Gerald Molloy

Recapitulation—Scope of our argument—Theory of stratified rocks the framework of geological science—The theory brings geology into contact with revelation—the line of reasoning hitherto pursued confirmed by the testimony of fossil remains—Meaning of the word fossil—Inexhaustible abundance of fossils—Various states of preservation—Petrifaction—Experiments of Professor GÖppert—Organic rocks afford some insight into the fossil world—The reality and significance of fossil remains must be learned from observation—The British Museum—Colossal skeletons—Bones and shells of animals—Fossil plants and trees.

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Reader, you are beginning to suspect us. ‘How long do we propose to detain people?’ For anything that appears we may be designing to write on to the twentieth century. ‘And whither are we going?’ Toward what object? which is as urgent a quÆre as, how far? Perhaps we may be leading you into treason. You feel symptoms of doubt and restiveness; and like Hamlet with his father’s ghost, “you will follow us no further unless we explain what it is that we are in quest of.”

These words of Thomas De Quincey to his readers, in the middle of one of his discursive essays, which, interesting as they certainly are in all their parts, yet sometimes beget a feeling of weariness from the uncomfortable apprehension that they will not come to an end, are, perhaps, scarcely less appropriate in our own case. It may be that our readers have been left too long in the uneasy state of suspense and hope deferred. They came to our pages to look for a practical solution of the question, Is Geology at variance with the Bible? And what avails it, they may ask, to discourse to them of the Gulf Stream, and Rivers, and Glaciers, and Alluvial Plains, and Coral Rocks, and Coal Mines? With painful steps they have been toiling after us through tedious disquisitions, straining their eyes to see the end, but the end is not yet in sight. Well, then, if they will rest for a few minutes by the way, we will pause, too, and tell them what we are about, and try to bring out more clearly the object at which we are aiming.

Our design from the beginning was to consider the points of contact between Geology and Revelation; to examine the relations that exist between these two departments of knowledge,—one resting upon reason and observation, the other given to us from Heaven; and to inquire how far it may be possible to adopt the conclusions of the former, while we adhere, at the same time, with unswerving fidelity, to the unchangeable truths of the latter. With this end in view, we proceeded at once to sketch out the more prominent features of Geological theory; not the particular theory of one writer, or of one school, but that more general theory which is adopted by all writers, and prevails in every school. This theory, we were all well aware, is in many points widely at variance with the common notions of sensible and even well-informed men who have not devoted much attention to the study of Physical Science. And it occurred to us that, possibly, many of our readers might be disposed to cut the controversy short by rejecting, in a summary way, the whole system of Geology, and treating it as an empty shadow or an idle dream. This, we were convinced, would be a mistaken and mischievous course. Geology is not a house of cards that it may be blown down by a breath. It is a hypothesis, a theory, if you will; but no one can in fairness deny that behind this theory there are facts,—unexpected, startling, significant facts; that these facts, when considered in their relation to one another, when illustrated by the present phenomena of Nature, and skilfully grouped together, as they have been by able men, disclose certain general truths, and suggest certain arguments, which do seem to point in the direction of those conclusions at which Geologists have arrived.

It follows that he who would investigate fairly the claims of Geology, must first learn to appreciate the significance of these facts, and to estimate the value of these arguments. And this is precisely what we have been trying to do. We are not writing a treatise on Geology. Certainly not: it would be presumptuous in us, with our scanty knowledge, to attempt it. Besides, Geology has it own professors, and its lecture-halls, and its manuals. Neither do we mean to assume the character of the advocates or champions of Geology. It does not ask our services; in its cause are enrolled no small proportion of the most illustrious names which for the last fifty years have adorned the annals of Physical Science. Nor do we want even to enforce upon our readers that more general theory of Geology which we are endeavoring to explain and illustrate. Our purpose is merely to collect from various sources, and to string together, the evidence that may be adduced in its favor; that so, when we come hereafter to consider this theory in its relation with the History of the Bible, we may not incur the risk of discomfiture by denying that which has been proved by facts, but rather approach the subject with such knowledge as may help us to discover the real harmony that we know to exist between the truths inscribed on the works of God, and those which are recorded in His Written Word.

