UNIVERSITY OF 1LLI?40IS LIBRARY ATURBANArjHAyPAIGlsi GEaOGY UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY at URBANA-CHAMPAIGN Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 https://archive.org/details/geologicalmechanOOwils '■■4 - 'S (3^olc^\j / / I AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. .CCIDENT rather than choice invariably gives direction to the :>urse of men on their voyage through life ; at all events it so ippened in my own experience. My choice of a profession as that of civil engineering; and finally, in that capacity, I arted on my independent course. But as I present myself >s a geologist or physicist — unknown or forgotten to the world :>r many years — it may naturally be necessary for me to give ome account of myself; and in endeavouring to afford this nformation I will also try to be brief. Being of the operative class of the community, and content with that distinction, I nevertheless had my ambitious desires, which prompted me to choose the profession of civil engineering. This I considered was the highest degree of our class, for which I felt possessed of some amount of the mental capacity needed for successful practice. Accordingly, all my studies and efforts ;o obtain knowledge were directed to this end. At length, I 'elt competent to undertake various classes of constructive vork, and, with this confidence, in 1837 I launched forth, to ind where I could best serve society and myself. The foundation of a new colony was then being laid in A.ustralia, and it occurred to me that a civil engineer would soon be needed there ; and as it would certainly afford a suitable field "or early practice I embarked for that colony. When I arrived 4 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. there, however, I found that the Government had anticipated the necessity, having sent a captain of the Royal Engineers to fill the offices of colonial engineer and surveyor-general. This put me to the necessity of applying my energies to more simple | operations, with which 1 was perfectly familiar, till the year 1849, when the occupation I so much desired was offered to me. During the preceding year, however, two important agitations arose which tended to bring me into notice. The first was, that in all the Australian colonies (then getting up in commercial | importance) there was a general desire expressed by the mercan- tile portion of the community for a more speedy means of com- munication with Europe than that afforded by the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn. Some advocated the crossing of the Isthmus of Panama by rail or otherwise, and others the; route via Suez and Egypt. Fortunately I was in possession; of sufficient data to enable me to mark on a map the line for a ; canal from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean at Pelusium, and a? description of the course thus indicated was published in the Adelaide Observer^ accompanied by a very complimentary notice by the editor. But the British Government of the time was much opposed to the construction of a canal, for reasons that remain yet to be told. So the project remained in troubled abeyance; until Count de Lesseps took the matter in hand; and as the French Government had no part in the motives by which England was actuated, no opposition was offered to the scheme when undertaken by a French company. We may here observe : that the Suez Canal follows precisely the line I then indicated. The second circumstance alluded to was this : the mode of railway construction practised in the United States and Canada, as inspected and described by Colonel Wilkinson, was sent by the Secretary for the Colonies to Australia, to be published for: f '.OLOGICAL MECHANISM OR : EPITOME OF THE HISTORY OF t THE EARTH. i BY J. SPOTTISWOODE WILSON, C.E. JOHN HEYWOOD, Deansgate and Ridgefield, Manchester; I, Paternoster Buildings, LONDON. 1889. AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 5 the information of the colonists, with an invitation to discuss the question of the mode of railway construction most suitable for each colony. The discussion was opened by Mr. Brabant Forsythe, who had been an apprentice of the great engineer Brunei. This gentleman rejected at once all consideration of the North American methods, and recommended the heavy English style of construction, with heavy rails, double lines and high surface, stone bridges, &c., for which he gave an estimate of the cost per mile, the great amount of which was sufficient to frighten the colonists out of the idea of securing railway accommodation for many years. I observed all this, and contested his conclusions, and showed wherein neither the American methods nor those of England were suitable for Australia. That in the first place the climate of Australia was different from both that of England and North America, and therefore would admit of corresponding deviations of construction; as, for example, in North America, they found it necessary to adopt means for preventing displace- ment of the rails by frost — a caution not needed in Australia ; whilst the moist climate of England requires the lines of railroad to be constructed higher and broader, for solidity, than is required in a dry climate like that of Australia. Moreover, the English railroads, constructed to carry a heavier traffic than any other in the world, should not have been represented as necessary for a colony whose traffic was in its infancy. Economy, the considera- tion of the amount of capital a population may be able to invest, the lowest cost at which a line may be constructed and established consistent with security and utility, the amount of traffic that may reasonably be relied on, the rates that may reasonably be charged, the returns that may accrue for the use of the capital invested, must always determine the practicability of an enterprise or otherwise. 6 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. This public controversy elicited two communications from me, and a third from my opponent did not need a response. It was generally considered that I had the best of the argument, and my opinions were much approved. As already stated, the employtnent I so much desired, and in the hope of obtaining which I had gone to the colony, was offered to me in 1849. But, unfortunately, a domestic affliction, destruc- tive of my happiness, overtook me about this time, and driving from my mind all considerations of a prudent nature, impelled me to remove from sight of all familiar objects. Just then Cali- fornia had burst forth in all her golden glory, inviting operatives from all lands to partake of her treasures. To me it offered a source of distraction, and I went there for the double purpose of banishing oppressive grief and of gathering some needful gold. The life of a miner served both purposes to a moderate extent, but I unexpectedly found a source of comfort in the phenomena around me. It was a propensity of mine, as an admirer of the works of Nature, to inquire into the mechanical origin of every physical formation, operation, and movement, and to understand their purposes — a study natural and agreeable to an engineer, who in his own operations ought ever to be guided by the immu- table laws of Nature. I therefore betook myself to an investiga- tion of the nature and order of the rocks, especially (for the time) of the gold-bearing rocks, made plans of them, both superficial and sectional, together with a map of the southern part of the mining country. This afforded me both pastime and pleasure during my hours of relaxation from labour. Whilst sojourning amongst those gold-bearing hills and valleys I composed the following lines, in which I unwittingly pictured the life I fancied, but which became a reality even unto old age AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 7 ADDRESS TO CALIFORNIA. California, once only known To whalers, traders, and rancheros,* A glorious field for dog and gun, For trappers, fishers, cavalleros,t The elk, deer, antelope, and hare. The panther and the sly cayote, These with the monstrous giizzly bear, Are game for men of sporting forte. But other riches now are found, By the commercial world more prized — The dormant riches *neath the ground Are by the nations idolised. And here they come from east and west, From pole and zone, and hot equator ; To rob the gold hid in thy breast, Each man becomes an excavator. There’s every clime within thy lines, From tropic zone to cold Canada : Here warm and clear the noonday shines, There ever cold Sierra Nevada. And here dear Nature’s child may find Grand objects to employ his reason. Enrich and elevate the mind In what relates to time and season. Here he may learn, from book sublime. Each change by Nature’s pen recorded — The history of this land, this clime, In universal language worded. Blest should I feel could I but range Far as these mountains are extended, To seek the cause that wrought each change. And find the end for earth intended. * Rancheros : cattle farmers. t Horse-riding stockmen. 8 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. In the beginning of 1852 I determined on returning to Eng- land, but not from any weariness or dislike of life in the mines. Mechanism had yet the greater charm for me, and as I had evolved a design for a propellor to be applied to steamships, in regard to the success of which I had entertained much hope, and as the discovery of gold mines in Australia had created a demand for rapid steam communication with England, which was quickly responded to, and the construction of the steamship Great Eastern had been commenced, I fancied that with the impetus thus given to steam navigation I might be able to have my pro- pellor favoured with the test of an experiment. On the way home we put into the Eastern United States, and passed six months there, principally at Washington, endeavouring to obtain a patent right for my invention, but had to leave for England before that business was completed. Here I obtained a provisional patent, and spent a year in efforts to introduce the propellor practically. But I discovered that this was impossible without an independent capital or a friend able and willing to bear the expenses of experi- ments, as Mr. Ericsson had just found in New York to enable him to introduce his caloric engine to steam navigation, inas- much as I had not the one, and could not find the other. So with my little stock of Californian gold much exhausted, I had to abandon the project. About this time there were many complaints as to the crowded state of the streets in the city of London; and as either a surface or elevated system of railroads presented such insurmountable difficulties, it occurred to me that underground lines were the only resource. Accordingly, I studied the lines and levels of the streets, and designed a plan for a subterranean railroad to connect with all the railroads coming to and entering the outskirts of London, for the conveyance of merchandise and passsengers to AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 9 -and from their different depots. I presented a written description of the course of the line to my friend, Mr. Edmund Crouch, who held a position in the Bank of England. He took it, proposing to show it to some gentlemen in the city who might be interested in it, especially his cousin, Mr. Green, who held the position of city engineer. I took no further action in the matter, knowing that many interests must be consulted, opposition appeased, and the sanction of the Government obtained, and that, consequently, some years must elapse before a work of such importance, and so situated, could be undertaken. Without influential friends also, or an engineering reputation, I could not reasonably hope for any benefit from it. This was in 1853. Early in 1854 I paid an evening visit to my friend, Mr. Albert Wallace (naturalist), who informed me that it was his intention to go to a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society, and he invited me to accompany him thither. After the business was closed and the meeting dissolved, a few gentlemen delayed their departure, amongst them my friend. All were practical travellers. In company with Dr. Norton Shaw (the secretary of the society), they subsequently retired to an hotel for social conversation and refreshment ; and there, after being seated a little while. Dr. Shaw (to whom I had not been intro- duced) asked my friend to what country I belonged, for, having adopted the Californian fashion of allowing my beard to grow long, I was considered to be at first sight a foreigner. The doctor on being told I was an Englishman returned from Cali- fornia was highly pleased, and immediately engaged me in conversation as to that country and the mines found there. Finding that I answered all his questions clearly and to the point, he exclaimed, — ‘‘By my word, I must give you a letter to Sir Roderick lO AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. Murchison, and beg of you to take it to him. He will be pleased to meet an intelligent man from that country.” Ilhad known nothing, till then, of Sir Roderick Murchison. I was informed that he was the gentleman who that evening had presided at the meeting of ithe Geographical Society, and was also president of the Geological Society. According to the arrangement made that evening, I called on Dr. Shaw the following morning, at his office; and on receiving the promised letter to Sir Roderick went with it at once to Belgrave Square. I obtained a ready admittance to his study, where he received me with marked attention. Showing me to a seat by the fire, he occupied another on the opposite side, and thus com- fortably seated commenced his inquiries. Observing the interest with which he received my answers, I told him that I had made some rude notes while at the mines, which I would submit to his perusal, if he thought them worthy the honour. “ Above all things,” said he, “ I should like to see them.” It was accordingly arranged that I should leave the Californian notes with him for examination. On the following morning, as promised, I called at his door, and passed in to him the roll of paper containing my notes, accompanied by the map and section plan of the mines. In the course of the afternoon I received a letter from Sir Roderick, requesting me to see him. I attended as desired, and found him in his study, with chairs placed before a cheerful fire, and when we were seated he ordered the servant to place wine and cakes on the table. He commenced the con- versation by saying, ‘‘ Mr. Wilson, I have read your excellent notes. They reflect upon you very much credit. And now, will you please do me the favour to write them over again, omitting everything not relating to mining or geology, because it resembles a sailor’s log AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. II book, in which you have noted other observable matters as they have occurred. With this alteration, I will present the paper to the Geological Society, to be read and discussed.’’ At this announcement my surprise was so great that I sprang from my seat in amazement, and exclaimed — Pray, sir, do not think of that ! Those rude notes afforded me pleasure, and also diversion, the purposes for which they were intended ; they likewise afforded me information. But publication in any form was never once thought of.” He replied, “ Mr. Wilson, these notes of yours contain so much originality and information that it would be a pity to lose them. For my own part I value them because they corroborate my own notes taken in the mineral regions of the Oural Mountains.” In reply to this I said, “Sir Roderick, since you esteem them so much, I must submit to your superior judgment ; but, really, I never thought them worthy of such notice, or I might have presented them a year ago.” I returned home, and at once commenced to re-copy the notes, leaving out ail extraneous matter, and returning them to Sir Roderick, as desired. The map and section plans were already in his possession. On the second day after their despatch I received a letter, enclosing a card, inviting me to be the guest of Sir Roderick Murchison at a dinner of the Geological Society. This mark of favour was overpowering — indeed, I was wonders truck. Fully conscious of the honour offered me, I prepared for meeting the notabilities of science. In doing so, I felt that I was sub- mitting to the decrees of fate, which must sooner or later be in some way developed. The eventful evening was the happiest and most remarkable of my life outside my own family. Sir Roderick introduced me to the most notable men of the day, amongst whom were Mr. Darwin, Professor Forbes, and Mr. Jukes. These 12 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. three, along with Sir R. Murchison and myself, became a little party by ourselves at the head of the table, to which was added Lord Harrowby, as the guest of Professor Forbes. The latter occupied the chair. Of all that little party I alone remain alive — left, as it were, to continue the work in which they all, with the exception of his lordship, were engaged, viz., to extend geology to its utmost bounds, leaving only the supplementary work to those who would follow in the same field of research. From the hotel where the dinner was served we went to the meeting-room of the Geological Society. The business of the evening commenced soon after our arrival. To my astonishment there were two other papers on similar subjects to be read that evening ; and the reading of these having been regularly notified, there was an unusually full meeting. These papers treated of the gold mines of Australia. One was by Mr. Selwyn, who then held the appointment of colonial geologist in Victoria. The other was by Mr. Evan Hopkins, mining engineer, who had been to Victoria to inspect certain gold mines. The cross-section plans of the three lectures had been copied on large sheets of paper. They were drawn on a large scale, and placed side by side on the wall, fronting the president's desk. Mr. Selwyn’s paper was the first to be read ; but as the author was not present he was defended by Mr. Jukes in the discussion which ensued. Mr. Hopkins (whose plan was placed alongside the former) disputed the position given to the rocks by Mr. Selwyn. There was a serious disparity between the section plans given by these two gentlemen — the former gave a large eastward leaning to the rocks of the Victorian mines, and the latter represented them as standing vertically. This divergence of opinion was the cause of much amusement. Mr. Hopkins, in his warmth, standing up and taking the wand, to point out on AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 13 his plan the peculiarities in the arrangement of the rocks, inad- vertently placed it on the plan of California, and went on glowingly with his description until he observed a smile on every face in his audience. Suspicious of the cause of this manifesta- tion, he looked inquiringly at the plan, and coolly exclaimed, “This is California I have been describing; but the sections are so similar that I could describe the Australian rocks from the section here given of California.” Of course this caused the greatest hilarity throughout the room. This amusing disagree- ment between these two plans of the rocks of the Victorian mines stopped all further interest being taken in them, and they were therefore passed without any other observations being bestowed upon them. This seemed to make everyone expect something more interesting from the paper on the mines of Cali- fornia. Before coming to this, however, a short paper on the precious stones of Australia, by Mr. George Milner Stephen, was read, but it did not excite much interest It was evident that the people generally had come to learn something about the great goldfields, but so far they had been disappointed. The Cali- fornian paper was carefully read by the secretary of the society and as attentively listened to by the members. When the reading had been concluded loud expressions of approbation were given. “ We have got it at last ! ” exclaimed one individual, and quite a number of gentlemen (the secretary among them) left their seats and gathered in front of the plans. The secretary, with his wand, pointed to the places and objects described in the paper, which was afterwards discussed and commented on in the most approv- ing and interesting manner. I was perfectly astonished at the interest manifested with regard to it. Sir Roderick sat behind his elevated desk, and smiled in a manner which was gratifying to witness. He evidently experienced pleasure from the manner 14 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. in which the communication had been received by the society As the discussion began to abate, one gentleman, addressing the president, said, “ Sir Roderick, you have for a length of time promised to give us something practical, and you have given it to us at last.’’ The description of the various mines and their location, as they had come under my notice, and the modes of operation adopted by the miners in getting the gold, had rendered the paper somewhat interesting and practical. During the examination of the plans and notes by the members Sir Roderick remained in silent enjoyment of the satisfaction expressed in their criticism; and when the conversation had abated he commenced his own comments on the merits of my labours. He described minutely the system of the rocks there represented, and identified their "order of arrangement with the same system as it had appeared under his own observation in the Oural Mountains, in Russia. Concluding he said : “ Mr. Wilson deserves much praise for what he has done, and for what he has afforded for our information this evening. He went to California, worked as a simple miner, and became practically familiar with the mines and their localities ; and here you see he has brought home to you descriptions of the mines and mining, and also a map and sections of the rocks, so truly arranged that, for my own part, I look on those notes and plans as corroborative of my own observations in the Oural Mountains. But all the praise for the publishing of his labours is not due to Mr. Wilson alone, as I must claim a portion of the credit for myself. Mr. Wilson is a modest man, and but for the accident that brought his geological zeal to my knowledge, and my persuading him to allow it to appear here, you would not have enjoyed the treat you have been served to this evening.” As Sir Roderick thus concluded, a voice cried out, “ But where is Mr. Wilson ? ” I had taken the AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. IS most remote seat, on purpose to remain unobserved, and when called for by name (I had bent down my head, for tears of emotion had rolled down my cheeks as I heard the eulogium expressed upon my labours by Sir Roderick Murchison), I could, if it had been possible, have sunk out of sight. After a pause, and no response being forthcoming, a gentleman seated near me, enjoying my trepidation, responded, “ Here he is.” ‘‘ Then,” said the first voice, “ let us see him, and hear what he has to say for himself.” Of course there was a laugh, in which I was forced to join at my own expense, although I felt like a culprit. How- ever, I had to face the difficulty boldly, bo summoning up all the courage I possessed, I stepped toward the centre of the room, and, addressing the assembly, said, — “ Gentlemen, you have discussed my paper and plans so extensively and approvingly that there is nothing particular left for me to say. This, under the circumstances, is fortunate. For although my eyes may have served well for observation, and my hands have been well practised in the use of the pick, shovel, and crowbar, so as to equal those of any miner, the use of my tongue (naturally deficient oratorical power) has been sadly neglected, even in the mines having had no practice. The people amongst whom it was my fate to toil felt no interest in any research other than that which led directly to the finding of deposits of gold, chiefly in the drift of rivers or on the surface earth, and rarely in the rocks. Geology having no charm for them, they looked upon me as what they called a curioso^ though at the same time they had a high opinion of my judgment in the choice of ground for working. There is one point in my paper, however, in regard to which there seems to be some doubts, viz., that of the unwasted remains of a large quartz vein sitting on a granite rock. In i6 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. regard to this object I was very particular. To begin with, I considered vein quartz as an erupted rock, but having subse- quently seen quartz veins in different conditions of formation, in which the supplies of the siliceous material had ceased, leaving them imperfect, I arrived at the conclusion that they and the gold they contained were formed by crystallisation from water or aqueous vapour containing silica and gold in solution — probably the latter. I know of nothing more that requires elucidation, and having no capacity for public speaking, you will excuse my dilating on other points. But if any gentleman wishes to ask any questions on those subjects, or even on matters that I have failed to commit to paper, I will answer them to the best of my ability.’’ At this announcement a number gathered round me, principally young men, students in the School of Mines, and I was detained there over half an hour after the meeting had been dismissed. I find the following notice of my paper, by Sir Roderick Murchison, in the edition of his work entitled ‘‘Siluria,” printed in 1854 Mr. J. S. Wilson, who, after a residence in Australia, passed three years in the Sierra Nevada of California, has communicated a memoir on the auriferous rocks of that region to the Geological Society of London. The views resulting from his own observations and experience, confirm decisively the opinions stated throughout the text, in affirming the fact of the downward impoverishment of the gold-bearing quartz veins, and in demonstration that the richest produce is essentially derived from loose superficial debris^ piled up on the mountain sides and slopes, and in ravines, and at various and considerable altitudes above the sea. The quicksilver cinabar occurs in vein stones, in clay slate (Silurian), as in the Sierra Morena of Spain. These memoirs will appear in the journal of the Geological Society of London. About a week after this meeting of the Geological Society a letter from Sir Roderick Murchison invited me to meet him at AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 17 his residence. Accordingly, I went there, and at the hour appointed found him in his study expecting me. When seated for cpnversation he told me that an expedition was being got up at the expense of the Government, under the auspices of the Royal Geographical Society, and he had proposed that I should go with it as geologist. At this announcement I again started up from my seat in surprise, and expostulated with him. ‘‘Sir Roderick,’’ I exclaimed, “do not think of this. lam not a geologist, and have never pretended to be such. I have not had sufficient experience, and do not wish to be placed in a position for which I do not feel myself qualified.” “Never mind all that, Mr. Wilson,” said he. “There is no need for pretence on your part, because you are a geologist, and you cannot help it. I wish we had more like you. You do not require to be taught to observe : you do that naturally, and under such guidance you are all the more correct. All you need to do, by way of preparation, is to read and learn what some have done, and what remains for others to do.” “ Well, then, sir,” I replied, “ I feel I must submit to you. But I cannot think so highly of my ability as you seem to esti- mate it. Nevertheless, I must consider myself under the obliga- tion to justify, in this new career, the opinions you have conceived regarding me. Still, there is one other matter to be considered, which is this : that explorations in Australia are hazardous ; and in whatever capacity I may accompany the expedition I shall have to be satisfied with the mode of operations proposed to effect the object required. I must also have a captain of some experience in Australian travel, and one acquainted with the use of nautical instruments.” Sir Roderick persuaded me to allow my name to be put on the list of officers, observing that if - afterwards I did not approve of B i8 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. the arrangements I could withdraw. Thus the matter was settled, and I departed. And now it appeared that I was about to enter on a new profession, to which I did not feel much opposed, besides being then the only occupation open to me. Yet, knowing how expedi- tions for exploration in Australia had failed in their object, through being ignorantly undertaken or ill-supported, I determined not to venture unless every advisable means were afforded for the safety and success of the party. Accordingly, at the office of the Royal Geographical Society, I inquired into the nature of the arrangements intended for the organisation, and the mode of pro- ceedure intended for the expedition. I there learned that a gentleman named Braun, an Austrian colonel, had been proposed, and even named, as the leader or chief of the expedition. He had peculiar ideas with regard to exploring. He had never seen Australia, yet he had made a map of that continent, representing rivers and lakes which he imagined existed in the interior of that country, and the route he would follow to find them. The mode of travelling proposed was by means of camels brought from India or Arabia. He had been highly recommended by a very influential party, but what his qualifications were I could not learn ; nor could I then discover whether he understood practically the use of the sextant and chronometer. Though I might have attended to this department myself, if required, it was not to be expected that the geologist should also be a geographical explorer. Moreover, to guard against the serious result of an accident to the leader, someone ought to have been capable of continuing the record of the journey. In the course of a few days the Secretary, Dr. N. Shaw, told me that he had discovered Colonel Braun had hitherto had no experience in the use of nautical instruments. On hearing this I AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 19 at once determined on giving in my resignation, and in doing so stating my reasons for retiring, and also supplying the arrange- ment which appeared to me necessary for the successful carrying out of the expedition. This consisted principally in having a small ship, well stored with provisions, to be in attendance on us, to remain at the port of debarkation, and to which we could send back for supplies, or in case we found it impossible to cross the continent we could return and re-embark, and try another point of penetration, or return to the colonies. In regard to the land travelling I considered that Australian horses, with practical stock- men, would be preferable to any other mode, for what they could not discover would not be worth searching for. This was laid before the council of the society, and was approved by that body in every particular. Colonel Braun was dismissed, and myself recalled to the appointment. But we had to remain several months in London, principally to find a suitable leader. Captain Sturt and Captain Stokes were separately invited to take charge of the expedition, but both declined the offer. At length Sir Roderick went to the Colonial Office to pro- pose that I should be placed in charge of the expedition, as he considered me fully competent for the undertaking; but in the Colonial Office he met an old friend. Sir George Grey, ex- president Of West Australia. In conversing over the subject of a qualified leader. Sir George mentioned a Mr. Augustus Gregory, employed in the survey service of West Australia, whom he considered very capable for the undertaking ; and so they agreed to recommend Mr. Gregory, and he was subsequently accepted. I was. soon after despatched for Australia, and, accom- panied only by our artist, embarked at Liverpool on board the clipper ship Blue Jacket, on her first voyage for Melbourne. 