamia. But the point is one which it must be left for the future satisfactorily to settle; though provisionally I may be permitted to regard these leaves as belonging to some Cycadaceousplant, whose fronds, in their venation and form, resembled the simple fronds of Scolopendrium, just as the leaves of some of its congeners resembled the fronds of the pinnate ferns.

Fig. 141.Fig. 141.

Fig. 142.Fig. 142.

I have already referred to the close resemblance which certain Cycadaceous genera bear to certain of the fern family. In at least two species of Pterophyllum,—P. comptumandP. minus,—the divisions of the leaflets seem little else than accidental rents in a simple frond; inP. Nelsonithey are apparentlynothingmore; and similar divisions, evidently, however, the effect of accident, and less rounded at their extremities than in at leastP. comptum, we find exhibited by some of the Helmsdale specimensof Tæniopteris (SeeFig. 142, p. 488.) But whatever the nature of these simple fronds, they seem to impart much of its peculiar character, all the world over, to the flora of the Oolitic ages.

Fig. 143.Fig. 143.PECOPTERIS OBTUSIFOLIA.

Fig. 144.Fig. 144.Fig. 145.Fig. 145.PACHYPTERIS.

Fig. 144.Fig. 144.

Fig. 145.Fig. 145.PACHYPTERIS.

The compound ferns of the formation are numerous, and at least proportionally a considerable part of them seem identical in species with those of the Oolite of England. (SeeFig. 143.) Among these there occurPecopteris Whitbiensis,Pecopteris obtusifolia,Pecopteris insignis,—all well marked English species; with several others. It has, besides, its apparent ferns, that seem to be new—(Fig. 144)—thatare at least not figured in any of the fossil floras to which I have access,—(Fig. 145),—such as a well defined Pachypteris, with leaflets broader and rounder than the typicalP. lanceolata, and a much stouter midrib; a minute Sphenopteris too, and what seems to be a Phlebopteris, somewhat resemblingP. propinqua, but greatly more massive in its general proportions. The equisetacea we find represented in the Brora deposits byEquisetum columnare,—a plant the broken remains of which occur in great abundance, and which, as was remarked by our President many years ago, in his paper on the Sutherlandshire Oolite, must have entered largely into the composition of the bed of lignite known as the Brora Coal. We find associated with it what seems to be the last of the Calamites,—Calamites arenaceus,—a name, however, which seems to have been bestowed both on this Oolitic plantand a resembling Carboniferous species. The deposit has also its Lycopodites, though, from their resemblance in foliage to the conifers, there exists that difficulty in drawing the line between them to which I have already adverted. One of these, however, so exactly resembles a lycopodite of both the Virginian and Yorkshire Oolite,—L. uncifolius,—that I cannot avoid regarding it as specifically identical; and it seems more than doubtful whether the stem which I have placed among the conifers is not a lycopodite also. It exhibits not only the general outline of the true club moss, but, like the fossil club mosses too, it wants that degree of ligniferous body in the rock which the coniferous fossils almost always possess. Yet another of the organisms of the deposit seems to have been either a lycopodite or a fern. Its leaflets are exceedingly minute,and set alternately on a stem slender as a hair,—circumstances in which it resembles some of the tiny lycopodites of the tropics, such asLycopodium apodium. I must mention, however, that the larger plant of the same beds which I have placed beside it, and which resembles it so closely that my engraver finds it difficult to indicate any other difference between them than that of size, appears to be a true fern, not a lycopodium. To yet another vegetable organism of the system,—an organism which must be regarded, if I do not mistake its character, as at once very interesting and extraordinary, occurring as it does so low in the scale, and bearing an antiquity so high,—I shall advert, after a preliminary remark on a general characteristic of the flora to which it belongs, but to which it seems to furnish a striking exception.

Fig. 146.Fig. 146.PHLEBOPTERIS.

Fig. 147.Fig. 147.

Fig. 148.Fig. 148.

From the disappearance of many of those anomalous types of the Coal Measures which so puzzle the botanist, and the extensive introduction of types that still exist, we can better conceive of the general features and relations of the flora of the Oolite than of those of the earlier floras. And yet the general result at which we arrive may be found not without its bearing on the older vegetations also. Throughout almost all the families of this Oolitic flora, there seems to have run a curious bond of relationship, which, like those ties which bound together some of the old clans of our country, united them, high and low, into one great sept, and conferred upon them a certain wonderful unity of character and appearance. Let us assume the ferns as our central group. Though less abundant than in the earlier creation of the Carboniferoussystem, they seem to have occupied, judging from their remains, very considerable space in the Oolitic vegetation; and with the ferns there were associated in great abundance the two prevailing families of the Pterides,—Equiseta and Lycopodia,—plants which, in most of our modern treatises on the ferns proper, take their place as the fern allies. (SeeFig. 148.) Let us place these along two of the sides of a pentagon,—the Lycopodia on the right side of the ferns, the Equiseta on the left; further, let us occupy the two remaining sides of the figure by the Coniferæ and the Cycadaceæ,—placing the Coniferæ on the side next the Lycopodia, and the Cycadaceæ, as the last added keystone of the erection, between these and the Equiseta. And now, let us consider how very curious the links are which give a wonderful unity to the whole. We still find great difficulty in distinguishing between the foliage of some of even the existing club mosses and the conifers; and the ancient Lepidodendra are very generally recognized as of a type intermediate between the two. Similar intermediate types, exemplified by extinct families, united the conifers and the ferns. The analogy ofKirchneriawith theThinnfeldia, says Dr. Braun, is very remarkable,notwithstanding that the former is a fern, and that the latter is ranked among conifers. The points of resemblance borne by the conifers to the huge Equiseta of the Oolitic period seem to have been equally striking. The pores which traverse longitudinally the channelled grooves by which the stems of our recent Equiseta are so delicately fluted, are said considerably more to resemble the discs of pines and araucarians than ordinary stomata. Mr. Francis does not hesitate to say, in his work on British Ferns, that the relation of this special family to the Coniferæ is so strong, both in external and internal structure, that it isnot without some hesitation he places them among the fern allies; and it has been ascertained by Mr. Dawes, in his researches regarding the calamite, that in its internal structure this apparent representative of Equiseta in the earlier ages of the world united "a network of quadrangular tissue similar to that of Coniferæ to other quadrangular cells arranged in perpendicular series," like the cells of plants of a humbler order. The relations of the Cycadacean order to ferns on the one hand, and to the Coniferæ on the other, are equally well marked. As in the ferns, the venation of its fronds is circinate, or scroll-like,—they have in several respects a resembling structure,—in at least one recent species they have a nearly identical form; and fronds of this fern-like type seem to have been comparatively common during the times of the Oolite. On the other hand, the Cycadaceæ manifest close relations to the conifers. Both have their seeds originally naked; both are cone-bearing; both possess discs on the sides of their cellules; and in both, in the transverse section, these cellules are subhexagonal, and radiate from a centre. Such were the very curious relations that united into one great sept the prevailing members of the Oolitic flora; and similar bonds of connection seem to have existed in the floras of the still earlier ages.

Fig. 149.Fig. 149.IMBRICATED STEM.(Helmsdale.)

Fig. 150.Fig. 150.(Helmsdale.)

Fig. 151.Fig. 151.

In the Oolite of Scotland I have, however, at length found trace of a vegetable organism thatseemsto have lain, if I may so express myself, outside the pentagon, and was not a member of any of the great families which it comprised. (SeeFig. 151.) I succeeded about four years ago in disinterring from the limestone of Helmsdale whatappearsto be a true dicotyledonous leaf, with the fragment of another leaf, which I at first supposed might have belonged to a plant of the same great class, but which I now find might have been a portion of a fern. WhenPhlebopteris Phillipsiiwas first detected in the Oolite of Yorkshire, Lindley and Hatton, regarding it as dicotyledonous, originated their term Dictyophillum as a general one for all such leaves. But it has since been assigned to a greatly lower order,—the ferns; and Sir Charles Lyell has kindly shown me that an exotic fern of the present day exhibits exactly such a reticulated style of venation as my Helmsdale fragment. (SeeFig. 152, p. 497.) The other leaf, however, though also fragmentary, and but indifferently preserved, seems to be decidedly marked by the dicotyledonous character; and so I continue to regard it, provisionally at least, as one of the first precursors in Scotland of our great forest trees, and of so many of our flowering and fruit-bearing plants, and as apparently occupyingthe same relative place in advance of its contemporaries as that occupied by the conifer of the Old Red Sandstone in advance of the ferns and Lycopodaceæ with which I found it associated. In the arrangement of its larger veins the better preserved Oolitic leaf somewhat resembles that of the buckthorn; but its state of keeping is such that it has failed to leave its exterior outline in the stone.

Fig. 152.Fig. 152.

One or two general remarks, in conclusion, on the Oolite flora of Scotland may be permitted me by the Association. In its aspect as a whole it greatly resembles the Oolite flora of Virginia, though separated in space from the locality in which the latter occurs by a distance of nearly four thousand miles. There are several species of plants common toboth, such asEquisetum columnare,Calamites arenaceus,Pecopteris Whitbiensis,Lycopodites uncifolius, and apparentlyTæniopteris magnifolia; both, too, manifest the great abundance in which they were developed of old by the beds of coal into which their remains have been converted. The coal of the Virginia Oolite has been profitably wrought for many years: it is stated by Sir Charles Lyell, who carefully examined the deposit, and has given as the results of his observation in his second series of Travels in the United States, that the annual quantity taken from the Oolitic pits by Philadelphia alone amounted to ten thousand tons; and though, on the other hand, the Sutherlandshire deposit has never been profitably wrought, it has been at least wrought more extensively than any other in the British Oolite. The seam of Brora, varying from three feet three to three feet eight inches in thickness, furnished, says Sir Roderick Murchison, between the years 1814 and 1826, no less than seventy thousand tons of coal. Such is its extent, too, that nearly thirty miles from the pit's mouth (in Ross-shire under the Northern Sutor) I have found it still existing, though in diminished proportions, as a decided coal seam, which it must have taken no small amount of vegetable matter to form. And almost on the other side of the world, nearly five thousand miles from the Sutherland beds, and more than eight thousand miles from the Carolina ones, the same Oolitic flora again appears, associated with beds of coal. At Nagpur in Central India the Oolitic Sandstones abound in simple fronded ferns, such us Tæniopteris and Glossopteris, and has its Zamites, its coniferous leaves, and its equisetaceæ.