In the accomplishment of this task we have devoted ourselves chiefly to the study of the Aqueous or Stratified Rocks. According to Geologists, these rocks, such as we find them now, were not the immediate work of creation, but were slowly produced in the long lapse of ages, and laid out one above another, by a vast and complex machinery of secondary causes. The elements of which they are composed were gathered together from many and various sources; from the ocean, from the air, from other pre-existing rocks; and, for aught we know, may have had a long and eventful history before they came to assume their present structure and arrangement. Thus, for example, the Conglomerates, and Sandstones, with which we are so familiar, are made up of broken fragments derived from earlier rocks, and then transported to distant sites by the mountain torrents, or the stately rivers of vast continents, or the silent currents of the sea; the Limestone with which we build our houses is the work of living animals that once swarmed in countless myriads beneath the waters of the ocean; and the Coal which supplies the motive power to our manufactories, our railways, our ships of war and commerce, is but the modern representative of ancient swamps and forests, which, having been buried in the earth, and there, by the action of chemical laws, endowed with new properties, were laid by for the future use of man in the great storehouse of Nature.

This mode of accounting for the origin and formation of Stratified Rocks constitutes in a manner the framework that supports and binds together the whole system of Geology. If it be once fairly established, Geology is entitled to take high rank as a Physical Science. If on the contrary it should prove to be without foundation, then Geology is no longer a science, but a dream. Moreover, it is this theory of stratification which, from the first, has brought Geology into contact with Revelation. For Geologists have been led to infer the extreme Antiquity of the Earth, from the immense thickness of the Stratified Rocks on the one hand, and, on the other, the very slow and gradual process by which each stratum in the series has been, in its turn, spread out and consolidated. Those likewise who claim for the Human Race a greater Antiquity than the Bible allows, seek for their proofs in the supposed origin and antiquity of those superficial deposits, in which the remains of Man or of his works are sometimes found entombed.

It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that the theory of Stratified Rocks should engage the largest share of our attention when we undertake to discuss the relation in which Geology stands to Revealed Religion. For the present we say nothing about the conclusions that flow from this theory, or the errors to which it has led when hastily or ignorantly applied: we are only investigating the evidence by which it is supported. In our former chapters we have drawn out at some length the line of reasoning which is derived from the character of the Aqueous Rocks themselves when considered in the light of Nature’s present operations. We have shown that Stratified Rocks of many different kinds, just such as those which compose the Crust of the Earth, have been produced by natural causes within historic times; and we have explained some of the more simple and intelligible parts of that complex machinery, which, even now, is busily at work gathering, sorting, distributing, piling up together, and consolidating the materials of new strata all over the world. These considerations, as we took occasion to point out, beget a strong presumption in favor of Geological theory. Here we have Nature at work, actually bringing into existence a stratum of rock before our eyes. And there, in the Crust of the Earth, we find another stratum of precisely the same kind already finished. What can be more reasonable than to ascribe the one to the action of the same causes which we see at work upon the other? And thus, by extending the area of our observations from one class of Aqueous Rocks to another, the idea gradually grows upon us that these rocks have been spread out, stratum upon stratum, during many successive ages, by the agency of secondary causes similar to those which are still in operation; and that each stratum, in its turn, as it first came into existence, was for a time the uppermost of the series.

In support of this conclusion we are now about to bring forward a new and independent argument founded on the testimony of Fossil Remains. An eminent writer has summed up in a few words the value and importance of Fossil Remains in reference to Geological theory. “At present,” he says, “shells, fishes, and other animals are buried in the mud or silt of lakes and estuaries; rivers also carry down the carcases of land animals, the trunks of trees, and other vegetable drift; and earthquakes submerge plains and islands, with all their vegetable and animal inhabitants. These remains become enveloped in the layers of mud and sand and gravel formed by the waters, and in process of time are petrified, that is, are converted into stony matter like the shells and bones found in the oldest strata. Now, as at present, so in all former time must the remains of plants and animals have been similarly preserved; and, as one tribe of plant is peculiar to the dry plain, another to the swampy morass; as one family belongs to a temperate, another to a tropical region, so, from the character of the embedded plants, we are enabled to arrive at some knowledge of the conditions under which they flourished. In the same manner with animals: each tribe has its locality assigned it by peculiarities of food, climate, and the like; each family has its own peculiar structure for running, flying, swimming, plant-eating, or flesh-eating, as the case may be; and by comparing Fossil Remains with existing races, we are enabled to determine many of the past conditions of the world with considerable certainty.”68

On this branch of our subject we do not mean to offer much in the way of argument strictly so called. We shall content ourselves with a simple statement of facts, and leave them to produce their own impression. It will be necessary at the outset to explain some technical matters, that what we have to say hereafter may be the better understood: and if in this we are somewhat dry and tiresome, we will try to make amends by the curious and interesting story of Nature’s long buried works, which we hope in the sequel to unfold.