20 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. When we arrived there I expressed a desire to visit the Victorian gold mines ; but the Governor had received orders to forward us on to Sydney, and he would not give permission^ though there was abundance of time, as Mr. Gregory had not arrived. It was necessary, therefore, to wait patiently for some days for the coast steamer, by which we were packed off to Sydney. We were followed in the next packet by Mr. Elsey, who had been appointed to act as our medico and naturalist. He was accompanied by the Messrs. Gregory. We were joined there also by Dr, Ferdinand Mueller, the colonial botanist, of Melbourne. As Mr. Gregory required two or three weeks to make preparations for the work of exploration, I took advantage of the interim, by the permission of the Governor, Sir William Denison, to pay a visit of inspection to the gold mines of New South Wales, at what was termed the Hanging Rock. In this journey I had the opportunity to see the coal mines of the Australian Newcastle — a most interesting visit to me. I returned to Sydney in good time for the northward voyage. An old pine-built Canadian schooner, which had lain for two years in the port of San Francisco, and had been bought for a trifle by a few mining sailors bound for the Australian mines, and brought by them to Sydney, where she had also lain over two years, was then engaged by us for the North Australian expedition. The owners had got it for a mere trifle, and finding the craft in a delicate state, thought to improve its reputation by a change of name, and therefore called it the Tom Tough. Another ship was engaged to carry the horses and sheep. This ship had been a steamer, but, failing to give satisfactory speed, was degraded, viz. — deprived of her engines and paddle wheels, and doomed to carry sails. The Monarch (as this ship was named) was, however, strong and wide in the bottom of the AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 21 hold, and suited our purpose very well. The stores and some of the party being put on board the Tom Tough, we set sail for Moreton Bay, the port of Queensland, and there put on board the Monarch our horses and a number of sheep. We remained at Brisbane (the capital) for a few days, while the horses were being collected, which business the Messrs. Gregory alone attended to. These gentlemen were entertained at the establishments of the stockholders, whilst the other officers, including myself, were entertained at an hotel. We were at large, and I took advan- tage of the leisure to examine the geology of the locality, which was somewhat singular. Having got the animals all aboard, we put to sea again, and had a fair passage on the inner side of the Barrier Reef and round Cape York; but when nearing our destination, and whilst passing through Clarence Strait, the Monarch got fast on a coral reef. The Tom Tough kept her company, in order to be of assistance ; but whilst engaged in this laudable and praiseworthy effort the tide went down, and poor Tom was left sitting on the reef also. He was, however, got off the following day, but the Monarch, having been left on the rock at high water, could not be moved by the tides which followed, and was fixed there in the middle of a field of living coral, over which we wandered between tides gathering shells, till the return of the spring tides, when the Monarch was floated into deep water, and the same day we reached the entrance of the Victoria river, where the • horses were landed, as the water had run short, in consequence of the delay on the reef, and there was some in a swamp about a quarter of a mile from shore. After this the Monarch departed, and the smaller ship, under my charge, was ordered to proceed up the river. Of this we had a chart, extending eighty or ninety miles up. Nevertheless, the captain ran the ship 22 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. on a sand flat, of which I had one minute before warned him. The tide was running up strong, which caused the ship to surge further on the shoal. The returning tide swept away the sand from under both bow and stern, leaving the ship supported mid- way, the consequence being that both ends sank down in the hollows beneath them, thereby fracturing both keel and kelson, and snapping some of the rib-timbers on both sides. Even the deck planks sprang up under our feet We had about two hundred sheep aboard, and only one barrel of water for sheep and people. Fortunately all our provisions were in water-tight barrels, but when- the tide went down, and the ship was resting on the bare sand, we searched for the rent joints in the hull, and covered them with pieces of blanket smeared with pitch, to prevent the entrance of the tide water. Under the circumstances, two operations were pressingly necessary — one was to find water, the other to unload the ship. Next day I took three men with me, and went ashore to search for water. After some hours’ search we found a chain of ponds of excellent water, but more than a quarter of a mile from the river. The ground, however, was even, and barrels filled with water could be rolled to the river side and floated to the ship. Calculating that the captain would see to this being done, the following morning, with a boat and two men, accompanied by the doctor, and taking with us two great indiarubbber sacks that were intended for a portable boat, we went with the tide up the river to try to find where the water was fresh, and likewise a favourable situation on which to establfsh • our camp. When we were about twenty miles away from the ship we had the good fortune to observe what appeared to be a place frequented by the natives, owing to the margin of the man- grove bushes being broken through, thus leaving clear openings. Conjecturing that water might be plentiful there, we landed, and AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 23 found that it was a place where the natives sometimes encamped. There were two springs, but they were full of mud, and requbed to be cleaned and deepened before they could be of material service ; so, to get the quantity we required, it was necessary to go four or five miles farther up the river, where, after ascending some rapids, we found the water fresh. Quickly filling our sacks and floating them down to the ship, we arrived on board after five days’ absence. On the morning after onr return I despatched the doctor, with some men, tents, and utensils, to clean the mud from the springs and enlarge the wells. In the meantime the longboat was found to be in a very leaky state. Hastily repairing the seams, we loaded it with baggage and sheep, and sent it to the camp. And so we plied the boats, making one trip each two days ; but we had a considerable portion of the cargo landed when Mr. Gregory arrived at the camp with the horses. Our leader was well pleased with the place we had selected for the camp and depot ; for, besides water, there was abundance of grass over the plain, and wood with which to build our huts. The Tom Tough, after sitting unsteadily for a fortnight, was floated off with the next spring tides, and when once afloat on smooth water the timbers returned to their places, which was partly effected by the iron ballast placed midway in the hold. The pitch plasters kept the water out, and we floated her up the river, and anchored in front of the camp. The carpenter was then set to work, and, with as much help as he needed, put in a fasle kelson and a strong frame with braces. We built huts for the men and stores, while Mr. Gregory arranged for the journey of exploration, preparing provisions in a way to be most portable and convenient, fitting the saddles, pack sandles, &c. This done, he selected Dr. Mueller, myself, and]^his brother, and one stock- 24 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. man to take charge of the horses, for a three days’ journey up the Victoria. His object was to find a place suitable for a second depot. He desired to be on his great journey during the rainy season, that he might the more readily find supplies of water. But there was yet no appearance of rain. On our return to the camp the weather seemed to threaten a change, and he accord- ingly regulated his party. From the entire company he took four men, together with Dr. Mueller and his own brother. Of these six, three were to be left at the second depot, about three days’ journey, or near to the source of the Victoria. Those three included the botanical collector and the artist. The latter was to be in charge of the depot. After this arrangement, his onward party would consist of only his brother. Dr. Mueller, and one stockman. Those who had to remain at the depot comprised six men and Dr. Elsey, together with the ship’s company, con- sisting of captain, mate, and four men, who were named the detatched party, and were left in my charge. I complained of this arrangement, pleading that those who sent me expected a geological description of the country through which the expedi- tion passed, and therefore it was necessary that I should be taken with the leading party. Mr. Gregory replied that there was no other person whom he could with confidence leave in charge of the depot — on the safety of which so much depended— excepting his brother, who was most necessary to himself On this representation, and on the understanding that no mis- chance should be attributed to my conduct, I reluctantly con- sented to remain, though I thought that Mr. Henry Gregory was the one that should have been left at the depot, as he had no scientific appointment, and served only as a companion to our leader. On leaving he charged me to defend the camp, keep constant guard, and complete, as far as possible, the repairs of AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 25 the Tom Tough, and hoped he would find all safe on his return — from which it afterwards occurred to me that he never intended to cross Australia. In three months he returned, and expressed his satisfaction at the state of affairs. The camp was entrenched, or enclosed with a ditch and bank, heavily mounted with brush ; the nightly guard had been kept ; and th'e ship we had taken to a shingly beach down the river, on which it was laid. The bottom had been repaired, and the whole pitched and tarred. Mr. Gregory stated that he had gone as far as it was possible. I learned that he did not intend to make any further effort to cross the desert from any other point, and I learned, likewise, that he intended to return to Queensland by the line of country that had been travelled by Leichardt and others. In doing this he decided to take me the short journey from the river Victoria to the Gulf of Carpentaria, and send me by sea, in charge of the ship and detached party. I expostulated with him as to this arrangement, and told him that the region between the Victoria and the Gulf was only a plateau, or sandstone table-land — that I had surveyed a considerable extent of it while he was absent up the Victoria, and it therefore could not afford me much interest ; but the line on the east, being a continuation of the mountains of New South Wales, would afford a variety in the rocks, and perhaps indicate the presence of metals, and would, therefore, be more interesting. But finding he would not yield to my remonstrances, nor afford me the slightest hopes of going through the east country, in con- tempt for his conduct I declined further service under him, and wrote out my resignation, stating the cause. On presenting it he seemed delighted, and sat down at once and wrote out my suspen- sion. Of course,"it was then necessary that I should go with the ship. 26 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. Immediately after this one of my companions pointed to the horse that Mr. Gregory had selected for me to ride while going to the Gulf. The poor animal was quite broken down, having done more work than any other horse of the expedition, and it was likely enough that he would drop under me. As he was not fit to travel, I felt inclined to leave him behind, and follow the party on foot. But there was no need for this economy, for among thirty horses, many of which had not done ten days^ work, and, besides, were not now all necessary to carry provisions, there was no difficulty in finding one to suit me better. But to me it appeared that Mr. Gregory would not grieve if I did get lost. Instead of moving direct to the Gulf, Mr. Gregory ordered that the ship should proceed to Timor, to take in some fresh pro- visions, and sail from thence to meet him at river Roper. This I knew was not likely to be done, as he might reach the Roper as soon as the Tom Tough could reach Timor. Moreover, there was no need nor use for the living pigs that were bought there. Nor did I think that Mr. Gregory ever hoped or intended to see the Tom Tough or the pigs. The land party being ready to mount for the march (the Gregorys already mounted). Doctors Mueller and Elsey came to shake hands and bid me good-bye. They were followed by the stockmen, who most respectfully, and with pity marked in their features, shook my hand warmly, and expressed the kindest sentiments for my welfare. This parting, while it grieved, pleased me, because the Gregorys saw that the people had lost none of their respect for me — indeed, this respect was general. Here I will leave all further details of the movements of the expedition, which I consider was a designed and shameful failure. An expedition, equipped as it was, might have surveyed all North- western Australia to the centre. The details, as given by Mr. AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 27 Gregory, are published in the Journal of the Geographical Society. I would fain pass over this part of the history of my life, were it not that justice to myself requires that I should relate the cause why I retired from the service of the expedition. After the land party had departed, we had to convey the baggage, implements, and utensils down the river to the schooner, then lying by the beach (where the leaks in her hull were repaired), a little farther down than the sands which did the damage. This done, and the boats hoisted up, the anchor was lifted, and we were soon in the gulf of the Victoria, floating with the tide ; passed Point Pearce, where eight of our forty horses were lost in the landing. Entering on the Arafura Sea, we directed our course to cross over to Timor. Our schooner went steadily with the little wind there was on the smooth seas of those latitudes. But to return to Sydney, as was designed. Mr. Gregory knew very well the ship was not safe, and when leaving the Victoria, on his journey to Carpentaria, he took with him a plentiful supply of provisions for the entire journey to Queens- land, although he sent the Tom Tough to Timor for fresh supplies, which was but a scheme to get past the gulf before the schooner arrived there— most possibly from fear that the people, awaking to the dangers of the voyage to Sydney, might insist on their being taken by land. We reached Coepang, the capital of the Dutch settlement, on the Island of Timor. There the sailors, disgusted with their captain, and afraid of the return voyage to Sydney in a ship so rotten and ruptured, and under the command of a drunken captain, begged of the Governor of Timor to cause a survey of the ship to be instituted. He assented, and named the alcalde, or magistrate of Coepang (who had been a captain in the merchant service), together with the first officcer and the engineer of a Dutch ship of war, then in the port, to examine 28 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. our ship. They came on board next day, and the sailors showed them round, and pointed out the various defects. The frame timbers were found to be in a rotten state, and some of them broken. The head of the mainmast was found to be rotten, and might break off when caught by a strong breeze of wind. The verdict was that the ship was not only not seaworthy, but also past repair. Under these circumstances, the sailors could not legally be forced to go to sea in the ship, and the Governor advised the captain and supercargo to endeavour to persuade the men to go with them to Sourabaya, in Java, where another ship might be found, and the men obtain employment. The arrangement was readily accepted, and we set sail for Sourabaya. There was scarcely any wind, but we were carried with the current along the south side of the islands of the Indian Archipelago, and safely arrived at the intended port. A small ship was found there, named the Mary Waterman, of Sydney. She was not quite ready for sea. Most of her crew were in hospital sick of dysen- tery, and the ship would not be permitted to leave the port without taking them aboard. Three of them were taken aboard uncured, and in about a week we were afloat, and on our way back to Timor. We passed along the north side of the archi- pelago, to avoid the strong current, and having very little wind our progress was very slow. At length we reached Dehli, a Portuguese port in the northern part of the island of Timor. It is but a small settlement. The people treated us very kindly, •especially when it became known that we belonged to an explor- ing party. The Governor, learning that a geologist was in the company, invited me to his house, and there showed me many specimens of minerals, especially those of copper and cobalt. He wished me to go with him and see some rich mines of copper, and begged that we would stop one day in order to visit the AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 29 mines, but this favour could not be granted. When leaving, he gave me some pretty specimens of virgin copper and cobalt. After having obtained some water and fruit we let go, and sailed with the Ombay current in the direction of Coepang, intending to take in provisions as on our former visit. On our arrival it was found necessary, however, to send into the country for these supplies, and this delayed us some days. At length, being well found, we set sail for the Gulf of Carpentaria. The winds were light and contrary, and we moved along very slowly. When we arrived in front of the Roper, finding the water very shallow, we anchored about a mile out from the mouth of the river, and a party went ashore in a small boat to try to find the party waiting for the fresh provisions, but they only found traces of their having been there, having evidently passed on to the south-east. Probably they were at that time at their journey’s end. Mr. Gregory and party soon reached the river Roper, and not expecting the Tom Tough they spent a night there by the water, cut down some sticks or bushes, left traces of the fires, and quickly moved on. They had sufficient dry provisions to serve them till they reached the settlement in Queensland, which they did in safety. The hurry-scurry now being over, we passed two or three days here. As we were anchored near to a sandy island, named by Flinders, the discoverer. Bountiful Island, some of us went ashore one night, and, favoured by a clear full moon, caught twelve very large tortoises. One of the sailors brought from the hospital of Sourabaya died here. I inquired of the captain the cause of death, and it was only then that I learned about the three sick men brought from the hospital. The other two men were still suffering, and 30 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. as we had no doctor with us I asked the captain, as I had some medicine good for the dysentery, to allow me to cure them. He willingly acquiesced, and the men were happily soon cured. The Mary Waterman was got ready for the voyage to Sydney by the westward route. We had no further mischances, only it was discovered that the water had run short, and we were put on an allowance of two pints a day — all reserved for coffee and cooking — till we reached King George’s Sound, in West Australia, where we found supplies of all we needed, and were most hospitably treated by some of the inhabitants. It so happened that the steamship Oneida had put into the Sound during the previous day. She had been two or three days further ahead, with a large number of passengers from the colonies for India and England, but an accident to the machinery had forced them to return to the Sound. The officers and passengers soon learned that we were of the North Australian expedition, and came to visit us. Captain Hyde invited myself and Mr. James Flood to dine with him on board the Oneida, and we spent two very pleasant evenings with him. Our stores of water having been laid in, we again put to sea, and resumed the voyage to Sydney. I may here observe that though, by not returning with Mr. Gregory, I lost the opportunity of learning something of East Australia, I had learned something of the islands of the Indian archipelago, and observations I made on the temperature of the sea and the direction of the ocean currents added greatly to my stock of physical knowledge. At length, having reached Sydney, we learned that Mr. Gregory had been there and submitted his report to the Governor, to whom he had also communicated his own version of his conduct towards me, and had returned to Brisbane (Queensland). However, he came hack to Sydney immediately when he learned of our arrival, and wound up the AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 31 affairs of the expedition. It is possible that in consequence of our delays he did not expect our arrival. From those who had accompanied him on the return journey we learned that the same stockowners who had entertained him on our first visit to Bris- bane had expressed their satisfaction that the geologist had not returned with him. They feared he might have discovered gold mines, which would have caused their sheep runs to be broken up by miners ; that Mr. Henry Gregory, as soon as possible after the return to Brisbane, was sent with 30,000 sheep to occupy for himself and friends the pasture country they had passed over while on the return journey ; and Mr. Augustus Gregory was rewarded by being appointed Colonial Surveyor- General of Queensland (and we may note that for his services he has since then been knighted). Leaving Sydney behind me, I visited my friends and relations in Melbourne, Portland, and Adelaide. I remained in the latter place six weeks, and I was warmly welcomed there. Many inquiries were made of me regarding the North Australian expedi- tion, as they had been in hopes that we should succeed in finding our way across to South Australia. I pointed out that very little had been done, and that little was of no importance to South Australia. I considered that the desert might have been crossed. On being asked my opinion regarding the route that should have been followed to have accomplished the undertaking, I replied that from observations I had made on the weather while stationed at the Victoria, it appeared certain to me that there was a well- watered country lying westward of the desert. Being stationed by that river during all the rainy season, I had observed that the rain clouds came from the west and south-west ; and knowing that the farther rain clouds are borne from the sea the more they become exhausted and finally completely spent, therefore the 32 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. rain clouds, striking against West Australia, might become com- pletely dissipated before they could reach or cross the desert. Then the streams on the eastern and south-eastern or interior slope of West Australia flow towards the low interior desert. Indications of this nature of the climate of the locality named were afforded by the number of streams or rivers found on the north-west coast by Sir George Grey, from which it would appear to shed more water than any other equal length of the coasts of Australia. My opinions were well received by everyone inte- rested, and had I remained I should have been sent to explore the country in question. Some time after my departure for England the project was undertaken by Mr. Dugald Stewart, who, how- ever, succeeded in exploring only a portion of the region. In Adelaide I was offered the corresponding appointment which Mr. Gregory had obtained in Queensland, and my friends were much opposed to my leaving; but I had resolved on returning to England to justify my conduct in retiring from the service of Mr. Gregory. Accordingly, I returned by steamer to Melbourne, and then embarked for a voyage round Cape Horn to England. Arriving safely in London, I soon afterwards presented myself to the Royal Geographical Society, and was received with favour. Some little time before this, British Columbia was established as a British colony ; and the mines of that region having obtained a high reputation, I conceived the idea of applying for the situation of mine agent, my desire being to see as much as possible of the naturally interesting parts of the world. I obtained the influence of Sir Roderick Murchison in my favour, and he very promptly went to the Duke of Newcastle, who was then Secretary of State for the Colonies. His pleading for the favour I so much desired was so far acceded to that I received a AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 33 etter from the duke, still in my possession, stating that arrange- ments for that and other offices had not yet been made, but when these were effected I should be informed. Having no present occupation, I obtained a ticket of admission to the reading-room of the British Museum, where, for many months, I was a regular attendant — reading and writing extracts from authors on the physical sciences, principally from the com- munications and reports of journals and magazines. Meantime 1 had been waiting for about a year to be called on for service British Columbia, when by accident I met Mr. Arrowsmith, topographer, who knew me, and was intimate with some officials at the Colonial Office. Taking pity on me — because he knew why I lingered in London — he told me privately that the appoint- ment I sought had been given to another, who had been an officer in the Hudson Bay Company’s service, and had already gone to his post in British Columbia. This was unpleasant information, after waiting so long and spending my very slender means ; but I did not consider the Duke of Newcastle was the cause of the disappointment. I continued my reading and research in the British Museum, waiting until another call for my services should afford me an opportunity to go abroad. Ultimately a friend of mine, having learned that a company of the bondholders of the [^Ecuadorian debt proposed to send an expedition to Ecuador to receive lands in payment of the back interest, for the purposes of colonisation, and he recommended them to secure my services for that under- taking, and also for the making of a road from the Pacific over the Andes. I liked the idea of going to that part of South America, of which I had read so much in the works of Baron Humboldt. The contract having been concluded for a service of three years, at the close of 1859 arrangements were made for c 34 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. the voyage to Ecuador. A small ship (or rather a very large yacht, which had been the property of a Scotch nobleman), named the Kittivvake, was purchased for the conveyance of the people and stores round Cape Horn to the Pacific, while I was sent by the way of the Isthmus of Panama, to be in Ecuador before the arrival of the ship, in order to arrange with the Government of that country with regard to the lands which were to be put in our possession. Ecuador is a country under the equinoxial line, in neither hemispheres, or equally in both, enjoying the summers of both north and south, yet presenting on its surface the truest features of the temperatures of all three zones — the torrid, the temperate, and the frigid. It became the last and greatest field for my studies, of which in the present instance I may say least. Our ship duly arrived, and was discharged before sufficient accommodation had been provided for the stores, because the Government bought the ship from us while the greater part of the cargo was aboard, to serve as a gunboat or cruiser, because it carried three small cannons, and was a very swift sailer. It therefore became necessary to clear all out without delay. The people who had been engaged in London were princi- pally German artisans. On the voyage the ship put into Bahia (a port in Brazil) for water and fresh provisions. Whilst there the people ashore, requiring skilled working men, seduced our people with offers of high rates of wages, and the greater number of them abandoned the ship. The remainder were landed at a port of Ecuador called Paylon, and were immediately employed in the construction of dwellings, the clearing of land, and the planting of bananas, yucas, and Indian corn for their own con- sumption. The exploring and surveying of about 150,000 English acres of land in dense forest was to be effected as soon AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 35 as possible. But it is not necessary to detail all the operations connected with this business. The country, however, afforded me a field for scientific investigation, of which we will presently take notice. About the middle of the present century there were two questions of interest regarding which geologists sought informa- tion. The first of these was the determination of the native place of gold in the rocks. The second was the antiquity of man in relation to extinct mammalia. In regard to the first, unknow- ingly to me, the geological notes mentioned in the preceding pages were the first to decide the point, with the exception of those made by Sir Roderick Murchison in the mountains of Russia. They were, however, but indifferently received by contemporary geologists. With reference to the second question, it appeared as though I was destined to discover the geological antiquity of man through my researches in America, and also to show that the nativity of the American race had been on its own soil and separately from all other races of men. At the place where we settled down we found 'deposits of earth containing traces of human art in abundance, covered with a dense bed of clay, in some places nine feet thick. This aroused curiosity, and induced us to search for it at other points, with the result that it was found to extend the whole length of the coast of Ecuador. Wherever that bench of clay had not been cut away by the action of the sea the pottery bed existed, and was traceable along the banks of the rivers as far as the tidal waters extended. The stratum containing human vestiges lay on an average about two feet below high tide mark, indicating that after the sea had retired from this clay-bed a very ancient population had spread over it, as the discovered stone implements attested. Still more astonishing were the extensive forests. 