Part 49

Shells have been found in the Upper Boulder Clay of Lancashire, at Hollingworth Reservoir, near Mottram, by Messrs. Binney, Bateman, and Prestwich, at an elevation of 568 feet above the sea, consisting of Fusus Bamffius, Purpura lapillus, Turritilla terebra, and Cardium edule. The clay is described by Mr. Binney as sandy, and brown-coloured, with pebbles of granite and greenstone, some rounded and some angular. All the above shells, as well as Tellina Balthica, have been found in the Upper Clay of Preston, Garstang, Blackpool, and Llandudno, by Mr. De Rance, who has also found all the above species (with the exception of Fusus), as well as Psammobia ferroensis, and the siliceous spiculæ of marine sponges, in the Lower Boulder Clay of West Lancashire. He has described the ordinary red Boulder Clay of Lancashire as extending continuously through Cheshire and Staffordshire into Warwickshire, gradually becoming less red and more chalky, everywhere overlying intermittent sheets of “sands and shingle-beds,” one of which is particularly well seen at Leamington and Warwick, where it contains Pectens from the Crag, Gryphæa from the Lias, and chalk fossils and flints. The latter have also been found by Mr. Lucy in the neighbourhood of Mount Sorrel, associated with bits of the Coral Rag of Yorkshire. The gravels of Leicester, Market Harborough, and Lutterworth were long ago described by the Rev. W. D. Conybeare as affording “specimens of the organic remains of most of the Secondary Strata in England.”

The Rev. O. Fisher, F.G.S., has paid much attention to the superficial covering usually described as “heading,” or “drift,” as well as to the contour of the surface, in districts composed of the softer strata, and has published his views in various papers in the Journal of the Geological Society and in the Geological Magazine. He thinks that the contour of the surface cannot be ascribed entirely to the action of rain and rivers, but that the changes in the ancient contour since produced by those changes can be easily distinguished. He finds the covering beds to consist of two members--a lower one, entirely destitute of organic remains, and generally unstratified, which has often been forcibly indented into the bed beneath it, sometimes exhibiting slickenside at the junction.

There is evidence of this lower member having been pushed or dragged over the surface, from higher to lower levels, in a plastic condition; on which account he has named it “The Trail.”

The upper member of the covering beds consists of soil derived from the lower one, by weathering. It contains, here and there, the remains of the land-shells which lived in the locality at a period antecedent to cultivation. It is “The Warp” of Mr. Trimmer.

Neither of these accumulations occur on low flats, where the surface has been modified since the recent period. They both alike pass below high-water mark, and have been noticed beneath estuarine deposits.

Mr. Fisher is of opinion that land-ice has been instrumental in forming the contour of the surface, and that the trail is the remnant of its moraine profonde. And he has given reasons for believing that the climate of those latitudes may have been sufficiently rigorous for that result about 100,000 years ago. He attributes the formation of the superficial covering of Warp to a period of much rainfall and severe winter-frosts, after the ice-sheet had disappeared.

Geological Magazine, vol. iii., p. 483.

The phenomena which so powerfully affected our hemisphere present themselves, in a much grander manner, in the New World. The glacier-system appears to have taken in America the same gigantic proportions which other objects assume there. Nor is it necessary, in order to explain the permanent existence of this icy mantle in temperate climates, to infer the prevalence of any very extraordinary degree of cold. On this subject M. Ch. Martins thus expresses himself: “The mean temperature of Geneva is 9° 5 Cent. Upon the surrounding mountains the limit of perpetual snow is found at 8,800 feet above the level of the sea. The great glaciers of the valley of Chamounix descend 5,000 feet below this line. Thus situated, let us suppose that the mean temperature of Geneva was lowered only 4°, and the average became 5° 5; the decrease of temperature with the height being 1° c. for every 600 feet, the limit of perpetual snow would be lowered by 2,437 feet, and would be 6,363 feet above the level of the sea. We can readily admit that the glaciers of Chamounix would descend below this new limit, to an extent at least equal to that which exists between their present limit and their lower extremity. Now, in reality, the foot of these glaciers is 5,000 feet above the ocean; with a climate 4° colder, it would be 2,437 feet lower; that is to say, at the level of the Swiss plain. Thus, the lowering of the line of perpetual snow to this extent would suffice to bring the glacier of the Arve to the environs of Geneva.... Of the climate which has favoured the prodigious development of glaciers we have a pretty correct idea; it is that of Upsala, Stockholm, Christiana, and part of North America, in the State of New York.... To diminish by four degrees the mean temperature of a country in order to explain one of the grandest revolutions of the globe, is to venture on an hypothesis not bolder than geology has sometimes permitted to itself.”

