Consolations in Travel; or, the Last Days of a Philosopher

by Sir Humphry Davy

these formations, whether called secondary, tertiary, or diluvial, have the remains of man or any of his works been discovered. It is, I think, impossible to consider the organic remains found in any of the earlier secondary strata, the lias-limestone and its congenerous formations for instance, without being convinced that the beings, whose organs they formed, belonged to an order of things entirely different from the present. Gigantic vegetables, more nearly allied to the palms of the equatorial countries than to any other plants, can only be imagined to have lived in a very high temperature; and the immense reptiles, the megalosauri with paddles instead of legs and clothed in mail, in size equal or even superior to the whale; and the great amphibia, plethiosauri, with bodies like turtles, but furnished with necks longer than their bodies, probably to enable them to feed on vegetables growing in the shallows of the primitive ocean, seem to show a state in which low lands or extensive shores rose above an immense calm sea, and when there were no great mountain, chains to produce inequalities of temperature, tempests, or storms. Were the surface of the earth now to be carried down into the depths of the ocean, or were some great revolution of the waters to cover the existing land, and it was again to be elevated by fire, covered with consolidated depositions of sand or mud, how entirely different would it be in its characters from any of the secondary strata. Its great features would undoubtedly be the works of man—hewn stones, and statues of bronze and marble, and tools of iron—and human remains would be more common than those of animals on the greatest part of the surface; the columns of Pæstum or of Agrigentum, or the immense

iron and granite bridges of the Thames, would offer a striking contrast to the bones of the crocodiles or sauri in the older rocks, or even to those of the mammoth or elephas primogenius in the diluvial strata. And whoever dwells upon this subject must be convinced that the present order of things, and the comparatively recent existence of man as the master of the globe, is as certain as the destruction of a former and a different order and the extinction of a number of living forms which have now no types in being, and which have left their remains wonderful monuments of the revolutions of Nature.

Onu.—I am not quite convinced by your arguments. Supposing the lands of New Holland were to be washed into the depths of the ocean, and to be raised according to the Huttonian view, as a secondary stratum, by subterraneous fire, they would contain the remains of both vegetables and animals entirely different from any found in the strata of the old continents; and may not those peculiar formations to which you have referred be, as it were, accidents of Nature belonging to peculiar parts of the globe? And you speak of a diluvian formation, which I conclude you would identify with that belonging to the catastrophe described in the sacred writings, in which no human remains are found. Now, you surely will not deny that man existed at the time of this catastrophe, and he consequently may have existed at the period of the other revolutions, which are supposed to be produced in the Huttonian views by subterraneous fire.

The Unknown.—I have made use of the term “diluvian,” because it has been adopted by geologists, but without meaning to identify the cause of the formations with

the deluge described in the sacred writings. I apply the term merely to signify loose and water-worn strata not at all consolidated, and deposited by an inundation of water, and in these countries which they have covered man certainly did not exist. With respect to your argument derived from New Holland, it appears to me to be without weight. In a variety of climates, and in very distant parts of the globe, secondary strata of the same order are found, and they contain always the same kind of organic remains, which are entirely different from any of those now afforded by beings belonging to the existing order of things. The catastrophes which produced the secondary strata and diluvian depositions could not have been local and partial phenomena, but must have extended over the whole, or a great part of the surface, of the globe. The remains of similar shell-fishes are found in the limestones of the old and new continents; the teeth of the mammoth are not uncommon in various parts of Europe; entire skeletons have been found in America, and even the skin covered with hair and the entire body of one of these enormous extinct animals has been discovered in Siberia preserved in a mass of ice. In the oldest secondary strata there are no remains of such animals as now belong to the surface; and in the rocks which may be regarded as more recently deposited, these remains occur but rarely, and with abundance of extinct species. There seems, as it were, a gradual approach to the present system of things, and a succession of destructions and creations preparatory to the existence of man. It will be useless to push these arguments farther. You must allow that it is impossible to defend the proposition, that the present order of things

is the ancient and constant order of Nature, only modified by existing laws, and, consequently, the view which you have supported must be abandoned. The monuments of extinct generations of animals are as perfect as those of extinct nations; and it would be more reasonable to suppose that the pillars and temples of Palmyra were raised by the wandering Arabs of the desert, than to imagine that the vestiges of peculiar animated forms in the strata beneath the surface belonged to the early and infant families of the beings that at present inhabit it.

Onu.—I am convinced. I shall push my arguments no further, for I will not support the sophisms of that school which supposes that living nature has undergone gradual changes by the effects of its irritabilities and appetencies; that the fish has in millions of generations ripened into the quadruped, and the quadruped into the man; and that the system of life by its own inherent powers has fitted itself to the physical changes in the system of the universe. To this absurd, vague, atheistical doctrine, I prefer even the dream of plastic powers, or that other more modern dream, that the secondary strata were created, filled with remains, as it were, of animal life, to confound the speculations of our geological reasoners.

The Unknown.—I am glad you have not retreated into the desert and defenceless wilderness of scepticism, or of false and feeble philosophy. I should not have thought it worth my while to have followed you there; I should as soon think of arguing with the peasant who informs me that the basaltic columns of Antrim or of Staffa were the works of human art and raised by the giant Finmacoul.

At this moment, one of our servants came to inform me that a dinner which had been preparing for us at the farmhouse was ready; we asked the stranger to do us the honour to partake of our repast; he assented, and the following conversation took place at table.

Phil.—In reflecting upon our discussions this morning, I cannot help being a little surprised at their nature; we have been talking only of geological systems, when a more natural subject for our conversation would have been these magnificent temples, and an inquiry into the race by whom they were raised and the gods to whom they wore dedicated. We are now treading on a spot which contains the bones of a highly civilised and powerful people; yet we are almost ignorant of the names they bore, and the period of their greatness is lost in the obscurity of time.