Since, then, our History of Descriptive Geology is to include only systematic and scientific descriptions of the earth or portions of it, we pass over, at once, all the casual and insulated statements of facts, though they may be geological facts, which occur in early writers; such, for instance, as the remark of Herodotus,[6] that there are shells in the mountains of Egypt; or the general statements which Ovid puts in the mouth of Pythagoras:[7]
Vidi ego quod fuerat solidissima tellus,
Esse fretum; vidi factas ex æquore terras,
Et procul a pelago conchæ jacuere marinæ.
[6] ii. 12.
[7] Met. xv. 262.
We may remark here already how generally there are mingled with descriptive notices of such geological facts, speculations concerning their causes. Herodotus refers to the circumstance just quoted, for the purpose of showing that Egypt was formerly a gulf of the sea; and the passage of the Roman poet is part of a series of exemplifications which he gives of the philosophical tenet, that nothing perishes but everything changes. It will be only by constant attention that we shall be able to keep our provinces of geology distinct.
Sect. 2.—Early Descriptions and Collections of Fossils.
If we look, as we have proposed to do, for systematic and exact knowledge of geological facts, we find nothing which we can properly adduce till we come to modern times. But when facts such as those already mentioned, (that sea-shells and other marine objects are found imbedded in rocks,) and other circumstances in the structure of the Earth, had attracted considerable attention, the exact examination, collection, and record of these circumstances began to be attempted. Among such steps in Descriptive Geology, we may notice descriptions and pictures of fossils, descriptions of veins and mines, collections of organic and inorganic fossils, maps of the mineral structure of countries, and finally, the discoveries concerning the superposition of strata, the constancy of their organic contents, their correspondence in different countries, and such great general relations of the materials and features of the earth as have been discovered up to the present time. [507] Without attempting to assign to every important advance its author, I shall briefly exemplify each of the modes of contributing to descriptive geology which I have just enumerated.
The study of organic fossils was first pursued with connexion and system in Italy. The hills which on each side skirt the mountain-range of the Apennines are singularly rich in remains of marine animals. When these remarkable objects drew the attention of thoughtful men, controversies soon arose whether they really were the remains of living creatures, or the productions of some capricious or mysterious power by which the forms of such creatures were mimicked; and again, if the shells were really the spoils of the sea, whether they had been carried to the hills by the deluge of which the Scripture speaks, or whether they indicated revolutions of the earth of a different kind. The earlier works which contain the descriptions of the phenomena have, in almost all instances, by far the greater part of their pages occupied with these speculations; indeed, the facts could not be studied without leading to such inferences, and would not have been collected but for the interest which such reasonings possessed. As one of the first persons who applied a sound and vigorous intellect to these subjects, we may notice the celebrated painter Leonardo da Vinci, whom we have [already] had to refer to as one of the founders of the modern mechanical sciences. He strenuously asserts the contents of the rocks to be real shells, and maintains the reality of the changes of the domain of land and sea which these spoils of the ocean imply. “You will tell me,” he says, “that nature and the influence of the stars have formed these shelly forms in the mountains; then show me a place in the mountains where the stars at the present day make shelly forms of different ages, and of different species in the same place. And how, with that, will you explain the gravel which is hardened in stages at different heights in the mountains?” He then mentions several other particulars respecting these evidences that the existing mountains were formerly in the bed of the sea. Leonardo died in 1519. At present we refer to geological essays like his, only so far as they are descriptive. Going onwards with this view, we may notice Fracastoro, who wrote concerning the petrifactions which were brought to light in the mountains of Verona, when, in 1517, they were excavated for the purpose of repairing the city. Little was done in the way of collection of facts for some time after this. In 1669, Steno, a Dane resident in Italy, put forth his treatise, De Solido intra Solidum naturaliter contento; and the [508] following year, Augustino Scilla, a Sicilian painter, published a Latin epistle, De Corporibus Marinis Lapidescentibus, illustrated by good engravings of fossil-shells, teeth, and corals.[8] After another interval of speculative controversy, we come to Antonio Vallisneri, whose letters, De’ Corpi Marini che su’ Monti si trovano, appeared at Venice in 1721. In these letters he describes the fossils of Monte Bolca, and attempts to trace the extent of the marine deposits of Italy,[9] and to distinguish the most important of the fossils. Similar descriptions and figures were published with reference to our own country at a later period. In 1766, Brander’s Fossilia Hantoniensia, or Hampshire Fossils, appeared; containing excellent figures of fossil shells from a part of the south coast of England; and similar works came forth in other parts of Europe.
[8] Augustine Scilla’s original drawings of fossil shells, teeth, and corals, from which the engravings mentioned in the text were executed, as well as the natural objects from which the drawings were made, were bought by Woodward, and are now in the Woodwardian Museum at Cambridge.
[9] p. 20.