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When the word Fossil was first introduced into the English language, it was employed to designate, as the etymology suggests, whatever is dug out of the earth.69 But it is now generally used in a much more restricted sense, being applied only to the remains of plants and animals embedded in the Crust of the Earth and there preserved by natural causes. When we speak of remains, we must be understood to include even those seemingly transient impressions, such as foot-prints in the sand, which having been made permanent by accidental circumstances, and thus engraved, as it were, on the archives of Nature, now bear witness to the former existence of organic life.

Now in every part of the world where the Stratified Rocks have been laid open to view, remains of this kind are found scattered on all sides in the most profuse abundance. In Europe, in America, in Australia, in the frozen wastes of Siberia, in the countless islands scattered over the waters of the Pacific, there is scarcely a single formation, from the lowest in the series to the highest, that, when it is fairly explored, does not yield up vast stores of shells, together with bones and teeth, nay, sometimes whole skeletons of animals; also fragments of wood, impressions of leaves, and other organic substances.

Fig. 12.—Fossil Irish Deer (County Fermanagh). In the Museum of Trinity College, Dublin. From Haughton’s Manual of Geology

These Fossil Remains do not always occur in the same state of preservation. Sometimes we have the bone, or plant, or shell, in its natural condition; still retaining not only its own peculiar form and structure, but likewise the very same organic substance of which it was originally composed. Examples innumerable may be seen in the British Museum, or, indeed, in almost any Geological collection: the fine skeletons of ancient Irish Deer, which are exhibited in the Museum of Trinity College, Dublin, and of which all the bones are in excellent preservation, must be familiar to many of our readers.

It happens, however, more frequently that the organic substance itself has disappeared, but has left an impression on the rock, that now bears witness to its former presence. Thus, for instance, when a shell has been dissolved and carried away by water percolating the rock, it has very often left after it, on the hard stone, a mould of its outer surface and a cast of its inner surface, with a cavity between corresponding to the thickness of the shell. In such cases we have the form, the size, and the superficial markings of the organic body, but we have no part of its original substance, and no traces of its internal structure. This form of fossilization, as Sir Charles Lyell has well put it, “may be easily understood if we examine the mud recently thrown out from a pond or canal in which there are shells. If the mud be argillaceous, it acquires consistency in drying, and on breaking open a portion of it, we find that each shell has left impressions of its external form. If we then remove the shell itself, we find within a solid nucleus of clay, having the form of the interior of the shell.”70 In many cases the space first occupied by the shell is not left empty when the shell has been removed, but is filled up with some mineral substance, such as lime or flint. The mineral thus introduced becomes the exact counterpart of the organic body which has disappeared; and has been justly compared to a bronze statue, which exhibits the exterior form and lineaments, but not the internal organization nor the substance of the object it represents.

There is a third form more wonderful still, in which Fossil Remains are not uncommonly found. The original body has passed away as in the former case, and yet not only does its outward shape remain, but even its internal texture is perfectly preserved in the solid stone which has taken its place. This kind of change is exhibited most remarkably in the vegetable kingdom. Fossil trees of great size have been discovered of which the whole substance has been changed from wood to stone: yet with such exquisite skill has the change been effected that the minute cells and fibres, and the rings of annual growth, may still be clearly traced; nay, even those delicate spiral vessels which, from their extreme minuteness, can be discerned only by the aid of the microscope. Thus the tree remains complete in all its parts; but it is no longer a tree of wood; it is, so to speak, a tree of stone.

