Page images
PDF
EPUB

BOOK XVIII.

GEOLOGY.

WITH regard to Geology, as a Palætiological Science,

kind has been thrown upon the general doctrines of the science. Surveys and examinations of special phenomena and special districts have been carried on with activity and intelligence; and the animals of which the remains people the strata, have been reconstructed by the skill and knowledge of zoologists:-of such reconstructions we have, for instance, a fine assemblage in the publications of the Palæontological Society. But the great questions of the manner of the creation and succession of animal and vegetable species upon the earth remain, I think, at the point at which they were when I published the last edition of the History.

I may notice the views propounded by some chemists of certain bearings of Mineralogy upon Geology. As we have, in mineral masses, organic remains of former organized beings, so have we crystalline remains of former crystals; namely, what are commonly called pseudomorphoses-the shape of one crystal in the substance of another. M. G. Bischoff1 considers the study of pseudomorphs as important in geology, and as frequently the only means of tracing processes which have taken place and are still going on in the mineral kingdom.

I may notice also Professor Breithaupt's researches on the order of succession of different minerals, by observing the mode in which they occur and the order in which different crystals have been deposited, promise to be of great use in following out the geological changes which the crust of the globe has undergone. (Die Paragenesis der Mineralien. Freiberg. 1849.)

1 Chemical and Physical Geology.

In conjunction with these may be taken M. de Senarmont's experiments on the formation of minerals in veins; and besides Bischoff's Chemical Geology, Sartorius von Walterhausen's Observations on the occurrence of minerals in Amygdaloid.

As a recent example of speculations concerning Botanical Palætiology, I may give Dr. Hooker's views of the probable history of the Flora of the Pacific.

In speculating upon this question, Dr. Hooker is led to the discussion of geological doctrines concerning the former continuity of tracts of land which are now separate, the elevation of low lands into mountain ranges in the course of ages, and the like. We have already seen, in the speculations of the late lamented Edward Forbes, (see Book xviii. chap. vi. of this History,) an example of a hypothesis propounded to account for the existing Flora of England; a hypothesis, namely, of a former Connexion of the West of the British Isles with Portugal, of the Alps of Scotland with those of Scandinavia, and of the plains of East Anglia with those of Holland. In like manner Dr. Hooker says (p. xxi.) that he was led to speculate on the possibility of the plants of the Southern Ocean being the remains of a Flora that had once spread over a larger and more continuous tract of land than now exists in the ocean; and that the peculiar Antarctic genera and species may be the vestiges of a Flora characterized by the predominance of plants which are now scattered throughout the Southern islands. He conceives this hypothesis to be greatly supported by the observations and reasonings of Mr. Darwin, tending to show that such risings and sinkings are in active progress over large portions of the continents and islands of the Southern hemisphere: and by the speculations of Sir C. Lyell respecting the influence of climate on the migrations of plants and animals, and the influence of geological changes upon climate.

In Zoology I may notice (following Mr. Owen)2 recent

2 Brit. Asso. 1854, p. 112.

discoveries of the remains of the animals which come nearest to man in their structure. At the time of Cuvier's death, in 1832, no evidence had been obtained of fossil Quadrumana; and he supposed that these, as well as Bimana, were of very recent introduction. Soon after, in the oldest (cocene) tertiary deposits of Suffolk, remains were found proving the existence of a monkey of the genus Macacus. In the Himalayan tertiaries were found petrified bones of a Semnopithecus; in Brazil, remains of an extinct platyrhine monkey of great size; and lastly, in the middle tertiary series of the South of France was discovered a fragment of the jaw of the long-armed ape (Hylobates). But no fossil human remains have been discovered in the regularly deposited layers of any of the divisions (not even the pliocene) of the tertiary series; and thus we have evidence that the placing of man on the earth was the last and peculiar act of Creation.

END OF VOL. III.

NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS,

PUBLISHED BY

JOHN W. PARKER AND SON, WEST STRAND.

The Kingdom and People of Siam. By Sir JOHN BOWRING, F.R.S., Her Majesty's Plenipotentiary in China. Two Vols. With Map and Illustrations.

328.

History of Normandy and of England. By SIR F.

PALGRAVE. Vols. I. and II. 21s. each.

History of England, from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. By J. A. FROUDE, M.A., late Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. Vols. I. and II. Octavo. 26s.

The Spanish Conquest in America, and its Relation to the History of Slavery and to the Government of Colonies. By ARTHUR HELPS. Vols. I. and II. 28s.-Vol. III. 16s.

Biographical History of Philosophy. By G. H. LEWES. Library Edition, octavo, thoroughly revised. 168.

State Papers and Correspondence, illustrative of the Political and Social State of Europe, from the Revolution to the Accession of the House of Hanover. With Historical Introduction, Memoirs, and Notes, by J. M. KEMBLE, M.A. Octavo. 16s.

Bacon's Essays. With Annotations. By RICHARD WHATELY, D.D., Archbishop of Dublin. Third Edition. Octavo. 10s. 6d.

Principles and Maxims of Jurisprudence. By J. G. PHILLIMORE, Q.C. 128.

History of England during the Reign of George the Third. By W. MASSEY, M.P. Vol. I. 128.

« PreviousContinue »