36 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. covering the plains and mountain sides, and yet quite desolate, presenting everywhere proofs of a former lengthened occupation by man. After I had concluded the term of my engagement with the land company, I received employment from^the President, Don Garcia Moreno, as Engineer of the Republic, which gave me greater scope for geological research, as long as the then Presi- dent remained in office, which was only one year, the last of that term. His successor, however, suspended all public works, but to give eclat to his accession to office, he issued a proclamation for a week’s bull fighting ! This barbarous game had been suppressed by President Moreno, but was revived by his suc- cessor, the President Carion. The suspension of the public works having afforded me some leisure time, I wrote a communi- cation on the geology of the western slope of the Andes, and addressed it to Sir Roderick Murchison. Acknowledging its receipt, he said : — 1 6, Belgrave Square, February 25, 1866, My Dear Mr. Wilson, — Mr. Bollaert had put into my hands a copy of your account of the geology of Ecuador before I received a second copy with your interesting letter to myself of November 26, 1865. I have communicated the paper to the Geological Society, and will make it a point of being present when it is read, to endeavour to do justice to your meritorious labours. You are in a genial field for research, and I could give much to be forty years younger, and with you. The repeated showers of matter ejected by volcanoes, and the great changes of level which you describe so well, as proved by the various terraces, are of the highest interest. But do you explain these by risings and fallings of the sea ? I presume that you only speak in the old language long since dispensed with, since every geologist knows, that with the slightest possible variations, the ocean has been stable, and has ever been so, and that the depressions and upheavals of land explain all other phenomena of this kind. Nor can I see that you demonstrate the very high antiquity of man in Ecuador. Doubtless from what you show, the human race has there been AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 37 in existence during a very long period, but in a volcanic region ups and downs may have followed each other at intervals of 50 ,'or 100 years, or oftener, and still have allowed pottery to be made and trees to grow in the intervals. The best proof you give is in the existence of a fossil mastodon ossifi- cated with human skeletons. I will not, however, prejudice your paper, but will do all I can to get the enthusiasts for the antiquity of man to make the most of your data, many of which are important and curious. It is odd that just as you were writing to me of a project to get the ex- ports of Ecuador translated to the Amazon river, we should be discussing here, before the Geographical Society (over which I preside), the merits of a measure, by an intelligent and active English explorer, Mr. Chandless, who has ascended the Purus, one of the grandest tributaries of the Amazon, for 1,800 miles, and has found nothing to impede navigation. The open- ing out of commerce into Peru by this grand stream would be of enormous advantage. I hope you will be as lucky in finding an equally important northern tributary of the Madre de Dios. I rejoice to hear that you are comparatively in a flourishing state, and I hope you will come back to Britain with a competence before I am buried. It is really delightful to find you animated by the spirit of my illustrious friend, Alex. Humboldt, and that you are following in the steps of that giant of modern discovery and the natural history sciences. I am still an old-fashioned geologist, with Humboldt, Von Buch, de Sausure, Buckland, and Sidgwick, as you will see by the copy of the address to the geologists, as enclosed. Even your terraces confirm my conviction. Each of them indicates a violent shove, upwards or downwards. The gradual elevation of con- tinents by inches and decimal actions would never explain the outlines of America, any more than any other parts of the world, — Yours sincerely, Roderick I. Murchison. James S. Wilson, Esq., F.G.S., c/o H.B. Majesty’s Charge d’Affaires, Quito. , I was sorry to find my friend so firmly fixed in that absurd dogma, ‘‘ The stability of the sea and the restlessness of the land,” an hypothesis unsupported by natural law or order. Geology embraces various branches of science. Sir Roderick w^as a naturalist, my sphere was that of mechanism ; Sir Roderick 38 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. Studied the origin and progress of animated organisation in the older rocks, I studied the mechanical or physical movements in nature and their effects. The study of the organic forms of life is very interesting, and not less so when extinct species are found fossilised in rocks of enormous age. Most geologists apply their studies to this branch of the science, and but few attempts have been made to account for the existence of the rocks, or to tell from whence came the original material of the rocks in which those fossils lie embedded. They have discovered by means of those fossils that great changes have passed over the earth, but none have told us how or why those changes were effected. These matters are the study of the geological machinist, or physicist, as he may be named. This is an order of genius that rarely appears. Newton was the last. He gave the name ‘‘gravity” to the power of attraction, which he described as regulating and maintaining all the movements^of the solar system. A man may be a great mathematician or astronomer, and be excessively void of mechanical perceptions, and it is remarkable that this may be applied to the most noted astronomers who have lived since the days of Newton. Sir Roderick says the ocean has ever been stable, and the depressions and upheavals of land explain all phenomena of that kind — that is, in regard to raised beaches or sea marks high on the land. This explanation is most questionable. The rising and sinking of the land can only be the effect of a cause ; so before such conclusions can reasonably be arrived at, it is necessary to find the cause or power by which the continents are occasionally lifted up and let down again, and for what physical purpose it is maintained. Because most geologists have accepted the above explanation, it is no test of its proper application. It is accepted only in the absence of a better theory. AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 39 Meantime, actuated by the kindness and high consideration with which I had been treated by Sir Roderick Murchison, who had discovered my natural aptitude for geology, and who had given me confidence in my own ability, when all I practically understood was the order of the primary rocks and their mineral character, I determined on sending no more geological communi- cations in which earth and sea movements might require to be alluded to, and so disturb a faith he had nourished, and thereby shed an influence or bias over his general studies and conclusions regarding natural phenomena. Indeed, the same feeling extended to other venerable fathers and promoters of the science, such as Sir H. de la Beche, Sir C. Lyell, and Mr. C. Darwin, who had received me into their ranks ; but as I was comparatively young, I determined to let them depart from this life undisturbed in the faith they had and the satisfaction they might feel in what they had effected in the development, of geology. But as I advanced in my studies I found cause to dissent from the conclusions of the geologists on almost every physical question, and to avoid discussion until fully prepared it was necessary to withhold correspondence, to remain in my retirement amongst the forests and volcanoes of Ecuador, and study Nature indepen- dently, unmolested by the various fancies and theories then being scattered abroad relating to the antiquity of man. I should mention that my paper on the “ Geology of the Western Slope of the Andes” was much prized by the Anthropo- logical Society, who obtained a copy of the paper, and published it in full in their journal,* and though so far distant they, without my knowledge, elected me a corresponding member of their society, and sent me a box of books, the works of various authors, on subjects relating to anthropology. This was the * “ The Geological and Natural History Repertory ” for May, 1867. 40 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. second time I had found honour when I did not seek for it or expect it Feeling myself under an obligation to the Anthropological Society, I wrote a paper on the ‘‘ Antiquity of the American Red Man,” and sent it to my friend, Mr. W. Bollaert, in London, for presentation to the Anthropological Society, of which he was a member. This paper, unfortunately, was lost, and was never published. However, I had saved the draught copy, and con- tinuing the study of the subject, I extended it until it became a moderate sized book, treating of the antiquity of the whole four races, the Red, the Yellow, the Black, and the White, and giving their original localities. My object in publishing this little work on the “ Mechanical Division of Geology, or Mechanism of the Earth,” is as an intro- duction, or leader, to others of greater proportions. One on the ‘‘ Antiquity of Man ” might not be fully understood unless the “ Mechanical Geology ” was first read, because there are new doctrines in the latter necessarily appealed to in the former. Another reason for publishing these essays first is that they are but an epitome of a series with a much greater scope, whose publication l^s unavoidably been delayed till very late in life, owing to a thirty years’ residence under the Equator. The ‘‘Epitome of the History of the Earth,” however, is now out of danger of being lost. The “ Geological and Historical Antiquity of Man” is ready for the press, and will soon follow. The essay on “ Mechanism of Geology ” is written in plain language, free from scientific dogmatism, or scholastic phrase, by a man of plain education, who does not support his reputation and claims to consideration by an M.A., an F.R.S., or Professor, but simply a C.E., nor will he court the favour of those who are the leading authorities of scientific associations — they are too AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 41 conservative. They may criticise the work, if they feel so dis- posed, under demonstrative arguments, but he fears not the result. The people whose opinions he does most respect, because they are more familiar with natural powers and motions, are those of his own class — the civil engineers. Men of the constructive arts, who are familiar with the laws of motion, and study cause and effect in their operations, will form a more just estimate of work than those termed scholars; for, as already stated, the most prominent men in other branches of science may be destitute of mechanical conceptions. The motions and operations of our world are comparatively unknown. The subjects considered in the principal work are — Intelligence Supreme. The Nebular Theory of La Place. Hypothesis of Incandescence. Theory of the Crystalline Rocks. Hypothesis of Rock Metamorphism. The Temperature in Wells and Mines. The Material of the Rocks. The Secondary Era or Epoch. The Rotation of the Earth. The Magnetic Poles and their Influence on the Configura tion of the Earth. The System of the Winds and Currents of the Sea. On Earthquakes and Volcanoes. Geological Changes of Climate as Affecting Fauna and Flora. A General and Continuous Change of Climate. \ The Lunar, Magnetic, and Solar Tides. The Progressive Desiccation of the Atmosphere and Earth. On the Change of Time. Theory of Creation. FAREWELL TO ECUADOR. Farewell to the forest, savana, and field, That by the equator profusively yield. Farewell to the stream, which, with serpentine bends ’Neath sombre of forest, to ocean descends. Farewell to the torrent whose furious might, Fed by snow liquefaction on Andean height, ’Mongst peaks of volcanoes, flows down to the plain, And onward to Ocean’s own wildest domain. Farewell to those ranges and valleys between, Where summer and winter at once may be seen. Farewell, ye tall peaks, with your mantles of white — Defiant of summer, shine on ever so bright. Farewell, ye volcanoes, ye vapours and flames. Fed by the earthquake’s inflammable streams, From under deep ocean, and ’neath the broad land. To burst with loud thunder, explode, and expand. Oh, works of Creator, varied and boldest ! Here hottest of climate lies under the coldest. Beneath the same sky and air, temper’d for breath. The sun pours down life through the cold realm of death. These regions, how awful their changes have been ! These bleak hills, once covered with verdure most green Cold winds now pass over and cap them with snow Whilst luxuriant plains stretch from them below, FAREWELL TO ECUADOR. 43 And desolate forests, in all shades of green, Shroud the soil with their leaves where nations have been ; And chilly damp shades shed a soul-sinking gloom, Where, planted by men, did the yellow corn bloom. But what of the people, whose traces are found In the depths of the forest and sea-banks around ? In the high central valley, on steep mountain side. Where the sky-soaring condor alone dares reside ? This native red race, is its life so far spent ? It declines, press’d by one of more recent advent. One younger and stronger comes in on all sides, To possess and re-people the forests and glades. I’ve wandered these wilds from the sea to the snow. As far as was prudent for man’s foot to go ; I have stood and admired in silent amaze The wonders of Nature spread out to my gaze ; Though tired I have sought them again and again. Till the wearied old system, oppressed, did complain, And bade me retire to my home and to rest. After thirty years spent in the tropical west, J. S. W GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM OR AN EPITOME OF THE HISTORY OF THE EARTH. GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. I REMEMBER Well how, OH a Very dark night, I stood on the slope of the old volcano Pichincha, in admiration of the neigh- bouring volcano, the lofty and symmetrical Cotapaxi, over which, high in the air, a dense cloud of dust and vapour was illumined with a red glare of light by the fire within the crater, and the occasional flashes of lightning that burst forth shone on the mantle of snow below, while at intervals of four or five minutes explosions, with a noise of thunder, threw up flame and fiery stones high in the air, which generally fell back into the crater to be thrown up again and again. Those stones (some of them very large) appeared roundish in the air, which, though rude frag- ments of rock, doubtless were rounded by striking against each other, and against the rocky sides of the crater, by which means the angular points and edges were worn off. Sometimes one of these would whirl outside of the rim of the crater, and roll furiously down the side of the cone. It occurred to me that had the volcano sufficient force to throw one of those stones near to the extreme of the earth’s attraction of gravity and fall back towards the place the earth occupied in space at the time of the projection, such stone might course round the earth as a comet or aerolite. Near to the ancient city of Quito, on a plain named Rumi- pamba, there is a long train of large rounded blocks of stone, which Indian tradition states were on one occasion thrown from 48 GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. the adjoining, but now nearly extinct, volcano Pichincha. I have examined them, and found them to be all of the basaltic character, and extremely hard. Many of them would measure from nine to twelve cubic feet each, though all the angular points and edges are rounded off. There are volcanoes on the surface of the sun. This being so, why may not the planets have been masses of rock thrown out from the sun ? Upon this hypothesis I mean to consider our earth, and endeavour to trace its history. In this effort I feel myself supported by analogy, viz., from whatever source they came, the minor planets — Juno, Ceres, &c. — are discovered to be of irregular or angular shape. Moreover, assuming that the density or weight of any solid material is in proportion to the amount of gravity or pressure to which it has been subjected, then it follows that rocks contained in the solid mass of the sun, and subject to his enormous gravitating force, must be dense and heavy indeed. Applying this to our earth, we find that astro- nomers, by calculations that we do not attempt to question, have determined the mean density of this globe to be more than five and a half times that of water (about half that of silver) ; and as the density of most of the rocks found at the surface is not more than half as great, it follows that the interior is either composed of different elementary substances, or that these materials exist in a much more than doubly condensed state. How dense, there- fore, must the kernel be, when considered apart from the external lighter rocks and sea by which it is encircled. Does it not point to the sun as the sphere within whose gravitating force its density was obtained ? The first part of the course of our earth was necessayly that of a comet with an enormous tail (see Appendix i), but as its GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. 49 gravitating tendency towards the sun, by very slow degrees, over- came the projectile force, the great length of its orbit contracted, and became more and more of the circular form, and more equal distance on all sides from the sun,* and the tail in like manner contracted and became a great atmosphere enveloping the planet (see Appendix i). The original, or primary, atmosphere which enveloped the earth was composed of all the elements now to be found in the crystalline rocks, and in the order in which we now find them, as they descended from the gaseous to the fluid, and finally to the solid, state, and in their order as follows : — These, though observing their respective places in the above order, mingle much at their lines of junction (as the colours of the rainbow mingle at their margin), excepting oxygen and silica, the latter forming part of all the rocks, and the former, in addition to its part in the rocks, constituting a portion of both sea and atmosphere. The hot (but not incandescent nor molten), glowing, irregularly- shaped mass of the earth having become by radiation somewhat cooled at the more prominent points or parts of the surface, permitted of the congelation of the gaseous matter of the atmo- sphere then in contact. This was silica, which slowly formed a “ * Encke’s comet, being one of shortest period (3J years), and subject to most frequent observation, is found to diminish its period, or its distance,, from the sun, and this is supposed to indicate the existence of some resist- ing medium.” It is certain that when observations are sufficiently extended, every comet and planet will be found to submit to the same: resisting influences. Oxygen. Silica. Alumina. Hydrogen. Carbonic Acid. Lime. Nitrogen. Other minor elements. D 50 GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. gelatinous coating, and spreading downwards and solidifying gradually as it went, formed a glassy covering of amorphous quartz, which, in its progress of formation, became a massive quartz rock. After a time, alumina began to appear on the surface, and form crystals of felspar on the stiffening surface of the gelatinous silica, and in the process of accumulation of the latter they became imbedded, and thus commenced the formation of the binary granite. Those crystals at their first appearance were large and few in number, but as the rock increased upwards, or outwards, the formation of crystals increased greatly in numbers, but decreased in size. Afterwards entered into the combination aluminous crystals of another form and varied compound, which we name mica ; and this continued to contribute its part to the 1 general mass, and produced that variety of rock we term triernary | granite. The proportion contributed by these two forms of crystals increased in quantity, while the amount of the siliceous matrix ] declined to an equal extent, and, in the sequel, alumina, or xather amorphous felspar, took the place of the silica as the base, in which silica deposited crystals and the rock became felspathic granite, and this again, in consequence of varying mineral and local conditions (unnecessary to be here described and traced out), produced blue granite (syenite) in some localities and red granite in others. After this, the rock growth changed its character, and passed gradually from the granitic or porphyritic nature, and assuming a more stratified form — and more aluminous and Jpss siliceous — is known under the name of gneiss. “Gneiss,” says Professor Ansted (whose description, for | motives of convenience, we transcribe) “ is essentially a com- ; GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. SI pound of quartz^ felspar, and mica, or hornblende, all more or less crystalline ; but presenting in a mechanical order of arrange- ment the crystals presenting a general and rough parallelism, so as to give a foliated appearance to the rock, and cause it to split more readily in some one direction than in any other. The divisions of the strata are extremely various, being often thick when not alternating with other schistose rocks, but then, when they do so alternate, gneiss is often hardly to be distinguished from granite, even by the most experienced eye, and it is con- stantly penetrated by granite veins parallel to the apparent planes of lamination. The contortions of the strata are remarkable, and on a very magnificent scale.’' And further, he quotes, apparently from McCulloch’s “ Classifi- cation of Rocks ” : “ The varieties comprehended under the term gneiss are so considerable that no general description can be given, and it is necessary to describe separately each variety. The three marked varieties of structure may be comprised under granite, schistose, and laminar.” The granitic variety is distinguishable by its general resemblance to granite, which it also emulates in the infinite variety, inter- mixture, magnitude, and proportions of its several ingredients. It frequently passes into granite by an undefinable transition ; and both this transition and the resemblance to the granitic character occur chiefly in those cases where the beds of gneiss are in the vicinity of granite. At the point of Junction the two rocks are sometimes undistinguishable, and a similar gradation often exists in those parts which are traversed by granite veins. The distinction consists in the general parallelism of the mica, or of the hornblende, or of some other ingredient, from which cause the rock is actually fissile, or else displays indications of a foliated structure. As that structure becomes the more perfect it recede^ further from granite. 52 GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. ‘‘In the schistose variety the texture is commonly minute^ while the position of the several minerals above mentioned is more accurately parallel. Hence the rock is almost always very readily fissile, and in some instances, indeed, possesses the quality in such perfection as to bp applicable to the same purposes as argilaceous schist. In fine, with the formation of the gneiss rock were the first indications of the existence of a flowing liquid. This rock, like the granite, had its formation at the highest points, covering the granite ; and the silica and alumina, being in a more fluid state, flowed down the slopes of the granite, and precipitated from the water as it went, and the silica being the first to separate, trickled down, occasionally separately, forming fine tortuous veins of quartz, resembling the trickling lines of water over a rough surface, and frozen in its winding channels. But when these flowing rock materials passed over more even beds, they assumed a more even texture, and thus continued to augment the massive rocks, stratum on stratum, becoming less and less siliceous,, and more slaty in their structure, to the termination of the crystalline period. We have hitherto drawn from the rocks the evidence of their relationship and order of sequence. We shall now, in further illustration of that order, refer to a natural and visible example - of rock formation in operation on a small scale. In the waters of what are termed siliceous springs, such as are found in volcanic localities, the minerals they contain in solution are obtained from the rocks through which they pass by the dissolvent action of the caustic alkalies <;ontained in the hot water of such springs. As the water cools and evaporates, silica is first precipitated, and appears in a gelatinous form, which solidifies into a chalcedonic substance, while the other ingredients, GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. S3 held in solution — alumina, lime, magnesia, oxide of iron, and the alkalies (potass and soda) — are, in the order in which they are named, carried to greater distances before being deposited, thus observing the same order which we find prevailing in the primary rocks. After the primary system of crystalline rocks had been created a great change occurred in the continuation of rock formation, and the first series seemed to be but a deposit of materials to be used in the formation of the transition rocks. During the growth of the primary rocks no rain had fallen on the earth, and oxygen, which had contributed so largely to the crystalline material (to the extent of one-half in the siliceous portion, four-ninths in the felspar, and one-third in the lime), became the destroyer and regenerator and convertor of rocks to soils to support vegetation. At the close of the crystalline period the mass of the earth had become sufficiently cooled to permit the existence of water on its surface, hydrogen descended in its order, and, joining with oxygen, became water ; and then the rocks, which as such had their origin direct from the atmosphere, became subject to reduction through the agency of oxygen, assisted by humidity, and heat corroded the crystalline rocks ; streams and rivers were formed wffiich swept down the disintegrated matter, and the granitic heights were stripped of their gneissic and slaty coverings ; lakes and seas were being collected on the lower parts of the rocky surface, and new beds and banks of water laid, stata being formed, the material of which was derived from the indiscrimi- nate waste of granite, gneiss, slate, and lime, together with lime and carbon from the atmosphere. These have been named transition rocks, probably because they lie between the primary and secondary systems of crystalline rocks; but they may also bear the name of transition as being a 54 GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. passage from the crystalline to the organic character. They are classified by geologists, and named in relation to their especial mineral construction, or the fossils embedded within them, or to the localities in which they first came under geological inspection. In regard to the former, we may find beds of different qualities formed from the waste brought down by the same river, according to the face of the river or sea currents under which they were laid. Beds of gravel, sand, or shingle may be formed at the mouth of a river or along the sea-shores, and be therefore the most siliceous, but light sediment would be carried to- greater distances and be precipitated in less troubled water, and be especially aluminous in description, forming mud or clay. Moreover, as the sea was increasing in depth during that period the deposited beds would be varied in their distribution over the sea bottom. Our object, however, is to trace the different systems of rocks to their origin, and not their accidental or special differences, and therefore to consider all those intervening stratified rocks as transitional. We now come to a consideration of the origin of the secondary system of crystalline rocks. We name them crystalline because they are in great part crystalline, and constituted of materials similar to those of the primary rocks, and are laid irt corresponding order, but they have been formed under very different conditions, by which they partake of both the crystalline and aqueous or water-laid character. No geologist of whom I am aware has attempted to account for the existence of those rocks otherwise than to suppose them derived from the waste of the older rocks ; but such an idea is untenable, for in such case they should have been simply a continuation of the transition series, and there should have been no secondary system whatever. Besides this, the great and sudden change which accompanied GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. 