GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY CONSIDERED WITH REFERENCE TO NATURAL THEOLOGY.
THE object of this work is to advocate a Theism, by proving a succession of creations in the history of our globe, and by show- ing that design was as clear in the formation of the inorganic matter of the earlier worlds and the construction of the creatures that inhabited them, as it is in the modes of existence around us. It may really be inferred that the author is most successful in the first point. By tracing a succession of systems, each of which ap- pears to have been separately originated, and totally destroyed, he deprives the Atheist of that argument which maintains the eter- nal and unchanged existence, or the gradual growth of the world. And as every change in the condition of the globe brought it nearer and nearer, by successive steps, to the state it has now arrived at, there is a fair inference in favour of the unity and universal agency of the First Great Cause, which of course overturns the theory of the Polytheists. On the second point, Dr. BUCKLAND is not so strikingly convincing, except in parts. The proofs of that felicitous iidaptation of means to ends, and of both to sur- rounding circumstances, by which design in the highest sense of the word is understood, are naturally less striking when dealing with the remains of things, than with things themselves. In the living animal we can compare the habits with the whole structure. From fossil remains we can but infer the latter, and the uses for which it was intended arc only learnt conjecturally. This inherent difficulty has not been vanquished by any peculiar art in the writer, who is deficient in the power of popularly expounding recondite science. Dr. BUCKLAND bas, without doubt, a thorough knowledge of his subject; but he does not seem to have that perfect power over it, which is sufficiently expressed by the word mastery. When the work has been studied, its arrangement will•be found natural and orderly, though somewhat too formally scientific ; but it has the disadvantage of not enabling the reader fully to comprehend the scope of the author at starting. The great defect, however, is in the plan and treat- ment. To the common reader it will be nearly unintelligible, and a.geologist only will satisfactorily comprehend it. There is no general view of the leading principles of the science of geology ; no popular account of the evidence on which it rests, or of the history of its discovery ; no distinct separation of its facts from its theories, nor a statement of how far the latter depend on analo- gous reasoning, how far on hypothesis or conjecture ; and in addi- tion to these deficiencies, there is the positive fault of the perpe- tual use of technical terms, often without necessity, always with- out explanation. The numerous plates which explain or illustrate the text, instead of appearing with it, are relegated to another volume; and in some cases require a distinct study, in all a sepa- rate yet a simultaneous examination. If these were necessary evils, there would be nothing left but to lament the incapa- bility of the subject for the purpose in view ; but we believe them to have been all removable ; and their existence is the more to be regretted, as Dr. BUCKLAND, when treating of less abstruse themes,-exhibits no deficiency in matter or in eloquence. But enough of criticism—let us to the substance of the work. The earth may be said to have passed through four leading stages before it reached its present condition. The first, or to talk geologically, the Primary stage, exhibits no trace of organic life, either vegetable or animal. The various strata (layers) of which it is composed, might in popular language be called rocks, as they consist of stony or slaty substances, com- mencing with granite, which is supposed to have been the original crust of the world ; running through the different marbles, &c. and ending with slates. The second division of the earth's strata is called the Transition series ; and contains the remains both of animals and vegetables. In the former are found specimens of the four present existing divisions of the animal kingdom, (verte- brate, mollusca, articulate, and radiate); but the vertebrated class rises no higher than fishes. The vegetation of this stage, inde- pendent of its illustrating the chayacter of the earliest plants that appeared upon our planet, is important as being the origin of coal, whilst the period derives a still further interest from its having witnessed the formation of iron ore. The third and fourth stages, called the Secondary and Tertiary series, exhibit a fuller develop- ment both of animal and vegetable life, beginning with monsters, sonic of whose genera and many of whose species are entirely ex- tinct, and ending with a system of nature very akin to ours. To trace the successive existence of new worlds—to call up, by the aid of comparative anatomy, the forms of races long since perished —to infer their habits by the assistance_of the same science—and to speculate on the nature and character of the worlds in which they lived—is a task of high and delightful interest to the anato- mist and natural historian. To the generality, the grandest sub-
ject of contemplation is the fact that the life and death of succes- sive races of countless generations, and the formation and destruc- tion of numerous worlds, seem to have been necessary to form that soil out of which we earn our bread by the sweat of our brow. From a solid globe of granite, (into which, it is conjectured, our planet originally cooled down from its primal state of fusion,) with the waters which now form our ocean floating round it in a state of steam and vapour, time, the atmospheric elements, fire and water, and the principle of digestion acting in an endless variety of modifications, have formed this " goodly frame the earth."
