The Testimony of the Rocks
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Title: The Testimony of the Rocks
Author: Hugh Miller
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THE TESTIMONY OF THE ROCKS;
Or,
Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed.
by
HUGH MILLER
* * * * *
WORKS BY HUGH MILLER,
PUBLISHED BY
GOULD AND LINCOLN,
59 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON.
I.
THE OLD RED SANDSTONE;
OR, NEW WALKS IN AN OLD FIELD.
Illustrated with Plates and Geological Sections. 12mo, cloth. Price
$1.00.
"It is withal one of the most beautiful specimens of English
composition to be found, conveying information on a most difficult
and profound science, in a style at once novel, pleasing and
elegant."--DR. SPRAGUE, ALBANY SPECTATOR.
II.
MY FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND AND ITS PEOPLE.
With a fine Engraving of the Author. 12mo, cloth. Price $1.00.
A thrillingly interesting and instructive book of travels;
presenting the most perfectly life-like views of England and its
People to be found in the language.
III.
THE FOOTPRINTS OF THE CREATOR;
OR, THE ASTEROLEPIS OF STROMNESS.
With numerous Illustrations. With a Memoir of the Author, by Louis
Agassiz. 12mo, cloth. Price $1.00.
Dr. Buckland said HE WOULD GIVE HIS LEFT HAND TO POSSESS SUCH
POWERS OF DESCRIPTION AS THIS MAN.
IV.
MY SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS;
OR, THE STORY OF MY EDUCATION.
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
With a full length Portrait of the Author. 12mo, cloth. Price $1.25.
This is a personal narrative of a deeply interesting and
instructive character, concerning one of the most remarkable men of
the age. It should be read and studied by every young man in the
land.
V.
TESTIMONY OF THE ROCKS;
OR, GEOLOGY IN ITS BEARINGS ON THE TWO THEOLOGIES,
NATURAL AND REVEALED.
"Thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field."--JOB.
With numerous elegant Illustrations. One volume, royal 12mo. Price $1.25.
This is the largest and most comprehensive geological work of this
distinguished author. It exhibits the profound learning, the
felicitous style, and the scientific perception, which characterize
his former works, while it embraces the latest results of
geological discovery. But the great charm of the book lies in those
passages of glowing eloquence, in which, having spread out his
facts, the author proceeds to make deductions from them of the most
striking and exciting character.
* * * * *
--> The above works may be had in sets of uniform size and style of
binding.
VALUABLE WORKS.
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER: A VIEW OF THE PRODUCTIVE FORCES OF MODERN SOCIETY,
and the Result of Labor, Capital, and Skill. By CHARLES KNIGHT. American
edition, with Additions, by DAVID A. WELLS, Editor of "Annual of
Scientific Discovery," &c. With numerous Illustrations. 12mo, cloth.
$1.25.
This work is eminently entitled to be ranked in that class, styled,
"BOOKS FOR THE PEOPLE." The author is one of the most popular
writers of the day. "Knowledge is Power" treats of those things
Which "come home to the business and bosoms" of every man. It is
remarkable for its fullness and variety of information, and for the
felicity and force with which the author applies his facts to his
reasoning. The facts and illustrations are drawn from almost every
branch of skilful industry. It is a work which the mechanic and
artizan of every description will be sure to read with a RELISH.
This is a work of rare merit, and touches many strings of
importance with which society is linked together. No work we have
ever seen is better calculated to inspire and awaken inventive
genius in man than this. Almost every department of human labor is
represented, and it contains a large fund of useful information,
condensed in a volume, every chapter of which is worth the cost of
the book. It would be an act of manifest injustice to the community
for any editor to feel an indifference about commending this volume
to a reading public.--N.Y. CH. HERALD.
The style is admirable, and the book itself is as full of
information as an egg is of meat.--JOURNAL.
As teachers we know no better remuneration, than for them FIRST to
buy this book and diligently read it themselves; SECOND, to teach
to their pupils the principles of industrial organization which it
contains, and of the facts by which it is illustrated. It is one of
the merits of this book that its facts will interest youthful minds
and be retained to blossom hereafter into theories of which they
are now incapable. THIRD, endeavor to have a copy procured for the
district library, that the parents may read it, and the teachers
reap fruit in the present generation.--N.Y. TEACHER.