Compared with existing floras, that of our Scottish Oolite seems to have most nearly resembled the flora of New Zealand,—a flora remarkable for the great abundance of its ferns, and its vast forests of coniferous trees, that retain atall seasons their coverings of acicular spiky leaves. It is to this flora thatDacrydium cupressinum,—so like a club moss in its foliage,—belongs; andPodocarpus ferrugineus,—a tree which more closely resembles in its foliage the Eathie conifer, save that its spiky leaves are somewhat narrower and longer than any other with which I am acquainted. About two thirds of the plants which cover the plains, or rise on the hill-sides of that country, are cryptogamic, consisting mainly of ferns and their allies; and it is a curious circumstance,—which was, however, not without precedent in the merely physical conditions of the Oolitic flora of Scotland,—that so shallow is the soil even where its greatest forests have sprung up, and so immediately does the rock lie below, that the central axes of the trees do not elongate downwards into a tap, but throw out horizontally on every side a thick network of roots, which rises so high over the surface as to render walking through the woods a difficult and very fatiguing exercise. The flora of the Oolite, like that of New Zealand, seems to have been in large part cryptogamic, consisting of ferns and the allied horse-tail and club moss families. Its forests seem to have contained only cone-bearing trees; at least among the many thousand specimens of its fossil woods which have been examined, no tissue of the true, dicotyledonous character has yet been found; and with the exception of the leaves just described, all those yet found in the System, which could have belonged to true trees, are of the acicular form common to the Coniferæ, and show in their dense ligneous structure that they were persistent, not deciduous. Nor is there evidence wanting that many of the Coniferæ of the period grew in so shallow a soil, that their tap-roots were flattened and bent backwards, and they were left to derive their sole support, like the trees of the New Zealand forests, from such of their roots as shot out horizontally.We even know the nature of the rock upon which they rested. As shown by fragments still locked up among the interstices of their petrified roots, it was an Old Red flagstone similar to that of Caithness in the neighborhood of Wick and Thurso, and containing the same fossil remains. In the water-rolled pebbles of the Conglomerate of Helmsdale and Port Gower,—pebbles encrusted by Oolitic corals, and enclosed in a calcareous paste, containing Oolitic belemnites and astreæ,—I have found the well marked fishes and fucoids of the Old Red Sandstone. As shown by the appearance of the rounded masses in which these lay, they must have presented as ancient an appearance in the times of the Lower Oolite as they do now; and the glimpse which they lent of so remote an antiquity, through the medium of an antiquity which, save for the comparison which they furnished the means of instituting, might be well deemed superlatively remote, I have felt singularly awe-inspiring and impressive. Macaulay anticipates a time when the traveller from some distant land shall take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to survey the ruins of St. Paul's. In disinterring from amid the antique remains of the Oolite the immensely more antique remains of the Old Red Sandstone, I have felt as such a traveller would feel if, on setting himself to dig among the scattered heaps for memorials of the ruined city, he had fallen on what had been once the Assyrian Gallery of the British Museum, and had found mingling with the antiquities of perished London the greatly older and more venerable antiquities of Nineveh or of Babylon. The land of the Oolite in this northern locality must have been covered by a soil which,—except that from a lack of the boulder clays it must have been poorer and shallower,—must have not a little resembled that of the lower plains of Cromarty, Caithness, and Eastern Ross. And on this Palæozoic platform,long exposed, as the Oolitic Conglomerates abundantly testify, to denuding and disintegrating agencies,—a platform beaten by the surf where it descended to the sea level, and washed in the interior by rivers, with here a tall hill or abrupt precipice, and there a flat plain or sluggish morass,—there grew vast forests of cone-bearing trees, tangled thickets of gigantic equisetaceæ, numerous forms of Cycas and Zamia, and wide-rolling seas of fern, amid whose open spaces club mosses of extinct tribes sent forth their long, creeping stems, spiky and dry, and thickly mottled with pseudo-spore-bearing catkins.

The curtain drops over this ancient flora of the Oolite in Scotland; and when, long after, there is a corner of the thick enveloping screen withdrawn, and we catch a partial glimpse of one of the old Tertiary forests of our country, all is new. Trees of the high dicotyledonous class, allied to the plane and the buckthorn, prevail in the landscape, intermingled, however, with dingy funereal yews; and the ferns and equisetæ that rise in the darker openings of the wood approach to the existing type. And yet, thougheonsof the past eternity have elapsed since we looked out upon Cycas and Zamia, and the last of the Calamites, the time is still early, and long ages must lapse ere man shall arise out of the dust, to keep and to dress fields waving with the productions of yet another and different flora, and to busy himself with all the labor which he taketh under the sun. Our country, in this Tertiary time, has still its great outbursts of molten matter, that bury in fiery deluges many feet in depth, and many square miles in extent, the debris of wide tracts of woodland and marsh; and the basaltic columns still form in its great lava bed; and ever and anon, as the volcanic agencies awake, clouds of ashes darken the heavens, and cover up the landscape as if with accumulated drifts of a protracted snow storm. Who shalldeclare what, throughout those long ages, the history of creation has been? We see at wide intervals the mere fragments of successive floras; but know not how what seem the blank interspaces were filled, or how, as extinction overtook in succession one tribe of existences after another, and species, like individuals, yielded to the great law of death, yet other species were brought to the birth, and ushered upon the scene, and the chain of being was maintained unbroken. We see only detached bits of that green web which has covered our earth ever since the dry land first appeared; but the web itself seems to have been continuous throughout all time; though ever as breadth after breadth issued from the creative loom, the pattern has altered, and the sculpturesque and graceful forms that illustrated its first beginnings and its middle spaces have yielded to flowers of richer color and blow, and fruits of fairer shade and outline; and for gigantic club mosses stretching forth their hirsute arms, goodly trees of the Lord have expanded their great boughs; and for the barren fern and the calamite, clustering in thickets beside the waters, or spreading on flowerless hill slopes, luxuriant orchards have yielded their ruddy flush, and rich harvests their golden gleam.

THE END.

