FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS.
| [Frontispiece]—The First Man. | ||
| PAGE | ||
| [I.] | De Sancy Peak, Mont Dore | 42 |
| [II]. | Basaltic Mountain of La Coupe d’Ayzac | 46 |
| [III]. | Extinct Volcanoes of Le Puy | 52 |
| [IV]. | Mud Volcano of Turbaco | 62 |
| [V]. | Great Geyser of Iceland | 66 |
| [VI]. | The Earth in a gaseous state circulating in space | 82 |
| [VII]. | Condensation and rainfall | 94 |
| [VIII]. | Ideal Landscape of the Silurian Period | 104 |
| [IX]. | Ideal Landscape of the Devonian Period | 121 |
| [X]. | Ideal view of marine life in the Carboniferous Period | 147 |
| [XI]. | Ideal view of a marshy forest in the Coal Period | 156 |
| [XII]. | Ideal Landscape of the Permian Period | 172 |
| [XIII]. | Ideal Landscape of the Muschelkalk Period | 191 |
| [XIV]. | Ideal Landscape of the Saliferous or Keuper Period | 198 |
| [XV]. | Ideal Scene of the Lias Period with Ichthyosaurus and Plesiosaurus | 231 |
| [XVI]. | Ideal Landscape of the Liassic Period | 241 |
| [XVII]. | Ideal Landscape of the Lower Oolite Period | 254 |
| [XVIII]. | Ideal Landscape of the Middle Oolite Period | 258 |
| [XIX]. | Apiocrinites rotundus and Encrinus liliiformis | 261 |
| [XX]. | Ideal Landscape of the Upper Oolite Period | 267 |
| [XXI]. | Ideal Scene of the Lower Cretaceous Period | 296 |
| [XXII]. | Ideal Landscape of the Cretaceous Period | 307 |
| [XXIII]. | Ideal Landscape of the Eocene Period | 328 |
| [XXIV]. | Ideal Landscape of the Miocene Period | 352 |
| [XXV]. | Ideal Landscape of the Pliocene Period | 375 |
| [XXVI]. | Skeleton of the Mammoth in the St. Petersburg Museum | 394 |
| [XXVII]. | Skeleton of Megatherium | 403 |
| [XXVIII]. | Ideal View of the Quaternary Epoch—Europe | 416 |
| [XXIX]. | Ideal Landscape of the Quaternary Epoch—America | 419 |
| [XXX]. | Deluge of the North of Europe | 425 |
| [XXXI]. | Glaciers of Switzerland | 445 |
| [XXXII]. | Appearance of Man | 468 |
| [XXXIII]. | Asiatic Deluge | 483 |
| [Diagram at End]—IdealSection of the Earth’s Crust, showing the order of superposition or chronological succession of the principal groups of strata. | ||
PREFACE.
The object of “The World before the Deluge” is to trace the progressive steps by which the earth has reached its present state, from that condition of chaos when it “was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep,” and to describe the various convulsions and transformations through which it has successively passed. In the words of the poet—
“Where rolls the deep, there grew the tree;
O Earth, what changes hast thou seen!
There, where the long street roars, hath been
The silence of the central sea.”
It has been thought desirable that the present edition of the work should undergo a thorough revision by a practical geologist, a task which Mr. H. W. Bristow has performed. Mr. Bristow has however confined himself to such alterations as were necessary to secure accuracy in the statement of facts, and such additions as were necessary to represent more precisely the existing state of scientific opinion. Many points which are more or less inferential and therefore matters of individual opinion, and especially those on which M. Figuier bases his speculations, have been left in their original form, in preference to making modifications which would wholly change the character of the book. In a work whose purpose is to give the general reader a summarised account of the results at which science has arrived, and of the method of reasoning regarding the facts on which these generalisations rest, it would be out of place, as well as ineffective, to obscure general statements with those limitations which caution imposes on the scientific investigator.
In the original work the Author had naturally enough drawn most of his facts from French localities; in the translation these are mostly preserved, but others drawn from British Geology have been added, either from the translator’s own knowledge, or from the works of well-known British writers. It was considered desirable, for similar reasons, to enlarge upon the opinions of British geologists, to whom the French work scarcely does justice, considering the extent to which the science is indebted to them for its elucidation.
In the original work the chapter on Eruptive Rocks comes at the end of the work, but, as the work proceeded, so many unexplained allusions to that chapter were found that it seemed more logical, and more in accordance with chronological order, if the expression may be used, to place that chapter at the beginning.