NATURE'S MIRACLES.
EARTH.
CHAPTER I.
WORLD-BUILDING AND LIFE.
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void."
Whatever our speculations may be in regard to a "beginning," and when it was, it is written in the rocks, that, like the animals and plants upon its surface, the earth itself grew; that for countless ages, measured by years that no man can number, the earth has been gradually assuming its present form and composition, and that the processes of growth and decay are active every hour.
The science that deals with the formations and stratifications that are found on the earth and under the earth, and all the forces that have been and are now active in their formation, is called Geology (earth science). It is a science about which little is known by the average individual, and yet it is one of transcendent interest, from the study of which the lover of nature can obtain a vast amount of profit and pleasure. When the uncultured man sees a stone in the road it tells him no story other than the fact that he sees a stone and that it would better be removed; and all the satisfaction he gets out of it is in the thought that he has saved some unlucky wagon wheel from being wrenched or broken. The scientist looking at the same stone perhaps will stop, and with a hammer break it open, when the newly exposed faces of the rock will have written upon them a history that is as real to him as the printed page. He is carried back to a far-off time, where he sees the processes and forces at work that have formed this stone and made it what it is, not only in its outward form, but in its constitution, down to its molecules and atoms. (The word "atom" is used in chemistry to mean the smallest particle of an elementary substance that will combine with the atoms of another substance to form new compounds of matter. And molecules are made up of atoms.) The scientist looking at this stone sees in it not only that mechanical and chemical agencies have cooperated in the work of its formation, but that animal life itself may have been the chief agency in bringing the materials together and giving form to the peculiar architecture employed in its formation. If it is a piece of limestone this latter statement will be eminently true.
Here is a powerful motive for the study of physical science. It is not to be expected, nor is it possible, that every individual can be a scientist in the strict sense of the word, but it is possible for everyone of ordinary intelligence to become familiar with the salient facts of science, if only a small portion of the time that is now devoted to the reading of literature that is rather harmful than helpful be spent in studying the phenomena and works of nature.