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tains, and in that of the almost infinite varieties of the c. familiaris or domestic dog, in the bosom of our own country,-in the form of the c. aureus, chacal or jackal, we meet with it in the warmest parts of Asia and Barbary, prowling at night in flocks of one or two hundred individuals.

The extensive TURBARIES OF Peat-fields, which are so common to many parts of Europe, are produced by an accumulation of the remains of sphagnum and other aquatic mosses. These surround and cover up the small knolls upon which they are formed; or, in many places, descend along the valleys after the manner of the glaciers of Switzerland; but, while the latter melt away every year at their lower edges, the mosses are not checked by any obstacle in their regular increase; and as such increase takes place in determinate proportions, by sounding their depth to the solid ground we may form some estimate of their antiquity.

The ordinary rise of those extensive ranges of DOWNS which are seen skirting the coasts of many countries, and especially where the shore is not very bold, is a mixed effort of sea and wind. To produce this, however, the soil that the sea washes over must consist of sand. This is first pushed in successive tides towards the shore; it next becomes dry, by being left there at every reflux of the sea; and is then drifted up the beach, and to a considerable distance from the beach, by the winds which are almost always blowing from the sea, and often in whirls or eddies; and are at length fixed by the growth of wild plants, whose seeds are in like manner wafted about on the wings of the breeze, or casually dropped with the excretions of birds or other animals that pass over them. In several parts, observes M. Cuvier, these proceed with a frightful rapidity, overwhelming forests, houses, and cultivated fields in their irresistible progress. Those on the coast of the Bay of Biscay have actually buried a considerable number of villages whose existence is noticed in the records of the middle ages. And even in the present day they are threatening not fewer than ten distinct hamlets with almost inevitable destruction: one of which, named Mimigan, has been in perpetual danger for upwards of twenty years, from a sand-hill of more than sixty feet in perpendicular height, produced by the cause we are now contemplating, and which is very obviously augmenting.*

There are various forelands on the coasts of the North Sea, and particularly on those of the counties of Sleswigh and Holstein, which are formed in the same manner. But the most extraordinary inroads of sand storms and sand floods are, perhaps, those which have taken place in the Libyan Desert and in Lower Egypt. M. Denon informs us, in his travels over this part of the world, that the summits of the ruins of ancient cities buried under mountains of drifted sands still appear externally; and that but for a ridge of mountains, called the Libyan Chain, which borders the left bank of the Nile, and forms a barrier against the invasion of these sands, the shores of the river, on that side, would long since have ceased to be habitable, "Nothing," says M. Denon, " can be more melancholy, than to walk over villages swallowed by the sand of the desert, to trample under foot the roofs of their houses, to strike against the tops of their minarets, and to reflect, that yonder, in days of yore, were cultivated fields, that hard by were groves of flourishing trees, and the dwellings of men close at hand;—and that all has now vanished."

The various ISLANDS that spot the surface of the sea have arisen from different causes. Many of them have been merely separated from the adjoining continent by the inroad of the sea itself upon the mainland; others have been thrown up by volcanoes, which have at times disgorged prodigious blocks of granite among the mixed materials, such as are frequently found in the Danish archipelago, in the midst of the geest, or alluvial matter, which has collected around them. Other islands are altogether the masonry of madre

* Report concerning the downs of the Gulf of Gascony, or Bay of Biscay, by M. Tassin, Mont de Mar san. an. x. Cuvier, Theory of the Earth, 31. † De Luc, Voyages Géologiques, tom. I. Jamoson's Notes on Cuvier's Theory, &c. p. 217. Compare Dolomieu's Memoir on Egypt, in Journ. de Physique, tom. xlii.

pores, and other coral zoophytes of wonderful industry and perseverance, of which the South Sea furnishes us with the largest and most astonishing specimens. These islands are for the most part flat and low, and surrounded by enormous belts of coral reefs. Most of the calcareous zoophytes are employed in their construction, but the principal worm is the madrepora lubricata of Linnæus.

