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As I do not propose to make here any treatise of Geology, but simply to place before my readers some pictures of the old world, with the animals and plants that inhabited it at various times, I shall avoid, as far as possible, all debatable ground, and confine myself to those parts of my subject which are best known, and can therefore be more clearly presented.
But as from the high geometrical ratio of increase of all organic beings, each area is already fully stocked with inhabitants, it follows that as each selected and favoured form increases in number, so will the less favoured forms decrease and become rare. Rarity, as geology tells us, is the precursor to extinction.
That to the west forms the twin height of the Sinodun Hills, rising abruptly out of the green sand; that to the east is the knoll of Windsor, rising abruptly out of the thick and damp clay. It is a singular and unique patch, almost exactly round, and as a result of some process at which geology can hardly guess the circle is bisected by the river.
The same man sometimes propounds theories almost as rapidly as the changes of the kaleidoscope. The amiable Sir Charles Lyell, England's most distinguished geologist, has published ten editions of his "Principles of Geology," which so differ as to make it hard to believe that it is the work of the same mind.
The outline of the indented shores of the two main islands, and the relative positions of the smaller islets, accord with the strike both of the main axes of elevation and of the cleavage of the clay- slate. My notes on the geology of this country are copious, but as they are unimportant, and as fossils were found only in one district, a brief sketch will be here sufficient.
The laminae of the clay-slate are straight; and it was interesting to observe, that as they assumed the character of gneiss, they became undulatory with some of the smaller flexures angular, like the laminae of many true metamorphic schists. This formation makes the most imposing feature in the geology of Southern Africa.
He was a great geologist and mineralogist; a lover of all natural science, but particularly of chemistry and geology. When I stopped to look at him, I thought he must have put his own tastes in his pocket for several days past, that he might gratify mine. I was standing on a rock, high and dry and grey with lichen; he was poking about in some swampy ground.
In the latter case the subjects were chiefly geology and geography in connection with botany, and in favorable weather the lessons were usually given in the open air.... From some high ground affording a wide panoramic view Agassiz would explain to them the formation of lakes, islands, rivers, springs, water -sheds, hills, and valleys....
The argument from design in the first lecture brings up the subject of the introduction of species. Of this, considered "as a question of history, there is no witness on the stand except geology." "The present condition of geological evidence is undoubtedly in favor of some degree of suddenness is against infinite gradations.
Supposing, for instance, that you were free to begin again, what career do you think you would prefer?" "I scarcely know, and I should scarcely care, so long as there was freedom of thought and speculation in it." "Geology, perhaps or astronomy," she suggested, laughingly. "Merci! The bowels of the earth are too profound, and the heavens too lofty for me.
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