The plan which Dr. BUCKLAND has adopted in applying so stu- pendous a subject to his purposes, is generally, but for the most part drily and scholastically, to treat of the four great divisions we have already endeavoured to characterize. He then takes up the most striking species whose fossil remains enable the geologist to describe their structure; and having done so, by the aid of the plates already spoken of, though somewhat too much like an ana- tomical and a botanical lecturer, the theologian proceeds to show the proofs of design they exhibit. Having finished the examples drawn from the remains of animals and vegetables, he passes on to the present structure of the earth, and further carries out his argument, not only from things obviously advantageous to man,— as in the deposition of coals and metals, and in the adaptations productive of springs of water; but maintains design even in what at first sight appear to be injurious,—as in the "faults" (fissures) in coal-mines, which not only prevent the frequency of floods and fires in working the pits, but become the depositories of metallic veins. Occasionally intermingled with the expositions, or inter- posed between them in distinct chapters, are some large and general views of geology, or some observations on Providence as displayed in creation. To these passages (and they are many) none of our censure applies. They are weighty from their matter, and powerful from their style. This quotation oil the origin, formation, and uses of coal, rises to eloquence of no mean kind.
We may end our account of the plants to which we have traced the origin of coal, with a summary view of the various natural changes and processes in art and industry through which we can follow the progress of this curious and most important vegetable production.
Few persons are aware of the remote and wonderful events in the economy of our planet, and of the complicated applications of human industry and science, which are involved in the production of the coal that supplies with fuel the metropolis of England. The most early stage to which we can carry back its origin, was among the swamps and forests of the prim:eve] earth, where it flourished in the form of gigantic calamites and stately lepidodendra and sigillarim Front their native bed these plants were torn away by the storms and inundation-s of a hot and humid climate, and transported into some adjacent lake, or estuary, or sea. Here they floated on the waters until they sank saturated to the bottom ; and being buried in the detritus of adjacent lands, became transferred to a new estate among the members of the mineral kingdom. A long interment followed, during which a course of chemical changes and new combinations of their ve- getable elements have converted them to the mineral condition of coal.By the elevating force of subterranean fires, these beds of coal have been uplifted from beneath the waters to a new position in the hills and mountains, where they are accessible to the industry of man. From this fourth stage in its ad- ventures, our coal has again been moved by the laboursof the miner, assisted by the arts and sciences, that have cooperated. to produce the steam-engine and the safety-lamp. Returned once more to the light of day, and a second time com- mitted to the waters, it has, by the aid of navigation, been conveyed to the scene of its next and most considerable change by fire ; a change during which it becomes subservient to the most important wants and conveniences of man. In this seventh stage of its long eventful history it seems to the vulgar eye to undergo annihilation : its elements are indeed released from the mineral combi- nations they have maintained for ages, but their apparent destruction is only the commencement of new successions of change and of activity. Set free from their long imprisonment, they return to their native atmosphere, from which they were absorbed to take part in the primeval vegetation of the earth. To-morrow they may contribute to the substance of timber in the trees of our existing forests ; and having for a while resumed their place in the living vege- table kingdom, may, ere long, be applied a second time to the use and benefit of man. And when decay or fire shall once more consign them to the earth or to the atmosphere, the same elements will enter on some further department of their perpetual ministration in the economy of the material world. The following speculation is ingenious; but, from its being a ape"
culation, it necessarily fails in producing such conviction as follows an argument from facts. The animal in question, the Dinotherium, is one of the largest and most singularly constructed mammalia of the primeval world. In the absence of a plate, the reader will get a sufficient idea of the organ which is the subject of discussion, by fancying the tusk of an elephant crooked downwards, like his bent forefinger.
The form of the molar teeth approaches, as we have stated, roost nearly to that of the molar teeth in Tapirs ; but a remarkable deviation from the charac- ter of tapirs, as well as of every other quadruped, consists in the presence of two enormous tusks, placed at the anterior extremity of the lower jaw, and curved downwards, like the tusks in the upper jaw of the walrus. I shall confine my present remarks to this peculiarity in the position of the tusks, and endeavour to show how far these organs illustrate :he habits of the
extinct animals in which they are found. It is mechanically impossible that a lower jaw, nearly four feet long, loaded with such Leavy tusks at its extremity, could have been otherwise than cumbrous and inconvenient to a quadruped living on dry land. No such disadvantage would have attended this structure in a large animal destined to live in water; and the aquatic habits of the family of tapirs, to which the Dinothetium was most nearly allied, render it probable
that, like them, it was an inhabitant of fresh-water lakes and rivers. To an animal of such habits, the weight of the tusks sustained in water would have been no source of inconvenience ; and if we suppose them to have been em- ployed as instruments for grubbing up by the roots large aquatic vegetables from the bottom, they would, under such service, combine the mechanical powers of the pick. axe with those of the horse-arrow of modern husbandry. The weight of the head, placed above these downward tusks, would add to their efficiency for the service here supposed, as the power of the harrow is increased by being loaded with weights. The tusks of the Dinotherium may also have been applied with mechanical advantage to hook on the head of the animal to the bank, with the nostrils sus- stained above the water, so as to breathe securely during sleep, whilst the body remained floating, at perfect ease, beneath the surface: the animal might thus repose, moored to the margin of a lake or river, without the slightest muscular exertion,—the weight of the head and body tending to fix and keep the tusks fast anchored in the substance of the bank, as the weight of the body of a sleeping bird keeps the claws clasped firmly around itsperch. These tusks might have been further used, like those in the upper jaw of the wall us, to assist in dragging the body out of the water, and also as formidable instru- ments of defence.