In so large an abundance, and with so much facility, is calcareous matter elaborated by these, as well as by various other animals, and especially the testaceous worms, that M. Cuvier is inclined to ascribe all the calcareous rocks that enter into the solid crust of the earth to an animal origin.* But this is to suppose the earth of a far higher antiquity, and to have been the subject of more numerous general deluges, and inversions of sea and land, than are called for by the Wernerian system, or appear reconcileable with the Mosaic narrative. M. Cuvier apprehends, indeed, that such catastrophes may have occurred five or six times in succession, at a distance of four, five, or six thousand years from each other; and that even the chalk formation found in the basin of Paris originated in a revolution of this kind that occurred an tecedently to that which is usually regarded as the flood of Noah. And, following up this idea, he conceives, towards the close of his Introductory Theory of the Earth, that if the science of fossil organic productions could be carried to a much higher degree of perfection, we should be able to obtain far fuller information upon this subject; "and man, to whom only a short space of time is allotted upon the earth, would have the glory of restoring the history of thousands of ages which preceded the existence of the human race, and of thousands of animals that never were contemporaneous with his species,"

LECTURE VII.

ON GEOLOGY.

(The subject continued.)

In our last study I attempted a brief sketch of the chief phenomena that occur to the eye of the geologist upon a survey of the solid crust of the earth, as far as he is able to penetrate into it. The conclusion to which such phenomena lead us is the following: that the rudimental materials of the globe, to the utmost depths we are able to trace them, existed at its earliest period, in one confused and liquid mass; that they were afterward separated, and arranged by a progressive series of operations, and a uniform system of laws, the more obvious of which appear to be those of gravity and crystallization; and that they have since been convulsed and dislocated by some dreadful commotion and inundation that have extended to every region, and again thrown a great part of the organic and inorganic creation into a promiscuous jumble.

Now, the only two causes that can enter into the mind of man as being competent to the fluidity that apppears at first to have existed throughout the whole crust of the earth are FIRE, or a peculiar SOLVENT. But, if a solvent, that solvent must have been WATER: for there is no other liquid in nature in sufficient abundance to act the part of a solvent upon a scale so extensive. And hence our inquiries into this subject become in some degree limited, and are chiefly confined to what have been called the PLUTONIC and the NEPTUNIAN hypotheses; the origin of the world in its present state from igneous fusion, and from aqueous solution. Both these theories are of very early

Some writers have proceeded much further than this, for they have resolved all the solid materials of the earth's crust into a organic origin. Such was the opinion of Demaillet and Lamarck, who suppose that every thing was originally fluid; that this unive sal fluid gave rise to plants and animals; that all clay or argillaceous earth is the produce of the former; all calcareous earth of the latter; and that siliceous earth has been the result of the two. Telliamid, p. 100. Philosophie Zoologique, passim

date, and both of them have been agitated in ancient as well as in modern times with a considerable degree of warmth as well as of plausible argument. Among the ancients, Heraclitus seems to have headed the advocates for the former theory, and Thales, or rather Epicurus, the supporters of the latter. In what may be regarded as modern times, Hooke may, perhaps, be held the reviver of the Plutonic system, which has since, as I have already observed, been supported by the cosmological doctrines of Buffon and Dr. Herschel. Its principal champions, however, in the present day are Dr. Hutton, Professor Playfair,* and Sir James Hall; names, unquestionably, of high literary rank, and entitled to the utmost deference, but most powerfully opposed by the distinguished authorities of Werner, whose system I have just glanced at, Saussure, Kirwan, Cuvier, and Jameson, not to mention that the general voice of geologists is very considerably in favour of the latter class of philosophers, and consequently of the Neptunian or aqueous hypothesis. Let us, then, take a brief view of each of these theories in their order.

