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Looking back at it from a distance of a half-mile they saw that it was in reality much smaller than they had supposed, being scarcely more than a huge rock pushed up from the ocean bed. Ossie, who had a leaning toward geology, furnished the theory that Mystery Island was no more nor less than the top of an extinct volcano and that Titania's Mirror was the crater.
The miners who work in the mine itself have twenty-five shillings per month, and are allowed a little charqui. But these men come down from their bleak habitations only once in every fortnight or three weeks. During my stay here I thoroughly enjoyed scrambling about these huge mountains. The geology, as might have been expected, was very interesting.
Even so late as 1836, Darwin speaks of being "much more inclined for geology than the other branches of Natural History." At the end of the letter to Mr. Fox, however, a little doubt is expressed whether zoological studies might not, after all, have been more profitable; and an interesting passage in the "Autobiography" enables us to understand the origin of this hesitation.
During this epoch perhaps the most formidable enemy of orthodoxy was the rising study of geology, challenging, as it did, the traditional theories of creation.
"It's evidently not to your liking, Uncle," replied the Captain quietly, doing his best to keep from laughing in his face. "Liking!" roared the Colonel again, his voice raised to the breaking pitch "I never thought I'd get to hell so soon! Why, sir," he continued, knocking a cloud of dust from his hat, "this isn't nature, this is geology! I don't see how you ever discovered the damned country!
Geology has initiated us into the secularity of nature, and taught us to disuse our dame-school measures, and exchange our Mosaic and Ptolemaic schemes for her large style. We knew nothing rightly, for want of perspective.
The Neolithic stage of culture passes by insensible gradations into that of the age of bronze, and thus into the Recent epoch. In the Recent epoch the progress of man in language, in social organization, in the arts of life, in morals and religion, has left ample records which are for other sciences than ours to read; here, therefore, geology gives place to archaeology and history.
Indeed, the shore everywhere is the result of the conflict of the ocean with the rock formation of the land, and therefore as much a question for geology as geodesy to answer.
If I were considering merely the cultivators of geology, I should say that the doctrine of the former co-existence of Man with many extinct mammalia had already gone through these three phases in the progress of every scientific truth towards acceptance.
The young people are encouraged to continue their studies, and they have two or three classes in history, one in grammar, and several in French, Latin, geology, etc. These study and recite at odd times; and it is their policy not to permit the young men and women to labor too constantly. The Educational Committee superintends the evening classes.
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