The structure of the scapula, already noticed, seems to show that the fore-leg was adapted to cooperate with the tusks and teeth in digging and separating large vegetables from the bottom. The great length attributed to the body would have been no way inconvenient to an animal living in the water, but at. ten led with much mechanical disadvantage so weighty a quadruped upon land. In all these characters of a gigantic, herbivorous, aquatic quadruped, we recog. nix adaptations to the lacustrine condition of the earth during that portion of the tertiary periods to which the existence of these seemingly anomalous crea- tures appears to have been limited.
The following is curious, and puts all doubt upon the subject of fossil remains at rest, so far as regards the fact. It is a pity, how- ever, that no geologist will descend to popularize his science. A narrative of the steps of the discovery of fossil ink, would have been very interesting; and might have been readily given, as the Doctor was the discoverer. The passage is taken from the chapter on Cuttle fish; the word "recent," in the extract, appears to be used in the sense of now existing.
The petrified remains of fossil Loligo, therefore, add another link to th chain of argument which we are pursuing, and aid us in connecting successive systems of creation which have followed each other upon our planet, as parts of one grand and uniform design. Thus the union of a bag of ink with an organ resembling a pen in the recent loligo, is a peculiar and striking associa- tion of contrivances, affording compensation for the deficiency of an external shell to an animal much exposed to destruction from its fellow-tenants of the deep : we find a similar association of the same organs in the petrified remains of extinct species of the same family, that are preserved in the ancient marl and limestone strata of the Lias. Cuvier drew his figures of the recent sepia with ink extracted from its own body. I have drawings of the remains of extinct species prepared also with their own ink : with this fossil ink I might record the fact and explain the causes of its wonderful preservation. I might register the proofs of instantaneous death detected in these ink-bags, for they contain the fluid which the living sepia emits in the moment of alarm - and might detail further evidence of their immediate burial, in the retention Of the forms of these distended membranes, since they would speedily have decayed and have spilt their ink, had they been exposed but a few hours to decomposition in the water. The animals must therefore have died suddenly, and been quickly buried in the sediment that formed the strata in which their ink z.nd ink-bags medals preserved. The preservation also of so fragilea substance as the pen of a loligo, retaining traces even of its minutest fibres of growth, is not much less remarkable than the fossil condition of the ink-bags, and leads to similar con- clusions.
In announcing the arrival of this work, we said that it would probably contain some observations on the point which is just now making Dr. BUCKLAND quite as much a newspaper subject as would a horrid murder or a glorious victory—the reconcilement of geological science with the inspired narrative in the Mosaic ac- count of the Creation. Our conjecture was correct. Almost at the outset the reverend Dector labours learnedly and earnestly to hold fast his science and his creed, his Readership and his Divinity Doctorship; and, not satisfied with his own exertions, calls the Oxford Professor of Hebrew to his aid. The Doctor takes what may be called the broad argument, the Professor the verbal one ; and between them both, they make out a case for Moses and the Geological Class at the Bristol meeting. The first two verses of Genesis, it is argued, have no relation to those which follow. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth : and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep," refers, it is held, to the beginning of creation, and have no relation to what follows, which merely nar- rates the order pursued in the formation of our present system. The interval between the first creation of matter, and its final disposition in its present state, may as well have been mil- lions of ages, as a single age, or any shorter period of time ; anti as Moses was not making revelations for physical but for moral ends, he designedly passed over all unnecessary particulars. In the subsequent arguments upon the making of the sun and moon, the Doctor is more orthodox and ingenious than satisfactory : upon this point we rather think his opponents have the advantage of him. We might also, with them, agree to throw science over- board, and resolve all geology into miracles, had they not shirked the organic remains. The purely inorganic substances that form the various strata of our earth, might certainly have been produced instantaneously by the mere flat of the First Cause, or very quickly by natural agencies, especially as Mr. CROSS is about to work similar wonders in petto. But how account for those strata, which are chiefly formed by th gradual deposition of many generations, not only of individual animals, but of whole species—nay, not only of whole species, but of whole genera? We must confess we see no manner of getting over this stronghold of the geologists, without a violation of the philosophical, or. to speak more cor- rectly, the humbly pious rule, of not resorting to the First Cause when secondary causes are evidently sufficient to explain the case.
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