Слике страница
PDF
ePub

ing to the love of ease-garrulous, querulous old age, looking down upon all that is youthful and new as inferior, imperfect and unstable, and dwelling with pardonable self-delusion upon the morning of its own being, as the only bright and cheering period of human existence-reverend and venerated old age, smiling sarcastically but kindly upon the transitory amusements of the surrounding young, and sedately enjoying the calm quiet of a good conscience, and the devout, humble, yet confident anticipation of unchanging and interminable happiness beyond the grave.

We will not for a moment stop to pourtray the sad, remaining stages of decrepitude and dotage-to filter the cold dregs of life and exhibit the vapid contents of the vase, when all its more etherial essences have exhaled.* Let us draw the curtain over this last and lowest condition of the rational and intellectual spirit-this worse than second childhood, in which the bad passions and darker feelings of our evil nature, though weakened by the decay of the organs with which they are developed and by which they act, still survive the energy of those organs, and rage and rule uncontrolled by reason and prudence, or sink into a sullen and stupid apathy.

Yet the contemplation of this dreary and gloomy picture, is not without its uses. The shortness of life and the liability to disease, have been the subject of incessant lamentation and repining, though without just cause; for if decay be, necessarily, the ultimate tendency of the construction of our frame and the constitution of its materials, surely death is rather to be considered as a relief from the sufferings of extreme old age. Indeed, it would seem a matter of melancholy consolation that the outlets of life are so numerous, and the gates of death so widely open, that we are likely to reach our common goal, the grave, by some nearer and less lingering route, and thus escape this hopeless, helpless, and dependent state of wearisome existence.

Thus fares it still in our decay,

And yet the wiser mind

Mourns less for what Time takes away,

Than what he leaves behind.

ART. II.-1. Outlines of Geology. By W. THOMAS BRANDE, F.R. S. London. 8vo. 1829.

2. An Introduction to Geology, comprising the elements of that science in its present advanced state, &c. By ROBERT BAKEWELL. 3d edition. 8vo. London. 1828.

3. A New System of Geology, in which the great revolutions of the earth and animated nature are reconciled at once to modern science and sacred history. By ANDREW URE, M. D. 8vo. London. 1829.

4. Outline of the Course of Geological Lectures given in Yale College. By Professor SILLIMAN. 8vo. New-Haven. 1829.

THIS last work is appended to the American edition of Bakewell's Geology; and is, like Dr. Ure's, an attempt to reconcile modern science on this subject, to what is called sacred history. Of these four works, the most clear, the most satisfactory, the freest from disputable theory, and the most trust-worthy collection of facts, is, beyond all comparison, that of Mr. Bakewell; a gentleman, whose opportunities of information from extensive observations and surveys of geological districts, both at home and abroad, have rendered him peculiarly fitted for drawing up an Introduction to Geology, consisting of well-established and well-ascertained facts, in a modest and unpretending style, unmingled with suspicious theories or fanciful hypotheses, which, we regret to say, occupy a very large portion of the two last works under review.

Geology, as a science, may well be considered as dating its modern origin from the commencement of the present century. However useful have been the labours of Werner and his followers, and very useful they have been, they must, at present, be considered as relating to the very infancy of a branch of knowledge that has increased, indeed, at a very rapid rate, but which is even yet far from its manhood. Of the geological introductions that preceded the works above noticed, by D'Aubuisson, Breislak, Maclure, Brande, and even the immortal work of Cuvier, none are competent to afford us even the elementary knowledge of the present day: the admirable survey of the geology of England by Conybeare and Philips, is partial and incomplete, the submedial formations being wanting: indeed, although the closet compilation of Dr. Ure, furnishes a collee

tion of very interesting facts, there is no elementary work that can be put into the hands of a student but Bakewell's, that is not too imperfect, or too theoretical to be trusted.

The books of Brande and of Ure, have been reviewed in the last American Quarterly, vol. vii. p. 361, by a writer well acquainted with his subject.

In this country, the knowledge of mineralogy is almost exclusively owing to the scientific ardour of Colonel Gibbs; and of American geology, William Maclure is the parent: men, of whom we should delight to say more, if we did not consider their reputations too firmly established to need our eulogy. It is with no small pleasure, we take the present opportunity of acknowledging the obligations that fossil geology owes, and is likely to owe, to Mr. Featherstonhaugh.