Contains a great amount of information, accompanied with numerous
illustrations, rendering it a compendious history of the subjects
upon which it treats.--N.Y. COURIER AND INQUIRER.
We commend the work as one of real value and profitable
reading.--ROCHESTER AMERICAN.
This work is a rich repository of valuable information on various
subjects, having a bearing on the industrial end social interests
of a community.--PURITAN RECORDER.
MY SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS; OR, THE STORY OF MY EDUCATION. BY HUGH
MILLER, author of "Old Red Sandstone," "Footprints of the Creator," "My
First Impressions of England," etc. 12mo, cloth. $1.25.
"This autobiography is quite worthy of the renowned author. His
first attempts at literature, and his career until he stood forth
an acknowledged power among the philosophers and ecclesiastical
leaders of his native land, are given without egotism, with a power
and vivacity which are equally truthful and
delightsome."--PRESBYTERIAN.
"Hugh Miller is one of the most remarkable men of the age. Having
risen from the humble walks of life, and from the employment of a
stone-cutter, to the highest rank among scientific men, everything
relating to his history possesses an interest which belongs to that
of few living men. There is much even in his school-boy days which
points to the man as he now is. The book has all the ease and
graphic power which in characteristic of his writings."--NEW YORK
OBSERVER.
"This volume is a book for the ten thousand. It is embellished with
an admirable likeness of Hugh Miller, the stone mason--his coat off
and his sleeves rolled up--with the implements of labor in
hand--his form erect, and his eye bright and piercing. The
biography of such a man will interest every reader. It is a living
thing--teaching a lesson of self-culture of immense
value."--PHILADELPHIA CHRISTIAN OBSERVER.
"It is a portion of autobiography exquisitely told. He is a living
proof that a single man may contain within himself something more
than all the books in the world, some unuttered word, if he will
look within and read. This is one of the best books we have had of
late, and must have a hearty welcome and a large circulation in
America."--LONDON CORRESP. N.Y. TRIBUNE.
"It is a work of rare interest; at times having the fascination of
a romance, and again suggesting the profoundest views of education
and of science. The ex-mason holds a graphic pen; a quiet humor
runs through his pages; he tells a story well, and some of his
pictures of home life might almost be classed with Wilson's."--NEW
YORK INDEPENDENT.
"This autobiography is THE book for poor boys, and others who are
struggling with poverty and limited advantages; and perhaps it is
not too much to predict that in a few years it will become one of
the poor man's classics, filling a space on his scanty shelf next
to the Autobiography of Franklin."--NEW ENGLAND FARMER.
"Lovers of the romantic should not neglect the book, as it contains
a narrative of tender passion and happily reciprocated affection,
which will be read with subdued emotion and unfailing
interest."--BOSTON TRAVELLER.
* * * * *
[Illustration: SPHENOPTERIS AFFINIS.
A Fern of the Lower Coal Measures.
(_Restored._)]
THE TESTIMONY OF THE ROCKS;
Or,
Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed.
by
HUGH MILLER,
Author of "The Old Red Sandstone," "Footprints of the
Creator," Etc., Etc.
With Memorials of the Death and Character of the Author.
"Thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field."--JOB.
Boston:
Gould and Lincoln,
59 Washington Street.
New York: Sheldon, Blakeman & Co.
Cincinnati: George S. Blanchard.
1857.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by GOULD AND
LINCOLN, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
Massachusetts.
Electro-Stereotyped
by Geo. J. Stiles,
23 Congress St., Boston.
TO
JAMES MILLER, ESQ., F.R.S.E.
PROFESSOR OF SURGERY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH.
MY DEAR SIR,
This volume is chiefly taken up in answering, to the best of its
author's knowledge and ability, the various questions which the old
theology of Scotland has been asking for the last few years of the
newest of the sciences. Will you pardon me the liberty I take in
dedicating it to you? In compliance with the peculiar demand of the
time, that what a man knows of science or of art he should freely
communicate to his neighbors, we took the field nearly together as
popular lecturers, and have at least so far resembled each other in our
measure of success, that the same class of censors have been severe upon
both. For while you have been condemned as a physiologist for asserting
that the human framework, when fairly wrought during the week, is
greatly the better for the rest of the Sabbath, I have been described by
the same pen as one of the wretched class of persons who teach that
geology, rightly understood, does not conflict with revelation. Besides,
I owe it to your kindness that, when set aside by the indisposition
which renders it doubtful whether I shall ever again address a popular
audience, you enabled me creditably to fulfil one of my engagements by
reading for me in public two of the following discourses, and by doing
them an amount of justice on that occasion which could never have been
done them by their author. Further, your kind attentions and advice
during the crisis of my illness were certainly every way suited to
remind me of those so gratefully acknowledged by the wit of the last
century, when he bethought him of
"kind Arbuthnot's aid,
Who knew his art, but not his trade."