The mystery of this extraordinary transformation has not yet been fully cleared up by scientific men; but the general principle, at least, is sufficiently understood. It is thus briefly explained by Sir Charles Lyell: “If an organic substance is exposed in the open air to the action of the sun and rain, it will in time putrefy, or be dissolved into its component elements, consisting usually of oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon. These will readily be absorbed by the atmosphere or be washed away by rain, so that all vestiges of the dead animal or plant disappear. But if the same substances be submerged in water, they decompose more gradually; and if buried in the earth, still more slowly, as in the familiar example of wooden piles or other buried timber. Now, if as fast as each particle is set free by putrefaction in a fluid or gaseous state, a particle equally minute of carbonate of lime, flint, or other mineral is at hand and ready to be precipitated, we may imagine this inorganic matter to take the place just before left unoccupied by the organic molecule. In this manner a cast of the interior of certain vessels may first be taken, and afterward the more solid walls of the same may decay and suffer a like transmutation.”71 This exposition, so simple and luminous in itself, may, perhaps, be rendered still more intelligible to the general reader by an ingenious illustration of Mr. Jukes. “It is,” he says, “as if a house were gradually rebuilt, brick by brick, or stone by stone, a brick or a stone of a different kind having been substituted for each of the former ones, the shape and size of the house, the forms and arrangements of its rooms, passages, and closets, and even the number and shape of the bricks and stones, remaining unaltered.”72

This singular kind of petrifaction, by which not only the external form, but even the organic tissue itself, is converted into stone, has been illustrated, in a very interesting way, by Professor GÖppert of Breslau. With a view to imitate as nearly as he could the process of Nature, “he steeped a variety of animal and vegetable substances in waters, some holding siliceous, others calcareous, others metallic matter in solution. He found that in the period of a few weeks, or even days, the organic bodies thus immersed were mineralized to a certain extent. Thus, for example, thin vertical slices of deal, taken from the Scotch fir, were immersed in a moderately strong solution of sulphate of iron. When they had been thoroughly soaked in the liquid for several days, they were dried and exposed to a red heat until the vegetable matter was burnt up and nothing remained but an oxide of iron, which was found to have taken the form of the deal so exactly that casts even of the dotted vessels peculiar to this family of plants were distinctly visible under the microscope.”73

If we have succeeded in making ourselves understood, the reader will now have a pretty accurate notion of what is meant, in modern Geology, by Fossil Remains. They are the remains or impressions of plants and animals, buried in the earth by natural causes, and preserved to our time in any one of the three forms we have just described. Either the body itself remains, still retaining its own natural substance, together with its external form and its internal structure. Or secondly, the organic substance and the organic structure have both disappeared, but the outward form and the superficial markings have been left impressed on the solid rock. Or thirdly, the substance of the body has been converted into stone, but with such a delicate art, that it is in all respects, outwardly and inwardly, still the same body, with a new substance. We should observe, however, that these three different forms of fossilization, which we have successively described, are not always clearly distinct in actual fossil specimens, but are often curiously blended together according as the original organic substance has been more or less completely displaced, or the process of petrifaction has been more or less perfectly accomplished.

It will probably have occurred to the intelligent reader that we have already had some insight into the Fossil world, when investigating the origin of Organic Rocks. We have seen, for instance, that Coal is the representative to our age of swamps and forests which once covered the earth with vegetation; that Mountain Limestone is in great part formed from the skeletons of reef-building corals; that the White Chalk of Europe is almost entirely derived from the remains of marine shells. But it should be observed that these and such like rocks, while they afford us much valuable information about the ancient organic condition of our planet, are not, strictly speaking, Fossil Remains. For, not only does the substance of the organic bodies they represent exhibit an altered character, but the internal structure has been in great part effaced, and even the outward forms and superficial markings have disappeared. They contain, it is true, great multitudes of Fossils. In the Coal, for example, are found, as we have seen, trunks of trees, together with the impressions of plants and leaves: in the Chalk and Mountain Limestone, fragments of shells and corals are often discovered in a state of perfect preservation. But the bulk of these formations is made up not so much of Fossil Remains, as of that into which Fossil Remains have been converted. Coal, for instance, is something more than Fossil wood; Chalk, and Limestone, and Marble, are something more than Fossil shells and corals.

