Principles of Geology: Or, The Modern Changes of the Earth and Its Inhabitants, Considered as Illustrative of Geology, Volume 3

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J. Murray, 1840 - Geology

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Page 179 - In bigness to surpass earth's giant sons, Now less than smallest dwarfs in narrow room Throng numberless...
Page 83 - The intermixture of distinct species is guarded against by the aversion of the individuals composing them to sexual union, or by the sterility of the mule offspring. It does not appear that true hybrid races have ever been perpetuated for several generations, even by the assistance of man; for the cases usually cited relate to the crossing of mules with individuals of pure species, and not to the intermixture of hybrid with hybrid.
Page 151 - ... and I am told that the wild bee is seldom to be met with at any great distance from the frontier. They have been the heralds of civilization...
Page 268 - In a warm climate such decayed timber would immediately be removed by insects, or by putrefaction ; but, in the cold temperature now prevailing in our latitudes, many examples are recorded of marshes originating in this source. Thus, in Mar forest, in Aberdeenshire, large trunks of Scotch fir, which had fallen from age and decay, were soon immured in peat formed partly out of their perishing leaves and branches, and in part from the growth of other plants. We also learn that the overthrow of a forest...
Page 406 - ... which is revealed to us by the microscope. We are prepared, therefore, to find that in time also the confines of the universe lie beyond the reach of mortal ken. But in whatever direction we pursue our researches, whether in time or space, we discover everywhere the clear proofs of a Creative Intelligence, and of His foresight, wisdom, and power.
Page 199 - France, at that time uninhabited, immediately after the discovery of the passage to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope.
Page 276 - ... Valley of the Somme, mentions that in the lowest tier of that moss was found a boat loaded with bricks, proving that these mosses were at one period navigable lakes and arms of the sea, as were also many mosses on the coast of Picardy, Zealand, and Friesland, from which soda and salt are procured.f The canoes, stone hatchets, and stone arrow-heads, found in peat in different parts of Great Britain, lead to similar conclusions.
Page 425 - Nodule. A rounded, irregular shaped lump or mass. Old Red Sandstone. "A stratified rock, belonging to the carboniferous group of Europe.
Page 80 - If you examine the brain of the mammalia, says M. Serres, at an early stage of uterine life, you perceive the cerebral hemispheres consolidated, as in fish, in two vesicles isolated one from the other ; at a later period, you see them affect the configuration of the cerebral hemispheres of reptiles ; still later again, they present you with the forms of those of birds ; finally, they acquire, at the era of birth, and sometimes later, the permanent forms which the adult mammalia present.
Page 273 - We naturally ask whence peat derives this antiseptic property ? It has been attributed by some to the carbonic and gallic acids which issue from decayed wood, as also to the presence of charred wood, in the lowest strata of many peat-mosses, for charcoal is a powerful antiseptic, and capable of purifying water already putrid. Vegetable gums and resins also may operate in the same way.

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