And so, though the old style of dedication has been long out of fashion,
I avail myself of the opportunity it affords me of expressing my entire
concurrence in your physiological views, my heartfelt gratitude for your
good services and friendship, and my sincere respect for the
disinterested part you have taken in the important work of elevating and
informing your humbler countryfolk,--while at the same time maintaining
professionally, with Simpson and with Goodsir, the reputation of that
school of anatomy and medicine for which the Scottish capital has been
long so famous.
I am,
MY DEAR SIR,
With sincere respect and regard,
Yours affectionately,
HUGH MILLER.
TO THE READER.
Of the twelve following Lectures, four (the First, Second, Fifth, and
Sixth) were delivered before the members of the Edinburgh Philosophical
Institution (1852 and 1855). One (the Third) was read at Exeter Hall
before the Young Men's Christian Association (1854), and the substance
of two of the others (the Eleventh and Twelfth) at Glasgow, before the
Geological Section of the British Association (1855). Of the five
others,--written mainly to complete and impart a character of unity to
the volume of which they form a part,--only three (the Fourth, Seventh,
and Eighth) were addressed viva voce to popular audiences. The Third
Lecture was published both in this country and America, and translated
into some of the Continental languages. The rest now appear in print for
the first time. Though their writer has had certainly no reason to
complain of the measure of favor with which the read or spoken ones have
been received, they are perhaps all better adapted for perusal in the
closet than for delivery in the public hall or lecture-room; while the
two concluding Lectures are mayhap suited to interest only geologists
who, having already acquainted themselves with the generally ascertained
facts of their science, are curious to cultivate a further knowledge
with such new facts as in the course of discovery are from time to time
added to the common fund. In such of the following Lectures as deal with
but the established geologic phenomena, and owe whatever little merit
they may possess to the inferences drawn from these, or on the
conclusions based upon them, most of the figured illustrations, though
not all, will be recognized as familiar: in the two concluding Lectures,
on the contrary, they will be found to be almost entirely new. They are
contributions, representative of the patient gleanings of years, to the
geologic records of Scotland; and exhibit, in a more or less perfect
state, no inconsiderable portion of all the forms yet detected in the
rocks of her earlier Palæozoic and Secondary floras.
It will be seen that I adopt, in my Third and Fourth Lectures, that
scheme of reconciliation between the Geologic and Mosaic Records which
accepts the six days of creation as vastly extended periods; and I have
been reminded by a somewhat captious critic that I once held a very
different view, and twitted with what he terms inconsistency. I
certainly did once believe with Chalmers and with Buckland that the six
days were simply natural days of twenty-four hours each,--that they had
compressed the entire work of the existing creation,--and that the
latest of the geologic ages was separated by a great chaotic gap from
our own. My labors at the time as a practical geologist had been very
much restricted to the Palæozoic and Secondary rocks, more especially
to the Old Red and Carboniferous Systems of the one division, and the
Oolitic System of the other; and the long extinct organisms which I
found in them certainly did not conflict with the view of Chalmers. All
I found necessary at the time to the work of reconciliation was some
scheme that would permit me to assign to the earth a high antiquity, and
to regard it as the scene of many succeeding creations. During the last
nine years, however, I have spent a few weeks every autumn in exploring
the later formations, and acquainting myself with their peculiar
organisms. I have traced them upwards from the raised beaches and old
coast lines of the human period, to the brick clays, Clyde beds, and
drift and boulder deposits of the Pleistocene era, and again from these,
with the help of museums and collections, up through the mammaliferous
crag of England, to its Red and its Coral crags. And the conclusion at
which I have been compelled to arrive is, that for many long ages ere
man was ushered into being, not a few of his humbler contemporaries of
the fields and woods enjoyed life in their present haunts, and that for
thousands of years anterior to even their appearance, many of the
existing molluscs lived in our seas. That day during which the present
creation came into being, and in which God, when he had made "the beast
of the earth after his kind, and the cattle after their kind," at length
terminated the work by moulding a creature in his own image, to whom he
gave dominion over them all, was not a brief period of a few hours'
duration, but extended over mayhap millenniums of centuries. No blank
chaotic gap of death and darkness separated the creation to which man
belongs from that of the old extinct elephant, hippopotamus, and hyæna;
for familiar animals such as the red deer, the roe, the fox, the wild
cat, and the badger, lived throughout the period which connected their
times with our own; and so I have been compelled to hold, that the days
of creation were not natural, but prophetic days, and stretched far back
into the bygone eternity. After in some degree committing myself to the
other side, I have yielded to evidence which I found it impossible to
resist; and such in this matter has been my inconsistency,--an
inconsistency of which the world has furnished examples in all the
sciences, and will, I trust, in its onward progress, continue to furnish
many more.