FOOTNOTES:[1]The Prayer will be found at the end of these Memorials.[2]The same revolver proved to be the instrument of death to another person, two days after. The circumstances are thus related in theEdinburgh Witnessof December 27:—"A most melancholy event, arising out of the following circumstances, occurred yesterday in the shop of Mr. Thomson, gunmaker. In the beginning of July, last year, Mr. Hugh Miller bought a six-shot revolving chamber pistol, size of ball ninety-two to the pound, from the late firm of Messrs. Alexander Thomson & Son, gunmakers, 16 Union Place. A few days after, he called and said he thought it a little stiff in its workings, and got it made to revolve more readily. The pistol has not been seen by Mr. Thomson since then; but in his absence a few minutes at dinner yesterday, Professor Miller called about twenty minutes from two, and asked Mr. Thomson's foreman how many of the six shots had been fired. He added, 'Mind, it is loaded.' The foreman, instead of removing the breech or chamber to examine it, bad incautiously turned the pistol entire towards his own person, and lifting up the hammer with his fingers, while he counted the remaining loaded chambers, he must have slipped his fingers while the pistol was turned to his own head. It exploded, and the ball lodging in the angle of his right eye, he fell back a lifeless corpse. The pistol is a bolted one, which permits of being carried loaded with perfect safety. Having been wet internally, rust may have stopped the action of the bolt. It is a singular fact that Hugh Miller dropped the pistol into the bath, where it remained for several hours. This may account for the apparent incaution of Mr. Thomson's foreman."[3]Seeante, p. 9.[4]The horizontal lines in this diagram indicate the divisions of the various geologic systems; the vertical lines the sweep of the various classes or sub-classes of plants across the geologic scale, with, so far as has yet been ascertained, the place of their first appearance in creation; while the double line of type below shows in what degree the order of their occurrence agrees with the arrangement of the botanist. The single point of difference indicated by the diagram between the order of occurrence and that of arrangement, viz., the transposition of the gymnogenous and monocotyledonous classes, must be regarded as purely provisional. It is definitely ascertained that the Lower Old Red Sandstone has its coniferous wood, but not yet definitely ascertained that it has its true monocotyledonous plants; though indications are not awanting that the latter were introduced upon the scene at least as early as the pines or araucarians; and the chance discovery of some fossil in a sufficiently good state of keeping to determine the point may, of course, at once retranspose the transposition, and bring into complete correspondence the geologic and botanic arrangements.[5]The horizontal lines of the diagram here indicate, as inFig. 1, the divisions of the several geologic systems; the vertical lines represent the leading divisions and classes of animals, and, as shown by the formations in which their earliest known remains occur, the probable period of their first appearance in creation; while the double line of text below exhibits the complete correspondence which obtains between their occurrence, in nature and the Cuvierian arrangement. The line representative of the Radiata ought perhaps to have been elevated a little higher than either of its two neighbors.[6]Fig. 14, Neuropteris Loshii.Fig. 15, Neuropteris gigantea.Fig. 16, Neuropteris acuminata.Fig. 17, Sphenopteris affinis.Fig. 18, Pecopteris heterophylla.Fig. 19, Sphenopteris dilitata.[7]Fig. 21,r a, Rachis, greatly thickened towards its base by numerous ærial roots, shot downwards to the soil, and which closely cover the stem.[8]Fig. 22,m, Cellular tissue of the centre of rachis;d, similar tissue of the circumference;f,v, darkly-colored woody fibres of great strength, the "internal buttresses" of the illustration;e, the outer cortical portion formed by the bases of the leaves.[9]Fig. 23, Branching stem, with bark and leaves.Fig. 24.Extremity of branch.Fig. 25, Extremity of another branch, with indication of cone-like receptacle of spores or seed.[10]No true fossil palms have yet been detected in the great Oolitic and Wealden systems, though they certainly occur in the Carboniferous and Permian rocks, and are comparatively common in the earlier and middle Tertiary formations. Much cannot be founded on merely negative evidence; but it would be certainly a curious circumstance should it be found that this graceful family, first ushered into being some time in the later Palæozoic periods, was withdrawn from creation during the Middle ages of the earth's history, to be again introduced in greatly more than the earlier proportions during the Tertiary and recent periods.[11]Leaf of a tree allied to the maple.[12]Leaf of a tree allied to the elm.[13]Here, as in the former diagrams (Figs. 1and4), the horizontal lines represent the divisions of the great geologic systems; while the vertical lines indicate the sweep of the several orders of fishes across the scale, and the periods, so far as has yet been determined, of their first occurrence in creation.[14]Some of thesedragonsof the Secondary ages were of very considerable size. The wings of a Pterodactyle of the Chalk, in the possession of Mr. Bowerbank, must have had a spread of about eighteen feet; those of a recently discovered Pterodactyle of the Greensand, a spread of not less than twenty-seven feet. TheLammer-geyerof the Alps has an extent of wing of but from ten to eleven feet; while that of the great Condor of the Andes, the largest of flying birds, does not exceed twelve feet.[15]a, Palæotherium magnum.b, Palæotherium minus.c, Anoplotherium commune.[16]It will be seen that there is no attempt made in this lecture to represent the great Palæozoic division as characterizedthroughout its entire extentby a luxuriant flora. It is, on the contrary, expressly stated here, that the "plants of its earlier and terminal formations (i.e.those of the Silurian, Old Red, and Permian Systems) werefew and small," and that "it wasonly during the protracted eons of the carboniferous period that they received their amazing development, unequalled in any previous or succeeding time." Being thus express in my limitation, I think I have just cause of complaint against any one who represents me us unfairly laboring, in this very composition, to make it be believed that thewholePalæozoic period was characterized by a gorgeous flora; and as thus sophistically generalizing in the first instance, in order to make a fallacious use of the generalization in the second, with the intention of misleading non-geologic readers. Such, however, as may be seen from the following extracts from the "Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Science at Philadelphia," is the charge preferred against me by a citizen of the United States."Mr. William Parker Foulke asked the attention of the Society to a lecture by Mr. Hugh Miller, recently republished in the United States under the title of 'The Two Records, Mosaic and Geological,' and made some remarks upon the importance of maintaining a careful scrutiny of the logic of the natural sciences.... Mr. Miller teaches that, in the attempt to reconcile the two 'records,' there are only three periods to be accounted for by the geologist, viz. 'the period ofplants; the period ofgreat sea monsters and creeping things; and the period ofcattle and beasts of the earth;' and that the first of these periods is represented by the rocks grouped under the termPalæozoic, and is distinguished from theSecondaryandTertiarychiefly by its gorgeous flora; and that the geological evidence is so complete as to be patent to all, that the first great period of organized being was, as described in the Mosaic record, peculiarly a period of herbs and trees, yielding seed after their kind. The general reader, not familiar with the details of geological arrangement, could not fail to infer from such a statement, used for such a purpose, that the Palæozoic rocks are regarded by geologists as forming one group representative of one period, which can properly be said to be distinguished as awholeby its gorgeous flora; and that it is properly so distinguishedfor the argument in question. It was familiar to the Academy, as well as to Mr. Miller, that from thecarboniferousrocks downward (backward in order of time), there have been discriminated a large number of periods, differing from one another in mineral and in organic remains; and that the proportion of thecarboniferousera to the whole series is small, whether we regard the thickness of its deposits or its conjectural chronology. It in only of thiscarboniferousera,the latest of this series, that the author's remarks could be true; and even of this, if taken for the entire surface of the earth, it could not be truly asserted that 'the evidence is so complete as to be patent to all,' that the quantity of its vegetable products distinguishes it from the earth's surface during the era in which we live. To confound by implication all this periods termed Palæozoic, so as to apply to them as a whole what could be true, if at all, only of thecarboniferousperiod, is a fallacious use of a generalizationmade for a purpose, and upon a principle not properly available for the writer's argument," &c. So far the "Proceedings" of the Academy.This, surely, is very much the reverse of fair. I, however, refer the matter, without note or comment (so far at least as it involves the question whether Mr. Foulke has not, in the face of the most express statement on my part, wholly misrepresented me), to the judgment of candid and intelligent readers on both sides of the Atlantic.I know not that I should recognize Mr. Foulke as entitled, after such a display, to be dealt with simply as the member of a learned society who differs from me on a scientific question; nor does his reference to the "carboniferous era" as "thelatestof the" Palæozoic "series," and his apparent unacquaintance with that Permian period, in reality the terminal one of the division during which the Palæozoic forms seem to have gradually died away, in order to give place to those of the Secondary division, inspire any very high respect for his acquirements as a geologist. Waiving, however, the legitimacy of his claim, I may be permitted to repeat, for the further information of the non-geological reader, that thecarboniferousformations,wherever they have yet been detected, justify, in the amazing abundance of their carbonized vegetable organisms, the name which they bear. Mr. Foulke, in three short sentences, uses the terms "carboniferous era," "carboniferous rocks," "carboniferous period," four several times; and these terms are derived from the predominating amount of carbon (elaborated of old by the plants of the period) which occurs in its several formations. The very language which he has to employ is of itself a confirmation of the statement which he challenges. For so "patent" is thiscarboniferouscharacter of the system, that it has given to it its universally accepted designation,—the verbal sign by which it is represented wherever it is known. Mr. F. states, that "if taken for the entire surface of the earth," it cannot be truly asserted that the carboniferous flora preponderated over that of the present time, or, at least, that its preponderance could not be regarded as "patent to all," The statement admits of so many different meanings, that I know not whether I shall succeed in replying to the special meaning intended by Mr. Foulke. There are no doubt carboniferous deposits on the earth's surface still unknown to the geologist, the evidence of which on the point must be regarded, in consequence, not as "patent to all," but asnil. They are witnesses absent from court, whose testimony has not yet been tendered. But equally certain it is, I repeat, that wherever carboniferous formationshavebeen discovered and examined, they have been found to bear the unique characteristic to which the system owes its name,—they have been found charged with the carbon, existing usually as great beds of coal, which was elaborated of old by its unrivalled flora from the elements. And as this evidence is certain and positive, no one would be entitled to set off against it, as of equal weight, the merely negative evidence of some one or two deposits of the carboniferous age that did not bear the carboniferous character, even were such known to exist; far less is anyone entitled to set off against it thepossiblynegative evidence of deposits of the carboniferous age not yet discovered nor examined; for that would be simply to set off against good positive evidence, what is no evidence at all. It would be to set off thepossibleevidence of the absent witnesses, not yet precognosced in the case, against the express declarations of the witnesses already examined, and strong on the positive side.Surely an American, before appealing, in a question of this kind, to the bare possibility of the existence somewhere or other of barely negative evidence, ought to have bethought him of the very extraordinary positive evidence furnished by the carboniferous deposits of his own great country. The coal fields of Britain and the European continent had been wrought for ages ere those of North America were known, and for ages more after it had been but ascertained that the New, like the Old World, has its Coal Measures. And during the latter period theargumentof Mr. Foulke might have been employed, just as now, and some member of a learned society might have urged that, though the coal fields of Europe bore evidence to the former existence of a singularly luxuriant flora, beyond comparison more vast than the European one of the present day, the same could not be predicated of the American coal fields, whose carbonized remainsmightbe found representative of a flora which had been at least not more largely developed than that existing American flora to which the great western forests belong. Now, however, the time for any such argument has gone by; the American coal fields have been carefully explored; and what is the result? The geologist has come to know, that even the mighty forests of America are inconsiderable, compared with its deposits of coal; nay, that all its forests gathered into one heap would fail to furnish the materials of a single coal seam equal to that of Pittsburg; and that centuries after all its thick woods shall have disappeared before the axe, and it shall have come to present the comparatively bare, unwooded aspect of the long civilized countries of Southern Europe, it will continue to derive the elements of its commercial greatness, and the cheerful blaze of its many millions of domestic hearths, from the unprecedentedly luxurious flora of the old carboniferous ages. Truly, very wonderful are the coal fields of Northern America! If geologists inferred, as they well might, that the extinct flora which had originated the European coal vastly outrivalled in luxuriance that of the existing time, what shall be said of that flora of the same age which originated the coal deposits of Nova Scotia and the United States,—depositstwenty times as greatas all those of all Europe put together![17]Such is also the view taken by the author of a recently published work, "The Genesis of the Earth and of Man." "Christian philosophers have been compelled to acknowledge," says this writer, "that the Mosaic account of creation is only reconcileable with demonstrated facts, by its being regarded as a record ofappearances; and if so, to vindicate the truth of God, we must consider it, so far as the acts are concerned, as the relation of a revelation to thesight, which was sufficient for all its purposes, rather than as one in words; though the words are perfectly true as describing the revelation itself, and the revelation is equally true as showing man the principal phenomena which he would have seen had it been possible for him to be a witness of the events. Further, if we view the narrative as the description of a series of visions, while we find it to be perfectly reconcileable with the statement in other parts of Scripture, that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, we remove, with other difficulties, the only strong objection to the opinion of those who regard the 'six days' as periods of undeflnable duration, and who may even believe that we are now in the 'seventh day,'—the day of rest or of cessation from the work of creation. Certainly, 'the day of God,' and 'the day of the Lord,' and the 'thousand two hundred and threescore days,' of the Revelation of St. John, and the 'seventy weeks' in the Prophecy of Daniel, are not to be understood in their primary and natural senses," &c., &c.[18]"For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it."[19]Forbes and Hanley enumerate one hundred and sixty bivalves, and two hundred and thirty-two univalves,—in all three hundred and ninety-two species, as the only known shell-bearing molluscs of the existing British seas.[20]Principles of Zoology: touching the Structure, Development, Distribution, and Natural Arrangement of the Races of Animals, living and extinct. With numerous Illustrations. For the Use of Schools and Colleges. Part I., "Comparative Physiology." By Louis Agassiz and Augustus A. Gould. Boston: Gould & Lincoln.[21]a, Articulating surface of joint.b, Fragment of column, exhibiting laterally the tooth processes, so fitted into each other as to admit of flexure without risk of dislocation. The uppermost joint shows two lateral cavities for the articulation of auxiliary arms.[22]Perhaps one strengthening principle more might be enumerated as occurring in this curious piece of mechanism. In the layer of the nether plate, the fibres, instead of being laid in parallel lines, like the threads in the moleskin of my illustration, seem to befeltedtogether,—an arrangement which must have added considerably to their coherency and powers of resistance.[23]Fig. 102, Clymenia Sedwicki;Fig. 103, Gyroceras Eifelensis;Fig. 104, Cirrus Goldfussii.[24]Berosus, Hieronymus, Mnaseas, Nicolaus, Manetho, Mochus, and Hestæus.