55 the introduction of the new red sandstone and nearly annihilated organic life declared the commencement of a new era in the history of the earth. The whole of the upper new red sandstone of England bears evidence of its marine origin, even if the occurrence of so large a quantity of salt associated with it did not place the matter beyond a doubt. The almost total absence of fossils is, however, a very remarkable phenomenon, and one which is not satisfactorily accounted for, whether by the prevailing sandy character of the deposit, or by the quantity of oxide of iron distributed through it. (Ansted, p 394.) It is evident that the sea and atmosphere underwent an extreme change, both in their mass and in the proportions of the ingredients of which they were composed, and the few organised forms which accidentally escaped the general destruction were those found on the sea margin or rivers, or in places where the water from the land kept the sea margin in a state approaching to the nature of their native element. There being as yet no especial or received theory proposed to afford some idea of the history of that remarkable period in which were deposited the rocks of the secondary system, I may be excused attempting to advance one which, if it has no other merit to recommend it, will be found to accord much with mechanical principles, supported as it is by natural phenomena. I may have to go far to find the source from whence came the material for those rocks. My indulgent friends will consider that if one visible feature on the surface of the earth, or action of the dark interior, afforded a place for the semblance of a rational theory, we should have had abundant speculation in relation thereto. I did not allow my imagination to go in search of molten matter, to be blown by elastic vapours through mysterious crevices under the sea, in the shape of crystalline sand or mud in 56 GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. the sea, but not on the land. If I were to say that the materials were got from the moon, it might appear equally absurd ; yet that is the idea I have found reason to maintain. I recommend my critics, before they give way to feelings of contempt or bursts of ridicule against the far-fetched theory, to consider whether they can explain differently from my views, on mechanical principles, first, how the earth obtained the attendance of the moon; secondly, why the moon has neither atmosphere nor sea ; and, thirdly, why the moon does not revolve on its own axis. When this is done, there may be cause for dissent ; but if otherwise, then we trust that their observations will be moderate, rational, and consistent. We have heard within our own time of the coming of comets, whose courses, as foretold by astronomers, should pass near or across the earth’s path, and some nervous people have feared a collision therewith. We have also heard of a comet approaching near to, I believe, the planet Jupiter on one side, passing rapidly round to the other side, and flying off again into space in comet-like orbit. That comet is doomed to become a moon for the planet round which it playfully passed. In like manner our moon was once a comet with a very long nebulous tail, the appendage of comets generally, and having, when on its return towards the sun, come near the earth on one side, and under the near and more powerful attraction of the latter (their attrac- tions were mutual in proportion to their respective masses), the moon curved round -behind to the other side, and passed off again at a tangent into a new orbit, and the'^earth, in place of the sun, became the centre round which the moon coursed, and they ever afterwards coursed round the sun in company. But the latter curving round the former, its tail came in contact with the more cold and dense atmosphere of the earth ; and going with a GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. 57 great velocity across the inert atmosphere, it received a rotary motion, and with it the mass of the earth, and this is the simple principle by which a boy makes a top spin through the applica- tion of the whip. The comet tail of the moon was the scourge by which the earth was made to spin round its axis ; but the atmosphere of the latter, being more dense, cold, and inert, arrested the tail and licked it off from the moon, which circumstance added vastly to the material borne by the atmosphere of the earth. And the returns of the moon, by the power of its attraction on (especially) the yielding atmosphere and ocean, perpetuated the regular rotary revolution of the earth round its own axis ; while at the same time the attraction of the earth, continuously influencing the moon, or rather their mutual attractions, caused the orbit of the latter to approach by slow degrees more and more to the circular form, but which it has not yet quite attained. It is known, however, to astronomers that the process of the equalisation of the moon’s distance from the earth still progresses. The earth thus obtained from the moon a vast amount of gaseous material, to be reduced to the liquid and solid state, while at the same time, through the admixture of such a vast amount of the gases of silica and alumina, &c., the atmosphere and ocean became unsuitable for the support of organic life, just as the former had been during the first crystalline period, and conse- quently would remain so till those ingredients became sufficiently reduced or exhausted by solidification. This course of the formation of the sandstone rocks alone must have continued through a long extent of time, as we have already indicated either by marked interruptions or cessations of the building process, caused by great but regular ebbs and flows of the sea. In some cases the mineral constituents of a massive but well- defined bed are different from the one which precedes or follows, 58 GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. only in this — in one the sand is united and converted into stone by an infiltrated earth or calcareous cement ; in the other, and more largely, by an infiltration of liquid silica, forming a rock-like amorphous quartz ; but in the upper strata the sand is cemented by the oxide of iron. The sandstones of the secondary rocks hold the correspond- ing position which the granites and gneiss do in the primary system, the difference of the texture and ingredients being the result of difference of the conditions under which they were formed, the granite having been produced by the congelation of gases direct from the atmosphere ; but in the case of the sand- stone the sea existed, and as it was colder than the land, it con- densed and received those congelations of the secondary atmo- sphere, and the infused silica on the surface of the sea, by special attraction of affinity of its atoms, assisted by evaporation from the heat of the sun, contracted into fine crystals before sinking in the water, at the bottom of which it became the crystalline concrete bed of rock we name standstone. The rocks which should represent the gneiss and crystalline slates of this series, in like manner, from having been formed under other conditions and subject to attendant causes, exhibit a variety of characteristics. The waste of the higher lands, brought down by the rivers, mingling with the sea, caused the sandstone and succeeding aluminous rocks to differ in their porportions of the common ingredients. Lime was already abundant in the sea, and, combining with the other materials in suspension, pro- duced variations. Currents arranged the drifting particles according to their gravitating determinations, and the varying level of the sea caused varieties of rocks to be laid over each other at the same place. But those variations of deposit were greatest about the more ancient and elevated lands, while at GEOLOGiaAL MECHANISM. 59 great distances in the sea the beds were laid in more regular order and simple character. The secondary formation of rocks continued, and geologists have classed them variously. The division named oolitic, however, in its place as secondary deposits corresponds to that of the transition rocks of the primary series; but rocks continued to be formed from the materials held in store by the atmosphere and sea, though the deposits were laid beneath the latter, and are now named Wealden cretaceous, &c. The difficulties presented to geologists in arranging and classifying the rocks is thus truly described by Professor Ansted : — The nature of geological classification then is thus explained : deposi- tions constantly going on at one point or another, and elevatory move- ments or depressions of the surface having been equally incessant, there have been from time to time such changes produced, either suddenly or gradually, that in a particular spot a pause has occurred and a break in the deposition of strata, so that when the deposit again commenced a change had taken place in the nature of the inhabitants of that spot sufficiently marked to exhibit a distinct character when the fossil remains are carefully examined and compared. From time to time these pauses have been longer, and larger tracts have been withdrawn from the influence of aqueous deposition for a longer period, so that we are able to group together several strata, each stratum being itself more or less distinguish- able from the rest' Lastly, there are still more remarkable breaks, distinguished yet more decisively, and these form the fundamental divisions into which all the rest arrange themselves, and to some one of which every stratum may be referred. And he further adds : — Viewing geology in its greatest generality, there is perhaps but one of these latter decided and well marked lines to be traced throughout the whole series of formations. It is that which separates the strata above the chalk from all that are subjacent, and even this separation cannot be looked upon as a universal phenomenon, although it is so extensive that no instance of real transition of the one series into the other has yet been discovered in Europe, Asia, or America. 6o GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. Although there is no very clear and defined line of demarcation to be drawn between the different and numerous groups of the rocks of older date, there yet does appear to be one sufficiently remarkable in the change which takes place in the general character of the fossil remains at certain points, and this is a distinction observable throughout northern E^urope, and probably also in America (p. 334, 335.) According to this explanation the whole of the series of formations, from the chalk downwards, has been separated into two parts, to the lower of which the name of paleozoic has been applied, the upper beds being called secondary, while the beds above the chalk are distinguished by the term tertiary. But besides poisoning the vital elements of respiration in sea or atmosphere by the infusion of the gases from comets’ tails, there are other causes affecting the distribution or existence of organised life. In support of this position T would invite my friends to a consideration of the phenomena of the northern drift, or glacial period, in regard to which I ask, Was it the result of a cataclysm that carried a Polar climate to the south of Europe, and an elevated sea into the tropics ? No. Was it the freak of uncontrolled subterranean gases or elastic steam, first condensing and allowing the continents to sink some hundreds of feet below the level of the sea, and causing them to remain there till the sea had heaped strata upon strata over them, then, by their expansive forces, elevated by the reaction or return of heat, lift the land slowly to its former level? No. Then to what cause are we to attribute this grand demonstration of power, this movement of the machinery of our system ? It was no accident or irregularity, no freak of nature, no infernal design, but has been of periodical recurrence ever since the earth became cooled by or possessed of a sea ; though preceding this flow it did not carry with it an icy climate (which circumstance pertains to another series of phenomena which we can explain in its GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. 6l place), some of its returns are marked by the coal beds with long periods of dry land, succeeded by others of equally pro- tracted sea submersion, and all through the secondary rocks these recurrences are traceable. If, then, my friends can hnd no extraordinary or irregular cause for such mighty results, will they be patient with me while I trace out the moving powers and their operations in our terrestrial machinery ? nor tire while I lead them by new, rough, and untrodden paths to learn the cause of those and other of the mighty movements in our system ? But besides this grand destroyer — this boreal bore — there is another body of minor forces, of more frequent occurrence, which effect smaller changes and need to be sought for and described. Then, to commence with the primary cause, I assume that electro-magnetism is the motive power employed in the move- ment ot every operation of nature, by which, with the exception of one, they are maintained and harmonised. What this great power is we cannot say, and where it rests we cannot tell. The cooling of the mass of the earth produced, or admitted the presence of, free electricity, and its first operation was the crystallisation of the granite rock. The magnetic poles occupy the two centres of greatest cold, and although the sun is the source of heat for the earth, the lines of equal temperature range round the magnetic poles rather than round the centre of rotation. In like manner the degrees of latitude of equal length, the aurora borealis, and the magnetic lines of the earth point to the same places. These poles are not fixed points, but occupy a parallel about 23° from the geographical poles, and follow this line from west to east, as it were, in an orbit. The slow submergences and emergences of the shores of conti- nents — or, speaking more correctly, those slow encroachments and retrogressions of the sea on the coasts of continents and 62 GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. islands, with the attendant changes of climate — result from the passing of the magnetic poles (see Appendix 2), — as witness the continent of America. The eastern coast of North America is many degrees colder than the corresponding latitudes on the western shores ; and the sea has been encroaching on it, and on Newfoundland, and remarkably so on Greenland, because these are near the present meridian of the north magnetic pole; but the opposite condi- tion in all respects prevails in South America, because the south magnetic pole is away in the far west. (See Appendices 3 and 4.) Why is it that neither astronomers nor geologists have inquired into the nature and office of this most important member of the terrestrial machinery, which, unknown and unsuspected by them, mystifies and confuses the observations of them both, but more especially the former, who have got to observe celestial objects through an intervening refracting atmo- sphere, the extent of the refracting power being unequal and varying? In fact, the degrees of refracting power, like those of temperature and equal latitude, encircle the magnetic pole rather than the pole of rotation. Witness the exertions that have been made by observers of the transit of Venus to obtain a base by which to measure the distance of the earth from the sun, and which have failed through the varying refraction of the atmo- sphere. The magnetic pole, by virtue of its power of attraction, opposed to that of the gravity of^the earth, is surrounded by an enormous tide of sea and atmosphere (see Appendix 5), whose edges border on the middle latitude, which, while it causes deviations in the figure of the earth with the former, varies the refracting surface of the other, which deviates with the distance from the magnetic pole oucwards ; consequently, observations of a celestial object, taken at different points on the same geo- GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. 63 graphical parallel of latitude, will differ one from another. It is considered that the atmosphere has a uniform depth, because barometrical measurements lead to that conclusion ; yet it is not so, because the attractive power that can attract and accumulate air and water around it can also maintain it there above the common level indicated by the barometer (see Appendix 5). To proceed regularly, we may observe that amongst the regular movements of the ocean there are three flows or tides^ which, at their respective periods, rise encroachingly on the land in one zone of the earth’s surface, retiring equally as much in another. All three are in movement at the same time. There are, first, the lunar tide; secondly, the magnetic polar tide ; and thirdly, the solar tide. The first of these is the daily or lunar tide, correctly attributed to the magnetic attraction of the moon. This tide encroaches on all ocean shores to an altitude of some feet, and retires to an equal extent But, according to the hypothesis of elastic vapours, the adherents to which say that the sea is more stable than the land, the land is submerged and emerged every twelve or thirteen hours, which, of course, is absurd. The second, or magnetic polar tide, accompanies the magnetic pole in its passage round the polar circle, which it is estimated to perform in a period of 560 years. A continuous rising of the sea throughout a long series of years, during which the water had been observed to extend over lands hitherto populous, bordering on the Baltic Sea, and again retiring from them in the same slow manner, indicated periodical returns of the same natures, and to ascertain this, rocks in the sea standing above high water were marked with grooves cut in them at water level, and by this means it was discovered that the land was rising, but in reality the water was retiring ! This being made known, observations 64 GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. were more generally made, and it was soon discovered that the north-eastern shores of North America, the shores of Newfound- land and of Greenland were being slowly overflowed, while the southern part of South America was rising higher above the sea. Comparing these and other such observations with the position of the magnetic poles, I came to the conclusion that an extensive tide accompanies the magnetic pole of each hemisphere. The water of the magnetic tide rises very slowly on the shores to which the pole is approaching, and retires [in a correspondingly slow manner as the pole passes onward away. Many of those raised beaches noticed by geologists round the British Isles have been formed by the magnetic polar tide. But the great destroyer and renovator is the movement which I have said has no connection with the magnetic machinery of our regular system — the producer of the icy invasion of our temperate zone, in regard to which I must again venture to hear the expressions of astonished incredulity while I relate the facts and reasons on which I rely for support in my endeavour to afford satisfaction to the unprejudiced mind. And so I will proceed accordingly. The deposits of material in the’existing temperate zone, known in the northern hemisphere by the term northern drift, is the result of the overflowing of the solar tide. Its last visitation is named by some geologists the glacial period, and they are disposed to believe it a recurrent physical operation. Its period is of extremely long duration, and naturalists have demonstrated that preceding that cold epoch a climate resembling that now pre* vailing in the existing tropics extended to the most northern lands, which is testified to by the abundance of fossil remains of both fauna and flora found there. But geologists, failing to find in the terrestrial mechanism a movement capable of pro- i GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. 65 ducing such vast changes on the surface of the earth, applied to astronomers for a celestial cause, and the latter concluded that these polar transitions of climate resulted from the precession of the equinoxes; but we fail to perceive the machinery by which either a universal summer or a deluge of cold water from the Arctic Ocean could be produced by the precession of the equinoxes — nor is the explanation much accepted. The phenomenon to which I attribute this movement is the unlooked-for discovery, by modern astronomers, that the tropics were continually (though at an almost insensible rate) contracting towards the equator, which confused their ideas of the permanency of forms and movements. It was not traced by any of them to any cause or purpose, but was considered merely the result qf some irregular disturbance which would correct itself again. But the phenomenon was known to the ancient astronomers of Egypt, India, and China, who, it would appear, speculated extensively on the results this movement had effected in the past history of the world. Thus, the Egyptians have said that the course of the sun has been twice reversed, that during two separate periods it was daily in the west instead of in the east. * To have come to this conclusion they must have considered that the earth has a pole-ward revolution, during which the poles exchanged places, because the reversing of the poles would reverse likewise the direction of the daily revolution of the earth on its axis in regard to the sun — that is to say, the axis of the earth revolves end over end, and in doing so the ends exchange places at each half revolution, and the consequence should be Egypti decern millia annorum et amplius recensent ; et observatum est in hoc tanto spatio hismutata esse loca ortuum et occasum solis ita ut sol bis ortis sit ubi nunc occidit, et bis descenderit ubi nunc occidit et bis descendent ubi monc oritur. (Phil. Melanct. Lib. i. p 60.) 66 GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. that the rising and setting of the sun should thereby be reversed, and of course that of the moon and stars also. My faith was long fixed in regard to the revolution of the poles of the earth, yet I was not the less astonished and pleased on accidentally meeting with the note just quoted, in which, to my great satisfaction, I found that those ancient philosophers, four or five thousand years ago, were engaged in tracing the history of the earth in the manner that I pursue it at present. It was an encouragement and a consolation to think that if my revelations should be thought mental aberrations, there were others equally mad, through the same cause, thousands of years ago. The conclusions at which the Egyptian philosophers arrived denote a knowledge of the connection of geology with astronomy which the moderns have not yet attained. They not only believed in the rotation of the earth on its axis, but also in the reversability of the direction of that rotation ; and they believed in the polar revolution of the earth, based on the declining obliquity of the axis of rotation, and went so far as to say that twice the sun had risen in the west and set in the east, which implies an inter- vening change of the poles, with which the sun, as now, rose in the east and set in the west. And these three great changes in the places of the poles are apparently associated with the three great geological changes registered in the rocks — namely, the great new red sandstone, the chalk, and the drift periods — each of these being marked by lines of strata left by the solar tide in its periodical transits ; for in their descending order the sandstone stands highest and the northern drift the lowest. And this doctrine would seem to have an alliance with the allegorical descents of Vishnu as described by the Brahmins of India. Sir C. Lyell has given a short yet clear description of Ihe Indian cosmogony, which is, in its bearing on this subject. GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. 67 most interesting — yet, for the sake of brevity, I will merely quote his remarks on its application to geology : — The repeated destruction and revivication of organic beings^ and the doctrine of concomitant revolutions in the material world, which pervades the Eastern cosmogonies, and above all the belief in reiterated submersions of the land beneath the waters of a universal ocean are of peculiar interest to the geologist. The dogma last alluded to clearly constituted one of the most ancient of the Hindoo tenets, and was conspicuous in the legendary poems called the Puranas, especially in the mythological narratives of the avatars, or descents of Vishnu, the preserving power. The object of the three first avatars was to recover the earth from the waters. For this purpose the deity is made successively to assume the forms of a fish, a tortoise, and a boar. (Lyell “ Principles’* p. 5.) The legend of the three avatars of the Deity bear a signifi- cance which Sir C. Lyell has overlooked, and stamps with the sign of truth the circumstances and observations on which the mythological fable is based. The three animals — fish, tortoise, and boar — are simply symbolical emblems placed in order to denote the declining character of the three deluges as they occurred. The element of the fish is deep clear water ; that of the amphi- bious tortoise would be shallow water, lagoons, and sedgy swamps ; and the element of the boar would be in miry marshes — simply figurative representations to note the declining character of the sea, by the heights to which each succeeding recurrence of the great sun-tide extended. The secondary or sandstone tide, being the highest and deepest, is represented by the fish ; the tertiary tide, less deep, is represented by the amphibious tortoise ; a^d the diluvial by the mammalian air-breathing boar. Moreover, the order given of those three divisions of the animal creation is intended to indicate, at the same time, the order in which they came into existence, or were characteristic periods. Fishes first appeared during the deposition of transition and secondary rocks ; 68 GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. the amphibia represented the tertian age, of which they were characteristic objects; and the mammalia the drift period, or preceding it. The extent of time necessary for the performance of one revolution of the poles, or of any part of the same, reckoning the rate of revolution at fifty seconds of a degree in a century, would be as follows : The reversal of the poles, or i8o°, would represent half of one revolution, and would require 1,296,000 years, and the advance and retreat, or flow and ebb, of the solar tide would require a corresponding period. The solar tide, which drew after it the icy clime from the poles, has been advancing towards the equator for the last 478,800 years, or since the tropic clime extended to the poles. Supposing the present extent of the tropic zones to be each 23° 30', the complete collapse of those zones when the sun will linger over the equator, and the climate of Siberia extend to France, will require 169,200 years. So limited have been our ideas in regard to the past extent of time and the existence of ithings, that such an extent of years should be assigned to the duration of one period of the age of the earth, as marked by a single ebb and flow of a tide induced by the attraction of the sun, seemed beyond the bounds of conception or belief, and this inconceivable extent of time seemed to myself, at first, a sufficient cause to abandon the inquiries to which its adoption would lead. I trembled at the idea of declaring such a conviction, but the evidence bearing on its truthfulness was not to be overcome. The geologist who contemplates the aspects of Nature and the various changes the rocky surface of our world has slowly undergone (so slowly that rocks which retain the marks of a chisel uneffaced for a thousand years, yet exhibit indications of a great reduction effected by GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. 