EDINBURGH, DECEMBER, 1856.
[The last proofs of this preface were despatched by the Author to his
printer only the day before that melancholy termination of his life, the
details of which will be found in the "MEMORIALS" following.--AM.
PUBLISHERS.]
CONTENTS.
PAGE
MEMORIALS OF THE DEATH AND CHARACTER OF HUGH MILLER, 7
LECTURE FIRST.
THE PALÆONTOLOGICAL HISTORY OF PLANTS, 33
LECTURE SECOND.
THE PALÆONTOLOGICAL HISTORY OF ANIMALS, 86
LECTURE THIRD.
THE TWO RECORDS, MOSAIC AND GEOLOGICAL, 141
LECTURE FOURTH.
THE MOSAIC VISION OF CREATION, 179
LECTURE FIFTH.
GEOLOGY IN ITS BEARINGS ON THE TWO THEOLOGIES. PART I. 211
LECTURE SIXTH.
GEOLOGY IN ITS BEARINGS ON THE TWO THEOLOGIES. PART II. 237
LECTURE SEVENTH.
THE NOACHIAN DELUGE. PART I. 283
LECTURE EIGHTH.
THE NOACHIAN DELUGE. PART II. 320
LECTURE NINTH.
THE DISCOVERABLE AND THE REVEALED, 362
LECTURE TENTH.
THE GEOLOGY OF THE ANTI-GEOLOGISTS, 392
LECTURE ELEVENTH.
ON THE LESS KNOWN FOSSIL FLORAS OF SCOTLAND. PART I. 429
LECTURE TWELFTH.
ON THE LESS KNOWN FOSSIL FLORAS OF SCOTLAND. PART II. 463
List of Illustrations
PAGE
A Restoration of Sphenopteris affinis (_Frontispiece_)
1. The Genealogy of Plants, 40
2. Cyclopteris Hibernicus, 42
3. Conifer of the Lower Old Red Sandstone, 43
4. The Genealogy of Animals, 45
5. Oldhamia antiqua (_oldest known Zoophyte_), 48
6. Palæochorda minor, 49
7. Lycopodium clavatum, 51
8. Equisetum fluviatile, 51
9. Osmunda regalis (_Royal Fern_), 52
10. Pinus sylvestris (_Scotch Fir_), 53
11. Calamite? of the Lower Old Red Sandstone, 55
12. Lycopodite? of the Lower Old Red Sandstone, 55
13. Fern? of the Lower Old Red Sandstone, 56
14-19. Ferns of the Coal Measures, 58
20. Altingia excelsa (_Norfolk Island Pine_), 59
21. East Indian Fern (_Asophila perrotetiana_), 60
22. Section of Stem, of Tree-Fern (_Cyathea_), 60
23-25. Lepidodendron Sternbergii, 62
26. Calamites Mougeotii, 63
27. Sphenophyllum dentatum, 63
28. Sigillaria reniformis, 64
29. Sigillaria reniformis (_nat. size_), 65
30. Sigillaria pachyderma, 66
31. Stigmaria ficoides, 67
32. Favularia tessellata, 68
33. Lepidodendron obovatum, 68
34. Cycas revoluta, 69
35. Zamia pungens, 69
36. Zamia Feneonis, 69
37. Mantellia nidiformis, 70
38. Equisetum columnare, 71
39. Carpolithes conica, 72
40. Carpolithes Bucklandii, 72
41. Acer trilobatum, 73
42. Ulmus Bronnii (_leaf of a tree allied to the Elm_), 74
43. Palmacites Lamanonis (_a Palm of the Miocene of Aix_), 75
44. Cyclophthalmus Bucklandii (_a Fossil Scorpion of the Coal
Measures of Bohemia_), 81
45. Fossil Dragon-Fly, 83
46. Cyathaxonia Dalmani, 88
47. Glyptocrinus decadactylus, 88
48. Calymene Blumenbachii, 89
49. Orthisina Verneuili, 89
50. Lituites cornu-arietis, 89
51. Lingula Lowisii, 89
52. Fort Jackson Shark (_Cestracion Philippi_), 91
53. The Genealogy of Fishes, 93
54. Amblypterus macropterus (_a Ganoid of the Carboniferous
System_), 94
55. Lebias cephalotes (_Cycloids of Aix_), 94
56. Platax altissimus (_a Ctenoid of Monte Bolca_), 95
57. Pterichthys oblongus, 98
58. Pleuracanthus lævissimus, 100
59. Carcharias productus (_Cutting Tooth_), 101
