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Updated: May 14, 2025
That they constitute a series of rocks intermediate in date between the lowest Carboniferous and the uppermost Silurian is not disputed by the ablest geologists; and it can no longer be contended that the Upper, Middle, and Lower Old Red Sandstone preceded in date the three divisions to which, by aid of the marine shells, the Devonian rocks have been referred, while, on the other hand, we have not yet data for enabling us to affirm to what extent the subdivisions of the one series may be the equivalents in time of those of the other.
By this theory he dispensed with the necessity of filling up pre-existing cavities with stratified alluvium, in the manner proposed by M. de Mortillet. I will now explain to what extent I agree with, and on what points I feel compelled to differ from the two distinguished geologists above cited. First.
And geologists are now able to state with tolerable confidence that, however old many of the granites may be, yet a large amount of the fire-built rocks are no older than the water-built rocks which lie over them. So by many geologists the names of Primary, Transition, and Secondary Formations are pretty well given up. But if they really do lie under, how can they possibly be of the same age?
"I had almost forgotten to say that I have obtained unquestionable evidence of the cretaceous age of the coal deposits of Lota and the adjoining localities, north and south, which are generally supposed to be tertiary lignites. They are overlaid by sandstone containing Baculites! I need not adduce other evidence to satisfy geologists of the correctness of my assertion.
"This region," he writes, "resembles one of the immeasurable steppes of Asia, and spreads forth into undulating and treeless plains and desolate sandy wastes, which are supposed by geologists to have formed the ancient floor of the ocean countless ages ago, when its primeval waves beat against the granite bases of the Rocky Mountains.
Nothing had more perplexed me in seeking to reconcile my sense to the existence of regions extending below the surface of the earth, and habitable by beings, if dissimilar from, still, in all material points of organism, akin to those in the upper world, than the contradiction thus presented to the doctrine in which, I believe, most geologists and philosophers concur viz., that though with us the sun is the great source of heat, yet the deeper we go beneath the crust of the earth, the greater is the increasing heat, being, it is said, found in the ratio of a degree for every foot, commencing from fifty feet below the surface.
Richards and Mansfield in a recent paper describe the "Bannock Overthrust," some 270 miles long, in Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming. The Carnegie Research recently reported a similar phenomenon about 500 miles long in northern China. But it would be tiresome to follow these conditions around the world. We have plenty of examples, and we have them described by the foremost of living geologists.
Hopkins had, indeed, made a somewhat similar estimate as early as 1839, proving that the earth's crust must be at least eight hundred or a thousand miles in thickness; but geologists had utterly ignored this computation, and the idea of a thin crust on a fluid interior had continued to be the orthodox geological doctrine.
Adventurous vagabonds are not there; sedate geologists and engineers alone are on the spot to regulate its gold industry, and to employ ingenious machinery in separating the ore from surrounding rock. Little is left to chance now. Thus we must investigate and take possession of the new Jewish country by means of every modern expedient.
Critical geologists may suggest that the temperature of the Coal-forest has been exaggerated, and the temperature of the Permian put too low. We are not concerned with the dispute.
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