In a "Natural History of England," published towards the end of the last century, it is gravely observed that at Bethersden in Kent, a kind of stone is found full of shells, "which is a proof that shells and the animals we find in them living, have no necessary connexion." Another amusing instance of the ignorance on such subjects which prevailed at no remote period, occurs in a "History of the County of Surrey," in which it is stated that in a search for coal near Guildford the borers broke, and "this was thought by Mr. Peter Lely, the Astrologer, to have been the work of subterranean spirits, who wrenched off the augers of the miners, lest their secret haunts should be invaded."
But in the latter part of the seventeenth century, there were several eminent men in England who were greatly in advance of the age in which they lived, and strenuously exerted themselves to discover and promulgate the true principles of Geology. Among these, Dr. Martin Lister, physician to Queen Anne, was one of the most distinguished. This accomplished naturalist, in his great work on shells, which remains to this day a splendid monument of his labours, and of the talents and filial affection of his two daughters, by whom all the plates were engraved, figures and describes many fossil shells as real animal productions, and carefully compares them with recent species. He also recognised the distinction of strata by the organic remains they contain; and to him the honour is due of having first suggested the construction of geological maps;[4] he was likewise well acquainted with the position and extent of the Chalk and other strata of the South of England.[5]
[4] See Notes on the Progress of Geology in England, by W. H. Fitton, M.D. &c. Philos. Mag. vols. i. and ii. for 1832 and 1833.
[5] This celebrated physician and British geologist died in 1712, and was interred in the old church at Clapham; where a tablet to his memory is affixed to the outside of the north wall of St. Paul's Chapel.
From the foreign writers, who at an early period had obtained some correct notions of the structure of our planet, and of the nature of the revolutions it had undergone, I select the following beautiful and philosophical illustration of the physical mutations to which the surface of the earth is perpetually subjected. It is from an Arabic manuscript of the thirteenth century;[6] the narrative is supposed to be related by Rhidhz, an allegorical personage.
[6] Quoted by Sir C. Lyell in his "Principles of Geology."
"I passed one day by a very ancient and populous city, and I asked one of its inhabitants how long it had been founded? 'It is, indeed, a mighty city,' replied he; 'we know not how long it has existed, and our ancestors were on this subject as ignorant as ourselves.' Some centuries afterwards I passed by the same place, but I could not perceive the slightest vestige of the city; and I demanded of a peasant, who was gathering herbs upon its former site, how long it had been destroyed? 'In sooth, a strange question,' replied he, 'the ground here has never been different from what you now behold it.' 'Was there not,' said I, 'of old a splendid city here?' 'Never,' answered he, 'so far as we know, and never did our fathers speak to us of any such.'
"On revisiting the spot, after the lapse of other centuries, I found the sea in the same place, and on its shores were a party of fishermen, of whom I asked how long the land had been covered by the waters? 'Is this a question,' said they, 'for a man like you? this spot has always been what it is now.'
"I again returned ages afterwards, and the sea had disappeared. I inquired of a man who stood alone upon the ground, how long ago the change had taken place, and he gave me the same answer that I had received before.
"Lastly, on coming back again, after an equal lapse of time, I found there a flourishing city, more populous and more rich in buildings than the city I had seen the first time; and when I fain would have informed myself regarding its origin, the inhabitants answered me, 'Its rise is lost in remote antiquity—we are ignorant how long it has existed, and our fathers were on this subject no wiser than ourselves.'"