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What strange constellations shone down upon our globe when its masters of life were the monstrous beasts of the ``Age of Reptiles''? A million years is not much of a span of time in geologic reckoning, yet a million years ago the earth was farther from its present place in space than any of the stars with a measurable parallax are now.
Nature, left undisturbed, so fashions her territory as to give it almost unchanging permanence of form, outline, and proportion, except when shattered by geologic convulsions; and in these comparatively rare cases of derangement, she sets herself at once to repair the superficial damage, and to restore, as nearly as practicable, the former aspect of her dominion.
The traditional interpretation of the Old Testament which is still current is based on successive misconceptions, overlaying and blending with each other like close-piled geologic strata.
It is true that Nature may be read in the little as well as in the big, Natura in minimis existat, in the gnat as well as in the elephant; but she cannot be read in our yearly calendars as she can in the calendars of the geologic strata.
To-day we go to the summit of the cliff on the left and take observations for altitude, and are variously employed in topographic and geologic work. May 29. This morning Bradley and I cross the river and climb more than a thousand feet to a point where we can see the stream sweeping in a long, beautiful curve through the gorge below.
"Pitcairn's opinion is thought a lot of. The Geologic Survey men listen to Pitcairn. He helped them one year. He's one of those extraordinary old miners who can tell from the look of things, without even panning. When he saw that pyrites on Idaho Bar he stopped dead. 'This looks good to me! he said, and, Jee-rusalem! it was good!"
Being that which determines progress of every kind astronomic, geologic, organic, ethnologic, social, economic, artistic, &c. it must be involved with some fundamental trait displayed in common by these; and must be expressible in terms of this fundamental trait.
I said "petrified" was good; as I believed, myself, that the only right way to classify the majestic ages of some of those jokes was by geologic periods. But that neat idea hit the boy in a blank place, for geology hadn't been invented yet. However, I made a note of the remark, and calculated to educate the commonwealth up to it if I pulled through.
This task, though incomplete, has by the labours of many thousand men been so far advanced that we are now able to divide the record into chapters, the divisions of the geologic ages, and to give some account of the succession of events, organic and geographic, which have occurred since life began to write its records.
The reaction which we call life was probably as much a cosmic or geologic event as were the reactions which produced the different elements and compounds, and demanded the same slow gestation in the womb of time. During what cycles upon cycles the great mother-forces of the universe must have brooded over the inorganic before the organic was brought forth!
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