69 atmospheric action, that might require many millions of years to accomplish), may see the granite peaks, shorn of their crowns of gneiss and slate, and themselves greatly wasted, and all carried away by the slow agency of rain water to fill the seas with mud, which, when abandoned by the sea, formed transition rocks ^ he may also discover that the gold which had lain hidden deep in the quartz veins of the gneiss and slate rocks has been liberated by the destruction of the protecting rocks, and now is found mingled with the rock-waste in river flats and along ancient sea beaches. The great standstone of the secondary series, a rock which was deposited deeply wherever the ocean of that period flowed, has left but relics on vast tracts of country ; and as witnessed in Australia, this rock, with its flinty beds, has been eaten into by the seas of later times, until it presents cliffs some hundreds of feet in height, with spacious bays and inlets, which have for many thousands of years been abandoned by the sea. I have said that the solar tide has been advancing from the poles towards the equator for the last 478,800 years, in which case I might be asked where it is now. I answer confidently, its two bands are on the tropics of Capricorn and Cancer, where they always are while there are tropic lines to mark the place. The solar tide of the north and that of the south move equally, and so maintain the balance of the ocean. But in regard to this I have an observation for the consideration of astronomers which I will presently describe. Much time and talent have been spent to determine the figure and proportions of the earth, and various modes have been employed to effect that object ; but the one most approved was the measurements of the degrees on meridianal arcs taken in various parts of the world. The following table contains those 70 GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. meridianal measurements adopted by Professors Airy and Bessel for that purpose : — Country. Latitude of the middle of arc. Mean length of the degree of mid lat. in fathoms. Sweden ... ...B 0 66 20 lO'O 365744 ] 1 Average Sweden ... ...A 66 17 37 365782 j h 36575 Russia ... ...A 66 17 37 365368 Russia ... ...B 56 3 55-5 365291 Average Prussia ... ...B 54 58 260 365420 365061 Denmark ...B 54 8 137 365087 Hanover .. .AB 52 13 i6*6 365300 N England ... ...A 52 35 45 364971 Average 364664 England ... ...B 52 2 19-4 364951 France ... ...A 46 52 2 364872 1 France .AB 44 51 2*5 364572 ^ f Rome ...A 42 59 364262 \ America ... ...A 39 12 363786 j India .AB 16 8 21*5 363044 Average 363485 India .AB 12 32 20 ‘8 362956 1 Peru .AB I 31 0-4 363626 ; f C Good Hope. A 33 18 30 364713 CGood Hope.B 35 43 20 'O 364060 Herschel Outlines'^ By a combination of ten arcs, marked B, Bessel computed the polar compression to be 26*471 miles. Mr. Airy selected those marked A, and according to his computation the polar diameter is 26*478 miles shorter than that of the equator. Astronomers and geometricians, in assuming first, on the law of centrifugal force, that the true figure of the earth was that of an oblate spheroid, were guided by this preconception in the GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. 71 investigation of the measured meridianal arcs, inducing rather an endeavour to support the theory than to discover the real figure. Were it otherwise, it would be difficult to discover how they came to the conclusion that the figure of the earth is that of an oblate spheriod, even front the selection of measurements of arcs which were adopted. In saying this 1 am supported by the admissions of Sir J. Herschel, which^ in his own words, are as follows : — The supposition of an elliptic form of the earth’s section through the axis is recommended by its simplicity and confirmed by comparing the numerical results we have just set down with those of actual measurements. When this comparison is executed, discordances^ it is true, 'are observed^ which, although still too great to be referred to error of measurements, are yet so small, compared to the errors that would result from the spherical hypothesis, as completely to justify our regarding the earth as an ellipsoid, and referring the observed deviations to either local, or if general to comparatively small causes. Humboldt is not so easily satisfied on this point, and thus expresses his opinion : — Measurements of degrees give such different results for different parts of the earth’s surface, that it is impossible to assign any regular figure that shall satisfy all the results. — “ Cosmos,” vol. i., p 159. Eng. Ed. Thus we find that the ellipsoid is recommended simply as affording a nearer approximation to the figure of the earth than would the spherical hypothesis. If the choice were simply to discover which figure bore the nearest approach to that of the earth, the object has been obtained, but to know those deviations from the ellispoidal figure, and their cause, may be of much greater importance to science than to know to which figure that of the earth most approximates, for each of those deviations from the elliptical form has its cause, its purpose, and its effect. 72 GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. I have already mentioned some of the difficulties thrown in the way of geologists and astronomers by the magnetic polar tide, and much yet remains to be told of that member of our terrestrial machinery. But suppose I assert that there is a solar tide of 1,000 feet, more or less, on each tropical line, covered with a correspondingly high tide of atmosphere — the truth of which astronomers can readily ascertain when the means are made known — and the influence such deviation should produce on the refraction of the atmosphere in regard to celestial observations which they can estimate. To the geologist, in like manner, there ought to be no difficulty in ascertaining how climate has travelled from the pole to the equator, for he can trace in the rocks the march of organised forms in a given direction, because he knows the why and the wherefore. But now to return to our investigation. Referring, again, to the preeding table of measured meridianal arcs, it is remarkable that tor nearly forty degrees from the geographical equator there is scarcely any difference in the length of a degree of latitude, the average from the equator to 39° being 363,485 feet; and from 39° to 52° north latitude the degrees stretch out rapidly, the average length being 364,664 feet. The next six degrees extending from 52° to 58°, there is very little variation, and average 365,161 feet. A table is given of the measurements of meridianal arcs in England, of which it is observed — ‘‘This table presents a singular deviation from the common rule, for instead of the degrees decreasing as we proceed from north to south, they appear to increase, as if the earth were an oblong instead of an oblate spheriod.’' This would indicate a flattening of the middle parallels. We may here observe that the degrees of latitude extending GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. 73 from the equator to 39° being very nearly of equal length would so far indicate a spheroidal form for the earth which is caused by the heaping up of the solar tide about the tropic line. But from 39° to 58°, or, say, 20 degrees, there is a flatness or equal depression indicating the line of neap or low tide from which the water is drawn to heap on the tropic. Will geometricians accept 01 consider these premises ? The sun tide causes no increase of water in the ocean, but rather the contrary. It is simply a slow transition of the tidal water from degree to degree of latitude in succession. And Europe being now in the neap or low tide, those traces of the drift period are very much higher above the level of the sea than they were when the tropic of Cancer was extended to Central Europe. The movement of this tide is so slow that it has escaped human observation, and only its accompanying phenomenon, the declining obliquity of the axis of the earth, or, rather, the contraction of the tropics, has long been a subject for observation. The Nautical Almanack made the mean obliquity in 1835, 23° 27' 39" ‘6, or per Bessel 23° 27' 3g"*26, being 9"’24 seconds in 19 years. In 750 b.c. the Chinese made the obliquity 24° which, if to be relied on, gives a diminution of 74° per century. In 300 b.c. Pythias made it 23° 50', i.e., 62"’5 per century, and in 150 b.c. Hipparchus made it 23° 51' 20", or 71" per century ; the mean of the three being 69^. Taking it at 46" now, it seems to be a diminishing quantity. I have no doubt that the rate of this movement diminishes, because it seems to have no external maintaining power. The moon, though having no rotation on its own axis, is the external power by which the earth is kept in continuous rotation. But the rotation of the axis seems to be the result of an impulse given to the earth when it was first projected into space, and having no 74 GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. external promoter through which to maintain the motion, had its velocity reduced by the resistance opposed to it by the friction of its mass against the universal air which fills all space, and through which all the orbs of creation move. Nor need we suppose this turning over of the axis endwise peculiar to the earth, because we do not find any fixed order in the position of the axis of the planets. As, for instance, judging by the position of the satellites of Uranus, the axis is inclined barely ii° to the plain of its orbit, and Saturn is placed inter- mediately between this planet, in which the axis of rotation almost coincides with the plain of its orbit, and Jupiter, whose axis is almost perpendicular to it. Thus it follows that if the axis were fixed at the angles which they now present, Uranus would have a summer to pass from pole to pole, while Jupiter has continual summer at the equator, and eternal winter over the half of each hemisphere. Such does not seem to accord with the economy of Nature. On the position of the axis of rotation relatively to their orbits depend the annual changes of climate, seasons, and the varying length of the days. It seems more than probable that all the planets reverse their poles and rotations periodically, to produce changes of seasons over their surfaces, and render them more suitable for the extension, development, and enjoyment of organised life, which we may consider the ultimate design of creation. And this arrangement seems all the more certain when we examine the peculiarities presented by the planet Uranus, which seems to have recently reversed the poles of its axis, for thus, while the moons of Saturn, Jupiter, and the earth all move, as do their primaries, from west to east, the satellites of Uranus move in plains almost perpendicular to the ecliptic, and the direction of their path is from east to west. GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. 75 Fancy and science are ill-mated associates, and less accordant than passive faith and positive fact. Yet fancy loves to be thought scientific, and presumes to be the depth of science, and conse- quently the sciences, especially of astronomy and geology, are so swathed in fanciful “ toggery ’’ that the naked truth is rarely seen, as though it were an impropriety she should present her unadorned beauties to admiration. One of those mysterious fanciful folds — the more absurd because, like various others, it sets common sense at defiance — is that which represents the sea level as more stable than the base of the land. We have given instances which prove that even the sea level is at no time constant, but is in continual oscillation or change of level ; and we may add that the sea does not continue to contain the same quantity of water. The basis of the land was solid and immo- vable before the sea collected in the depressions or hollows of its surface, and will remain so till after the sea has disappeared. The sea originated and increased rapidly during the deposition of the transition rocks, and still more rapidly during that of the secondary sandstone period, during which time it acquired its greatest elevation when the water of two worlds nearly deluged the entire surface of the earth, but ever since then has been declining in both breadth and depth, through the solidifying process. Had it not been so, and the sea continued to cover the sandstone heights, there would have been but little land on which to cultivate corn, cabbages, and potatoes. But now, what we have got to do with the sea is to trace its agency in the formation of certain rocks in opposition to the famous fancies of the plutonists, who would assign their origin to the action of subterranean fire under the sea. The principal members of this family of rocks are known under the names of Trap, Basalt, Trachyte, and Lava — names which are used with 76 GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. but little discrimination, and are classed under the term Plutonic. In regard to the history of these, we find ourselves opposed by the plutonists, as stated, within their last stronghold, and on principles as adverse in their nature as fire is to that of water. They are fortified behind mounds of dogma thrown up by scientific authorities, and we must not attack them too rashly lest we be overwhelmed in a deluge of vehement volubility by their enthusiastic, though unthinking, disciples, but be content at first to mine the fortress of their faith with explosive facts, and lay bare the futility of their fancies. Then what are those rocks, their natures and their peculiarities ? According to chemists they contain only such combinations of materials as are common in the slate, schist, or sedimentary rocks generally, and clays and mud, and differ from the sedi- mentary rocks in texture, hardness, and structure, which latter indicate their having been forced out in a liquid or plastic state. Mud is the waste, or abradings, of all or of various rocks indiscriminately, worn off by the action of the water or the weather, and in a consistence as fine as dust, and is carried in suspension by running streams to the sea, to where the water becomes sufficiently quiet, and there settles down as sediment on the bottom. Such, added to the natural deposit from sea water, is the origin of all sedimentary rocks and clays generally. But sedimentary mud will not solidify so long as it remains continually under water ; and it is only when it is exposed to the atmosphere, when from its own pressure water may be expressed, and the heat of the sun causes evaporation, the atmosphere absorbing the vapour, that the mud dries and becomes clay; and afterwards, when under the pressure of superimposed beds of clay or sand, &c., it becomes stone, as shale or slate, &c. But the traps and basalts, &c., were not thus formed : nevertheless, they are mud- GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. 77 stones. Artificially, and without the application of fire, mud may be converted into burning hot dust by friction, or into stone by pressure. Both lava and those other basaltic rocks have been subjected to intense pressure and friction. Many volcanoes •eject floods of hot mud — Cotopaxi, at one late eruption, threw out floods of wa^er, follo>ved in succession by steam, mud, and burning hot dust The basaltic rocks suffered neither fire nor flame, yet were, equally hardened by a very different process. PlutonisLs, we repeat, fancy that those wdde-spreading beds and veins of hard rock were forced out from a molten interior of the earth in a fluid state, and were chilled to intense hardness by contact wdth cold, deep-sea w^ater. Here, in this short description of fancied operations, we discover a bundle of old absurdities, revered for their age and authorship, and dogmatically taught. First, the hypothesis of a molten interior supposes this internal fire to be the residue of a once molten globe, which representa- tion leads to the inquiry as to where the furnace is, or w^as, in w^hich a mass of rock 8,000 miles in diameter (sea and atmo- sphere included), should be completely fused, and as heat destroys cohesion and disposes the mass to expansion and separation of its particles, this liquid mass, when projected into space, like a charge of shot from a sportsman’s gun, or grape from a cannon, or water from a fire engine, would scatter and produce a nebula of little aerolites. Supposing the mass to have arrived at its place in space entire, how, then, w^ould rotation be produced ? An impulse cannot be given to matter that is of a yielding nature, and free to move in any direction. If the mass of the earth w^ere all water, it could not be made to rotate without the solid mass of the earth to carry it. No more could it be driven if it w^ere molten 78 GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. rock or metal. And then, the idea of an interior in fiery fusion in proximity with a cold sea bottom ! * Why or how was that molten matter forced up from the interior? Was it by steam power ? But steam presupposes the presence of water, which is adverse to connection with fire. Moreover, to obtain the expan- sive force of steam the fire and water, though in close proximity, must be kept completely apart, and the latter confined in its tight boiler. Do there exist such mighty engines in the interior of the earth ? If so, who are the engineers and stokers ? Or, are they intelligent, self-acting engines ? Finally, it is impossible to place such a mighty mass in a state of fusion, for unless gravi- tation ^be completely removed, its own weight would resist the fusion, and heat applied at the surface would radiate faster than it could penetrate the mass. It is easy to perceive that the whole theory is unmechanical, unnatural, and unsound, and it is super- fluous and absurd to discuss it. We may, therefore, now pro- ceed to find a more rational solution of the question, yet one more question for those who believe in the hollow-heartedness of the earth — Why is it that geologists believe in the slow submer- gences and emergences of the land, caused, as they imagine, by vapour forces (see Appendix s) in the interior of the earth. It has never been perceived by them that the bottom of the sea is a continuation of the rocks of the continents, and therefore, in the lifting or lowering of the continents, the sea must be lifted and lowered along with them. Would they lift a basin of water by the rim, and leave the bottom unmoved, or are the rocks so elastic as to stretch under the operation ? * We are aware that volcanic eruptions have occurred in shallow seas, but they did not eject molten rock, and the flame seen to arise on such occasions was not from an internal fire, but as with all other volcanoes the hot compressed gases emitted ignited on coming in contact with the oxygen of the atmosphere. The subject of volcanoes will be discussed later on. GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. 79 We must now revert to the secondary period of rock formation, it being during that time that the great development of the basaltic rocks occurred ; and in regard to their formation, I will first allude to some practical operations, to some extent illustra- tive of my views on that subject. Thus, mud or clay mixed with water, well kneaded, and allowed to dry, becomes more adhesive, harder, and less pervious to water than mud or clay in the natural state, so that in many localities people build the w^alls of their houses of mud or kneaded clay. In other places, their walls are made of sun-dried bricks. Following that art still further w^e find that burnt bricks and pottery are amongst the hardest and most durable of materials ; but now^, in our inventive times, bricks, tiles, and earthen tubes, &c., are made by machinery, by forceing the kneaded clay through orifices of the form required, then dried, and burnt to the required degree of hardness. We have alluded to the vast beds of mud accumulated in the sea, derived from the waste of the primary rocks, and observed that mud remaining continually under water never solidifies in such position, because water, which finds space in w^hich to lodge amongst or between the earthy particles of mud, cannot be driven out by any weight of overlying water. If more evidence to this were needed we find it in the clay itself. Dry clay is porous, and, if not kneaded, will absorb water, even till it has nearly obtained the consistence of mud. Even burnt bricks, though they shrink in drying and burning, will absorb water, because the water expelled from the clay in the drying leaves them porous. Consequently, w^hen the deposition of the new red sandstone commenced, under the conditions we have described, the fine sand formed by the precipitation of the silica in the sea water, and falling gently on the water-charged mud, did not sink in it, but simply formed a covering bed, which in time increased 8o GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. to great depth and weight ; then, when it happened that those banks of mud lay on a sloping bottom in the sea, they had a gravitating tendency to slip or press down the incline to a lower level, and carry with them the overlying beds of sandstone or other rocks, through which rents in the broken strata ascended, and thus were caused what are termed, by miners, faults, slips, dykes, and likewise the crumpling, distorting, and even inverting of beds of rock. Those mud slides were in reality land slides, and occurred when the secondary strata was left dry above the sea, and even for thousands of years later. While the sea-laid strata remained below the level of the ocean, it was greatly supported in its position against descending slopes and inequalities of the bottom by the equal pressure of the deep heavy water all over its surafce ; but ag the great solar tide wave, in its progressive movement onward from parallel to parallel, left the more elevated strata of mud or sand standing higher and higher above the water level, the increasing weight in proportion as they were elevated in the air caused them to press more heavily against the mud beds below, and caused those on sloping bottoms to slip away downwards, causing those rents, distortions, displacements, liftings, sinkings, and overturnings of the strata of the rocks before alluded to. As already noted, it has been fancied that the basaltic rocks were poured out from crevices communicating with the fluid interior or submarine volcanoes in a hot molten state, and flowed over the bottom of the sea ; but, on the contrary, it flowed over dry land in the state of liquid mud, heated by friction, and then had a chance for drying and hardening. When these movements occurred amongst the detached masses of bedded rocks, the weight of, say, 500 feet in perpendicular thickness of secondary sandstone strata, elevated to that height in air, was great, and the GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. 8l force of pressure then exerted on the primary mud beds was such as might force it through the eye of a needle, and it has accord- ingly been forced into very small crevices in the other rocks in contact, and rendered so dense by pressure as to sound like metal when struck with a hard substance. This forcing up^ of the mud to such a height through rents and crevices, some small, and others some feet, or as many yards in breadth, is more thoroughly mixed and kneaded by the movement, under such intense pressure, than was ever done by brickfield pug-mill or pottery-clay grinders. This same fluid matter, forced up through rents by the pressure of great detached fields of overlying rock, left, as it were, floating on it, spread out and formed extensive level beds, which, when dried and hardened in the atmosphere, became claystone ; and this, again, by a return of the solar tide, was deeply submerged and overlaid by vast beds of strata. On again emerg- ing, they were subjected to a great pressure, which produced friction among the particles, resulting in heat, electrical action, and condensation, and producing trap or basalt. A consequent result of the forcing up of this ancient mud from beneath was that the stratified rocks which had rested bedded on it sank at the same time in the mud-pit they had caused, thus forming breaks or breaches in the natural line of the beds of rock, such as is represented in the above diagram. F 82 GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. Through a limited knowledge of the state of matter and of the forces of Nature, it was not perceived that the forcing up of matter from under the rocks would be in opposition to the force of gravity, which, in its exertion to maintain equilibrium, would force down other matter to fill the vacuum ; nor yet that the power by which the fluid matter was forced up to the surface Was not of a subterranean nature, but was simply the force of gravity as weight, forcing the solid rocks down on the fluid beds beneath, and forcing up the latter through rents and breaches in the former to the surface. The distinguishing features and qualities of the various stones of clay base, and the phenomena attending their position, attri- buted to subterranean violence, being numerously depicted in all books on geology, are therefore not needed to be repeated here. We must simply bear in mind that the moving power in all cases was gravity, and that whatever the force employed, if applied equally to fluid mud or liquid lava, the result would be the same, as also the subsequent appearances. GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM, 83 COLUMNAR BASALT. There is one form of basaltic claystone, however, the history of which needs to be explored and explained, as it, from its peculiarity of aspect, has engaged much observation, and been the cause of much curious speculation. I mean the columnar basalt, of which I have seen various displays in California. Some writers have considered what is called its prismatic figure, as a natural and peculiar form of crystallisation observed by lava while solidifying from the igneous state; though I am of the opinion that an example of such form of crystallisation has never yet been found in true volcanic lava. But in this I find myself opposed by the statement regarding an apparent fact by an authority who deserves respect, and must be treated with all due consideration ; and therefore I quote entire this opposing passage of his publication, and leave to future observers to decide the difference of opinion between us on that subject. It runs thus — In Catalonia the eruptions have burst entirely through secondary rocks,, and the distinct cones and craters are about fourteen in number, but there are besides several points whence lava may have issued. The volcanoes are most of them very entire, and the largest has a crater 455 feet deep, and about a mile in circumference. The currents of lava are, as usual, of considerable depth in the narrow defiles, but spread out into thin sheets over the plains. The upper part is scoriaceous ; further down it is less porous; and at the bottom it becomes basalt about five feet thick,, resting on the subjacent secondary rocks. (Ansted, p 124.) In regard to the Catalonian volcanoes (though not having seen them), it is my conviction that the largest, the one described, if not others also, has burst through a bed of basalt, of which the prismatic examples alluded to are a part. That my arguments and 84 GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. examples may be the better understood, I will here insert extracts from McCulloch’s . Classification of the Rocks as Relating to the Character of Columnar Basalt” (p. 129). In the columnar structure, as the term implies, the prisms generally possess a considerable length ii; proportion to their breadth, and they are not limited to the quadrilateral form. In a few instances, owing to the extreme shortness of the prisms, the columnar passes to a tabular or a lamellar and jointed structure, but the two are united under this head in consequence of their general resemblance and of the undefinable line by which they are separated. Where the columnar structure is on a very large scale, it might be supposed to belong to that division which is included under the term of external configuration, but in reality it is properly placed here. The columnar structure is invariably aggregated. No instance is known of a single column. As the prisms are often accumulated in a parallel manner of the same length, and for a considerable space, they unite to form a bed, or pseudo stratum; or else such a bed appears to be split into prisms, and that division generally nearly at right angles to the leading planes ; but as such planes are not necessarily parallel, so in a mass of prisms the length of these concretions will be found to vary in different parts. Not unfrequently the most regular columnar structure vanishes in the same continuous mass, and in a gradual manner. This takes place either laterally or in the direction of the axis. In a columnar mass the axis may be vertical or inclined to the horizon at any angle, or horizontal, and in these cases it is implied that the prisms are straight, as well as parallel to each other. The parallel position is not, however, necessary. In a collection of prisms they are sometimes found to radiate from some imaginary centre, or from more than one. In other cases they are placed in various irregular ways, and entangled together. In some instances such irregular prisms are found more or less accumulated, or dispersed and intermixed with the same rock in an amorphous state. The sizes of prisms are various. In diameter or thickness they rarely exceed nine feet, and from that they vary to one foot or less. The forms are equally various^ from three-sided upwards, even to twelve ; but figures of four, five, and six sides, are the most common. Such figures are by no means regular, except in a few accidental cases, and every modification of form may he found aggregated in the same mass. Nor are the sides of the prisms necessarily straight, being sometimes convex or concave. GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. 