sand-stone, marbles, chalk, limestone, millstone, coals of the Earth, asphalt, etc. They say that the power of a rock depends upon its thickness.
By the inspection of the nature of these rocks or beds, one recognizes by certain signs, that they are produced by heated substances sometimes vitrified by the action of fire, others, by terrestrial substances deposited by water. Some of these substances have remained disintegrated, as sand; others at first in a pasty state, under the action of certain chemical agents or other causes, have become hardened, and have acquired in time the consistence of stone. Superposed stony beds show successive deposits. Fire and water have then played their parts in the formation of the materials composing the solid framework of the globe.
5. The normal position of terrestrial or stony beds producing aqueous deposits is
horizontal. When one sees these immense plains, often extending as far as the eye can see in a perfectly horizontal line, united as if leveled by a roller, or depths of valleys as smooth as the surface of a lake, one can be certain that at some distant epoch these places have been for a long time covered by tranquil waters, which, in retiring, have left the beds dry upon which they were deposited during their sojourn. After the retreats of the waters, these beds have become covered with vegetation. If in place of fertile, muddy clay or chalky ground, which afford nourishment for soil, the waters had deposited only siliceous sand without aggregation, we should find here dry and sandy plains constituting waste lands and deserts. The deposits left by partial inundation and those which form the alluvium at the mouth of rivers, give us a faint idea of this.
6. Although the horizontal is the most normal and usual position of these aqueous
formations, one sees, often to a considerable extent in mountainous districts, rocks, which indicate by their nature that they were formed by water in an inclined, and sometimes even in a vertical position. Now, as according to the laws of the equilibrium of liquids and weights, the aqueous deposits can be formed exclusively upon horizontal planes, it is therefore supposed that those which rest on inclined planes are drawn into the lower depths by currents, and by their own weight. It is evident that these deposits have been raised by some force, after their solidification and transformation into stone.
From these considerations we can conclude with certitude that all these stony beds composed of aqueous deposits, in a perfectly horizontal position, have been formed during the succession of ages by tranquil waters; and that, whenever they are found in an inclined position, the Earth has been violently agitated and subsequently broken up by general or partial earthquakes of more or less importance.
7. A characteristic fact of the highest importance for the unexceptional testimony it
furnishes, consists in fossil remains of vegetables and animals encountered in innumerable varieties in the different beds; and as those remains are even found in the hardest stones, it is necessary to conclude that the existence of these beings antedates the formation of these stones. Now, if we consider how many centuries must have been spent in this hardening process, which has eventually brought them to the condition in which they have been from time immemorial, one is forced to the conclusion that the time of the advent or organized beings upon the Earth is lost in the night of unknown ages, and that it is consequently very far behind the dates assigned by Genesis.32
32 Fossil, from the Latin fossilia and fossilis, derived from fossa, “ditch,” and from fodere, “to dig or
plough the earth.” This word is used in geology to signify bodies, or the remains of organized bodies, belonging to creatures that lived in prehistoric times. It is equally applied to mineral substances bearing traces of the presence of organized beings, such as the imprints of vegetables or of animals. The word
Geological Outline of the Earth
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8. Among these vegetable and animal fossils are those which have been penetrated throughout by siliceous or calcareous substances, which have transformed them into stone, of which some have the hardness of marble: these, properly speaking, are petrifactions. Others have simply been enveloped by matter in a soft state, and a few of them are found in a perfect state in the hardest stones. Others have left only imprints, but of a distinct perfect delicacy. In the interior of certain stones the imprint of feet have been discovered, also the form of fingers and nails, from which it is concluded that some animal has produced them.
9. The animal fossils are but little comprehended. One finds sometimes the solid and
resisting parts, such as bones, scales, and horns. Sometimes these are complete skeleton, but more frequently only detached portions of which it is easy to recognize the production. By the inspection of a jaw or a tooth, one sees immediately whether it belongs to a herbivorous or carnivorous animal. As all the parts of an animal have a necessary correlation, the form of the head, of a shoulder-blade, of a bone of the leg, or a foot, suffices to determine the size, the general form, and the mode of life of the animal.33 The terrestrial animals have an organism
clearly separating them from aquatic animals. Fish and shell-fish fossils are excessively numerous; shell-fish alone sometimes forming entire beds of great thickness. By their nature, one quickly determines whether they are marine or fresh-water animals.
10. The masses of pebble-stone rock, which in certain places constitute important rocks,
are unequivocal indication of their origin. They are rounded like the pebble-stones on the seashore, an unmistakable sign that they have been subjected to the effects of waters. The countries where they are found buried in large quantities have most certainly once been occupied by violently agitated waters.
11. Rocks of diverse formations are also characterized by the nature of the fossils they
enclose. The most ancient ones contain vegetable and animal remains, which have entirely disappeared from the surface of the globe. Certain more recent species have completely disappeared, but have preserved an analogy, which differs only in size and slightly in form. Others, of which we see the last representations, are tending evidently to disappearance in a near future, such as the elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, etc. Thus, as the terrestrial beds approach our epoch, the animal and vegetable species they contain approach those animals and vegetables which still exist.
The perturbations and inundations which have taken place upon the Earth since its origin have completely changed the conditions of vitality, and have made entire generations of living beings disappear.
12. By interrogating the nature of the geological beds, one knows in the most positive
manner if, at the epoch of their formation, the country which encloses them was occupied by the sea, by lakes, or by forests and plains peopled with terrestrial animals. If, then, in the same country one finds a series of superposed beds containing alternately marine and fresh-water
bodies transformed into stone by the infiltration of siliceous or calcareous substances in the organic tissues. All the petrifactions are necessarily fossils, but all fossils are not petrifactions. The formation with which stony beds are covered, when they are plunged into waters charged with calcareous substances, such as those of the Saint-Allyre stream, near Clermont, in Auvergne, France, are not properly speaking, petrifactions, but simple incrustations. Monuments, inscriptions and other objects produced by human effort belong to the science of archeology.
33 At the point to which George Cuvier has carried the science of paleontology, one bone alone suffices
often to determine the race, species, and form of an animal, also its habits, by which it can be entirely reconstructed.
Chapter VII