The Poetry of Science; or, Studies of the Physical Phenomena of Nature

by Robert Hunt

We have evidence of the extent to which these forces may be exerted, in the catastrophes which have occurred within historical times, and which have happened even in our own day. Herculaneum and Pompeii, buried under the lava and ashes of Vesuvius, in an hour when the inhabitants of these cities were unprepared for such a fearful visitation,—the frightful earthquakes which have, from time to time, occurred in South America—are evidences of the existence of hidden forces which shake the firm-set earth. Similar ravaging catastrophes may have often occurred, and, involving cataclysms, swept the surface to produce the changes we detect over every part of the earth, compared with which the earthquakes and floods of history are but trivial things. Evidence has been adduced, to show that the mountains of the Old World may have approached in height the highest of the Andes or Himalayas, and these have not been destroyed by any sudden effect, but by the slow disintegrating action of the elements.[244] All these phenomena are now in progress: the winds and the rains wear the faces of the exposed rock; their débris, mixed with decayed vegetable and animal matter, are washed off from the surface, and borne away by the rivers, to be deposited in the seas. Thus it is that the great delta of the Ganges is formed, and that a continual increase of matter is going on at the mouths of rivers. The Amazon, the Mississippi, and other great rivers, bear into the ocean, daily, thousands of tons of matter from the surface of the earth.[245] This is, of course, deposited at the bottom of the sea, and it must, in the process of time, alter the relative levels of the ocean and the land. Islands have been lifted by volcanic power from the bottom of the sea, and many districts in South America have been depressed by the same causes.

Changes as extensive have been, in all probability, effected by forces “equally or more powerful, but acting with less irregularity, and so distributed over time as to produce none of those interregnums of chaotic anarchy which we are apt to think (perhaps erroneously) great disfigurements of an order so beautiful and harmonious as that of nature.”[246] These forces are, without doubt, even now in action.

Had it not been for these convulsive disturbances of the surface, the earth would have presented an almost uniform plain, and it would have been ill-adapted for the abode of man. The hills raised by the disturbances of nature, and the valleys worn by the storms of ages, minister especially to his wants, and afford him the means of enjoyment which he could not possess had the surface been otherwise formed. The “iced mountain tops,” condensing the clouds which pass over them, send down healthful streams to the valleys, and supply the springs of the earth, thus securing the fertility and salubrity of the distant plains. The severities of climate are mitigated by these conditions, and both the people of the tropics and those dwelling near the poles are equally benefited by them.

Gravitation, cohesion, motion, chemical force, heat, and electricity, must, from that hypothetical time when the earth floated a cloud of nebulous vapour, in a state of gradual condensation up to the present moment, have been exercising their powers, and regulating the mutations of matter.

When the dry land was beneath the waters, and when darkness was upon the face of the deep, the same great operations as those which are now in progress in the depths of the Atlantic, or in the still waters of our inland lakes, were in full activity. At length the dry land appears; and—mystery of mysteries—it soon becomes teeming with life in all the forms of vegetable and animal beauty, under the aspect of the beams of a glorious sun.

Geology teaches us to regard our position upon the earth as one far in advance of all former creations. It bids us look back through the enormous vista of time, and see, shining still in the remotest distance, the light which exposes to our vision many of nature’s holy wonders. The elements which now make up this strangely beautiful fabric of muscle, nerves, and bone, have passed through many ordeals, ere yet it became fashioned to hold the human soul. No grain of matter has been added to the planet, since it was weighed in a balance, and poised with other worlds. No grain of matter can be removed from it. But in virtue of those forces which seem to originate in the sun, “the soul of the great earth,” a succession of new forms has been produced, as the old things have passed away.

Under the forces we have been considering, acting as so many contending armies, matter passes from one condition to another, and what is now a living and a breathing creature, or a delicate and sweetly-scented flower, has been a portion of the amorphous mass which once lay in the darkness of the deep ocean, and it will again, in the progress of time, pass into that condition where no evidences of organization can be found,—again, perhaps, to arise clothed with more exalted powers than even man enjoys.

When man places himself in contrast with the Intelligences beyond him, he feels his weakness; and the extent of power which he can discover at work, guided by a mysterious law, is such, that he is dwarfed by its immensity. But looking on the past, surveying the progress of matter through the inorganic forms up to the higher organizations, until at length man stands revealed as the chief figure in the foreground of the picture, the monarch of a world on which such elaborate care has been bestowed, and the absolute ruler of all things around him, he rises like a giant in the conscious strength of his far-searching mind. That so great, so noble a being, should suffer himself to be degraded by the sensualities of life to a level with the creeping things, upon which he has the power to tread, is a lamentable spectacle, over which angels must weep.

The curious connection between the superstitions of races, the traditionary tales of remote tribes, and the developments of the truths of science, are often of a very marked character, and they cannot but be regarded as instructive. In the wonders of “olden time” fiction has ever delighted; and a thousand pictures have been produced of a period when beings lived and breathed upon the earth which have no existence now.

Hydras, harpies, and sea-monsters, figure in the myths of antiquity. In the mythology of the northern races of Europe we have fiery flying dragons, and Poetry has placed these as the guardians of the “hoarded spirit” and protectors of the enchanted gold.