85 Who has ever had the opportunity to see a dried-up lake, lagoon, pond, or other extensive shallow water, and observed the open broken lines rending the drying surface of the mud in irregular directions, somewhat like the following diagrams, or have seen a true representation of the top surface of a bed of columnar basalt ? Should we like to see a practical illustration of the same or similar figures, we might spread kneaded clay (unmixed with sand) a few inches deep over a level surface, and observe that, whilst drying, similarly rent lines will appear over the surface of the clay. They are caused simply by the con- tracting of the clay whilst drying. But there are vast beds of columnar clay in various parts of the world formed in the same way as were those of columnar basalt, which, in all particulars, corresponded in figure and associations with the description given in the above quotation from McCulloch. In the near vicinity of the city of Guayaquil, and thence 86 GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. extending over the provinces of Guayas and Los Rios, occupying a plain of about sixty miles in extent, between the Andes and the sea, possibly one-third of this extent, some hundreds of square miles, is covered with beds of columnar clay. Various rivers descending from the mountains traverse these plains, and unite in the head of the Gulf of Guayaquil. In the winter season these rivers bring down much mud, and overflow their banks, and inundate the lower plains for several months of each year. But the water, in passing over the banks, spreads out and loses much of its current force, which is reduced still more by passing through the vegetation on the surface, and the grosser part of the sediment is soon deposited, and the finest is carried on to the lower and lowest parts of the plains the most distant form the rivers, where it remains lake-like till the rains have ceased and the rivers fallen. It is those lower parts of the plains where the water remains longest that the columnar clay is formed, and presents a bed of black earth two to three feet deep, split vertically into columns of various angular shapes, and in the dry season the crevices or rents between the columns open much, and the clay of which they are formed becomes as hard as unburnt bricks, rendering the surface the most disagreeable for man or beast to travel over. But when the inundation comes again the columns swell and fill their spaces, and the surface becomes soft and boggy. The yearly deposit from the water there is very minute, and conforms to the same prismatic figure as that of the block of earth on the head of which it has settled. And thus the column, though extremely slowly, inrceases in height. At present they measure between two and three feet in height from their base cn clay, and average about one foot in breadth, or diameter. If we cross from one of those central beds towards a river where the grosser matter has settled, the columnar character diminishes, GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. 87 and ultimately disappears, and the earth becomes more of a reddish colour. The columnar bed is of black earth, and overlies a bed of clay, which in places is of a bluish- white colour, or light blue and finely foliated, but with distance from the mountains it •changes in both texture and colour, being, in the more elevated parts of the plain, of a light red colour. Thus we find that we have a clay formation in progress on the surface of the earth which differs in no particular from the columnar basalt, excepting in hardness, which it might have acquired also in case of being subjected to an amount of pressure ^qual to what had been borne by the basalt. It is remarkable, however, that the ordinary columnar basalt is not derived from ejected mud, but is the result of sedimentary deposits from periodical overflows of river water. But we are taken aback in the course of our determinations by being informed that at Fair Head (Antrim) there are basaltic columns 150ft. high and sft. in diameter, and these gigantic columns should have taken their place in the Giant’s Causeway. Certainly it was not from any annual overflow of water that these singular results were due, but the intermittent flow of the subterranean mud was undoubtedly responsible for the peculiar formation. But we have not sufficient information to guide us to conclusions regarding it. Assays of the stone, to determine the proportions and nature of its elements as compared with those of the Giant’s •Causeway, may determine if they are of the same legitimate family. The latter is said to be composed of felspar and horn- blende. If those pillars of Fair Head were in joints like those of the Giant’s Causeway, we might attempt an explanation, which is this : The opening of fissures in all cases is the result of contraction or shrinking, and affords means of escape for the vapours that 88 GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. may be generated in the mass of mud, but if the first deposit beneath those mighty masses were fluviatile, like the clay columns, of Ecuador, and parted into prisms by the drying effects of sunt and air, then occasional outpourings of the subterranean mud over this, some of the rents at least of the underlying stratum,, aided by pressure, might be continued up through the overlying one, to afford escape for vapours from below, and so communi- cate or continue the rents from one to another to the uppermost bed. The columns of the Gianfs Gausew^ay are said to measure thirty feet in height, which, if they were of fluviatile origin, would intimate their having been formed under annual inundations to- at least that depth, which, though possible, may seem excessive ; but their construction may have occurred when the sea was making one of its encroachments on the land, and augmented not only the columnar clay, but also the concurrent strata of other rocks. But it is stated that the columns separate into blocks of a foot or more in length, which is not a common characteristic of columnar basalt. This would indicate a series of outflows of liquid mud. In California I have seen the beds of the amorphous basalt and those of the columnar character massed up in alternate levels. But we are given an instance of such phenomena much nearer ^ home, and equally illustrative of their history. In Antrim,'*' says Sir R. Phillips, ‘‘ the basalt and basaltic columns rise in sets one above the other, to the number of sixteen, of which six are columnar ” (Mil. Facts, col. 296). In these examples we are presented with the basalt in its two* principal characters and separate origin — the fluviatile columnar and the subterranean amorphous. The very presence of the columnar formation in contact with the amorphous basaltic beds. GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. 89^ over and under them, but separated by well-defined lines, and betraying no indications of transition or connection, testifies, distinctly that it owes not its origin to erupted matter of any description, but was slowly formed of sediment on the base, where it still rests, while the other solid but level beds are distinctly of the erupted class. What claims to be wondered at here is the great length of time indicated by the alternate formations entering into the construc- tion of this great mass of rock. The eruptions of mud (of which there were ten) may have succjeeded each other only after long intermediate periods, as indicated by the presence of the columnar beds (six in number) ; but the eruptions, when they occurred, were likely to have been sudden, and of short duration, and each eruption deposited a bed of fluid mud. The case of the columnar form was, however, different from this. Sitting on a low but even surface, and receiving annually a small augmentation of the finest sediment from the overflowing of some river, it slowly rose a few feet, in periods exceeding a thousand years, when again it was buried beneath a bed of primary mud. We have in our own times examples of the primary stage of the formation of basaltic rock, both amorphous and columnar. The volcanoes of the Andes and those of Java, and the mud volcanoes in other parts of the world, have thrown out great masses of mud for the future formation of rocks of the former class, and the clay columns, of which I have noted the examples afforded by Ecuador to represent the latter. But we know of no recent or even of ancient lakes of glowing lava that rock forms no level beds like the basalt, nor yet so dense a rock. True, there are rocks of lava about volcanoes, but they bear no com- parison to the extent of the basalts. There is no trace of a volcano in Antrim, but there are the dykes passing up through 90 GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. the coal formation and the secondary rocks, through which the mud was forced up and over the surface. Those dykes are filled with basalt — petrified mud. STORMS: ATMOSPHERICAL AND SUBTER- RANEAN. Atmospherical storms, developed in wind and rain, thunder and lightning, are referrable to electrical changes which have been induced by great and unequal distributions of heat. Let us apply the same rule to subterranean storms — earthquakes — and endeavour to trace the parallelism and conformity to the established laws of Nature. But to this end it is necessary to discover and trace the sphere of action observed by each, and the immediate cause leading to that action in each class of storm. In commencing this inquiry we must observe that heat and electricity, whatever their nature may be, are the moving agents in producing storms of either class. Storms, however, are but an oxcess of action in the usual and necessary operations of Nature, and are therefore but an effort of Nature to restore to a state of equilibrium the course of operations necessary for the well-being of the terrestrial system. In regard to this question we will go no further back into the details of the history of the earth than is necessary to enable us to understand the present state and operations of its atmo- sphere, waters, and rocks, as acted upon by heat and electricity, • or as may be determined by example and by experiment. The original solid interior mass of the earth is hidden from GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. 91 view by enveloping rocks of unknown depth, and varying mineral constitution, and all of them that are visible afford evidence of their having been formed under the agency of water, air, and electricity. These rocks are not visible to us excepting at their upper edges, or where overlying strata have been removed by cohesion and the transporting power of water, while their heavy abutments are deep beneath the deepest sea. From these facts, we infer that when the earth (comet-like) first coursed through space on its airy though prescribed path, it did not possess a spherical figure, nor any other regular form; nor was it composed of plastic matter which would assume the spherical form, till enveloped by the atmosphere and sea, which, being fluid and free to move, or find a level, arranged themselves round the centre of gravity of the mass ; but this presented high points and lines, or edges, round and over which the growing rocks might mantle, the low depressions between to be occupied by the seas. Nevertheless, Nature has ever been endeavouring to produce, and has continued the effort, under Creative direction, to produce a more perfect sphere. The work of creation on earth does not cease, but progresses by stages, and suits the inhabitants to the conditions of each stage, as the ancient fossiliferous rocks clearly demonstrate to us. To understand these conclusions, however, in regard to earth- quakes and volcanoes, it is necessary, in the first place, to observe the general disposition of the rocks ; and in the second place, the evidence the earthquakes and volcanoes afford us in relation to the rocks in which they originate. In this course the granite rocks are the first to claim our attention, in regard to which we simply disagree with the doctrine which represents granite to be an erupted rock. On the contrary, from considerations of its extent, the place it holds in the order of the rocks, the 92 GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. construction of its parts, and the associations it presents, it is neither an erupted nor an altered rock, and we are therefore com- pelled to consider it as the first of earthborn rocks. Occupying the solid foundation on which it was first formed, it comes first in the order of the rocks ; and we observe that it occupies the central line of all mountain ranges and presents the highest points round which the crystalline rocks of the same family were mantled in the order of their deposition. But since the day when the first drop of rain fell on those peaks, since the first sea-given vapours were condensed over the lands and commenced their disintegrating influence on the primary rocks, the result of gravity has been, through the instrumentality of water, to carry down material to the lower places, and produce a more even form of the surface generally. Agreeably with this law of gravitation the transition system was deposited. Another contribution to the building of these rocks was the organised forms which had come into existence along with them. These banded round the primary rocks, but at much lower levels, and were followed in the order of deposit by the secondary series, which again were followed by the tertiary deposits at a still lower level and greater distance from the primary heights. So the process of levelling continued, and continues through the present time, continually increasing the depth and weight of the rocks over the lower parts of the surface, extending beneath the sea; while the higher portion suffers the reverse. Geologists say there are twenty-eight well- defined divisions of stratified formations, and the thickness of these has been variously calculated to be from five to ten miles. I do not enter into these calculations, but merely accept them as a base by which to demonstrate my present proposition. Probably under the deep ocean they exceed that amount — from which circumstance some perception may be formed of the GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. 93 immense weight and pressure superimposed on the lower primary rocks. And they, like all the succeeding strata, being of various mineral or metalliferous qualities, are overlying each other, like the pile of a voltaic machine, the result being apparent. This vast amount of pressure on the primary rocks, which pressure has been continually increasing, began, during the formation of the secondary system, to exhibit the natural result in heat and electrical action, thereby producing the first earthquakes and the fusion of matter. Excited electricity within the rocks always seeks the surface. To attain this end it follows the ascent through the beds of strata leading from the space in which it has been generated, because rocks differ in their capacity for heat and for conductors for electricity, arising from their different mineral composition. The rocks will part most easily in the line of their stratification upward. Moreover, two rocks, embedded the one over the other, may be possessed of different minerals, through which they will act galvanically on each other, and thus establish a line for escape. Mineral acids and water contained between the beds will also afford it a force and conduction. In its passage it decomposes water, liberates acid, and suddenly expands in the gaseous form*, dissolving rocks and mineral sub- * Carbonic acid, according to Dr. Faraday, may be liquefied at 32° by a pressure of 36 atmospheres ; M. Thelosier found that it expanded to 400 times its own volume. Water can absorb much acid without increasing its own bulk. Professor Daubeney ascribes earthquakes and volcanoes to the access of water to the inflammable bases of the earths and alkalies. In this the professor discovered the secondary cause, but passed by the primary unobserved. Humboldt and Davy also ascribe volcanoes to the oxidation of the bases of the alkalies and earths. Here, likewise, the prime-movers — gravitation and electricity — have passed unobserved. The water and the alkalies, separated in their primary arrangement, required the agency of another force to bring them into contact before there could be any demonstration of their united force. Water burns potassium, 94 GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. stances in its escape towards the surface, increasing in quantity as it proceeds, and expanding its proportions as the mass of the rocks under which it passes onward decreases in depth and weight, producing undulations (or rather unbroken waves), which increase in violence as they approach nearer to the surface, when they force a passage outward. The rocks subjected in this manner to the influence of acid and heat become in part calcined and disintegrated, and are driven along the passage with violence and ground to dust by friction, or fused by the heat and electricity thus produced. A line of granite hills arrests the onward course of an earth- quake, and prevents its passing from one side over to the other, from which circumstance we may conclude originates strata more recent, and over the granite, and its force of action follows an accustomed course. Countries near to mountain chains are the most subject to the destructive effects of earthquakes, not only because the waters on the mountains enter and descend between fractured and exposed strata, and encountering heating agents, serve to produce explosions by steam, but also because the rocks thin out toward calcium, &c., and heats all alkaline bodies by imparting its oxygen to them, but all these being by natural arrangement parted from each other require a disturbing power to bring them into action in the production of earthquakes, volcanoes, and hot springs. The smoke arising from a volcano consists principally of the vapour of water in which is mingled carbonic, sulphuric, or muriatic gas. The expansive force produced in fluids by electricity is very remarkable, and is productive of some singular results. Where a charge is strong, no glass vessel can resist the sudden impulse. Beccaria inserted a drop of water between two wires in the centre of a solid glass ball of two inches diameter. On passing a shock through the drop of water the ball was dispersed with great violence. In like manner, by the sudden expansion of a small body of confined air, strongly-electrified explosions may be produced. (Olmstead, p. 241.) GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. 9 their upper edges, and yielding easily to be lifted, distorted, and broken. The matter thrown out by volcanoes, solid, liquid, or gaseous, is derived from the stratified or laminated rocks, and (excepting what has been thrown out by the oldest volcanoes) principally from above the primary crystalline series. Fragments of the secondary and tertiary rocks may be found in recent lava and volcanic trash. In regard to the volcanic system of Southern Europe, it may be observed that there is a central tract where the greatest earthquakes- prevail, in which rocks are shattered, mountains rent, the surface elevated or depressed, and cities laid in ruins. On each side of this line of greatest commotion there are parallel bands of country where the shocks are less violent. At a distance still less (as in Northern Italy for example,, extending to the foot of the Alps) there are spaces where the shocks are much rarer and more feeble. The earthquake which destroyed Lisbon is said to have extended westward, even to America. The great wave came from the ocean, and has been calculated to have travelled at the rate of twenty miles per minute. The periodical earthquakes that occur in Chili, Peru, and Ecuador are known to come a long way from the westward, under the Pacific Ocean. On the 20th February, 1835, the Chilian Andes, a range of 150 miles, was at points in a state of unusual activity, and the island of Juan Fernandez, 360 miles from Chili, was violently shaken. In regard to the great earthquake of the 8th of May, 1868, on the coast of Peru, a Tahitian brigantine, when in latitude 35° 30' south, and 104 " 52' west, experienced a severe shock of an earth- quake. This occurred in the deep sea south from Polynesia, 2,040 geographical miles distant from Arica, and twenty-six hours before the earthquake burst at that place, and in the quarter from whence came the great wave. -96 GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. From these and many other corresponding facts we feel justified in concluding that the force producing earthquakes does not ascend vertically through the rocks from a central point or source beneath the volcano or elsewhere — otherwise the shock would be simultaneously and equally exerted on all sides of the centre. In that case the Chilian earthquake, just noted, should have been felt as sensibly at Monte Video as at Juan Fernandez ; But we have no account of the earthquakes of the Pacific side of South America extending to the eastern slope of the Andes. This phenomenon was noted by Mr. Darwin, who says ; — At Mendoza, at the eastern foot of the Cordilleras, only gentle oscillations transmitted from the shores of the Pacific, have ever been experienced. <(Geol. of S. America, p 14.) It is further remarkable that since Mr. Darwin wrote those observations the city of Mendoza was destroyed in March, 1861, by a terrific earthquake, in which ten thousand persons perished. This earthquake came from the Atlantic, and the western side of the Andes remained undisturbed by it. Still more remarkable was the immunity experienced by the people of Cayambi. Their town, built at the base of the grand old volcano of the same name, seated on the equinoxial line, and mantled with snow escaped ; the great earthquake of Ibarra and eruption of Cotocachi, August 16, 1868, which overthrew the towns of Ibarra, Otovalo, Cotocachi, &c., experienced a heavy shock on the coast. At Cayambi they had a shock which did some slight damage to walls ; and although in the night, not one life was lost ; while on the opposite or western side, of the valley, and but a few miles distant, all the towns and villages were laid in the dust, and all the inhabitants killed or buried alive beneath the ruins of their habitations. GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. 97 The heat of the atmosphere is in part the result of its own pressure on itself, and in greater part produced by the rays of the sun being contracted by passing through the spherical or convex surface of the atmosphere. The heat vaporises water on the surface of both sea and land. Heat and evaporisation are also produced by the friction of the wind disturbing the surface of the ocean, and by currents in rivers and the atmosphere when loaded with hydrous vapours. As in clouds, heat is concentrated or condensed by electricity, as in the thunderstorm, and falls of rain over the surface of both land and sea. On the unequal slopes of the land it gravitates towards the more depressed lines, and forms streams of various proportions, and these all ultimately uniting,, become rivers, which sometimes, in case of storms, become torrents and floods ; bursting over their banks, cause inundations and form new channels for their accumulated waters, and finally flow into the ocean by one or more openings. In the subterranean storm the heat originates in the pressure of the rocks on themselves, to which is added that of the atmo- sphere and ocean. The intense pressure, especially beneath the deep sea, where the deposited rocks of themselves are most deeply bedded, besides being loaded by the overlying ocean, the intensely slow yielding to the enormous weight produces a move- ment and friction amongst the included particles, producing heat, which is followed by electricity, gases, and the decomposed vapours of water. All the earth-born rocks or deposits, from the lowest granite up to the most modern clays, contain imprisoned water, which, when acted upon by electricity and converted into vapour or decomposed, and its explosive gases inflamed and set free by the same means, has power enough to force its way out, and any surface water that may have filtered down between the rocks, or down volcanic channels, and acted on in a similar G 98 GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. manner by heat and electricity, is sufficient to produce all the phenomena of earthquakes and volcanoes. It may be thought that we presume too much on the effects of the heat generated in the rocks by pressure and the electricity excited by this heat ; but these are facts, not fancies, and have their natural purpose. Any of those gentlemen who were interested in the progress of geology thirty to forty years ago may remember the speculations then indulged in regarding the temperature found in deep wells and mines, and that some doctors, presuming on a continued increase of heat to a proportional rate of depth, calculated the depth to where the interior of the earth must be in a state of fusion, in which operation they either overlooked or were ignorant of two notable principles in the operation of Nature, which claim to be remembered in such speculations. The first is that heat is produced in matter by increase of pressure, friction, or concussion (which latter is but a form of pressure) ; the second, that increase of pressure proportionately resists the fusion of matter by heat. An illustration of the latter principle is afforded by the water, or boiling-point barometer, used in finding the altitude of places above the level of the sea. The principle on which it is used is that an increase of the weight of the atmo- sphere, obtained by decsending from a higher to a lower level, increases the resistance to boiling and the production of effective steam ; while a reduction of the atmospheric pressure, obtained by ascending to greater altitudes, produces the opposite effect. The same results attend the fusion of metals or other matter. Gravity is the acting principle, both in causing heat in pressible matter, and resisting fusion through the accumulation of that heat. The sea, like the atmosphere, exercises a pressure downwards, GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. 