Revue des Deux Mondes.

In proving that glaciers covered part of Europe during a certain period, that they extended from the North Pole to Northern Italy and the Danube, we have sufficiently established the reality of this glacial period, which we must consider as a curious episode, as well as certain, in the history of the earth. Such masses of ice could only have covered the earth when the temperature of the air was lowered at least some degrees below zero. But organic life is incompatible with such a temperature; and to this cause must we attribute the disappearance of certain species of animals and plants--in particular, the Rhinoceros and the Elephant--which, before this sudden and extraordinary cooling of the globe, appear to have limited themselves, in immense herds, to Northern Europe, and chiefly to Siberia, where their remains have been found in such prodigious quantities. Cuvier says, speaking of the bodies of the quadrupeds which the ice had seized, and in which they have been preserved, with their hair, flesh, and skin, up to our own times: “If they had not been frozen as soon as killed, putrefaction would have decomposed them; and, on the other hand, this eternal frost could not have previously prevailed in the place where they died; for they could not have lived in such a temperature. It was, therefore, at the same instant when these animals perished that the country they inhabited was rendered glacial. These events must have been sudden, instantaneous, and without any gradation.”

“Ossements fossiles. Discours sur les Révolutions du Globe.”

(Living shell.)]

How can we explain the glacial period? We have explained M. Adhémar’s hypothesis, to which it may be objected that the cold of the glacial period was so general throughout the Polar and temperate regions on both sides of the equator, that mere local changes in the external configuration of our planet and displacement of the centre of gravity scarcely afford adequate causes for so great a revolution in temperature. Sir Charles Lyell, speculating upon the suggestion of Ritter and the discovery of marine shells spread far and wide over the Sahara Desert by Messrs. Escher von der Linth, Desor, and Martins--which seem to prove that the African Desert has been under water at a very recent period--infers that the Desert of Sahara constituted formerly a wide marine area, stretching several hundred miles north and south, and east and west. “From this area,” he adds, “the south wind must formerly have absorbed moisture, and must have been still further cooled and saturated with aqueous vapour as it passed over the Mediterranean. When at length it reached the Alps, and, striking them, was driven into the higher and more rarefied regions of the atmosphere, it would part with its watery burthen in the form of snow; so that the same aërial current which, under the name of the Föhn, or Sirocco, now plays a leading part with its hot and dry breath, sometimes, even in the depth of winter, in melting the snow and checking the growth of glaciers, must, at the period alluded to, have been the principal feeder of Alpine snow and ice.” Nevertheless, we repeat, no explanation presents itself which can be considered conclusive; and in science we should never be afraid to say, I do not know.

Lyell’s “Elements of Geology,” p. 175.

CREATION OF MAN AND THE ASIATIC DELUGE.

It was only after the glacial period, when the earth had resumed its normal temperature, that man was created. Whence came he?

He came from whence originated the first blade of grass which grew upon the burning rocks of the Silurian seas; from whence proceeded the different races of animals which have successively replaced each other upon the globe, gradually, but unceasingly, rising in the scale of perfection. He emanated from the supreme will of the Author of the worlds which constitute the universe.

