Recapitulation—Scope of our argument—Theory of stratified rocks the framework of geological science—The theory brings geology into contact with revelation—the line of reasoning hitherto pursued confirmed by the testimony of fossil remains—Meaning of the word fossil—Inexhaustible abundance of fossils—Various states of preservation—Petrifaction—Experiments of Professor Göppert—Organic rocks afford some insight into the fossil world—The reality and significance of fossil remains must be learned from observation—The British Museum—Colossal skeletons—Bones and shells of animals—Fossil plants and trees.
Reader, you are beginning to suspect us. ‘How long do we propose to detain people?’ For anything that appears we may be designing to write on to the twentieth century. ‘And whither are we going?’ Toward what object? which is as urgent a quære as, how far? Perhaps we may be leading you into treason. You feel symptoms of doubt and restiveness; and like Hamlet with his father’s ghost, “you will follow us no further unless we explain what it is that we are in quest of.”
These words of Thomas De Quincey to his readers, in the middle of one of his discursive essays, which, interesting as they certainly are in all their parts, yet sometimes beget a feeling of weariness from the uncomfortable apprehension that they will not come to an end, are, perhaps, scarcely less appropriate in our own case. It may be that our readers have been left too long in the uneasy state of suspense and hope deferred. They came to our pages to look for a practical solution of the question, Is Geology at variance with the Bible? And what avails it, they may ask, to discourse to them of the Gulf Stream, and Rivers, and Glaciers, and Alluvial Plains, and Coral Rocks, and Coal Mines? With painful steps they have been toiling after us through tedious disquisitions, straining their eyes to see the end, but the end is not yet in sight. Well, then, if they will rest for a few minutes by the way, we will pause, too, and tell them what we are about, and try to bring out more clearly the object at which we are aiming.
Our design from the beginning was to consider the points of contact between Geology and Revelation; to examine the relations that exist between these two departments of knowledge,—one resting upon reason and observation, the other given to us from Heaven; and to inquire how far it may be possible to adopt the conclusions of the former, while we adhere, at the same time, with unswerving fidelity, to the unchangeable truths of the latter. With this end in view, we proceeded at once to sketch out the more prominent features of Geological theory; not the particular theory of one writer, or of one school, but that more general theory which is adopted by all writers, and prevails in every school. This theory, we were all well aware, is in many points widely at variance with the common notions of sensible and even well-informed men who have not devoted much attention to the study of Physical Science. And it occurred to us that, possibly, many of our readers might be disposed to cut the controversy short by rejecting, in a summary way, the whole system of Geology, and treating it as an empty shadow or an idle dream. This, we were convinced, would be a mistaken and mischievous course. Geology is not a house of cards that it may be blown down by a breath. It is a hypothesis, a theory, if you will; but no one can in fairness deny that behind this theory there are facts,—unexpected, startling, significant facts; that these facts, when considered in their relation to one another, when illustrated by the present phenomena of Nature, and skilfully grouped together, as they have been by able men, disclose certain general truths, and suggest certain arguments, which do seem to point in the direction of those conclusions at which Geologists have arrived.
It follows that he who would investigate fairly the claims of Geology, must first learn to appreciate the significance of these facts, and to estimate the value of these arguments. And this is precisely what we have been trying to do. We are not writing a treatise on Geology. Certainly not: it would be presumptuous in us, with our scanty knowledge, to attempt it. Besides, Geology has it own professors, and its lecture-halls, and its manuals. Neither do we mean to assume the character of the advocates or champions of Geology. It does not ask our services; in its cause are enrolled no small proportion of the most illustrious names which for the last fifty years have adorned the annals of Physical Science. Nor do we want even to enforce upon our readers that more general theory of Geology which we are endeavoring to explain and illustrate. Our purpose is merely to collect from various sources, and to string together, the evidence that may be adduced in its favor; that so, when we come hereafter to consider this theory in its relation with the History of the Bible, we may not incur the risk of discomfiture by denying that which has been proved by facts, but rather approach the subject with such knowledge as may help us to discover the real harmony that we know to exist between the truths inscribed on the works of God, and those which are recorded in His Written Word.