[25]See Cory's "Ancient Fragments."[26]As was common in Bible illustrations published in our own country a century and a half ago, the old Greek artist has introduced into his medal two points of time. Two of the figures representNoeand his wife quitting the ark; while the other two exhibit them as seated within it. An English print of the death of Abel, now before me, which dates a little after the times of the Revolution, shows, on the same principle, the two brothers, represented by four figures,—two of these quietly offering up their respective sacrifices in the background, and the other two grappling in deadly warfare in front.[27]"In preparing the 'Horæ Biblicæ Quotidianæ,' he [Dr. Chalmers] had beside him, for use and reference, the Concordance, the Pictorial Bible, Poole's Synopsis, Henry's Commentary, and Robertson's Researches in Palestine. These constituted what he called his Biblical Library. 'There,' said he to a friend, pointing, as he spoke, to the above named volumes as they lay together on his library table, with a volume of the 'Quotidianæ,' in which he had just been writing, lying open beside them,—'these are the books I use: all that is Biblical is there.'"—Dr. Hanna's Preface to "Daily Scripture Readings."[28]The raven is said to live for more than a hundred years. I am, however, not prepared to say that it was the same pair of birds that used, year after year, to build on the same rock-shelf among the precipices of Navity, from the times of my great-grandfather's boyhood to those of my own.[29]The following estimate of the air-breathing vertebrates (that of the "Physical Atlas," second edition, 1856) may be regarded as the latest. It will he seen that it does not include the cetacea or the seals:—SPECIES.Quadrumana170Marsupialia123Edentata28Pachydermata39Terrestrial Carnivora514Rodentia604Ruminantia180——1658Birds6266Reptiles657Turtles 8Sea Snakes 7}15——642Great as is this number of animals, compared with those known a century ago, there are indications that the list is to be increased rather than diminished. Even by the latest European authorities the reindeer is represented as consisting of but a single species, common to the sub-arctic regions of both the Old and New Worlds; whereas in the "Canadian Naturalist" for 1856 I find it stated, on what seems to be competent authority, that America has its two species of reindeer, and that they both differ from the European species.[30]If I do not introduce here the argument founded on the great age of certain gigantic trees, such as the Baobab of intertropical Africa, or the Taxodium of South America, it is not because I have any reason to challenge the estimates of Adamson or Candolle. The one tree may have lived its five thousand, the other its six thousand, years; but as the grounds have been disputed on which the calculations respecting their vast age have been founded, and as they cannot be reëxamined anew by the reader, I wholly omit the evidence, in the general question, which they have been supposed to furnish.[31]The following excellent remarks on the economy of miracle, by Chalmers, bear very directly on this subject:—"It is remarkable that God is sparing of miracles, and seems to prefer the ordinary processes of nature, if equally effectual for the accomplishment of his purposes. He might have saved Noah and his family by miracles; but he is not prodigal of these, and so he appointed that an ark should be made to bear up the living cargo which was to be kept alive on the surface of the waters; and not only so, but he respects the laws of the animal physiology, as he did those of hydrostatics, in that he put them by pairs into the ark, male and female, to secure their transmission to after ages, and food was stored up to sustain them during their long confinement. In short, he dispenses with miracles when these are not requisite for the fulfilment of his ends; and he never dispenses with the ordinary means when these are fitted, and at the same time sufficient, for the occasion."—Daily Scripture Readings, vol. i. p. 10.[32]For a brief but masterly view of these ancient cosmogonies, see the Rev. D. Macdonald's "Creation and the Fall." Edinburgh: Constable & Co.[33]1. The great surrounding oceans.2. Caspian Sea.3. River Phison.4–4. Points of the Compass.5. Mediterranean Sea.6. Red Sea.7–8. Persian Gulf, with the rivers Tigris and Euphrates.9. River Gihon.[34]1. The sun Occident.2. The sun orient.3. The Heavens.4. Great mountain behind which the sun is hidden when it is night.5. The Mediterranean Sea.6. Red Sea.7. Persian Gulf.8. Garden of Eden.9. Great surrounding ocean10. The Creator looking down upon his work, and seeing that all was good.[35]The very different terms which Mr. Powell employs in characterizing the anti-geologists, from those which he makes use of in denouncing the men honestly bent on reconciling the enunciations of revelation with the findings of geologic science,—a class which included in the past, divines such as Chalmers, Buckland, and Pye Smith, and comprises divines such as Hitchcock and the Archbishop of Canterbury now,—is worthy of being noted. In two sermons, "Christianity without Judaism," written by this clergyman of the Church of England, to show that all days of the week are alike, and the Christian Sabbath a mere blunder, I find the following passage:—"Some divines have consistently rejected all geology and all science as profane and carnal; and some even, when pretending to call themselves men of science, have stooped to the miserable policy, of tampering with the truth, investing the real facts in false disguises, to cringe to the prejudices of the many, and to pervert science into a seeming accordance with popular prepossessions." I cannot believe that this will be regarded as justifiable language: it seems scarce worthy of a man of science; and will, I fear, only be accepted as good in evidence that theodium theologicumis not restricted to what is termed the orthodox side of the Church.[36]The gentleman here referred to lectured no later than October, 1853, against the doctrines of the geologists; and modestly chose as the scene of his labors the city of Hutton and Playfair. What he set himself specially to "demonstrate" was, as he said, that the geologic "theories as to antiquity of the earth, successive eras, &c., were not only fallacious and unphilosophical, but rendered nugatory the authority of the sacred Scriptures." Not only, however, did he exert himself in demolishing the geologists as infidel, but he denounced also as unsound the theology of good old Isaac Watts. The lines taught us in our infancy,—"Let dogs delight to bark and bite,For God hath made them so,"were, he remarked, decidedly heterodox. They ought to have run instead,—"Let dogs delight to bark and bite,Satanhath made them so"!!![37]"A Brief and Complete Refutation of the Anti-Scriptural Theory of Geologists." By a Clergyman of the Church of England. London: Wertheim & Macintosh. 1853.[38]Newspaper Report of Meeting of the British Association held at York in September, 1844.[39]See "Primary and Present State of the Solar System, particularly of our own Planet;" and "Exposure of the Principles of Modern Geology." By P. M'Farlane, Author of the "Primary and Present State of the Solar System." Edinburgh: Thomas Grant.[40]One of the more brilliant writers of the present day,—a native of the picturesque village in which this anti-geologist resides,—describes in a recent work, with the enthusiasm of the poet, the noble mountains which rise around it. I know not, however, whether my admiration of the passage was not in some degree dashed by a few comic notions suggestive of an "imaginary conversation," in the style of Landor, between this popular author and his anti-geologic townsman, on the merits of hills in general, and in especial on the claims of those which encircle Comrie "as the mountains are round about Jerusalem." The two gentlemen would, I suspect, experience considerable difficulty in laying down, in such a discussion, their common principles.[41]"Comparative Estimate of the Mineral and Mosaical Geologies." By Granville Penn, Esq. London, 1825.[42]"Statesman and Record," October 6th, 1846.[43]Sir Charles Lyell's statement is by no means so express or definite as it is represented to be in this passage, in which I have taken the evidence of his opponents regarding it. What he really says (see his "Principles," second edition, 1832) is what follows:—"Ifthe ratio of recession had never exceeded fifty yards in forty years, it must have required nearly ten thousand years for the excavation of the whole ravine; but no probable conjecture can be offered as to the quantity of time consumed in such an operation, because the retrograde movement may have been much more rapid when the whole current was confined within a space not exceeding a fourth or fifth of that which the Falls now occupy." In the eighth edition of the same work, however, published in 1850, after he had examined the Falls, there occurs the following re-statement of the case:—"After the most careful inquiries I was able to make during my visit to the spot in 1841–42, I came to the conclusion that the average [recession] of one foot a year would be a much more probable conjecture than that of one and a quarter yards. In that case it would have requiredthirty-five thousand yearsfor the retreat of the Falls from the escarpment of Queenston to their present site. It seems by no means improbable that such a result would be no exaggeration of the truth, although we cannot assume that the retrograde movement has been uniform. At some points it may have receded much faster than at present; but in general its progress was probably slower, because the cataract, when it began to recede, must have been nearly twice its present height."[44]"Scottish Christian Herald," 1838, vol. iii., p. 766.[45]The substance of this and the following lecture was originally given in a single paper, before the Geological Section of the British Association, held at Glasgow in September 1855. So considerable have been the additions, however, that the one paper has swelled into two lectures. Most of the added matter was at first thrown into the form of Notes; but it was found, that from their length and frequency, they would have embarrassed the printer, mayhap the reader also; and so most of the larger ones have been introduced into the text within brackets.[46]A curious set of these, with specimens of the smooth-stemmed fucoid collected by Mr. John Miller of Thurso,—a meritorious laborer in the geologic field,—were exhibited at Glasgow to the Association. The larger stems were thickly traversed in Mr. J. Miller's specimens by diagonal lines, which seemed, however, to be merely lines of rhomboidal fracture in the glassy coal into which the plants were converted, and not one of their original characters.[47]I must, however, add, that there was found in the neighborhood of Stromness about fifteen years ago, by Dr. John Fleming, a curious nondescript vegetable organism, which, though equivocal in character and appearance, was in all probability a plant of the sea. It consisted of a flattened cylinder, in some of the specimens exceeding a foot in length by an inch in breadth, and traversed on both the upper and under sides by a mesial groove extending to the extremities. It bore no external markings, and the section exhibited but an indistinct fibrous structure, sufficient, however, to indicate its vegetable origin. I have not hitherto succeeded in finding for myself specimens of this organism, which has been named provisionally, by Dr. Fleming,Stroma obscura; but it seems not improbable that certain supposed fragments of wood, detected by Mr. Charles Peach in the Caithness Flagstones, but which do not exhibit the woody structure, may have belonged to it.[48]I figured this species from an imperfect Cromarty specimen fifteen years ago. (See "Old Red Sandstone," first edition, 1841, Plate VII. Fig. 4). Of the greatly better specimens now figured I owe the larger one (Fig. 120) to Mrs. Mill, Thurso, who detected it in the richly fossiliferous flagstones of the locality in which she resides, and kindly made it over to me; and the specimen of which I have given a magnificent representation (Fig. 12, p. 55) to my friend Mr. Robert Dick. I have, besides, seen several specimens of the same organism, in a better or worse state of keeping, in the interesting collection of the Rev. Charles Clouston, Sandwick, near Stromness.[49]"Frogspawn is full of eyes [that is, black eye-like points], and every eye is a tadpole."[50]Mr. Page figures, in his "Advanced Text Book of Geology" (p. 127), a few circular markings from the Forfarshire beds, which he still regards as spawn, probably that of a Crustacean, and which certainly differ greatly in appearance from the markings found enclosed in the apparent spathes.[51]Since these sentences were written I have seen a description of both the plants of the Upper Old Red to which they refer, in an interesting sketch of the geology of Roxburgshire by the Rev. James Duncan, which forms part of a recent publication devoted to the history and antiquities of the shire. "In the red quarry of Denholm Hill there occurs," says Mr. Duncan, "a stratum of soft yellowish sandstone, which contains impressions of an apparent fucoid in considerable quantity. One or several linear stems diverge from a point, and throw off at acute angles, as they grow upwards, branches or leaves very similar to the stem, which are in turn subdivided into others. The width of the stalks is generally about a quarter of an inch, the length often a foot. The color is brown, blackish-brown, or grayish. The same plant also occurs in the whitestone quarry [an overlying bed] in the form of Carbonaceous impressions. There can be little doubt that it is a fucoid. The general mode of growth greatly resembles that of certain seaweeds; and in some specimens we have seen the branches dilated a little at the extremities, like those of such of the living fuci as expand in order to afford space for the fructification. It is deserving of remark, that the plant is seldom observed lying horizontally on the rock in a direction parallel to its stratification, but rising up through the layers, so as only to be seen when the stone is broken across; as if it had been standing erect, or kept buoyant in water, while the stony matter to which it owes its preservation was deposited around it." Mr. Duncan, after next referring to the remains of what he deems a land plant, derived from the same deposit, and which, though sadly mutilated, presents not a little of the appearance of the naked framework of a frond of Cyclopterus Hibernicus divested of the leaflets, goes on to describe the apparent calamite of the formation. "The best preserved vegetable remain yet found in Denholm Hill quarry," he says, "is the radical portion of what we cannot hesitate to call a species of calamite. The lower part is regularly and beautifully rounded, bulging and prominent, nearly four inches in diameter. About an inch from the bottom it contracts somewhat suddenly in two separate stages, and, from the uppermost sends up a stem about an inch in diameter, and nearly of the same length, where it is broken across. At the origin of this stem the small longitudinal ridges are distinctly marked; and the whole outline of the figure, though converted into stone, is as well defined as it could have been in the living plant." Mr. Duncan accompanies his description with a figure of the organism described, which, however, rather resembles the bulb of a liliaceous plant than the root of a calamite, which in all the better preserved, specimens contracts, instead of expanding, as it descends. The apparent expansion, however, in the Old Red specimen may be simply a result of compression in its upper part: the under part certainly much resembles, in the dome-like symmetry of its outline, the radical termination of a solitary calamite.[52]"Though the coal of Sabero is apparently included in Devonian rocks," says Sir Roderick Murchison, "M. Casiano de Prado thinks that this appearance may be do to inverted folds of the strata." On the other hand, M. Alcide D'Orbigny regards it us decidedly Old Red; and certainly its Sphenopteris and Lepidodendron bent much more the aspect of Devonian than of Carboniferous plants.[53]Now, alas! no more. In Mr. Gourlay the energy and shrewd business habits of the accomplished merchant were added to an enlightened zeal for general science, and no inconsiderable knowledge in both the geologic and botanic provinces. The marked success, in several respects, of the brilliant meeting of the British Association which held in Glasgow in September 1855, was owing in no small measure to the indefatigable exertions and well calculated arrangements of Mr. Gourlay.[54]Trees must have been very abundant in what is now Scotland in these Secondary ages. Trunks of the common Scotch fir are of scarce more frequent occurrence in our mosses than the trunks of somewhat resembling trees among the shales of the Lower Oolite of Helmsdale. On examining in that neighborhood, about ten years since, a huge heap of materials which had been collected along the sea shore for burning into lime in a temporary kiln, I found that more than three fourths of the whole consisted of fragments of coniferous wood washed out of the shale beds by the surf, and the remainder of a massive Isastrea. And only two years ago, after many kilnfuls had been gathered and burnt, his grace the Duke of Argyll found that fossil wood could still he collected by cartloads along the shore of Helmsdale. The same woods also occur at Port Gower, Kintradwell, Shandwick, and Eathie. In the Island of Eigg, too, in an Oolite deposit, locked up in trap, and whose stratigraphical relations cannot in consequence be exactly traced, great fragments ofPinites Eiggensisare so abundant, that, armed with a mattock, I have dug out of the rock, in a few minutes, specimens enough to supply a dozen of museums. In short, judging from its fossiliferous remains, it seems not improbable that old Oolitic Scotland was as densely covered with coniferous trees as the Scotland of Roman times, when the great Caledonian forest stretched northwards from the wall of Antoninus to the furthest Thule.

