| OCR Text |
Show 2 GEOLOGY COMPARED TO HISTORY • We often discover with surprise, on looking back int.o the chronicles of nations, how the fortune of some. battle has. mfluenced the fate of million~ of our contemporart:s, when .1t h~s long been forgotten by the mass of the populatiOn. With this remote e\rent we may find inseparably connected the geographical boundaries of a great state, the language now sp~ken by the inhabitants, their peculiar manners, laws, and rehgwus opinions. But far more astonishing and unexpected are the connexions brouO'ht to light, when we carry back our researches into the history of nature. The form of .a coast, the confi O'uration of the interior of a country, the existence and exte;t of lakes, va11eys, and mountains, can often be. trace? to the former prevalence of earthquakes and volcanoes, m regwns which have long been undisturbed. To these remote convulsions the present fertility of some districts, the steril: character of others, tbe elevation of land above the sea, the chmate, and various peculiarities, may be distinctly referred. On the other hand, many distinguishing features of the surface may often be ascribed to the operation at a remote era of slow and tranquil causes-to the gradual deposition of sediment in a lake or in the ocean, or to the prolific growth in the same of corals and testacea. To select another example, we find in certain localities subterranean deposits of coal, consisting of vegetable matter, formerly drifted into seas and lakeg. These seas and lakes have since been filled up, the lands whereon the forests ' grew have disappeared or changed their form, the rivers and currents which floated the vegetable masses can no longer be traced, and the plants belonged to species which for ages have passed away from the surface of our planet. Yet the commercial prosperity, and ·numerical strength of a nation, may now be main I y dependant on the local distribution of fuel determined by that ancient state· of things. Geology is intimately related to almost all the physic~l sciences, as is history to the moral. An historian should, 1f possible, be at once profoundly acquainted with ethics, politics, jurisprudence, the military art, theology; in a word, with all branches of knowledge, whereby any insight into human a:fl'airs, or into the moral and intellectual nature of man, can be obtained. It would be no less desirable that a geologist should be well versed in chemistry, natural philosophy, mineralogy, ITS RELATION TO OTilnR PHYSICAL SCIENCES. 3 zoology, comparative anatomy, botany; in short, in every science relating to organic and inorganic nature. 'Vith thes.e accomplishments the historian and geologist would rarely. fa1l to draw correct and philosophical conclusions from the vanous monuments transmitted to them of former occurrences. They would know to what combination of causes analogous effects were referrible, and they would often be enabled to supply ~y inference, information concerning many events unrecorded m the defective archives of fo1·mer ages. But the brief duration of human life, and our limited powers, al'e so far from permitting us to aspire to such extensive acquisitions, that excellence even in one department is within the reach of few, and those individuals most effectually promote the general progress, who concentrate their thoughts on a limited portion of the field of inquiry. As it is necessary that the historian and the cultivators of moral or political science should reciprocally aid each other, so the geologist and those who study natural history or physics stand in equal need of mutual assistance. A comparative anatomist may derive some accession of knowledge from the bare inspection of the remains of an extinct quadruped, but the relic throws much greater light upon .his own science, when he is informed to what relative era i~ belonged, what plants and animals were .its contemporaries, in what degree of latitude it once existed, and other historical details. A fossil shell may interest a conchologist, though he be ignorant of the locality from which it came; but it will be of more value when he learns with what other species it was associated, whether they were marine or fresh-water, whether the strata containing them were at a certain elevation above the sea, and what relative position they held in regard to other groups of strata, with many other particulars determinable by an experienced geologist alone. On the other hand, the skill of the comparative anatomist and conchologist are often indispensable to those engaged in geological research, although it will rarely happen that the geologist will himself combine these different qualifications in his own person. Some remains of former organic beings, like the ancient temple, statue, or picture, may have both their intrinsic and their historical value, while there are others which can never be expected to attract attention for their own sake. A B 2 |
