A Brief Survey of Physical and Fossil Geology, 2 Lectures (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1839 Excerpt: ... CONTINUAL CHANGES-89 struction and delight: the results educed are extremely valuable--they confirm the literal truth of the inspired narration, and deserve to be classed among the most valuable external evidences which can be produced in its favour. Here, then, we pause for the present. We have been enabled to give you only a sketch, and we fear a very imperfect one, of Physical Geology: we are necessarily compelled to omit the notice of many other interesting phenomena connected with the present condition of the earth;--we cannot now speak of the continual and daily changes which are taking place upon the surface of our globe, either through the agency of those enormous glaciers by which vast masses of the hardest granite rocks are continually prostrated into the valleys from their lofty eminence--the impetuous waves which lash the mountain sides--the decaying influence of atmospheric effects upon the elevated districts of our globe, or through the operation of earthquakes, which, as Dr. M'Culloch remarks, "alter in an instant the whole face of a country, while volcanos overwhelm it with new rocks." These, together with the effects of rain, frost, springs, and rivers, must be passed over, simply because their investigation would compel us to encroach too much on your patience and atten 90 LONG LAPSE OF AGES. tion. But still we have said enough to prove the truth of the position from which we started, viz. that among the whole range of the Inductive Sciences, there are none which in interest and importance deserve to rank higher than Geology, and where varied phenomena demand more imperatively the attentive contemplation of the scientific world. We have endeavoured to explain, with as much brevity as we could command, the physical condition of the earth, a...