According to the former, or the Plutonic conjecture, heat is the great source, not only of the original production, but of the perpetual reproduction of things. This theory supposes a regular alternation of decay and renovation. Of decay induced by the action of light, air, and other gases, rain, and other waters, upon the hardest rocks, by which they are worn down and their particles progressively carried towards the ocean, and ultimately deposited in its bed; and of renovation, by means of an immense subterranean heat, constantly present at different depths of the mineral regions; which operates in the fusion and recombination of the materials thus carried down and contained there, and afterward in their sublimation and re-exposure to view in new strata of a more compact and perfect character. Hence, the existing strata of every period consist, upon this theory, of the wreck of a former world, more or less completely fused and elevated by the agency of violent heat, and reconsolidated by subsequent cooling: of the general nature of which heat, however, we are still left in a considerable degree of ignorance. "It is not fire, in the usual sense of the word," observes Mr. Playfair, "but heat, which is required for this purpose; and there is nothing chimerical in supposing that nature has the means of producing heat, even in a very great degree, without the assistance of fuel or of vital air. Friction is a source of heat unlimited, for what we know, in its extent; and so, perhaps, are other operations, chemical and mechanical; nor are either combustible substances or vital air concerned in the heat thus produced. So, also, the heat of the sun's rays in the form of a burning-glass, the most intense that is known, is independent of the substance just mentioned; and though the heat would not calcine a metal, nor even burn a piece of wood, without oxygenous gas, it would doubtless produce as high a temperature in the absence as in the presence of that gas."t

This subterranean heat, moreover, is supposed to derive a very considerable accession of power from the vast superincumbent weight that is perpetually pressing upon its materials; in confirmation of which a variety of curious experiments are appealed to, and especially a very ingenious set lately carried into effect and described by Sir James Hall, by which it has been rendered probable, that when the gases of any fusible substance, as the carbonic acid of carbonate of lime, for example, are rendered incapable of flying off, a much less quantity of actual heat is sufficient for the purpose of fusion than when such gases, freed from a heavy compression, can escape with facility. Now, the subterranean heat being supposed to exist at prodigious depths below the surface, the substances on which it operates must be so enormously compressed, as not only to render them easily fused, but in many instances to prevent their volatilization after the fusion has taken place; and from this circumstance it is possible, we are told, to explain a variety of appearances and qualities in minerals, and to answer a variety of objections which would otherwise weigh heavy against the general theory.

* Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth. Edinb. 1802.

† Ibid.

To the principle of an alternate decay and renovation, separated from the means by which they are supposed, upon this theory, to be accomplished, there seems to be no very serious objection. It is as readily allowed by the Neptunian as by the Plutonic geologist, that the strata of the earth are liable to waste, and are, indeed, perpetually wasting; and that the waste materials are carried forward to the sea. But the appearance of shells in limestone and marbles, in which the sparry structure is as perfect as in primary limestone, and through which are distributed veins of crystallized carbonate of lime, together with a variety of similar facts, fatally militate against the agency of heat as a universal cause; since, in such case, allowing it to have been sufficient to produce the general effect of crystallization, every vestige of the structure of the shells must have been destroyed, and every atom of the carbonic acid totally evaporated.

It is, secondly, useless to argue, that there are other sources of heat than combustion or deflagration; because, admitting the fact to Mr. Playfair's utmost desire, it can be satisfactorily proved that all these sources are as little capable of acting in the interior parts of the globe, to the extent supposed in the theory before us, as combustion itself, which is relinquished by its defenders as incompetent to their purpose. But even allowing the full operation of all, or of any one of these causes, we have no method pointed out to us by which this subterranean heat is duly preserved and regulated— no controlling power that directs it to the proper place at the proper season, without which it must be as likely to prove a cause of havoc and disorder as of renovation and harmony. It is useless, therefore, to pursue this theory any farther. In spite of the magnificence of its structure, the universality of its application, the plausibility of its appearance, and the talents with which it has been supported, it is built upon assumption alone; it lays down principles which it cannot support, and deals in fancy and conjecture rather than in solid facts and firm evidence.

Let us next, then, take a glance at the theory by which this is chiefly opposed, and which, as I have already observed, is denominated the NEPTUNIAN. Under this hypothesis, the two substances that were first evolved out of the general chaos on the formation of the earth, and chemically united to each other, were hydrogen and oxygen, in such proportion as to produce water, which is a compound of these substances, and in such quantity as to be able to hold every other material in a state of thin paste or solution. Of the materials thus held in solution granite is supposed to have been produced first, and in by far the greatest abundance. It hence, consolidated first, probably forms the foundation of the superficies of the globe, and perhaps the entire nucleus of the globe itself; and, as has been already seen, while it constitutes the basis of every other kind of rock, rises higher than any of them. It consists, as we have already observed, of felspar, quartz, and mica, all which must therefore have concreted by a crystallization nearly simultaneous; and from its containing no organic remains, it is obvious that it must have been formed prior to the existence of the animal and vegetable kingdoms. All the other rocks, upon this hypothesis, began to crystallize and consolidate after the formation of granite, in the order in which we have already traced them; and some of these before the whole of the granite was rendered perfectly firm, whence we trace beds of several of them in the granite formation itself; and as the same kind of action appears to apply to the whole, we, in like manner, trace beds of the newer rocks successively in formations of those that are older; and, at last, remains of animal and vegetable materials, which are hence proved to have had an existence coetaneous with the newer classes. The law of gravity appears to have operated through the whole of this process; and hence water, as the least heavy material, must have risen to the surface, and purified itself by a filtration through the other materials, and at length collected in such hollows as were most convenient for its reception: these hollows constitute the bed of the ocean.