60. Placodus gigas (_Crushing Teeth_), 101
61. Vespertilio Parisiensis (_a Bat of the Eocene_), 106
62. Ichthyosaurus communis, 106
63. Plesiosaurus dolichodeirus, 108
64. Pterodactylus crassirostris, 108
65. Chelonia Benstedi, 109
66. Palæophis Toliapicus (_Ophidian of the Eocene_), 110
67. Bird-tracks of the Connecticut, 113
68. Fossil Footprint, 114
69. Thylacotherium Prevosti, 117
70. Anoplotherium commune, 120
71. Animals of the Paris Basin, 121
72. Dinotherium giganteum, 122
73. Elephas primigenius (_Great British Elephant_), 127
74. Trogontherium Cuvieri (_Gigantic Beaver_), 128
75. Ursus spelæus (_Cave Bear_), 128
76. Hyæena Spelæa (_Cave Hyæna_), 129
77. Asaphus caudatus, 134
78. Orthoceras laterale, 134
79. Spirigerina reticularis, 134
80. Ammonites margaritatus, 134
81. Ammonites bisulcatus, 134
82. Belemnitella mucronata, 134
83. Belemnites sulcatus, 134
84. Murex alveolatus, 135
85. Astarte Omalli, 135
86. Balanus crassus, 136
87. Astarte arctica, 152
88. Tellina proxima, 152
89. Norwegian Spruce (_Abies excelsa_), 153
90. Lepidodendron Sternbergii, 164
91. Calamites cannæformis, 165
92. Megatherium Cuvieri, 167
93. Skull of Dinotherium giganteum 168
94. Ammonites Humphriesianus, 242
95. Encrinites moniliformis, 243
96. Cupressocrinus crassius, 243
97. Pentacrinus fasciculosus, 245
98. Chamfered and Imbricated Scales, 246
99. Scale of Holoptychius giganteus, 247
100. Section of Scale of Holoptychius, 248
101. Sigillaria Groeseri, 255
102-104. Whorled Shells of the Old Red Sandstone, 256
105. Murchisonia bigranulosa, 258
106. Conularia ornata, 258
107. Calico pattern (_Manchester_), 259
108. Smithia Pengellyi, 259
109. Apamæean Medal, 298
110. Old Mexican Picture, 299
111. Megaceros Hibernicus (_Irish Elk_), 331
112. Mylodon robustus, 346
113. Glyptodon clavipes, 346
114. The Geography of Cosmas, 376
115. The Heavens and Earth of Cosmas, 377
116. Nummulites lævigata (_Pharaoh's Beans_), 421
117. Silurian Organism, Graptolite, etc., 431
118. Fucoid, 433
119. Fucoids, 434
120. Plant resembling Lycopodium clavatum, 437
121. Parka decipiens, 449
122. Fossil Fern (_probably_), 450
123. Unnamed Fossil Plant, 450
124. Cyclopterus Hibernicus, 458
125. New and peculiar Fern from Airdrie coal field, 464
126. Stigmaria, 465
127. The same, magnified, 465
128. Stigmaria, 466
129. Sphenopteris bifida, 470
130. Conifers? 475
131. Conifer Twigs, 476
132. Unnamed Fossil Plant, 478
133. Zamia, 479
134. Zamia, 480
135. Zamia of the Lias, 481
136. Zamia of the Oolite, 481
137. Zamia resembling Z. lanceolata, 482
138. Fossil Cone, 483
139. Fossil Cone, 484
140. Helmsdale Fossil Plants, 485
141. Fossil Ferns in Helmsdale Deposits, 486
142. Unnamed Fossil Plant, 488
143. Pecopteris obtusifolia, 489
144. Apparent Fern (_new_), 490
145. Pachypteris, 490
146. Phlebopteris, 491
147. Unnamed Fossil Plant, 492
148. Pentagon, illustrative of Fern allies, 493
149. Imbricated Stem, 494
150. Fossil Plant (_Helmsdale_), 495
151. Dicotyledonous Leaf of the Oolite, 496
152. Fern, 497
MEMORIALS
OF
HUGH MILLER.