[1]The Prayer will be found at the end of these Memorials.

[2]The same revolver proved to be the instrument of death to another person, two days after. The circumstances are thus related in theEdinburgh Witnessof December 27:—"A most melancholy event, arising out of the following circumstances, occurred yesterday in the shop of Mr. Thomson, gunmaker. In the beginning of July, last year, Mr. Hugh Miller bought a six-shot revolving chamber pistol, size of ball ninety-two to the pound, from the late firm of Messrs. Alexander Thomson & Son, gunmakers, 16 Union Place. A few days after, he called and said he thought it a little stiff in its workings, and got it made to revolve more readily. The pistol has not been seen by Mr. Thomson since then; but in his absence a few minutes at dinner yesterday, Professor Miller called about twenty minutes from two, and asked Mr. Thomson's foreman how many of the six shots had been fired. He added, 'Mind, it is loaded.' The foreman, instead of removing the breech or chamber to examine it, bad incautiously turned the pistol entire towards his own person, and lifting up the hammer with his fingers, while he counted the remaining loaded chambers, he must have slipped his fingers while the pistol was turned to his own head. It exploded, and the ball lodging in the angle of his right eye, he fell back a lifeless corpse. The pistol is a bolted one, which permits of being carried loaded with perfect safety. Having been wet internally, rust may have stopped the action of the bolt. It is a singular fact that Hugh Miller dropped the pistol into the bath, where it remained for several hours. This may account for the apparent incaution of Mr. Thomson's foreman."

[2]The same revolver proved to be the instrument of death to another person, two days after. The circumstances are thus related in theEdinburgh Witnessof December 27:—

"A most melancholy event, arising out of the following circumstances, occurred yesterday in the shop of Mr. Thomson, gunmaker. In the beginning of July, last year, Mr. Hugh Miller bought a six-shot revolving chamber pistol, size of ball ninety-two to the pound, from the late firm of Messrs. Alexander Thomson & Son, gunmakers, 16 Union Place. A few days after, he called and said he thought it a little stiff in its workings, and got it made to revolve more readily. The pistol has not been seen by Mr. Thomson since then; but in his absence a few minutes at dinner yesterday, Professor Miller called about twenty minutes from two, and asked Mr. Thomson's foreman how many of the six shots had been fired. He added, 'Mind, it is loaded.' The foreman, instead of removing the breech or chamber to examine it, bad incautiously turned the pistol entire towards his own person, and lifting up the hammer with his fingers, while he counted the remaining loaded chambers, he must have slipped his fingers while the pistol was turned to his own head. It exploded, and the ball lodging in the angle of his right eye, he fell back a lifeless corpse. The pistol is a bolted one, which permits of being carried loaded with perfect safety. Having been wet internally, rust may have stopped the action of the bolt. It is a singular fact that Hugh Miller dropped the pistol into the bath, where it remained for several hours. This may account for the apparent incaution of Mr. Thomson's foreman."

[3]Seeante, p. 9.

[4]The horizontal lines in this diagram indicate the divisions of the various geologic systems; the vertical lines the sweep of the various classes or sub-classes of plants across the geologic scale, with, so far as has yet been ascertained, the place of their first appearance in creation; while the double line of type below shows in what degree the order of their occurrence agrees with the arrangement of the botanist. The single point of difference indicated by the diagram between the order of occurrence and that of arrangement, viz., the transposition of the gymnogenous and monocotyledonous classes, must be regarded as purely provisional. It is definitely ascertained that the Lower Old Red Sandstone has its coniferous wood, but not yet definitely ascertained that it has its true monocotyledonous plants; though indications are not awanting that the latter were introduced upon the scene at least as early as the pines or araucarians; and the chance discovery of some fossil in a sufficiently good state of keeping to determine the point may, of course, at once retranspose the transposition, and bring into complete correspondence the geologic and botanic arrangements.

[5]The horizontal lines of the diagram here indicate, as inFig. 1, the divisions of the several geologic systems; the vertical lines represent the leading divisions and classes of animals, and, as shown by the formations in which their earliest known remains occur, the probable period of their first appearance in creation; while the double line of text below exhibits the complete correspondence which obtains between their occurrence, in nature and the Cuvierian arrangement. The line representative of the Radiata ought perhaps to have been elevated a little higher than either of its two neighbors.

[6]Fig. 14, Neuropteris Loshii.Fig. 15, Neuropteris gigantea.Fig. 16, Neuropteris acuminata.Fig. 17, Sphenopteris affinis.Fig. 18, Pecopteris heterophylla.Fig. 19, Sphenopteris dilitata.

[7]Fig. 21,r a, Rachis, greatly thickened towards its base by numerous ærial roots, shot downwards to the soil, and which closely cover the stem.

[8]Fig. 22,m, Cellular tissue of the centre of rachis;d, similar tissue of the circumference;f,v, darkly-colored woody fibres of great strength, the "internal buttresses" of the illustration;e, the outer cortical portion formed by the bases of the leaves.

[9]Fig. 23, Branching stem, with bark and leaves.Fig. 24.Extremity of branch.Fig. 25, Extremity of another branch, with indication of cone-like receptacle of spores or seed.

[10]No true fossil palms have yet been detected in the great Oolitic and Wealden systems, though they certainly occur in the Carboniferous and Permian rocks, and are comparatively common in the earlier and middle Tertiary formations. Much cannot be founded on merely negative evidence; but it would be certainly a curious circumstance should it be found that this graceful family, first ushered into being some time in the later Palæozoic periods, was withdrawn from creation during the Middle ages of the earth's history, to be again introduced in greatly more than the earlier proportions during the Tertiary and recent periods.

[11]Leaf of a tree allied to the maple.

[12]Leaf of a tree allied to the elm.

[13]Here, as in the former diagrams (Figs. 1and4), the horizontal lines represent the divisions of the great geologic systems; while the vertical lines indicate the sweep of the several orders of fishes across the scale, and the periods, so far as has yet been determined, of their first occurrence in creation.

[14]Some of thesedragonsof the Secondary ages were of very considerable size. The wings of a Pterodactyle of the Chalk, in the possession of Mr. Bowerbank, must have had a spread of about eighteen feet; those of a recently discovered Pterodactyle of the Greensand, a spread of not less than twenty-seven feet. TheLammer-geyerof the Alps has an extent of wing of but from ten to eleven feet; while that of the great Condor of the Andes, the largest of flying birds, does not exceed twelve feet.

[15]a, Palæotherium magnum.b, Palæotherium minus.c, Anoplotherium commune.