The primitive rocks, and the numerous and splendid minerals imbedded in them, and which abound in number and beauty as you go through the granite country from Baltimore to Maine, have greatly contributed to make mineralogy a very fashionable study every where through that part of the United States; in particular, the excellent use that Professor Silliman has made of the very fine collection of Colonel Gibbs, so long loaned by that gentleman to the College at New-Haven, has contributed to make that institution the best of all the schools of mineralogy in the United States. We wish we could add geology to these attainments; but on this branch of science, we regret to say, that the lectures of Professor Silliman, whose full prospectus is now under review, do not promise to contribute any thing that is new, or much that is accurate: the book before us is at least twenty years behind the knowledge of the day theologically, it is quite unexceptionable to the most rigid interpreter: geologically, we could have wished to see more sound logic, and better use made of known facts, than the Professor appears to have furnished. We shall assign our reasons for this opinion before we close the present review,

The pursuits of mineralogy and geology, are almost unknown among the institutions of the South. The great interest these branches of knowledge have excited throughout Europe, and in the northern section of the United States, is almost unfelt in the South and West, unless the progress they may have made in Tennessee, under that able mineralogist, Dr. Troost, is far greater than has reached our knowledge. For this reason, and considering geology as comparatively unknown in our southern section of this country, we shall attempt to give an outline of the objects, the elementary principles, and a sketch of the present state of geology, with a view to extend a knowledge of

what is comprehended in this most interesting study. Of its handmaid, mineralogy, we shall say nothing; because we have not room to say one-tenth of what we would willingly offer on the subject of geology alone. One observation, however, it is worth while to make in the outset. Of all exercise, exercise in the open air is the most delightful, the most interesting, the most healthful. With mineralogy, geology and botany, every mile of every road-every hill and dale, every mountain and valley-in every country, in every climate-cultivated, or waste and wild-affords reasonable expectation of something worthy the attention of a man devoted to these sciences. Where ignorance sees only a rough, mishapen mass of rocks and stones, or a plain overgrown with weeds, knowledge finds food for contemplation, and additions to his store. No journey can be uninteresting to such a traveller; hardly any road can be bad; the enticement to pursue these studies out of doors, is constant and all-powerful; and the pleasure in the pursuit as well as the attainment, is peculiar to the objects that excite the attention of the votary of science. If no more could be said in their favour, surely this of itself is enough.

Our present business is with GEOLOGY.

This science comprises the present appearances of the strata that compose the crust of the globe, whereon man and all living creatures, animal and vegetable, live, move, and have their being. From present appearances, we deduce the history of these strata and their inhabitants, for many thousands of years anterior to the present. Geology also includes the order of succession and of time in which these strata have appeared, the phenomena that characterize them, and the uses to which this mass of knowledge may be applied. It is, in fact, the Palaiology of nature; memoria temporis acti.

The rocks and stones that constitute the strata of the earth's surface, or that visible and habitable crust that envelopes the interior of our globe, is not a confused mass of heterogeneous materials thrown together lawlessly and irregularly, but the various strata, and the groups and connected series of strata, called formations, have been placed where we find them, according to certain laws of composition and successive deposition, which enable us to reason and draw conclusions from these circumstances of common existence, and apply the conclusions drawn, for instance, from the granites of South-Carolina, Virginia, Massachusetts and Maine, to the granites of Italy, of Sweden, of Canton, and of Canada. For even hand-specimens of granite in South-Carolina and New-Hampshire, are so similar to the same rock at Auvergne, in central France, and Can

ton, in China, that neither ignorance or knowledge could tell à priori, from what quarter of the globe they respectively came. Geology, as a science, is founded on those observations which have furnished abundant evidence, that in the strata composing the crust of our earth, there is in every country and in every clime,

Regularity of succession.

Similarity of mineralogical composition.

Similarity of characterizing minerals.

Similarity of fossile inhabitants of former oceans.

Similarity of fossile plants imbedded in the rocks and soil. Similarity of fossile amphibious animals.

Similarity of terrestrial herbivorous animals; and finally, Similarity of carnivorous animals; of which the last is MAN. These circumstances characterize each group of strata over the whole earth, formed or deposited previous to the last great deluge (or, as we rather hold it, succession of deluges) which preceded the appearance of the animal, man.

Further-wherever members of the succession of strata are wanting, as the case frequently is-wherever disruptions, displacements, transportations and alterations in the succession of strata, take place-wherever rocks are thrown irregularly over others, out of the usual series of succession-these apparent anomalies can almost always be accounted for, from volcanic action in early times, and the earthquakes, upheavings, disruptions, deluges and cataclysms, that for so long a period rendered the surface of our globe an unsafe habitation for the human

race.

Werner of Freyburgh, during many years, studied the mountains and the strata in his own neighbourhood; he remarked and noted the characters that distinguished them, and the order of succession in which the strata appeared. The best view of his system may be found in the third volume of Jamieson's Mineralogy, first edition. Let any man start from Philadelphia and journey on towards Pittsburgh, and he will see Werner's succession of rocks under his eye the whole way. Take Arrowsmith's map of the United States, fix a pin and a string at Pittsfield in Massachusetts; stretch it in a line north-east and south-west, and the primitive limestone will be cut by that string through Whitemarsh, fourteen miles from Philadelphia, and thence all the way along the primitive limestone, through South-Carolina, into the same stratum in the Choctaw country. Do the same, beginning at the second fork of Sinnamohoning, in Pennsylvania; carry your string to the place marked "salt," in that map, in a south-west direction over the Mississippi: that

« ПретходнаНастави »