Unknown he came. He went a Mystery--
A mighty vessel foundered in the calm,
Her freight half-given to the world. To die
He longed, nor feared to meet the great "I AM."
Fret not. God's mystery is solved to him.
He quarried Truth all rough-hewn from the earth,
And chiselled it into a perfect gem--
A rounded Absolute. Twain at a birth--
Science with a celestial halo crowned,
And Heavenly Truth--God's Works by His Word illumed--
These twain he viewed in holiest concord bound.
Reason outsoared itself. His mind consumed
By its volcanic fire, and frantic driven,
He dreamed himself in hell and woke in heaven.
EDINBURGH, December, 1856.
MEMORIALS
OF THE
DEATH AND CHARACTER OF HUGH MILLER,
WITH AN
ACCOUNT OF HIS FUNERAL OBSEQUIES.
Near the end of last autumn the American publishers of Hugh Miller's
works received from him, through his Edinburgh publishers, the offer of
a new work from his pen. The offer was accepted and a contract was at
once closed. Soon the advance sheets began to come; and as successive
portions were received and perused, it became more and more evident that
the work was destined not only to extend his fame, but to establish for
him new and special claims to the admiration and gratitude of mankind.
In the midst of these anticipations, and ere more than half the sheets
had been received, the publishers and the public here were startled by
the news that Mr. Miller had come to a violent death. The paragraph
conveying the intelligence was such as to leave the mind in a state of
painful suspense. But the next steamer from Europe brought full details
of the lamentable event. It appeared that in a momentary fit of mental
aberration he had died by his own hand, on the night of December 23d,
1856. The cause was over much brain-work. He had been long and
incessantly engaged in preparing the present work for the press, when,
just as he had given the last touches to the eloquent, the immortal
record, reason abandoned her throne, and in the brief interregnum, that
great light of science was quenched forever.
The event caused universal lamentation throughout the British Isles. It
was treated as a public calamity. The British press, from the _London
Times_ to the remotest provincial newspaper, gave expression to the
general sorrow in strains of unwonted eloquence; and in so doing
recounted his great services to the cause of science, and paid homage to
his genius.
Some of the articles which the event thus called forth have seemed to
the American publishers worthy of preservation, from the authentic facts
which they embody, the judgments which they express, and the literary
excellence by which they are marked. They have therefore determined to
print them in connection with this work as permanent Memorials of its
distinguished and lamented author.
The first piece appeared in the _Edinburgh Witness_ of December 27th,
1856,--the paper of which Mr. Miller had been the editor from its
establishment in 1840. It presents an authentic account of the
circumstances attending his death, and is understood to be from the pen
of the REV. WILLIAM HANNA, L.L.D., the son-in-law and biographer of Dr.
Chalmers, and sometime editor of the _North British Review_.