99 in proportion to its comparative gravity and depth, as is estab- lishediby well-known experiments ; and if the sea and atmosphere exercises a pressure in proportion to their mass and density, it follows that the rocks do so likewise. Water, being incom- pressible, its pressure in the sea produces no heat in the water ; but the atmosphere, being compressible, becomes heated under pressure, and in like manner, but in a less degree, the rocks are compressible, and therefore capable of being heated by pressure, which is the true source of the elevated temperature found to r prevail in deep wells and mines. So great was the interest felt regarding the internal heat of the earth, that, at a meeting of the British Association, means were adopted to collect information regarding the increase of tempera- ture in relation to depth in deep mines in Britain and on the Continent. But the result staggered that faith, because it indicated that after a certain depth the rate of increase for depth became a decreasing rate, instead of being on the increase, as it should be if the heat was the result of radiation from a central fire. This effort having failed, a certain geologist produced a work of considerable proportions, in which he endeavoured to prove that the heat within the earth was derived from the sun, and drawn down from the surface by absorption. We will leave that theory unmolested, and to enjoy its merits. The parallelism between the atmospherical and the suhter- ranean storms lie in inverted or opposite order. The rocks beneath the seas resemble inverted mountain ranges, moulded into the hollows of the ancient nucleus of the earth. In the atmospherical storm the vapours carried by the atmosphere are precipitated and thrown down as water ; but in the subterranean disturbance the water contained in the rocks is dissipated and thrown up as vapour. The water produced by the thunderstorm lOO GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. collects into streams and rivers, and descends to the sea. The earthquake vapours, in like manner, collect in the readiest channels and unitedly rush as a flood upwards to the volcanoes mouth, and mingle with the atmosphere. All earthquakes are not accompanied mth devastation or volcanic eruption. Neither are all thunderstorms productive of disastrous floods or inunda- tions. A river may so choke its passage with the matter brought down by its own current that at times of flood it will be disposed to burst over its banks to seek a less obstructed passage. It is in this manner that river deltas are formed. A landslip, as we are aware, may dam up a river, and cause it to find another course; and so the falling-in of rocks, undernined by earth- quake currents, or the falling in of a portion of a volcanic cone, may cause the vapour currents to burst out at another place. We have observed that in the heat and density of the atmo- sphere the former is in part and the latter entirely due to its own pressure or gravitation on its own mass, in proportion to the depth below the external surface of the same, and results from its elasticity and compressibleness, and therefore we find that its density and heat decreases by degrees as we ascend to great eleva- tions, and its heat is in great part derived from the direct rays of the sun (see Appendix 6), augmented in their intensity by being deflected inward, as towards a centre, by the convex surface of the spheroidal atmosphere presented to them, as in the manner of a burning lens. The heat we find generated in the rocks, and to increase by degrees with the increase of depth below the surface, as is observed in deep wells and mines. It arises, likewise, from their compressibility, and when, by irregular causes, the heat amounts to an excess in localities or tracts beneath the sea bottom, it produces subterranean storms, named earthquakes. The atmo- GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. lor spherical storm is also caused by local excessive accumulations of heat. Chimborazo and Cotopaxi — the former a long since silent but great volcano, and the latter, its neighbour, a more recent and active one — are enveloped in eternal snow ; and they, with their fellow snow-clad peaks of the Ecuadorian Andes, divide the waters which flow from thence to the two great land-dividing oceans. What a glorious view for the voyager who, like us, after climbing the weary paths through the mountain passes, to stand in the midst of the plain of Riobama, and in wonderment admire the grandeur of the surrounding scenery ! Standing there in a mild, agreeable climate, beneath the vertical sun of the torrid zone, and looking northward, contemplating the lofty snow-- clad peaks, on his right side rises craggy Cubilin ; next, the picturesque pinnacled Altar ; and in the vicinity of this the tall> beautiful cone of Tunguragua, not yet extinct, but not frequent in eruption. Still farther on rises the oft-blazing cone of Coto- paxi ; while on the left stands the lofty king of the Andes, Chimborazo, with his double-peaked crown. These, with some minor snow-clad old volcanic peaks, extend to the southward from the equator. Let him ride gently two days further north- ward along the great Andean valley, and from a point not far from the very ancient city of Quito, and while still in near view of Cotopaxi, see the grand, hoary, and symmetrical cone of Cayambi, snow-mantled, and sitting on the equinoctial line. Further northward stands Imbambura, and opposite to him the terrible Cotocachi ; while near by, on his left, the ancient, truncated, yet snow-topped, Pichincha. The highest sources of the rivers which descend indiscriminately to both oceans are the crystalline snows of Chimborazo and Cotopaxi. The dissolving snows on the western side of Chimborazo, with many other 102 GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. tributaries, descend to the river of Guayaquil, and thereby enter the Pacific Ocean, and that from the east side crosses the valley (the heart of the Andes), and uniting with various streams forms the river Pastasa, an arm of the mightiest of rivers, the Amazon, which mingles its waters with the central Atlantic Ocean. Coto- paxi, in like manner, sends streams of water to both oceans. But as the rivers Amazon and Guayas have their most elevated point of connection of their waters in the region of congelation and cold, while they have their respective outlets for their accumulated waters in the opposite oceans, shall we argue from this circumstance that the river Amazon is united with the river Guayas, or that the waters of the Atlantic are united to those of the Pacific Ocean by the snow mantles of Chimborazo and Cotopaxi ? In this one sense they are united by water, in the fixed state of snow needing heat to dissolve and render it active ; and in a corresponding sense volcanoes may be united at their deepest source by inactive heat, and thus Cotopaxi may be united with the volcanoes of the Mediterranean or West India Islands, and Chimborazo with Polynesia and the East Indian Islands. But it does not follow, from these circumstances, that the rivers on both sides of a mountain range should be flooded at corre- sponding times, as heavy rains on one side, or in one locality, may produce separate and independent floods ; and the vapour flood of the earthquake, in like manner, being generated more abundantly in one direction away from the divisional earthquake line, may produce an earthquake in that direction ; while also the disturbance may excite or afford cause for another burst in another direction at the same time, or soon after, from the central line, the same as a recent eruption of Cotopaxi, by which hot water and mud were thrown out, and, by melting the external snow, sent destructive floods in various directions. GEOLAGICAL MECHANISM. IO3 Water, from its degree of gravity, being much greater than that of air, descends to the ocean of water ; but vapours, from their volatility, being lighter than air, ascend to the volcanic vents, where they can mingle in the higher and lighter atmosphere. Streams of water descending from the side of a mountain range connect and unite in the lowest lines of the surface, and form rivers before entering the sea. So the vapour streams, in their inverted order, follow the upper lines, under the covering rock, leading upwards, uniting and forming gaseous torrents, which escape at the mouth of the volcanoes. The area of the surface of the earth, which contributes its waters to one principal river, is named, in physical geography, the watershed of that river, though this may be made up of many minor watersheds. But we have not yet given a corresponding name for the area from which subterranean vapours collect in ascending to the volcano. We will, therefore, in the absence of a more appropriate term, say vapour sheds, though, being covered by the rocks constituting the external watershed ; and while water descends by the lines of lowest depression externally, and cuts its channds in the outer surface of the rocks towards the central line (the river), the vapours ascend beneath the same rocks, following upward the lines leading to the central current, and cutting their channels on the under surface of the overlying or roofing rocks upwards to the volcano. Accordingly, the subterranean and the atmospherical storms are separated by the encasement of rocks with which the mass of the earth is enveloped. APPENDIX TO GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. It is an essential characteristic of the scientific spirit that it not only acquaints itself with a multitude of phenomena but arranges such phenomena in harmonious systems which display prevailing laws and point to original forces. We may have accumulations of facts without science, and may go on adding to the store without directly advancing science. Some master mind must come and treat the accumulation scientifically. The discovery of a new fossil, or a new mineral, or, in the present state of chemistry and astronomy, of a new metal, or a new asteroid, or in mental science the mere noting of a hitherto unnoticed form of action, may be an entirely insignificant event. The process of fact accumulation often goes on for a long time without any result of import- ance to science as such. It is not a useless process, because facts are the A B C, or the bricks and mortar, of science, but they are not science — what we so name in the architectural thought into which the bricks and mortar of facts are wrought, and by which we secure a harmonious unifi- cation of phenomena. — E, Hungerford, APPENDIX. APPENDIX No. I. TAILS OR ATMOSPHERES OF PLANETS AND COMETS. The elongation or approach to ellipticity found in the orbits of the planets is the result of the remaining portion of the projectile force in its approach to a balance with that of gravity, when its orbits should be, in its relation to the sun, a perfect circle, with the sun in the centre. The same in relation to a comet The force of projection applied to it might carry it on in the same direct line for ever, were it not for the opposing forces of gravity and aerial resistance. The distance to which the projected mass can go is in proportion to the amount of force with which it had been projected, and when it has gone as far as the aerial resistance will permit, the comet then yielding to the attraction of gravity commences slowly its return towards the sun, and its motion increases in velocity in a ratio equal to that assigned to falling bodies, less what may be due to the resistance of the universal air. But the return towards the sun is continually being accelerated, so that the returning force and velocity obtains to be nearly equal to the projectile force with which it departed from the sun. It passes part way round the sun, and the great velocity and force it has then attained (being nearly equal to that of the first projection). no APPENDIX TO GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. it flies off, as though projected again into space, losing slowly its velocity until it is again overcome by aerial resistance ; and so it continues, that each projection or departure carries it a somewhat less distance than the preceding, and there is a continuous decline in the length of its orbit. The comet, in its first projected course, goes in a right line till arrested by the resisting force of the universal air, from whence its return commences in the character of a rebound, sending it back in the same line in which it had gone out, in which course the tail (like the feather to an arrow) tends to retain it. But in the meantime the sun has moved aside in following the course of its own orbit, and its continual and increasing attraction still acting on the comet, draws from the right line of projection and rebound, and thereby causes it to describe or follow a curved line, till, with the increasing velocity under the increasing gravitat- ing attraction of the sun, it is drawn part way round that body> the projecting force then acquired carrying it away again. In the continuation of this process of going and coming, and the sun shifting its place on its orbit, the orbit of the comet becomes shorter and wider, continually approaching more and more to the circular form. The acquisition of a tail (or atmosphere and sea) arises from two sources — first, the mass of the planet, or comet, after being thrown out from the sun, is relieved from the pressure it endured while it remained a part of that body. Much of its external material, helped by the heat carried along with it from the solar volcano, expands and resumes the original gaseous state ; and in the second and more especial place it communicates its electricity and attraction to the hitherto unelectrified gases in the far distant parts of space into which it passes, which accordingly adheres to the tail and follows in the wake of the comet. APPENDIX TO GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. Ill APPENDIX No. 2. THE MAGNETIC POLE AND CHANGE OF CLIMATE. The proof that the mean temperature of the western coast of North America is higher than that of the eastern coast. (See Journal of Geog, Society y vol.ix,, pp. i68 and 216; Richardson’s “Arctic Expedition,” vol. ii. pp. 214, 218, 219, 259-60). This is well illustrated by the botanical fact that on the west coast Coniferae grow as high as 68° or 70° north latitude, while on the east their northern limit is 60°. (See an essay on “ The Morphology of the Coniferae.” Report on Botany by the Ray Society, p. 8, which should be compared with Forray on “ The Climate of the United States and Endemic Influence.” New York, 1842, p. 89.) But in reference to South America a different train of circumstances come into play, for the law by virtue of which the eastern coasts are colder than the western is not only inapplicable to the southern hemisphere, but is replaced by another law precisely the reverse. North of the equator the east is colder than the west, south of the equator the east is hotter than the west. (Buckle, “ Civilisation,”) At the time this difference of climate, as observed by Mr. Buckle^ existed between North and South America, the north magnetic pole was in less than 90“ west, and the south magnetic pole correspondingly about 90° east. This opposite position of the poles was the cause of the opposite, arrangement of climate on the opposite extremities of the continent of America. Since then the north magnetic pole has advanced into Baffin’s Bay, and the meridian of greatest cold passes by Newfoundland, which accounts for the inclemency of the weather now prevailing there, and for the rise of the sea on those shores, as observed to have occurred since Cook surveyed them. The north magnetic tide and meridian of greatest cold commence departure from the eastern shores of North America ; while that of the south approaches at a corresponding rate towards the west coast of South America. 112 APPENDIX TO GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. It would be commendable for the Government of Britain and that of the United States of North America to cause rocks on their respective coasts to be marked, to register the rise or fall of the magnetic tides. The approach of the magnetic tide will afiford no apparent rise on the coasts of Europe for sixty years to come, but the sea may continue to recede thence till about the year 1940. APPENDIX No. 3. A PROPHECY. Shall I attempt to be a prophet ? — to tell of the future, or of the changes and visitations of the physical forces of Nature that shall come over people or places, for good or for evil? Yes. But if I do, my prognostications, without vague mystery, shall be more truthful than those of any preceding prophet. And though I consult the Divine will, as set fo^th in the laws and operations of Nature, I will not presume to say that I am moved by Divine inspiration or direct authority, nor yet by tuition ; but simply by induction drawn from the natural course of events, and an innate desire to understand them. So what I foretell is but qualified repetitions of what I have learned to know has passed before. The passage of the north magnetic pole from the New World to the Old World, and the attendant effects, will first occupy my consideration. Even now the chilling spirit of the frost-bound North is on its way to the East, and after rendering desolation more desolate on the lands round Hudson Bay and Baffin Sea, its life-quenching APPENDIX TO GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. II3 breath, blowing on Newfoundland, renders the ever-cold climate of that island hard to be borne. And such shall it be for years to come. But it is on the sea and the great highway between .the Jwo continents that its disastrous effects will be most keenly felt, for the floating icebergs will be carried to much lower lati- tudes, and the magnetic tide will press the Gulf Stream farther down southwards, and the climate of Western Europe will lose for a time much of the softening influence and humidity of the air borne eastward on its sun-heated flood. In the course of 140 years, or say a.d. 2020, the climate of Labrador and the south of Greenland will have passed across to Norway, Sweden, and the north of Scotland. Its approach will be indicated by the rising of the water of the Baltic Sea, and the encroachment of the ocean on the Atlantic shores of Europe, which will commence in about eighty years, or a.d. 1970, and Iceland and Finland will be desolated. In 140 years, or a.d. 2130, the magnetic pole will be entering the once populous Siberia, where now only the ragged old fag-ends of the Finnish tribes remain, and they are being rapidly blown away. Will the new population fare better, considering that each return of that frosty tide of sea and atmosphere — and it passes through that region from end to end — is colder than the preceding one ? Travellers who have been there state that much drift timber (preserved by the frost) is found far back from the present sea margin, which is an indication of the height of the last passing of the magnetic tide 400 years ago. GREENLAND. Greenland is probably the most poleward of inhabited countries, and the latest to be inhabited by man, whose ancient remains are not found there, nor in corresponding latitudes in the fossil state H 1 14 APPENDIX TO GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. with those of mammalia abounding there. Greenland was discovered and colonised by the Icelanders in the tenth century. This dreary country at the present time may be said to consist of rocks, ice, and snow, and it appears a wonder why it should have been selected as a locality for a colony; but Greenland was only 200 miles distant from and extends farther south than Iceland, and the southern part, perhaps, presenting a similar country and climate, caused it to be occupied. We find that the Greenlanders possessed cattle and sheep, where nothing of the kind now exists. This seems strange, for whereas at one time they found food for a winter of nine months, at present it presents nothing for cattle to eat. Intercourse was maintained with the colony till the fifteenth century (1406), when, by an increase of Arctic ice, which had been annally extending its domain, it was all but cut off from external communication. This was the time when the magnetic pole was passing over them, and this, combined with another cause, effected their annihilation. At this critical period (1379) the Skreilings or Eskimo (seen first by the Scandinavian navigators in north-east America, but driven out of that country by the redmen) first appeared in Greenland in the vicinity of the West Bygd. After they had augmented sufficiently, they attacked the colony, killed eight of the inhabitants, and carried away two boys. The people of the settlement then applied to their brethren of the East Bygd for assistance against the invaders, and when the relieving band arrived not one of their kindred was to be found in the district. Sheep and cattle, however, were scattered over the pasture, and the expedition, after having killed as many of these as they could convey to their ships, returned home, and no further attempt being made to recover the Western Bygd, the Eskimo remained APPENDIX TO GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. 1 15 in peaceable possession. The Austi (Eastern Bygd) having been always the more populous and thriving of the two, continued to exist some time longer ; but the Eskimo, with continuous arrivals, continued to increase, and from a letter of Pope Nicholas V., in 1448, we learn that, early in the fifteenth century, a canoe fleet of their pagan neighbours cruelly wasted the colony, killing or carrying off most of the able-bodied men, so that Divine worship had almost ceased. He therefore entreated the Icelandic bishops to whom this epistle was addressed to take pity on their wretched countrymen, and if possible to send some qualified person to preside over their spiritual concerns. We do not know the result of this appeal. It would appear that a residence of four or five centuries in that climate had produced a great physical change on the natural constitutions of those colonists, and the additional severity of the climate under the passage of the magnetic pole had chilled their souls, their energies, and their courage, and thus they succumbed and sank rapidly before the inv^asion of the Eskimo, and allowed themselves to be killed or carried away bodily — and for what end they knew not — by that dwarfish race, who must have brought with them their American energy and bravery, the bequeathment of a salubrious climate, but which has been lost in their descen- dants under the life-depressing sky of Greenland. The colonists had a succession of seventeen bishops, the last being named in the year 1406. Their settlements contained several churches and monasteries, the names and positions of which may be traced on the map by Torfagus, from which it would seem that the colony extended over a space of about 200 miles along the south-eastern extremity of the country. On the west some ruins of churches have also been discovered. Such conditions would indicate a population superior to that of the Eskimos at any period since then. ii6 APPENDIX TO GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. The existing race of Greenland I find described in the following manner : — The tallest among them rarely exceed five feet, their mean height being only four feet three inches. Though well proportioned, they are by no means vigorous or athletic, and are in general much inclined to obesity. With a full fleshy person and prominent paunch, they have broad flat faces, high cheek bones, black, diminutive, inanimate eyes, with thick under lips, and a profusion of coarse coal-black hair, hanging in long elfin locks about their reddish-brown countenances. Towards the close of the last century their number was esti- mated at about ten thousand, but later accounts would seem to say that their numbers are fast diminishing; and after the magnetic climate under which they are now enveloped has passed away there will be but a sorry account to be given of them. We learn from ‘‘Norway” {Chamberses Journal^ December, 1857) that the winter in Greenland was so unusually severe that 500 persons died of hunger owing to the ordinary supplies being cut off by the terrible weather. We may here observe that the influence of the magnetic polar tide extends to the distance of about 23 degrees on all sides from the centre, and therefore occupies much time in passing in all its breadth over one place in its central line. Valuable researches were made by the expedition commanded by Lieutenant Osborne which deserve notice. These established the fact that the Eskimo tribes, which now inhabit portions of the Arctic zone, were once very numerous along the whole northern shore of Barrow’s Strait and Lancaster Sound, and that formerly the Eskimoes were among the most widely diffused races on the earth, so far as superficial extent was concerned. From Melville Island, on the west, to the isolated inhabitants of Northern Greenland, called the Arctic Highlands, many strange APPENDIX TO GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. II7 and ancient remains have been discovered in various sheltered nooks and corners on the shore — such as rude houses, hunting posts, and graves, which clearly prove that the inhabitants who once dwelt in this sad and solitary clime have now become exterminated or have emigrated to some more genial region. ICELAND. This larrge island, about one-fifth larger than Ireland, is out- side the polar circle, but with its northern side laid against that circle. It was visited in 865 by a Norwegian named Floki Rafna, who named it Island, or Iceland, on account of its frosty, inhos- pitable aspect, though it was covered all over with a thick forest, which has long since entirely disappeared. A colony was settled on this island in 870 by Ingolf, which prospered and increased rapidly. The present population is estimated at about 50,000. It has frequently been affirmed that the inhabitants of the island have much exceeded the present number. The information on this head is not very clear. It appears, however, that there has been no increase since 1090, which was but little over two centuries after the first forming of the settlement. An opinion has long been very generally entertained that the climate of the northern regions of the earth has in modern times greatly deteriorated, and the history of Iceland — rather because its history is better known than that the evidence is more striking — has often been appealed to in proof of this position. Iceland is 200 miles east of Greenland, and lies south of the Arctic circle, which its most northern part touches. Though, as previously stated, a fifth part larger than Ireland at the present time, not more than four thousand square miles are habitable, all the rest being a gloomy desert of volcanoes and fields of lava enshrouded in a mantle of eternal ice. Il8 APPENDIX TO GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. The peculiar feature of Iceland lies in a volcanic region, which consists of two vast tablelands, above the surface of which rise correspondingly two ranges of (Jokuls, or) mountains, stretching from N.E. to S.W. through the very centre of the island, separated by a longitudinal valley nearly loo miles wide, which reaches from sea to sea. According to Glisman these mountains rise to considerable elevations, Orefe (perhaps the highest) being 6,240 feet, and Hecla, rising to 5,210 feet above the level of the sea. All these mountains are at the same time glaciers capped with ice that never melts. But these glaciers consist, not like those of Switzer- land, of great masses sloping down from the upper regions of the mountains to the valleys. They are the snows of winter melted and again solidified in summer. The rounded form of the granitic mountains permits the snow, that falls in great profusion during the winter months, and in smaller quantity during the summer, to rest on their tops and sides. The beams of the sun in the hot season, though strong enough to melt part of this during the day, are not sufficient to preserve its temperature above the freezing point, so that the water sinking down into the under portion is again congealed, and binds the whole into a solid mass of ice. The fogs rising from the surrounding ocean (which is here partially warmed with water from the Gulf Stream) are attracted towards these mountains and condensed in the form of snow on their cold summits, at once augmenting and consolidating the mass. Happy would it be for the inhabitants did these accumulations remain in the place where they at first were formed, dooming only the summits of the mountains to eternal sterility, but the continually accumulating snows add to their bulk till the resistance offered by the surface on which they rest being overcome by the vast pressure they expand, and forcing their way down the slopes in all directions invade the plains, laying waste the narrow fields and scanty pastures of the natives. Instances frequently occur when the Icelander, returning after years of absence in a foreign land to spend the evening of his life in the home of his childhood, finds its green valleys a desolate wilderness of ice. It seems to have been in this way, that Breida-mark Jokul, now 20 miles long by 15 broad, and 400 feet high, was formed. It fills a wide plain surrounded by high hills, which, till the nth cen- tury, or even later, was a beautiful vale, adorned with grass fields, woods, and farms. Iceland being only 200 miles from Greenland, in the line followed by the magnetic pole, it will require only six years to pass over from one land to the other. As the accompanying tide APPENDIX TO GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. II9 includes, to its extreme edges a space, of over 2,700 miles, both countries were much of the same time under its extremes of flood and temperature, Iceland being only a little later in experiencing its direst force. This may account for much of the suffering endured in Greenland, and also for the absence of succour from Iceland. The last visit of the magnetic tide occurred early in the thirteenth century, but, unfortunately, we possess no particular information regarding that period in Ice- land, and therefore have to rely on inferences. We learn, however, that extensive valleys, of which the Breida-mark Tokul was an example, in the end of the eleventh and as extending into the twelfth century, were occupied by farms and pasture lands, but are now covered by accumulations of ice hundreds of feet in depth. We may safely conclude that the magnetic polar tempera- ture caused this ruin. In regard to the Icelandic population of the same period — that is to say, at the close of the eleventh and entering the twelfth century — it may be taken at 50,000 ; but, whatever the casuali- ties of the thirteenth century may have been — and they must have been calamitous — the number shows no increase for the seven last centuries. It was during that terrible time that the Pope of Rome wrote to the bishops of Iceland, begging them to assist their brethren of Greenland. Apparently, the Greenlanders, feeling themselves neglected by the Icelanders, despatched a complaint to Rome, which resulted in the appeal of the Pope to the bishops of Iceland ; but, as already noticed, we know of no result from that letter. It is evident that the Icelanders had troubles enough of their own to contend with. But now that the magnetic tide is again at Greenland, and those now suffering under its severity being only a few soulless savages, half way out of the world 120 APPENDIX TO GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. already, neither monarch nor missionary care to recover them. But the Icelanders are a people of cultivated intelligence, and the magnetic tide, with its electric storms, will soon be around them, and pitiable will be their fate. But after much suffering has been endured and losses sustained, their case will arrest the sympathy of the Christian world on both coi)tinents to alleviate their sufferings*. After this^magnetic wave has passed, Iceland will be suitable only for summer fishing stations. It is not necessary to treat of Norway, Sweden, and Finland. Their destiny is not so nigh at hand, and when the destroying angel has attacked Iceland, and is spreading desolation, and they are aware that it is caused by the passing of the magnetic pole, and