Fossil Remains properly so called present a very much more lively picture of the ancient inhabitants of our Globe. But it is a picture that can but faintly be conveyed to the mind by the way of mere verbal description. He who would appreciate aright the reality and the significance of Fossil Remains must gather his impressions from actual observation. Let him go, for instance, to the British Museum, and walk slowly through the long suite of noble galleries which are there exclusively devoted to this branch of science. He will feel as if transported into another world, the reality of which he could scarcely have believed if he had not seen it with his own eyes. Before him, and behind him, and on each side of him, as he moves along, are spread out in long array forms of beasts, and birds, and fish, and amphibious animals, such as he has never seen before, nor dreamt of in his wildest dreams. Yet much as he may wonder at these strange figures, he never for a moment doubts that they were once indued with life, and moved over the surface of the earth, or disported in the waters of the deep. Nay more, though the forms are new to him, he will be at no loss, however inexperienced in Natural History, to find many analogies between the creation in the midst of which he stands, and the creation with which he has been hitherto familiar. There are quadrupeds, and bipeds, and reptiles. Some of the animals were manifestly designed to walk on dry land, some to swim in the sea, and some to fly in the air. Some are armed with claws like the lion or the tiger, others have the paddles of a turtle, and others again have the fins of a fish. Here is an enormous beast that might almost pass for an elephant, though an experienced eye will not fail to detect an important difference; and there is an amphibious monster that suggests the idea of a crocodile; and again a little further on is an unsightly creature which unites the general characteristics of the diminutive sloth with the colossal proportions of the largest rhinoceros.

If left to mere conjecture, the visitor would perhaps suppose that these uncouth monsters had been brought together by some adventurous traveller from the remote regions of the world. But no: he will find on inquiry that the vast majority belong to species which for centuries have not been known to flourish on the Earth; and that many of the strangest forms before him have been dug up almost from beneath the very soil on which he stands,—from the quarries of Surrey, of Sussex, and of Kent, and from the deep cuttings on the many lines of railway that diverge from the great metropolis of London. The life they represent so vividly is, indeed, widely different from that which flourishes around us; but it is the life not so much of a far distant country as of a far distant age.

It must not be supposed, however, that such skeletons as those which first arrest the eye in the galleries of the British Museum—so colossal in their proportions and so complete in all their details—fairly exhibit the general character of Fossil Remains. Perfect skeletons of gigantic animals are rarely to be found. They are the exception and not the general rule,—the magnificent reward of long and toilsome exploration, or, it may be, the chance discovery that brings wealth to the humble home of some rustic laborer. Very different are the common every day discoveries of the working Geologist. Disjointed bones and skulls, scattered teeth, fragments of shells, the eggs of birds, the impressions of leaves,—these are the ordinary relics that Nature has stored up for our instruction in the various strata of the Earth’s Crust: and these likewise constitute by far the greater part of the treasures which are gathered together in our Geological Museums.

We will suppose, then, that the visitor has gratified his sense of wonder in gazing at the larger and more striking forms, few in number, that rise up prominently before him, and seem to stare at him in return from their hollow sockets: he must next turn his attention to the cases that stand against the walls, and to the cabinets that stretch along the galleries in distant perspective. Let him survey that multitude of bones of every shape and size, and those countless legions of shells, and then try to realize to his mind what a profusion and variety of animal life are here represented. And yet he must remember that this is but a single collection. There are thousands of others, public and private, scattered over England, France, Germany, Italy, and beyond the Atlantic, on the continent of America, and even in Australia; all of which have been furnished from a few isolated spots,—scarcely more than specks on the surface of the Globe,—where the interior of the Earth’s Crust has chanced to be laid open to the explorations of the Geologist.

Lastly, before he leaves this splendid gallery, let him take a passing glance at the Organic Remains of the vegetable world. There is no mistaking the forms here presented to his view. He will recognize at once the massive and lofty trunks of forest trees with their spreading branches; the tender foliage of the lesser plants; and, in particular, the graceful fern, which cannot fail to attract his eye by its unrivalled luxuriance. But if the forms are familiar, how strange is the substance, of this ancient vegetation! The forest tree has been turned into sandstone; many of the plants are of the hardest flint; and the rich green of the fern has given place to the jet black color of coal. Let him take a magnifying glass and scrutinize the internal structure of these mineralized remains; for the more closely they are examined the more wonderful do they appear. He can observe without difficulty their minute cells and fibres, the exact counterpart of those which may be seen in the plants that are now growing upon the earth; he may detect the little seed-vessels on the under surface of the coaly fern; nay, if he gets a polished transverse section of the sandstone tree, he may count the rings that mark its annual growth, and tell the age it attained in its primeval forest.