The Evolution of Earth Strudcture with a Theory of Geomorphic Changes; By T. Mellard Reade (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III CONTINENTAL GROWTH AND GEOLOGICAL PERIODS' IN the early days of geology a period indicated a certain section of the earth's history distinctly marked off from that which preceded and that which followed. Each period had a fauna and flora peculiar to itself, by which it could be recognised through the fossil remains found embedded in its rocks. There is no doubt that the Mosaic account of the Creation gave traditional support to the notion of distinct breaks in the geological chain. Each period represented, not unnaturally, to early thinkers a separate creation, followed by complete destruction. What first attracted attention were the salient differences between the fossil contents of strata geologically far apart, such as the reptiles of the Lias and the fishes of the Chalk. Ingenious men found then, as Mr. Gladstone did later, a parallelism in the order of creation between the Mosaic account and the record of the rocks. When, however, the record was further searched, interesting links were discovered, which, if they didnot actually bridge over the differences, led men to think that, could all be restored, the earth's history would be found to be one continuous record, unbroken by cataclysmic collapses and successive repairs. Curiously enough, the cataclysmal ideas held their ground in face of the uniformitarian theory of the earth given to the world by Hutton at the close of the last century. Lyell, following on the same lines as Hutton, with a wealth of illustration and rare literary skill, showed that a true interpretation of Nature in the past was to be sought in the action of present causes. The science of geology was thus put on a stable base, and men were taught to arrive at their opinions by reasoning upon facts, instead of merely giving free scope to ...