[16]It will be seen that there is no attempt made in this lecture to represent the great Palæozoic division as characterizedthroughout its entire extentby a luxuriant flora. It is, on the contrary, expressly stated here, that the "plants of its earlier and terminal formations (i.e.those of the Silurian, Old Red, and Permian Systems) werefew and small," and that "it wasonly during the protracted eons of the carboniferous period that they received their amazing development, unequalled in any previous or succeeding time." Being thus express in my limitation, I think I have just cause of complaint against any one who represents me us unfairly laboring, in this very composition, to make it be believed that thewholePalæozoic period was characterized by a gorgeous flora; and as thus sophistically generalizing in the first instance, in order to make a fallacious use of the generalization in the second, with the intention of misleading non-geologic readers. Such, however, as may be seen from the following extracts from the "Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Science at Philadelphia," is the charge preferred against me by a citizen of the United States."Mr. William Parker Foulke asked the attention of the Society to a lecture by Mr. Hugh Miller, recently republished in the United States under the title of 'The Two Records, Mosaic and Geological,' and made some remarks upon the importance of maintaining a careful scrutiny of the logic of the natural sciences.... Mr. Miller teaches that, in the attempt to reconcile the two 'records,' there are only three periods to be accounted for by the geologist, viz. 'the period ofplants; the period ofgreat sea monsters and creeping things; and the period ofcattle and beasts of the earth;' and that the first of these periods is represented by the rocks grouped under the termPalæozoic, and is distinguished from theSecondaryandTertiarychiefly by its gorgeous flora; and that the geological evidence is so complete as to be patent to all, that the first great period of organized being was, as described in the Mosaic record, peculiarly a period of herbs and trees, yielding seed after their kind. The general reader, not familiar with the details of geological arrangement, could not fail to infer from such a statement, used for such a purpose, that the Palæozoic rocks are regarded by geologists as forming one group representative of one period, which can properly be said to be distinguished as awholeby its gorgeous flora; and that it is properly so distinguishedfor the argument in question. It was familiar to the Academy, as well as to Mr. Miller, that from thecarboniferousrocks downward (backward in order of time), there have been discriminated a large number of periods, differing from one another in mineral and in organic remains; and that the proportion of thecarboniferousera to the whole series is small, whether we regard the thickness of its deposits or its conjectural chronology. It in only of thiscarboniferousera,the latest of this series, that the author's remarks could be true; and even of this, if taken for the entire surface of the earth, it could not be truly asserted that 'the evidence is so complete as to be patent to all,' that the quantity of its vegetable products distinguishes it from the earth's surface during the era in which we live. To confound by implication all this periods termed Palæozoic, so as to apply to them as a whole what could be true, if at all, only of thecarboniferousperiod, is a fallacious use of a generalizationmade for a purpose, and upon a principle not properly available for the writer's argument," &c. So far the "Proceedings" of the Academy.This, surely, is very much the reverse of fair. I, however, refer the matter, without note or comment (so far at least as it involves the question whether Mr. Foulke has not, in the face of the most express statement on my part, wholly misrepresented me), to the judgment of candid and intelligent readers on both sides of the Atlantic.I know not that I should recognize Mr. Foulke as entitled, after such a display, to be dealt with simply as the member of a learned society who differs from me on a scientific question; nor does his reference to the "carboniferous era" as "thelatestof the" Palæozoic "series," and his apparent unacquaintance with that Permian period, in reality the terminal one of the division during which the Palæozoic forms seem to have gradually died away, in order to give place to those of the Secondary division, inspire any very high respect for his acquirements as a geologist. Waiving, however, the legitimacy of his claim, I may be permitted to repeat, for the further information of the non-geological reader, that thecarboniferousformations,wherever they have yet been detected, justify, in the amazing abundance of their carbonized vegetable organisms, the name which they bear. Mr. Foulke, in three short sentences, uses the terms "carboniferous era," "carboniferous rocks," "carboniferous period," four several times; and these terms are derived from the predominating amount of carbon (elaborated of old by the plants of the period) which occurs in its several formations. The very language which he has to employ is of itself a confirmation of the statement which he challenges. For so "patent" is thiscarboniferouscharacter of the system, that it has given to it its universally accepted designation,—the verbal sign by which it is represented wherever it is known. Mr. F. states, that "if taken for the entire surface of the earth," it cannot be truly asserted that the carboniferous flora preponderated over that of the present time, or, at least, that its preponderance could not be regarded as "patent to all," The statement admits of so many different meanings, that I know not whether I shall succeed in replying to the special meaning intended by Mr. Foulke. There are no doubt carboniferous deposits on the earth's surface still unknown to the geologist, the evidence of which on the point must be regarded, in consequence, not as "patent to all," but asnil. They are witnesses absent from court, whose testimony has not yet been tendered. But equally certain it is, I repeat, that wherever carboniferous formationshavebeen discovered and examined, they have been found to bear the unique characteristic to which the system owes its name,—they have been found charged with the carbon, existing usually as great beds of coal, which was elaborated of old by its unrivalled flora from the elements. And as this evidence is certain and positive, no one would be entitled to set off against it, as of equal weight, the merely negative evidence of some one or two deposits of the carboniferous age that did not bear the carboniferous character, even were such known to exist; far less is anyone entitled to set off against it thepossiblynegative evidence of deposits of the carboniferous age not yet discovered nor examined; for that would be simply to set off against good positive evidence, what is no evidence at all. It would be to set off thepossibleevidence of the absent witnesses, not yet precognosced in the case, against the express declarations of the witnesses already examined, and strong on the positive side.Surely an American, before appealing, in a question of this kind, to the bare possibility of the existence somewhere or other of barely negative evidence, ought to have bethought him of the very extraordinary positive evidence furnished by the carboniferous deposits of his own great country. The coal fields of Britain and the European continent had been wrought for ages ere those of North America were known, and for ages more after it had been but ascertained that the New, like the Old World, has its Coal Measures. And during the latter period theargumentof Mr. Foulke might have been employed, just as now, and some member of a learned society might have urged that, though the coal fields of Europe bore evidence to the former existence of a singularly luxuriant flora, beyond comparison more vast than the European one of the present day, the same could not be predicated of the American coal fields, whose carbonized remainsmightbe found representative of a flora which had been at least not more largely developed than that existing American flora to which the great western forests belong. Now, however, the time for any such argument has gone by; the American coal fields have been carefully explored; and what is the result? The geologist has come to know, that even the mighty forests of America are inconsiderable, compared with its deposits of coal; nay, that all its forests gathered into one heap would fail to furnish the materials of a single coal seam equal to that of Pittsburg; and that centuries after all its thick woods shall have disappeared before the axe, and it shall have come to present the comparatively bare, unwooded aspect of the long civilized countries of Southern Europe, it will continue to derive the elements of its commercial greatness, and the cheerful blaze of its many millions of domestic hearths, from the unprecedentedly luxurious flora of the old carboniferous ages. Truly, very wonderful are the coal fields of Northern America! If geologists inferred, as they well might, that the extinct flora which had originated the European coal vastly outrivalled in luxuriance that of the existing time, what shall be said of that flora of the same age which originated the coal deposits of Nova Scotia and the United States,—depositstwenty times as greatas all those of all Europe put together!

"Mr. William Parker Foulke asked the attention of the Society to a lecture by Mr. Hugh Miller, recently republished in the United States under the title of 'The Two Records, Mosaic and Geological,' and made some remarks upon the importance of maintaining a careful scrutiny of the logic of the natural sciences.... Mr. Miller teaches that, in the attempt to reconcile the two 'records,' there are only three periods to be accounted for by the geologist, viz. 'the period ofplants; the period ofgreat sea monsters and creeping things; and the period ofcattle and beasts of the earth;' and that the first of these periods is represented by the rocks grouped under the termPalæozoic, and is distinguished from theSecondaryandTertiarychiefly by its gorgeous flora; and that the geological evidence is so complete as to be patent to all, that the first great period of organized being was, as described in the Mosaic record, peculiarly a period of herbs and trees, yielding seed after their kind. The general reader, not familiar with the details of geological arrangement, could not fail to infer from such a statement, used for such a purpose, that the Palæozoic rocks are regarded by geologists as forming one group representative of one period, which can properly be said to be distinguished as awholeby its gorgeous flora; and that it is properly so distinguishedfor the argument in question. It was familiar to the Academy, as well as to Mr. Miller, that from thecarboniferousrocks downward (backward in order of time), there have been discriminated a large number of periods, differing from one another in mineral and in organic remains; and that the proportion of thecarboniferousera to the whole series is small, whether we regard the thickness of its deposits or its conjectural chronology. It in only of thiscarboniferousera,the latest of this series, that the author's remarks could be true; and even of this, if taken for the entire surface of the earth, it could not be truly asserted that 'the evidence is so complete as to be patent to all,' that the quantity of its vegetable products distinguishes it from the earth's surface during the era in which we live. To confound by implication all this periods termed Palæozoic, so as to apply to them as a whole what could be true, if at all, only of thecarboniferousperiod, is a fallacious use of a generalizationmade for a purpose, and upon a principle not properly available for the writer's argument," &c. So far the "Proceedings" of the Academy.

This, surely, is very much the reverse of fair. I, however, refer the matter, without note or comment (so far at least as it involves the question whether Mr. Foulke has not, in the face of the most express statement on my part, wholly misrepresented me), to the judgment of candid and intelligent readers on both sides of the Atlantic.

I know not that I should recognize Mr. Foulke as entitled, after such a display, to be dealt with simply as the member of a learned society who differs from me on a scientific question; nor does his reference to the "carboniferous era" as "thelatestof the" Palæozoic "series," and his apparent unacquaintance with that Permian period, in reality the terminal one of the division during which the Palæozoic forms seem to have gradually died away, in order to give place to those of the Secondary division, inspire any very high respect for his acquirements as a geologist. Waiving, however, the legitimacy of his claim, I may be permitted to repeat, for the further information of the non-geological reader, that thecarboniferousformations,wherever they have yet been detected, justify, in the amazing abundance of their carbonized vegetable organisms, the name which they bear. Mr. Foulke, in three short sentences, uses the terms "carboniferous era," "carboniferous rocks," "carboniferous period," four several times; and these terms are derived from the predominating amount of carbon (elaborated of old by the plants of the period) which occurs in its several formations. The very language which he has to employ is of itself a confirmation of the statement which he challenges. For so "patent" is thiscarboniferouscharacter of the system, that it has given to it its universally accepted designation,—the verbal sign by which it is represented wherever it is known. Mr. F. states, that "if taken for the entire surface of the earth," it cannot be truly asserted that the carboniferous flora preponderated over that of the present time, or, at least, that its preponderance could not be regarded as "patent to all," The statement admits of so many different meanings, that I know not whether I shall succeed in replying to the special meaning intended by Mr. Foulke. There are no doubt carboniferous deposits on the earth's surface still unknown to the geologist, the evidence of which on the point must be regarded, in consequence, not as "patent to all," but asnil. They are witnesses absent from court, whose testimony has not yet been tendered. But equally certain it is, I repeat, that wherever carboniferous formationshavebeen discovered and examined, they have been found to bear the unique characteristic to which the system owes its name,—they have been found charged with the carbon, existing usually as great beds of coal, which was elaborated of old by its unrivalled flora from the elements. And as this evidence is certain and positive, no one would be entitled to set off against it, as of equal weight, the merely negative evidence of some one or two deposits of the carboniferous age that did not bear the carboniferous character, even were such known to exist; far less is anyone entitled to set off against it thepossiblynegative evidence of deposits of the carboniferous age not yet discovered nor examined; for that would be simply to set off against good positive evidence, what is no evidence at all. It would be to set off thepossibleevidence of the absent witnesses, not yet precognosced in the case, against the express declarations of the witnesses already examined, and strong on the positive side.