The earth has passed through many phases since the time when--in the words of the Sacred Record--“the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” We have considered all these phases; we have seen the globe floating in space in a state of gaseous nebulosity, condensing into liquidity, and beginning to solidify at the surface. We have pictured the internal agitations, the disturbances, the partial dislocations to which the earth has been subjected, almost without interruption, while it could not, as yet, resist the force of the waves of the fiery sea imprisoned within its fragile crust. We have seen this envelope acquiring solidity, and the geological cataclysms losing their intensity and frequency in proportion as this solid crust increased in thickness. We have looked on, so to speak, while the work of organic creation was proceeding. We have seen life making its appearance upon the globe; and the first plants and animals springing into existence. We have seen this organic creation multiplying, becoming more complex, and constantly made more perfect with each advance in the progressive phases of the history of the earth. We now arrive at the greatest event of this history, at the crowning of the edifice, si parva licet componere magnis.

At the close of the Tertiary epoch, the continents and seas assumed the respective limits which they now present. The disturbances of the ground, the fractures of the earth’s crust, and the volcanic eruptions which are the consequence of them, only occurred at rare intervals, occasioning only local and restricted disasters. The rivers and their affluents flowed between tranquil banks. Animated Nature is that of our own days. An abundant vegetation, diversified by the existence of a climate which has now been acquired, embellishes the earth. A multitude of animals inhabit the waters, the dry land, and the air. Nevertheless, creation has not yet achieved its greatest work--a being capable of comprehending these marvels and of admiring the sublime work--a soul is wanting to adore and give thanks to the Creator.

God created man.

What is man?

We might say that man is an intelligent and moral being; but this would give a very imperfect idea of his nature. Franklin says that man is one that can make tools! This is to reproduce a portion of the first proposition, while depreciating it. Aristotle calls man the “wise being,” ζωον πολιτικον. Linnæus, in his “System of Nature,” after having applied to man the epithet of wise (homo sapiens) writes after this generic title these profound words: Nosce te ipsum. The French naturalist and philosopher, Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, says, “The plant lives, the animal lives and feels, man lives, feels, and thinks”--a sentiment which Voltaire had already expressed. “The Eternal Maker,” says the philosopher of Ferney, “has given to man organisation, sentiment, and intelligence; to the animals sentiment, and what we call instinct; to vegetables organisation alone. His power then acts continually upon these three kingdoms.” It is probably the animal which is here depreciated. The animal on many occasions undoubtedly thinks, reasons, deliberates with itself, and acts in virtue of a decision maturely weighed; it is not then reduced to mere sensation.

To define exactly the human being, we believe that it is necessary to characterise the nature and extent of his intelligence. In certain cases the intelligence of the animal approaches nearly to that of man, but the latter is endowed with a certain faculty which belongs to him exclusively; in creating him, God has added an entirely new step in the ascending scale of animated beings. This faculty, peculiar to the human race, is abstraction. We will say, then, that man is an intelligent being, gifted with the faculty of comprehending the abstract.

It is by this faculty that man is raised to a pre-eminent degree of material and moral power. By it he has subdued the earth to his empire, and by it also his mind rises to the most sublime contemplations. Thanks to this faculty, man has conceived the ideal, and realised poesy. He has conceived the infinite, and created mathematics. Such is the distinction which separates the human race so widely from the animals--which makes him a creation apart and absolutely new upon the globe. A being capable of comprehending the ideal and the infinite, of creating poetry and algebra, such is man! To invent and understand this formula--

(a + b)² = a² + 2ab + b²,

or the algebraic idea of negative quantities, this belongs to man. It is the greatest privilege of the human being to express and comprehend thoughts like the following:

J’étais seul près des flots, par une nuit d’étoiles, Pas un nuage aux cieux, sur les mers pas de voiles, Mes yeux plongeaient plus loin que le monde réel, Et les vents et les mers, et toute la nature Semblaient interroger dans un confus murmure, Les flots des mers, les feux du ciel.

Et les étoiles d’or, légions infinies, À voix haute, à voix basse, avec mille harmonies Disaient, en inclinant leur couronne de feu; Et les flots bleus, que rien ne gouverne et n’arrête: Disaient, en recourbant l’écume de leur crête: “C’est le Seigneur, le Seigneur Dieu!”*