BOOK XVIII.
GEOLOGY.
WITH regard to Geology, as a Palætiological Science, I do not know that any new light of an important kind has been thrown upon the general doctrines of the science. Surveys and examinations of special phenomena and special districts have been carried on with activity and intelligence; and the animals of which the remains people the strata, have been reconstructed by the skill and knowledge of zoologists:—of such reconstructions we have, for instance, a fine assemblage in the publications of the Palæontological Society. But the great questions of the manner of the creation and succession of animal and vegetable species upon the earth remain, I think, at the point at which they were when I published the last edition of the History.
I may notice the views propounded by some chemists of certain bearings of Mineralogy upon Geology. As we have, in mineral masses, organic remains of former organized beings, so have we crystalline remains of former crystals; namely, what are commonly called pseudomorphoses—the shape of one crystal in the substance of another. M. G. Bischoff[48] considers the study of pseudomorphs as important in geology, and as frequently the only means of tracing processes which have taken place and are still going on in the mineral kingdom.
[48] Chemical and Physical Geology.
I may notice also Professor Breithaupt’s researches on the order of succession of different minerals, by observing the mode in which they occur and the order in which different crystals have been deposited, promise to be of great use in following out the geological changes which the crust of the globe has undergone. (Die Paragenesis der Mineralien. Freiberg. 1849.)
In conjunction with these may be taken M. de Senarmont’s experiments on the formation of minerals in veins; and besides Bischoff’s [647] Chemical Geology, Sartorius von Walterhausen’s Observations on the occurrence of minerals in Amygdaloid.
As a recent example of speculations concerning Botanical Palætiology, I may give Dr. Hooker’s views of the probable history of the Flora of the Pacific.
In speculating upon this question, Dr. Hooker is led to the discussion of geological doctrines concerning the former continuity of tracts of land which are now separate, the elevation of low lands into mountain ranges in the course of ages, and the like. We have already seen, in the speculations of the late lamented Edward Forbes, (see Book xviii. [chap. vi.] of this History,) an example of a hypothesis propounded to account for the existing Flora of England: a hypothesis, namely, of a former Connexion of the West of the British Isles with Portugal, of the Alps of Scotland with those of Scandinavia, and of the plains of East Anglia with those of Holland. In like manner Dr. Hooker says (p. xxi.) that he was led to speculate on the possibility of the plants of the Southern Ocean being the remains of a Flora that had once spread over a larger and more continuous tract of land than now exists in the ocean; and that the peculiar Antarctic genera and species may be the vestiges of a Flora characterized by the predominance of plants which are now scattered throughout the Southern islands. He conceives this hypothesis to be greatly supported by the observations and reasonings of Mr. Darwin, tending to show that such risings and sinkings are in active progress over large portions of the continents and islands of the Southern hemisphere: and by the speculations of Sir C. Lyell respecting the influence of climate on the migrations of plants and animals, and the influence of geological changes upon climate.
In Zoology I may notice (following Mr. Owen)[49] recent discoveries of the remains of the animals which come nearest to man in their structure. At the time of Cuvier’s death, in 1832, no evidence had been obtained of fossil Quadrumana; and he supposed that these, as well as Bimana, were of very recent introduction. Soon after, in the oldest (eocene) tertiary deposits of Suffolk, remains were found proving the existence of a monkey of the genus Macacus. In the Himalayan tertiaries were found petrified bones of a Semnopithecus; in Brazil, remains of an extinct platyrhine monkey of great size; and lastly, in the middle tertiary series of the South of France, was discovered a fragment of the jaw of the long-armed ape (Hylobates). But no fossil human [648] remains have been discovered in the regularly deposited layers of any divisions (not even the pleiocene) of the tertiary series; and thus we have evidence that the placing of man on the earth was the last and peculiar act of Creation.
[49] Brit. Asso. 1854, p. 112.
THE END.
Transcriber’s Notes
Whewell’s book was originally published in 3 volumes in London in 1837. A second edition appeared in 1847, and a third in 1857. A 2-volume version of the 3rd edition was published in New York in 1858, reprinted 1875. This Project Gutenberg text, combining both volumes in sequence, was derived from the 1875 version, relying upon resources kindly provided by the Internet Archive. In so doing, the Contents of Volume 2 have been moved to follow the Contents of Volume 1.
Three items have been added to the Contents of the First Volume; they are marked off by ~ ~. Whewell’s additions to the 3rd edition were printed by way of appendices to the volumes. An indication that such an addition may be found has been given, again marked off by ~ ~, and linked to the relevant text. Any infelicities in these and other internal links are the transcriber’s responsibility.
Where ditto signs were used in the text, the material has been repeated in full.
Printed page numbers have been transcribed in colour. Where words were hyphenated across pages, the number has been placed before the word.
Fractions have been transcribed as numerator⁄denominator, occasionally using parentheses to disambiguate. The original sometimes has numerator over a line with denominator below, at other times numerator hyphen denominator.
Footnotes in the original text were numbered by chapter; here they have been numbered by Book (counting the preface and the appendices to each volume as a separate book and incorporating the Introduction with Book I). They are placed after the paragraph in which they occur.
Corrections to the text are flagged in the .htm version by dotted red underline, on mouse-over revealing the nature of the change. They were usually confirmed by reference to English printings of the text. Inconsistencies, especially with respect to accents and formatting, are numerous and have in general not been adjusted, though Greek quotations have been checked against other versions where available. Nor have Whewell's unbalanced quotation marks been modernised. The English versions have been used to restore Whewell’s “gesperrt” emphases in some Greek passages.