Surely an American, before appealing, in a question of this kind, to the bare possibility of the existence somewhere or other of barely negative evidence, ought to have bethought him of the very extraordinary positive evidence furnished by the carboniferous deposits of his own great country. The coal fields of Britain and the European continent had been wrought for ages ere those of North America were known, and for ages more after it had been but ascertained that the New, like the Old World, has its Coal Measures. And during the latter period theargumentof Mr. Foulke might have been employed, just as now, and some member of a learned society might have urged that, though the coal fields of Europe bore evidence to the former existence of a singularly luxuriant flora, beyond comparison more vast than the European one of the present day, the same could not be predicated of the American coal fields, whose carbonized remainsmightbe found representative of a flora which had been at least not more largely developed than that existing American flora to which the great western forests belong. Now, however, the time for any such argument has gone by; the American coal fields have been carefully explored; and what is the result? The geologist has come to know, that even the mighty forests of America are inconsiderable, compared with its deposits of coal; nay, that all its forests gathered into one heap would fail to furnish the materials of a single coal seam equal to that of Pittsburg; and that centuries after all its thick woods shall have disappeared before the axe, and it shall have come to present the comparatively bare, unwooded aspect of the long civilized countries of Southern Europe, it will continue to derive the elements of its commercial greatness, and the cheerful blaze of its many millions of domestic hearths, from the unprecedentedly luxurious flora of the old carboniferous ages. Truly, very wonderful are the coal fields of Northern America! If geologists inferred, as they well might, that the extinct flora which had originated the European coal vastly outrivalled in luxuriance that of the existing time, what shall be said of that flora of the same age which originated the coal deposits of Nova Scotia and the United States,—depositstwenty times as greatas all those of all Europe put together!

[17]Such is also the view taken by the author of a recently published work, "The Genesis of the Earth and of Man." "Christian philosophers have been compelled to acknowledge," says this writer, "that the Mosaic account of creation is only reconcileable with demonstrated facts, by its being regarded as a record ofappearances; and if so, to vindicate the truth of God, we must consider it, so far as the acts are concerned, as the relation of a revelation to thesight, which was sufficient for all its purposes, rather than as one in words; though the words are perfectly true as describing the revelation itself, and the revelation is equally true as showing man the principal phenomena which he would have seen had it been possible for him to be a witness of the events. Further, if we view the narrative as the description of a series of visions, while we find it to be perfectly reconcileable with the statement in other parts of Scripture, that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, we remove, with other difficulties, the only strong objection to the opinion of those who regard the 'six days' as periods of undeflnable duration, and who may even believe that we are now in the 'seventh day,'—the day of rest or of cessation from the work of creation. Certainly, 'the day of God,' and 'the day of the Lord,' and the 'thousand two hundred and threescore days,' of the Revelation of St. John, and the 'seventy weeks' in the Prophecy of Daniel, are not to be understood in their primary and natural senses," &c., &c.

[18]"For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it."

[19]Forbes and Hanley enumerate one hundred and sixty bivalves, and two hundred and thirty-two univalves,—in all three hundred and ninety-two species, as the only known shell-bearing molluscs of the existing British seas.

[20]Principles of Zoology: touching the Structure, Development, Distribution, and Natural Arrangement of the Races of Animals, living and extinct. With numerous Illustrations. For the Use of Schools and Colleges. Part I., "Comparative Physiology." By Louis Agassiz and Augustus A. Gould. Boston: Gould & Lincoln.

[21]a, Articulating surface of joint.b, Fragment of column, exhibiting laterally the tooth processes, so fitted into each other as to admit of flexure without risk of dislocation. The uppermost joint shows two lateral cavities for the articulation of auxiliary arms.

[22]Perhaps one strengthening principle more might be enumerated as occurring in this curious piece of mechanism. In the layer of the nether plate, the fibres, instead of being laid in parallel lines, like the threads in the moleskin of my illustration, seem to befeltedtogether,—an arrangement which must have added considerably to their coherency and powers of resistance.

[23]Fig. 102, Clymenia Sedwicki;Fig. 103, Gyroceras Eifelensis;Fig. 104, Cirrus Goldfussii.

[24]Berosus, Hieronymus, Mnaseas, Nicolaus, Manetho, Mochus, and Hestæus.

[25]See Cory's "Ancient Fragments."

[26]As was common in Bible illustrations published in our own country a century and a half ago, the old Greek artist has introduced into his medal two points of time. Two of the figures representNoeand his wife quitting the ark; while the other two exhibit them as seated within it. An English print of the death of Abel, now before me, which dates a little after the times of the Revolution, shows, on the same principle, the two brothers, represented by four figures,—two of these quietly offering up their respective sacrifices in the background, and the other two grappling in deadly warfare in front.

[27]"In preparing the 'Horæ Biblicæ Quotidianæ,' he [Dr. Chalmers] had beside him, for use and reference, the Concordance, the Pictorial Bible, Poole's Synopsis, Henry's Commentary, and Robertson's Researches in Palestine. These constituted what he called his Biblical Library. 'There,' said he to a friend, pointing, as he spoke, to the above named volumes as they lay together on his library table, with a volume of the 'Quotidianæ,' in which he had just been writing, lying open beside them,—'these are the books I use: all that is Biblical is there.'"—Dr. Hanna's Preface to "Daily Scripture Readings."

[28]The raven is said to live for more than a hundred years. I am, however, not prepared to say that it was the same pair of birds that used, year after year, to build on the same rock-shelf among the precipices of Navity, from the times of my great-grandfather's boyhood to those of my own.

[29]The following estimate of the air-breathing vertebrates (that of the "Physical Atlas," second edition, 1856) may be regarded as the latest. It will he seen that it does not include the cetacea or the seals:—SPECIES.Quadrumana170Marsupialia123Edentata28Pachydermata39Terrestrial Carnivora514Rodentia604Ruminantia180——1658Birds6266Reptiles657Turtles 8Sea Snakes 7}15——642Great as is this number of animals, compared with those known a century ago, there are indications that the list is to be increased rather than diminished. Even by the latest European authorities the reindeer is represented as consisting of but a single species, common to the sub-arctic regions of both the Old and New Worlds; whereas in the "Canadian Naturalist" for 1856 I find it stated, on what seems to be competent authority, that America has its two species of reindeer, and that they both differ from the European species.

SPECIES.Quadrumana170Marsupialia123Edentata28Pachydermata39Terrestrial Carnivora514Rodentia604Ruminantia180——1658Birds6266Reptiles657Turtles 8Sea Snakes 7}15——642

Great as is this number of animals, compared with those known a century ago, there are indications that the list is to be increased rather than diminished. Even by the latest European authorities the reindeer is represented as consisting of but a single species, common to the sub-arctic regions of both the Old and New Worlds; whereas in the "Canadian Naturalist" for 1856 I find it stated, on what seems to be competent authority, that America has its two species of reindeer, and that they both differ from the European species.

[30]If I do not introduce here the argument founded on the great age of certain gigantic trees, such as the Baobab of intertropical Africa, or the Taxodium of South America, it is not because I have any reason to challenge the estimates of Adamson or Candolle. The one tree may have lived its five thousand, the other its six thousand, years; but as the grounds have been disputed on which the calculations respecting their vast age have been founded, and as they cannot be reëxamined anew by the reader, I wholly omit the evidence, in the general question, which they have been supposed to furnish.

[31]The following excellent remarks on the economy of miracle, by Chalmers, bear very directly on this subject:—"It is remarkable that God is sparing of miracles, and seems to prefer the ordinary processes of nature, if equally effectual for the accomplishment of his purposes. He might have saved Noah and his family by miracles; but he is not prodigal of these, and so he appointed that an ark should be made to bear up the living cargo which was to be kept alive on the surface of the waters; and not only so, but he respects the laws of the animal physiology, as he did those of hydrostatics, in that he put them by pairs into the ark, male and female, to secure their transmission to after ages, and food was stored up to sustain them during their long confinement. In short, he dispenses with miracles when these are not requisite for the fulfilment of his ends; and he never dispenses with the ordinary means when these are fitted, and at the same time sufficient, for the occasion."—Daily Scripture Readings, vol. i. p. 10.

[32]For a brief but masterly view of these ancient cosmogonies, see the Rev. D. Macdonald's "Creation and the Fall." Edinburgh: Constable & Co.

[33]1. The great surrounding oceans.2. Caspian Sea.3. River Phison.4–4. Points of the Compass.5. Mediterranean Sea.6. Red Sea.7–8. Persian Gulf, with the rivers Tigris and Euphrates.9. River Gihon.

[33]

1. The great surrounding oceans.2. Caspian Sea.3. River Phison.4–4. Points of the Compass.5. Mediterranean Sea.6. Red Sea.7–8. Persian Gulf, with the rivers Tigris and Euphrates.9. River Gihon.

[34]1. The sun Occident.2. The sun orient.3. The Heavens.4. Great mountain behind which the sun is hidden when it is night.5. The Mediterranean Sea.6. Red Sea.7. Persian Gulf.8. Garden of Eden.9. Great surrounding ocean10. The Creator looking down upon his work, and seeing that all was good.

[34]

1. The sun Occident.2. The sun orient.3. The Heavens.4. Great mountain behind which the sun is hidden when it is night.5. The Mediterranean Sea.6. Red Sea.7. Persian Gulf.8. Garden of Eden.9. Great surrounding ocean10. The Creator looking down upon his work, and seeing that all was good.

[35]The very different terms which Mr. Powell employs in characterizing the anti-geologists, from those which he makes use of in denouncing the men honestly bent on reconciling the enunciations of revelation with the findings of geologic science,—a class which included in the past, divines such as Chalmers, Buckland, and Pye Smith, and comprises divines such as Hitchcock and the Archbishop of Canterbury now,—is worthy of being noted. In two sermons, "Christianity without Judaism," written by this clergyman of the Church of England, to show that all days of the week are alike, and the Christian Sabbath a mere blunder, I find the following passage:—"Some divines have consistently rejected all geology and all science as profane and carnal; and some even, when pretending to call themselves men of science, have stooped to the miserable policy, of tampering with the truth, investing the real facts in false disguises, to cringe to the prejudices of the many, and to pervert science into a seeming accordance with popular prepossessions." I cannot believe that this will be regarded as justifiable language: it seems scarce worthy of a man of science; and will, I fear, only be accepted as good in evidence that theodium theologicumis not restricted to what is termed the orthodox side of the Church.