their own position lies in the line of its course, they may arrange for their own escape or provide against periods of distress or famine which may occur occasionally during the transit of that pole. But the change effected in the productive capacities of those countries will be great. Taking Iceland as an example, we find that preceding the last passage of the magnetic pole over that island there existed extensive natural forests and pastures, besides cultivated lands. The first of these have completely disappeared, and the latter two are tremendously diminished and deteriorated. As next to the sea in importance, the forests of Norway and Sweden yield most for the maintenance of their populations, and the destruction of these by the overwhelming * Their number is not great, and why not, like the Pitcairn Islanders, remove them to a more genial climate ? They are in general fishers, and if located on the shores of British Columbia might apply themselves to their accustomed occupations with advantage. But the voyage by sea is a very long one. The projected railroad from Hudson’s Bay to Lake Winnipeg, if completed, would afford a shorter journey, and Icelanders might even be employed in the construction of that line. But the Falkland Islands, would be more convenient and suitable to the pursuits of the people, and perhaps more acceptable. APPENDIX TO GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. I2I accumulations of ice and snow would be calamitous in the extreme. We may here state that each return of the magnetic pole comes with an increased intensity of cold, which is due to two causes — first, the declining obliquity of the axis of the earth, by which it approaches more to the \ertical with the plane of its orbit, causing the tropics each to contract about fifty seconds of a degree in a century, and allowing the frozen zone to follow to the same extent ; secondly, the declining depth and density of the atmosphere, by which a less amount of the heat of the sun is arrested and refracted to the surface of the earth, causing a general decline of temperature all over the world. We have not as yet obtained a rule by which to determine the rate of the declining weight of the atmosphere, but apparently its influence is as great as the contraction of the tropics in causing the expansion of the frozen zone. If for the former cause we reckon five-sixths of a mile, and for the depression of the atmosphere, ijth of a mile, we shall have by their union two miles in a century, which, for each return of the magnetic pole, would amount to over eleven miles. But this extension of the region of frost determines also, at the same time, an increased intensity of cold over the previously included surface. “ In personal appearance the Icelanders still retain many of the peculiar attributes of their Scandinavian ancestors, so well known By the blue eye, tall form, proportion fair, The limbs athletic, and the long light hair.” It is the first and last of these qualities, however, that are now most frequently found, the Icelanders being in general of moderate size and of a weakly constitution, the result of the poor- ness of their food and want of proper exercise when young. The 122 APPENDIX TO GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. head is moderately large, the countenance open, and the features, notwithstanding the rather projecting cheek bones, pleasing, especially in the fair sex. They have almost universally fine teeth and yellow flaxen hair. Cor- pulent individuals are seldom met with, though oftener amongst the women than the men. The melancholy character of the climate and scenery, together with the remembrance of the ruined glories of their country, has given a peculiar impress to the minds of the people. Dwelling in desolate places, deprived of almost all vegetation, in dark miserable houses, where the light of day scarcely penetrates, amidst rocks of rugged lava, or enclosed between the raging sea and the black cliffs, they become serious, quiet, humble, and little disposed to exert themselves unless impelled by necessity. Corn is cultivated to a limited extent. Hay is the great harvest in Ice- land. Those who live on the coast attend to fishing, which is very productive, and those a little farther inland rear cattle. The common food of the people is butter, milk, and fish ; fresh meat and rye bread are holiday fare. The exports consist of cod and other dried fish, whale oil, salted mutton, eider down, and sulphur, which is abundant. Turf is the common fuel of the inhabitants ; fossil wood, iron, and copper, are found. Taking another view of the results of the passing of the magnetic pole, we may observe that the lands it last passed over, and is now leaving behind, will have an improvement effected on their present state of climate. Thus along the north coast of America, including Canada, Labrador, and the new province of the Canadian Dominion as far as the Rocky Mountains, will be yearly improving for 300 years to come, and at the same time the climate and navigation of Hudson’s Bay will improve as the magnetic pole moves eastward. APPENDIX TO GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. 123 APPENDIX No. 4. MAGNETIC TIDE OF THE ATMOSPHERE. Evidence of the existence of a magnetic polar tide of the atmo- sphere is afforded by the isothermal lines, which, though not in regular circles (they being distorted by other attractions which they encounter in the inequalities of the surface of the earth, as seas, mountains, &c.), are arranged round the magnetic pole rather than the pole of rotation. This is in consequence of the tide of atmosphere collected over or around the magnetic pole. The convex surface of the atmosphere in all its parts causes the rays of the sun striking on it to be refracted or bent in towards the central mass of the earth ; and these magnetic tides of north and south, being the highest or most prominent parts, cause deviations of the direction of the rays of the sun, and arrange the lines of equal temperature on the surface of the earth in circuitous lines, inclining more round the magnetic pole than round the pole of rotation, round which the earth, in all its parts, revolves. The existence of this tide cannot be detected by barometrical measurements, because the force of attraction which draws the atmosphere to those poles can support it there in opposition to the force of gravity, which latter would tend to maintain a general level and common depth of atmosphere, and have the lines of equal temperature ranged round the poles of rotation. 124 APPENDIX TO GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. APPENDIX No. 5. THE ELASTIC VAPOUR HYPOTHESIS. This hypothesis of elastic vapours, designed to account for the apparent lifting up and settling down of continents, is a monstrous absurdity. I know not who conceived the idea, but the author of it, if he understood its utter mechanical inapplicability, should be ashamed to own it. It is an extension of the mythical hell of the ancient pagans, retained in the faith of the church, changing its name as its reputed qualities increase in its extension westward with the tide of civilisation. First described by the poets, it is named Tartarus; next by both Pagan and Papist priests, it is named Infernicum ; and further West it became the Christians’ Hell. Of late its existence has been considered by the third class of authorities, the philosophers, and by them it has been scientifically named the Incandescent interior. This mythical idea of a cavernous and fiery fluid condition of the interior of the earth, through its antiquity, through its promotion by poet, priest, and philosopher, so freely accepted by the superstitious mass, has become as an inborn or instinc- tive supernatural element, impressed as though stereotyped on the human intellect, passing from generation to generation, and from era to era, guarded by faith, fear, and clerical industry, as far as Christian, Mohammedan, or Buddhist faith extends over the world ; and although the one exists, and the other is but a myth, the advocate of the truths of Nature might be as successful in demonstrating to general satisfaction the non-existence of a Creator as of the non-existence of a hell under the surface of the earth, under one or other of the names assigned by poet, prophet, priest, or geological philosopher. But truth will in the end APPENDIX TO GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. 12 5 prevail, and the fact be acknowledged that the Supreme Creator gave a palpable existence to a solid earth. A fallible, fanatic fancy of men gave birth to the non-existent hollow hell, whether with its sulphuric fumes or its elastic vapours. It is with this latter presumed quality of the enclosed world of dark- ness we have now got to contend, for so resisting has it become to the approach of reason that even our physical philosophers (true to the old faith, and economical of their stock of reason), on the occasion of every new discovery of phenomena in the operations of Nature, whether in land, air, or sea, needing explanation, turn their thoughts, as though instinctively, to the mythical world of darkness, with its fire and vapours, as the sole though undemonstrated source of all earthly physical movements. Now, in these days of great inventions, it is judged necessary to admit steam power as an element of the internal machinery, in order to account for the varying relations of the sea level, and the altitude of the land above it, which is discovered to be continually varying, and thus by a very slow lifting up bodily of a continent, and letting it down again by means of the expansive force of steam. In this way they endeavour to account for the existence of elevated ancient sea beaches, and the changes of climate that have occurred from hot to cold, and from cold to hot, &c., simply because the elements of the machinery of Nature by which such physical changes are regularly effected in their season and order. But the proposer of the elastic vapour hypothesis (the scientific term elastic vapour hypothesis, reduced to mechanical phraseology, means steam, the vapour of water) should remember that the elastic force of steam, to be applied as a motive power, requires an engine, possessing a furnace, a boiler, and supplies of fuel and 126 APPENDIX TO GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. water, because fire cannot be in contact with water and produce effective steam for many centuries of duration, and steam must be confined under pressure to be possessed of power. Perhaps he would say that the central caverns of the earth would serve for steam generators, and hell fire, which is believed to be non- consuming and unquenchable, would supply the required steam even in contact with the bottom of the sea. But, supposing this to be possible, we must next suppose this internal machinery to be under some intelligent direction, to turn on or turn off the feed, or else the lifting process might be continued to an extreme and cause the rupture of a continent, or the sinking process might be allowed to continue to an excess, even down into the hollow interior, and the land sink beneath the sea level and be overflowed. It is true that a non-consuming fire would need no feeders, and the volcanoes might serve as safety valves to prevent continental explosion, but they could not prevent sinking too deep and crush out or drown the fire. Can it be the Prince of Darkness who presides over these works ? Is it to this, or is it to the order of Nature, that we should apply for an explanation of these phenomena? We are aware that there are volcanoes which occasionally belch forth flame, and a few which force out lava^ or fused rock, or earth material, and stones, all of which can be identified as belonging to rocks with which the mass of the earth has been coated. All volcanoes discharge steam, and some deluges of fresh water, mud, and occasionally fishes. Do such things as these exist in the supposed molten interior of the earth ? Volcanoes on the surface of the earth, in comparison, are no more than equal to eruptive sores on the skin of an animal, the cause of which may be explained by a physician. So volcanic eruptions are susceptible of explanation by tracing known physical causes to their natural results in the volcanic phenomena. APPENDIX TO GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. 127 Eruptive sores on an animal may heal up. Volcanoes^ in like manner, cease their discharges and heal up, and as a consequence there are more extinct volcanoes than active ones. Archimedes said, Give m.e a fulcrum on which to place my lever, and I will lift the world.’’ Steam, as a lifting power, no less than the lever of Archimedes, requires a fulcrum on which to base its force. The boiler is the fulcrum from which its force is applied to the piston to produce the motion required. But where is the fulcrum on which is based the force by which one end of a continent is lifted through and above the sea. This idea of interior elastic forces, by which to lift up continents, resembles much in character the contrivance of an ingenious person who set up a blowing machine in the stern of his boat in order to fill the sail with wind, and drive the boat along. APPENDIX No. 6. COMETS’ TAILS AND SUN HEAT. Newton supposed the tail of a comet to be produced by the heat of the sun on the atmosphere, cau^ng it to rise like the smoke entangled with heated air ascending a chimney. It is, unluckily, however, for this explanation, that the tail extends most from the side opposite to that exposed to the sun. It is a common idea that the comet experiences extraordinary heat in consequence of its near approach to the sun. The comparison, of course, is drawn from the heat we experience in the tropical parts of the surface of the earth. But there are conditions con- nected with the heat of the sun with which the scientific seem to 128 APPENDIX TO GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. be but slightly acquainted. Increase of heat does not always follow nearer approach to the sun. For instance, under the equator, if we ascend fifteen or sixteen thousand feet, or equal to three miles vertical elevation, in the Andes, where the sun’s rays fall most directly, we get into a freezing temperature, though by three miles nearer the sun. Philosophers endeavour to describe this low state of tempera- ture in the upper atmosphere as being caused by radiation throwing off the heat into space. But heat cannot be radiated while it is being received and absorbed. The surface of the earth absorbs heat from the sunbeams during the day, and at night communicates a portion to the atmosphere when it is becoming cooled through the absence of the sun or the ascent of its heat with humid vapour. Heat radiated from the hottest soils would not melt the snow that lies on the sides of Chimborazo ; but the greater heat of the sun on the lower altitude above sea level is due to two causes, the first of which is that the atmosphere is elastic and compressible, and therefore of its own weight is densest in its lowest stratum, and consequently the more capable of deflecting the rays of the sun down from its convex surface to its lowest stratum as towards a centre. It is a matter well known to engravers who require a strong concentrated light thrown on a small space on which they may be at work, that an empty glass globe, with a lighted candle placed behind it, will refract the light veiy slightly, but, when filled with water, becomes an excellent lense, and if the rays of the sun are allowed to pass through it it will be refracted in the same manner; but submerge it in water and it ceases to refract the rays of light, because the medium within and outside of the globe are of an equal density ; but submerge a solid glass globe, and it will be found to concentrate the rays of light while they APPENDIX TO GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. 129 pass through. Again, fill the hollow globe with condensed air, and it will refract rays of light in proportion to the degree of compression of the enclosed air, or if placed in a less dense medium, will give a corresponding result. From these facts I argue that our atmosphere, being surrounded by the extremely less dense universal ether, becomes a lens to collect the sun- beams and draw them towards its centre. And therefore, the nearer we can descend towards that centre, or focus, the hotter we shall find it. Were it possible that the atmosphere and the direct rays of the sun could to some considerable depth pene- trate the mass of the earth, it would be found in proportion to the depth to produce a heat equal to that which has been supposed by geologists sufficient to retain the central part in a state of fusion. We have frequently heard of the heat experienced in deep mines adduced as an evidence of the excessive heat of the interior of the earth. We have, however, one instance to produce as an example of the effect produced by the sun’s rays in passing through an extra depth of atmosphere. I allude to the valley of the Dead Sea, the surface of whose water is only 600 feet below that of the ocean. The United States expedition, when there in the month of April, 1848, experienced a temperature that it would be vain to seek for at that season anyvvhere on the same parallel of latitude. The excessive heat, combined with an increased atmospheric pressure, had a singular effect on the people of the expedition, and is remarkable for the similarity to that produced by excessive cold in a dense atmosphere, namely, a drowsiness that required a forced exertion to resist, while at the same time dangerous symptoms threatened the health of the party, and at the end of twelve days compelled them to seek a more healthy situation, and the Arabs considered them mad to remain so long as they did. I 130 APPENDIX TO GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. The commander, Lieutenant Lynch, did not believe there was anything pestilential in the atmosphere. There was very little vegetable decomposition to render the air impure, and the foetid smell they sometimes noticed proceeded from the sulphur- impregnated thermal springs, which were not considered dele- terious. Dead birds had several times been found, but he did not think their death had been caused by malaria. I will here propose another mechanical experiment to illustrate my own views regarding the heat of the sunbeams. Suppose we take an orange, or other spherical body, and coat it over with plastic wax, not evenly, but with prominent points, as imaginary mountains, then suspend the imaginary orb (the orange), and cause it to revolve gently near to the heat of a candle or before a fire. We shall find that the prominent points will be the first to melt, from which we may conclude that if the earth were heated only by the direct rays of the sun those elevated points, the mountains, should be the parts first and most excessively heated. But such not being the fact, we may safely conclude that the increase of heat attending the greater depth of atmosphere through which the rays of the sun may pass is effected by the refraction of the rays entering the convex surface of the atmo- sphere. Astronomers are well aware that the rays of light from the sun or other celestial bodies . are refracted and pass obliquely through the atmosphere, but so far as the temperature of the atmosphere is concerned, it seems to never have occurred to them that what refracts light will in like mannnre refract heat. But to return to our subject (the comet), and regarding it as possessed of an extensive atmosphere, capable of refracting the ^rays of heat from the sun, we may perceive the wise design in regard to its tail. Thus the comet, when nearing the sun, APPENDIX TO GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. 131 its velocity accelerated by the nearer attraction of that body, has its atmosphere drawn out into a bushy tail through the resistance of the universal ether, and as it approaches still nearer, and the velocity proportionately increases, the tail is more and more averted from the face of the sun. This is caused by the solid mass of the comet being more intensely attracted by the sun than the vapoury atmosphere during the rapid passage of the curve it describes in its near approach towards and departure from the sun. The tail in virtue of its momentum or disposition to go in a straight line, expands away from the comet, but is kept in contact, by its gravitation towards its centre. Thus the comet receives less of the heat of the sun by not having a deep atmosphere on the sunny side to refract and collect his rays. Figuratively speaking, the comet, when he finds himself hastening into hot regions, throws his mantle back from his shoulders, and lets it float on the wind produced by his own rapid flight through the thin air of illimitable space, and as he more leisurely returns to cooling distances from the sun, he draws by degrees the warming robe around him. Applying this law to the planets, we may discover another point of identity of the general character of the heavenly, bodies We are told by astronomers who have calculated the relative weight of the planets that they differ extremely in their densities. Thus, suppose the earth to be represented by i*oo. Mercury by I *12, while Neptune is only o’i4. It is observable, however, that they are less dense as their position is more distant from the sun. Mercury, the nearest, is the densest, and Neptune, placed at the greatest distance from the centre of the system, is the lightest. The sun, however, is an exception to the rule. Its density is set down at 0*25, or one-fourth of that of the earth; while opposite apparently to this it is calculated that in considera- 132 APPENDIX TO GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. tion of the great force of gravity, due to the mass of the sun, a portion of matter weighing one pound would exert a pressure at the surface of the sun nearly equal to what twenty-eight pounds would be at that of the earth. It is difficult to conceive how bodies of such greater magni- tude and power of gravitation should be less dense than others of immensely smaller proportions and apparently intended to to perform similar services. It is not mechanical that there should exist such departure from uniformity, and it ill represents the wisdom of the Mighty Engineer who designed and constructed the universe. An explanation of this is necessary. In entering on this effort it is besc to commence our inquiries at home, and discover from thence, as far as we can, the parallelism of phenomena throughout the system. The planets are all of the same family and parentage, and differ as little from each other as did the sons of Jacob at the various stages of life, including childhood, youth, manhood, and age. They were all of the same material, though they might differ mentally and physically. The history of onr earth, so far as we know of it, will assist in tracing out the state of the other planets, and their place in the order of time. The mass of the earth has been made the base of comparison by which to measure the densities of the sun and planets ; and in this operation the true mass of the earth is taken, without including the atmosphere in its dimensions. But in regard to the other bodies, their enveloping atmospheres were included in the measurement as the limits of the mass, simply because the bodies of those orbs were not visible through their impenetrable atmospheres, in which consideration we find the cause of those disparities regarding their densities. APPENDIX TO GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. 1 33 Elsewhere* we have demonstrated that all the rocks overlying the original mass of the earth, preceding the deposit of the new red sandstone, but including all the granites in a gaseous state, were components of the atmosphere, including the sea also, which first encased the earth, which at that time may have been as far from the sun as the planet Neptune is at present. For, irrespective of whatever astronomers may imagine regarding the permancy of forms and motions, all created forms, from a planet to a plant, have each their allotted period of existence, and must return to the place from whence they came. A comet is an infant planet, and the largest of these are projected farthest from the sun (similarly as a large ball can be projected from a cannon to greater distance than a smaller one), and by their attraction collect the remaining fragments of gaseous mattter in distant space to add to their atmospheres. The figure of the orbit described by a comet approaches to that of an elongated ellipsis, with the sun inside of the rapid curve at one end. The elliptical figure is caused by the impetus of the rotation of the sun, shared in by the comet before being projected into space, causing it to deviate from the direct line of projection. The attraction of the sun, acting in opposition to the projectile force, being in continual action, causes the orbit of the comet to shorten its length and expand its breadth, and to continue inclining more and more to the circular form. By this means the comet becomes a planet The smaller comets being of shorter period, and passing more frequently amongst the planets, are arrested by the superior attraction of the planet in whose vicinity they may be passing, and become moons ; some become planetoids, and others of still less proportions travel as meteors, till, getting entangled in the atmosphere of some planet, they fall to the surface. * See “ Epitome of the History of the Earth.” 134 APPENDIX TO GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. We have observed that the planets farthest from the sun are the least dense, which is computed from their apparent propor- tions compared with their weight. This false idea, arising from their being possessed of the greater depth of atmosphere, of impenetrable obscurity to external vision, adds much to the apparent magnitutde and comparatively little to the weight. Supposing there are inhabitants on the planet Neptune, or Herschel, as on the earth. The atmospheres are so loaded with gases and hydrous vapours that they could not see the sun. A planet in the early stages of its existence as such is unfit to support organised life. Its heat-hardened kernel affords no soil, its surface no water, and its atmosphere, filled with poisonous gases, is young and unproductive. When, however, by the forrha- tion of crystalline rocks, produced by the congelation of gases from the atmosphere, it has obtained the material for soil and a purer air, it is still unfit for habitation. After this, when the hydrous vapours are permitted to condense and fall in rain, the waters, combining with the oxygen of the atmosphere, decompose the surface of the crystalline rocks, andiproduce friable soils, and the rains produce riras, lakes and seas. But supposing those planets the more distant to have consolidated the grosser elements of their atmospheres, and have become possessed of symptoms of organised life, it follows, as we have shown in the instance of the earth, that the atmosphere is necessary to refract the rays of the sun to supply the necessary heat, and it follows that planets more distant from the sun, and arresting less of the radiated rays, need deeper atmospheres to collect them in sufficient quantity. ‘ A planet, in its course, is continually nearing the sun/ however imperceptibly it may be to astronomers. It is the law of Nature and of mechanism that it should do so. All space, so far, at least, as the heavens extend, is filled APPENDIX TO GEOLOGICAL MECHANISM. 1 35 with an excessively thin, light air, which, though it conducts the light and heat of the sun, and the forces of gravity and magnetism also act through it, is unattractable to gravity, and is untraversed by electricity. But thin and airy as it may be, it presents some amount of resistance to the tangential progress of a comet' The gravitating force of the sun gains thereby, and the planet is drawn nearer home. At the same time, the atmosphere and oceans of the planets decline in depth, through the continuance of the solidifying process. Thus, both sources of life decline, and, consequently, the heat from the sun. INDEX. Atmosphere, the, is compressible, and is heated by its own pressure on itself... Basaltic rocks, the material of the their origin not of molten origin .. Breaks and breaches in the stratified lines of rocks Columnar basalt clay Causeway, the Giant’s ... Cotopaxi, the volcano Crystalline rocks, the secondary their formation theory of the source of their materials the deposit of the ... Currents of water and electricity in storms : their direction Changes influence organisations ... Change, regular cause of ... ' ... Change in the line of sea level ... Earth, density of the figure of the obliquity of the axis of the revolution of the poles of the Earthquakes, chemical causes of associated with localities most subject to come from seaward Granite and gneiss not an erupted or altered rock 97-100 76 76 77 81 83 85 87 47 54 54 57 57 58 97 59 74 67 48 70 65 66-8 93 93 91 95 50 91 INDEX. PAGE. 138. Gravity the general moving power Geology of the ancients Giant’s Causeway ... Heat but no fusion produced by condensing pressure Latitude, degrees of unequal ... Magnetic polar circle and change of sea level ... tide ... ■ Mud. volcanoes Rocks, materials of the ... • ... ... ♦ the classification of the ... depths of the stratified ... Sandstone ... Storms, atmospherical and subterranean their parallelism on earth Tides, the three- the period of the solar Transition rocks, formation of the Volcanoes of Ecuador ... 82 ... 66 ... 88 ... 98 ... 72 61 ... 63 . . 77 ... 49-53 ... 50-59 ... 92 ... 55 ... 90 90 ... 63 ... 68 ... 53 ... loi John Heywood, Excelsior Printing and Bookbinding Works, Manchester. # . I -