Water, thus collected in the cavity of the ocean, is carried by the atmos. phere over the tops of the most elevated mountains, on which it is precipi.

tated in rain, and forms torrents by which it returns with various degrees of rapidity into the common reservoir. This restless motion and progress of the water in the form of rain or torrents gradually attenuate and wear away the hardest rocks, and carry their detached parts to distances more or less considerable; whence we meet with limestone, clay, quartz, or flint, sand, and mineral ores, in places to which they do not naturally belong. The influence of the air, and the varying temperature of the atmosphere, facilitate the attenuation and destruction of these rocks. Heat acts upon their surface, and renders it more accessible, and more penetrable to the moisture, as it enters into their texture; the limestone rocks are reduced by efflorescence, and the air itself affords the acid principle by which the efflorescence is continued. Such are a few of the numerous causes that contribute to the disunion of concrete bodies, and powerfully co-operate with that wonderful fluid which alternately forms and unforms; which creates, decomposes, and regenerates all nature.

The immediate effects of water in the shape of rain is to depress the mountains. But the materials which compose them must resist in proportion to their hardness; and hence we ought not to be surprised at meeting occasionally with peaks which have stood firm amid the wreck of ages, and still remain to attest the original level of the mountain-breadths which have disappeared. These primitive rocks, alike inaccessible to the assault of time and to that of the once animated beings which cover the less elevated heights with their relics, may be considered as the origin of streams and rivers. The water which falls on their summits flows down in torrents by their lateral surfaces. In its course it wears away the soil upon which it is incessantly acting. It hollows out channels of a depth proportioned to its rapidity, its quantity, and the hardness of the rock over which it passes, and at the same time carries along with it fragments of such stones as it loosens in its progress.

These stones, rolled by the water, strike together, and mutually break off their projecting angles; and hence we obtain collections of rounded flints which line the beds of rivers, and of smaller pebbles which the sea is perpetually throwing upon the shores, often incrusted with a gravelly or calcareous edging. The powder which is produced by the rounding of the flints, or is washed down from the mountains, frequently stagnates, forms a paste, and agglutinates into fresh masses of the rocky matter of which it consists; often imbedding flints and other materials, and constituting compound substances known by the name of pudding-stones and grit-stones, which chiefly differ from each other in the coarseness or fineness of their grains, or in the cement which connects them. And if the water be loaded, as it often is, with minutely-divided particles of quartz, it will proceed to crystallize whenever it becomes quiescent; and will form stalactites, agates, cornelians, rock-crystals, plain or coloured, according as it is destitute of, or combined with, any colouring material: and if the material with which the water be impregnated be lime instead of quartz, the crystallization will be calcareous alabaster, or marble.

Many of the earths are now known to be metallic oxides, and all of them are suspected to be so: and hence a degree of heat capable of fusing them, and depriving them of the xygen which gives them their oxide form, will necessarily convert them into their metallic state. That such currents of heat, from electricity and other causes, are occasionally, and perhaps in different places perpetually, existing beneath the surface of the earth, the Neptunian is as ready to admit as the Plutonic geologist; and hence the origin of metallic minerals, of mines, ores, ochres, and pyrites.

The decomposition of animal and vegetable matter contributes largely, moreover, in the view of the system now before us, to the changes which the globe is perpetually sustaining. The exuviæ of shell and coral animals is pepetually adding to the mass of its earths, and laying a foundation for new islands and numerous beds of limestone, in which we very often perceive impressions of the shells from which the soil has originated. On the other

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