[36]The gentleman here referred to lectured no later than October, 1853, against the doctrines of the geologists; and modestly chose as the scene of his labors the city of Hutton and Playfair. What he set himself specially to "demonstrate" was, as he said, that the geologic "theories as to antiquity of the earth, successive eras, &c., were not only fallacious and unphilosophical, but rendered nugatory the authority of the sacred Scriptures." Not only, however, did he exert himself in demolishing the geologists as infidel, but he denounced also as unsound the theology of good old Isaac Watts. The lines taught us in our infancy,—"Let dogs delight to bark and bite,For God hath made them so,"were, he remarked, decidedly heterodox. They ought to have run instead,—"Let dogs delight to bark and bite,Satanhath made them so"!!!

"Let dogs delight to bark and bite,For God hath made them so,"

were, he remarked, decidedly heterodox. They ought to have run instead,—

"Let dogs delight to bark and bite,Satanhath made them so"!!!

[37]"A Brief and Complete Refutation of the Anti-Scriptural Theory of Geologists." By a Clergyman of the Church of England. London: Wertheim & Macintosh. 1853.

[38]Newspaper Report of Meeting of the British Association held at York in September, 1844.

[39]See "Primary and Present State of the Solar System, particularly of our own Planet;" and "Exposure of the Principles of Modern Geology." By P. M'Farlane, Author of the "Primary and Present State of the Solar System." Edinburgh: Thomas Grant.

[40]One of the more brilliant writers of the present day,—a native of the picturesque village in which this anti-geologist resides,—describes in a recent work, with the enthusiasm of the poet, the noble mountains which rise around it. I know not, however, whether my admiration of the passage was not in some degree dashed by a few comic notions suggestive of an "imaginary conversation," in the style of Landor, between this popular author and his anti-geologic townsman, on the merits of hills in general, and in especial on the claims of those which encircle Comrie "as the mountains are round about Jerusalem." The two gentlemen would, I suspect, experience considerable difficulty in laying down, in such a discussion, their common principles.

[41]"Comparative Estimate of the Mineral and Mosaical Geologies." By Granville Penn, Esq. London, 1825.

[42]"Statesman and Record," October 6th, 1846.

[43]Sir Charles Lyell's statement is by no means so express or definite as it is represented to be in this passage, in which I have taken the evidence of his opponents regarding it. What he really says (see his "Principles," second edition, 1832) is what follows:—"Ifthe ratio of recession had never exceeded fifty yards in forty years, it must have required nearly ten thousand years for the excavation of the whole ravine; but no probable conjecture can be offered as to the quantity of time consumed in such an operation, because the retrograde movement may have been much more rapid when the whole current was confined within a space not exceeding a fourth or fifth of that which the Falls now occupy." In the eighth edition of the same work, however, published in 1850, after he had examined the Falls, there occurs the following re-statement of the case:—"After the most careful inquiries I was able to make during my visit to the spot in 1841–42, I came to the conclusion that the average [recession] of one foot a year would be a much more probable conjecture than that of one and a quarter yards. In that case it would have requiredthirty-five thousand yearsfor the retreat of the Falls from the escarpment of Queenston to their present site. It seems by no means improbable that such a result would be no exaggeration of the truth, although we cannot assume that the retrograde movement has been uniform. At some points it may have receded much faster than at present; but in general its progress was probably slower, because the cataract, when it began to recede, must have been nearly twice its present height."

[44]"Scottish Christian Herald," 1838, vol. iii., p. 766.

[45]The substance of this and the following lecture was originally given in a single paper, before the Geological Section of the British Association, held at Glasgow in September 1855. So considerable have been the additions, however, that the one paper has swelled into two lectures. Most of the added matter was at first thrown into the form of Notes; but it was found, that from their length and frequency, they would have embarrassed the printer, mayhap the reader also; and so most of the larger ones have been introduced into the text within brackets.

[46]A curious set of these, with specimens of the smooth-stemmed fucoid collected by Mr. John Miller of Thurso,—a meritorious laborer in the geologic field,—were exhibited at Glasgow to the Association. The larger stems were thickly traversed in Mr. J. Miller's specimens by diagonal lines, which seemed, however, to be merely lines of rhomboidal fracture in the glassy coal into which the plants were converted, and not one of their original characters.

[47]I must, however, add, that there was found in the neighborhood of Stromness about fifteen years ago, by Dr. John Fleming, a curious nondescript vegetable organism, which, though equivocal in character and appearance, was in all probability a plant of the sea. It consisted of a flattened cylinder, in some of the specimens exceeding a foot in length by an inch in breadth, and traversed on both the upper and under sides by a mesial groove extending to the extremities. It bore no external markings, and the section exhibited but an indistinct fibrous structure, sufficient, however, to indicate its vegetable origin. I have not hitherto succeeded in finding for myself specimens of this organism, which has been named provisionally, by Dr. Fleming,Stroma obscura; but it seems not improbable that certain supposed fragments of wood, detected by Mr. Charles Peach in the Caithness Flagstones, but which do not exhibit the woody structure, may have belonged to it.

[48]I figured this species from an imperfect Cromarty specimen fifteen years ago. (See "Old Red Sandstone," first edition, 1841, Plate VII. Fig. 4). Of the greatly better specimens now figured I owe the larger one (Fig. 120) to Mrs. Mill, Thurso, who detected it in the richly fossiliferous flagstones of the locality in which she resides, and kindly made it over to me; and the specimen of which I have given a magnificent representation (Fig. 12, p. 55) to my friend Mr. Robert Dick. I have, besides, seen several specimens of the same organism, in a better or worse state of keeping, in the interesting collection of the Rev. Charles Clouston, Sandwick, near Stromness.

[49]"Frogspawn is full of eyes [that is, black eye-like points], and every eye is a tadpole."

[50]Mr. Page figures, in his "Advanced Text Book of Geology" (p. 127), a few circular markings from the Forfarshire beds, which he still regards as spawn, probably that of a Crustacean, and which certainly differ greatly in appearance from the markings found enclosed in the apparent spathes.

[51]Since these sentences were written I have seen a description of both the plants of the Upper Old Red to which they refer, in an interesting sketch of the geology of Roxburgshire by the Rev. James Duncan, which forms part of a recent publication devoted to the history and antiquities of the shire. "In the red quarry of Denholm Hill there occurs," says Mr. Duncan, "a stratum of soft yellowish sandstone, which contains impressions of an apparent fucoid in considerable quantity. One or several linear stems diverge from a point, and throw off at acute angles, as they grow upwards, branches or leaves very similar to the stem, which are in turn subdivided into others. The width of the stalks is generally about a quarter of an inch, the length often a foot. The color is brown, blackish-brown, or grayish. The same plant also occurs in the whitestone quarry [an overlying bed] in the form of Carbonaceous impressions. There can be little doubt that it is a fucoid. The general mode of growth greatly resembles that of certain seaweeds; and in some specimens we have seen the branches dilated a little at the extremities, like those of such of the living fuci as expand in order to afford space for the fructification. It is deserving of remark, that the plant is seldom observed lying horizontally on the rock in a direction parallel to its stratification, but rising up through the layers, so as only to be seen when the stone is broken across; as if it had been standing erect, or kept buoyant in water, while the stony matter to which it owes its preservation was deposited around it." Mr. Duncan, after next referring to the remains of what he deems a land plant, derived from the same deposit, and which, though sadly mutilated, presents not a little of the appearance of the naked framework of a frond of Cyclopterus Hibernicus divested of the leaflets, goes on to describe the apparent calamite of the formation. "The best preserved vegetable remain yet found in Denholm Hill quarry," he says, "is the radical portion of what we cannot hesitate to call a species of calamite. The lower part is regularly and beautifully rounded, bulging and prominent, nearly four inches in diameter. About an inch from the bottom it contracts somewhat suddenly in two separate stages, and, from the uppermost sends up a stem about an inch in diameter, and nearly of the same length, where it is broken across. At the origin of this stem the small longitudinal ridges are distinctly marked; and the whole outline of the figure, though converted into stone, is as well defined as it could have been in the living plant." Mr. Duncan accompanies his description with a figure of the organism described, which, however, rather resembles the bulb of a liliaceous plant than the root of a calamite, which in all the better preserved, specimens contracts, instead of expanding, as it descends. The apparent expansion, however, in the Old Red specimen may be simply a result of compression in its upper part: the under part certainly much resembles, in the dome-like symmetry of its outline, the radical termination of a solitary calamite.

[52]"Though the coal of Sabero is apparently included in Devonian rocks," says Sir Roderick Murchison, "M. Casiano de Prado thinks that this appearance may be do to inverted folds of the strata." On the other hand, M. Alcide D'Orbigny regards it us decidedly Old Red; and certainly its Sphenopteris and Lepidodendron bent much more the aspect of Devonian than of Carboniferous plants.

[53]Now, alas! no more. In Mr. Gourlay the energy and shrewd business habits of the accomplished merchant were added to an enlightened zeal for general science, and no inconsiderable knowledge in both the geologic and botanic provinces. The marked success, in several respects, of the brilliant meeting of the British Association which held in Glasgow in September 1855, was owing in no small measure to the indefatigable exertions and well calculated arrangements of Mr. Gourlay.

[54]Trees must have been very abundant in what is now Scotland in these Secondary ages. Trunks of the common Scotch fir are of scarce more frequent occurrence in our mosses than the trunks of somewhat resembling trees among the shales of the Lower Oolite of Helmsdale. On examining in that neighborhood, about ten years since, a huge heap of materials which had been collected along the sea shore for burning into lime in a temporary kiln, I found that more than three fourths of the whole consisted of fragments of coniferous wood washed out of the shale beds by the surf, and the remainder of a massive Isastrea. And only two years ago, after many kilnfuls had been gathered and burnt, his grace the Duke of Argyll found that fossil wood could still he collected by cartloads along the shore of Helmsdale. The same woods also occur at Port Gower, Kintradwell, Shandwick, and Eathie. In the Island of Eigg, too, in an Oolite deposit, locked up in trap, and whose stratigraphical relations cannot in consequence be exactly traced, great fragments ofPinites Eiggensisare so abundant, that, armed with a mattock, I have dug out of the rock, in a few minutes, specimens enough to supply a dozen of museums. In short, judging from its fossiliferous remains, it seems not improbable that old Oolitic Scotland was as densely covered with coniferous trees as the Scotland of Roman times, when the great Caledonian forest stretched northwards from the wall of Antoninus to the furthest Thule.

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