In the accomplishment of this task we have devoted ourselves chiefly to the study of the Aqueous or Stratified Rocks. According to Geologists, these rocks, such as we find them now, were not the immediate work of creation, but were slowly produced in the long lapse of ages, and laid out one above another, by a vast and complex machinery of secondary causes. The elements of which they are composed were gathered together from many and various sources; from the ocean, from the air, from other pre-existing rocks; and, for aught we know, may have had a long and eventful history before they came to assume their present structure and arrangement. Thus, for example, the Conglomerates, and Sandstones, with which we are so familiar, are made up of broken fragments derived from earlier rocks, and then transported to distant sites by the mountain torrents, or the stately rivers of vast continents, or the silent currents of the sea; the Limestone with which we build our houses is the work of living animals that once swarmed in countless myriads beneath the waters of the ocean; and the Coal which supplies the motive power to our manufactories, our railways, our ships of war and commerce, is but the modern representative of ancient swamps and forests, which, having been buried in the earth, and there, by the action of chemical laws, endowed with new properties, were laid by for the future use of man in the great storehouse of Nature.
This mode of accounting for the origin and formation of Stratified Rocks constitutes in a manner the framework that supports and binds together the whole system of Geology. If it be once fairly established, Geology is entitled to take high rank as a Physical Science. If on the contrary it should prove to be without foundation, then Geology is no longer a science, but a dream. Moreover, it is this theory of stratification which, from the first, has brought Geology into contact with Revelation. For Geologists have been led to infer the extreme Antiquity of the Earth, from the immense thickness of the Stratified Rocks on the one hand, and, on the other, the very slow and gradual process by which each stratum in the series has been, in its turn, spread out and consolidated. Those likewise who claim for the Human Race a greater Antiquity than the Bible allows, seek for their proofs in the supposed origin and antiquity of those superficial deposits, in which the remains of Man or of his works are sometimes found entombed.
It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that the theory of Stratified Rocks should engage the largest share of our attention when we undertake to discuss the relation in which Geology stands to Revealed Religion. For the present we say nothing about the conclusions that flow from this theory, or the errors to which it has led when hastily or ignorantly applied: we are only investigating the evidence by which it is supported. In our former chapters we have drawn out at some length the line of reasoning which is derived from the character of the Aqueous Rocks themselves when considered in the light of Nature’s present operations. We have shown that Stratified Rocks of many different kinds, just such as those which compose the Crust of the Earth, have been produced by natural causes within historic times; and we have explained some of the more simple and intelligible parts of that complex machinery, which, even now, is busily at work gathering, sorting, distributing, piling up together, and consolidating the materials of new strata all over the world. These considerations, as we took occasion to point out, beget a strong presumption in favor of Geological theory. Here we have Nature at work, actually bringing into existence a stratum of rock before our eyes. And there, in the Crust of the Earth, we find another stratum of precisely the same kind already finished. What can be more reasonable than to ascribe the one to the action of the same causes which we see at work upon the other? And thus, by extending the area of our observations from one class of Aqueous Rocks to another, the idea gradually grows upon us that these rocks have been spread out, stratum upon stratum, during many successive ages, by the agency of secondary causes similar to those which are still in operation; and that each stratum, in its turn, as it first came into existence, was for a time the uppermost of the series.
In support of this conclusion we are now about to bring forward a new and independent argument founded on the testimony of Fossil Remains. An eminent writer has summed up in a few words the value and importance of Fossil Remains in reference to Geological theory. “At present,” he says, “shells, fishes, and other animals are buried in the mud or silt of lakes and estuaries; rivers also carry down the carcases of land animals, the trunks of trees, and other vegetable drift; and earthquakes submerge plains and islands, with all their vegetable and animal inhabitants. These remains become enveloped in the layers of mud and sand and gravel formed by the waters, and in process of time are petrified, that is, are converted into stony matter like the shells and bones found in the oldest strata. Now, as at present, so in all former time must the remains of plants and animals have been similarly preserved; and, as one tribe of plant is peculiar to the dry plain, another to the swampy morass; as one family belongs to a temperate, another to a tropical region, so, from the character of the embedded plants, we are enabled to arrive at some knowledge of the conditions under which they flourished. In the same manner with animals: each tribe has its locality assigned it by peculiarities of food, climate, and the like; each family has its own peculiar structure for running, flying, swimming, plant-eating, or flesh-eating, as the case may be; and by comparing Fossil Remains with existing races, we are enabled to determine many of the past conditions of the world with considerable certainty.”[68]