In the belief that nothing touching the character and memory of
such a man can be regarded with other than the deepest interest,
the friends of Mr. Hugh Miller have thought it due at once to his
great name and to the cause of truth, to lay fully before the
public a statement of the most mournful circumstances under which
he has departed from this life. For some months past his
over-tasked intellect had given evidence of disorder. He became the
prey of false or exaggerated alarms. He fancied--if, indeed, it was
a fancy--that occasionally, and for brief intervals, his faculties
quite failed him,--that his mind broke down. He was engaged at this
time with a treatise on the "Testimony of the Rocks," upon which he
was putting out all his strength,--working at his top-most pitch of
intensity. That volume will in a few weeks be in the hands of many
of our readers; and while they peruse it with the saddened
impression that his intellect and genius poured out their latest
treasures in its composition, they will search through it in vain
for the slightest evidence of feebleness or decaying power. Rather
let us anticipate the general verdict that will be pronounced upon
it, and speak of it as one of the ablest of all his writings. But
he wrought at it too eagerly. Hours after midnight the light was
seen to glimmer through the window of that room which within the
same eventful week was to witness the close of the volume, and the
close of the writer's life. This over-working of the brain began to
tell upon his mental health. He had always been somewhat moodily
apprehensive of being attacked by footpads, and had carried loaded
firearms about his person. Latterly, having occasion sometimes to
return to Portobello from Edinburgh at unseasonable hours, he had
furnished himself with a revolver. But now, to all his old fears as
to attacks upon his person, there was added an exciting and
over-mastering impression that his house, and especially that
Museum, the fruit of so much care, which was contained in a
separate outer building, were exposed to the assault of burglars.
He read all the recent stories of house robberies. He believed that
one night, lately, an actual attempt to break in upon his Museum
had been made. Visions of ticket-of-leave men, prowling about his
premises, haunted him by day and by night. The revolver, which lay
nightly near him, was not enough; a broad-bladed dagger was kept
beside it; whilst behind him, at his bed head, a claymore stood
ready at hand. A week or so ago, a new and more aggravated feature
of cerebral disorder showed itself in sudden and singular
sensations in his head. They came only after lengthened intervals.
They did not last long, but were intensely violent. The terrible
idea that his brain was deeply and hopelessly diseased,--that his
mind was on the verge of ruin,--took hold of him, and stood out
before his eye in all that appalling magnitude in which such an
imagination as his alone could picture it. It was mostly at night
that these wild paroxysms of the brain visited him; but up till
last Monday he had spoken of them to no one. A friend who had a
long conversation with him on the Thursday of last week, never
enjoyed an interview more, or remembers him in a more genial mood.
On the Saturday forenoon another friend from Edinburgh found him in
the same happy frame. As was his wont when with an old friend with
whom he felt particularly at ease, he read or recited some favorite
passages, repeating, on this occasion, with great emphasis, that
noble prayer of John Knox,[1] which, he told his friend, it had
been his frequent custom to repeat privately during the days of the
Disruption. On the forenoon of Sunday last he worshipped in the
Free Church at Portobello; and in the evening read a little work
which had been put into his hands, penning that brief notice of it
which will be read with melancholy interest as his last
contribution to this journal. About ten o'clock on Monday morning
he took what with him was an altogether unusual step. He called on
Dr. Balfour, in Portobello, to consult him as to his state of
health. "On my asking," says Dr. Balfour, in a communication with
which we have been favored, "what was the matter with him, he
replied, 'My brain is giving way. I cannot put two thoughts
together to-day. I have had a dreadful night of it; I cannot face
another such. I was impressed with the idea that my Museum was
attacked by robbers, and that I had got up, put on my clothes, and
gone out with a loaded pistol to shoot them. Immediately after that
I became unconscious. How long that continued, I cannot say; but
when I awoke in the morning I was trembling all over, and quite
confused in my brain. On rising I felt as if a stiletto was
suddenly, and as quickly as an electric shock, passed through my
brain from front to back, and left a burning sensation on the top
of the brain just below the bone. So thoroughly convinced was I
that I must have been out through the night, that I examined my
trousers to see if they were wet or covered with mud, but could
find none.' He further said,--'I may state that I was somewhat
similarly affected through the night twice last week, and I
examined my trousers in the morning to see if I had been out. Still
the terrible sensations were not nearly so bad as they were last
night; and I may further inform you, that towards the end of last
week, while passing through the Exchange in Edinburgh, I was seized
with such a giddiness that I staggered, and would, I think, have
fallen, had I not gone into an entry, where I leaned against the
wall, and became quite unconscious for some seconds.'" Dr. Balfour
stated his opinion of the case; told him that he was over-working
his brain, and agreed to call on him on the following day to make a
fuller examination. Meanwhile the quick eye of affection had
noticed that there was something wrong, and on Monday forenoon Mrs.
Miller came up to Edinburgh to express her anxiety to Professor
Miller, and request that he would see her husband. "I arranged,"
says Professor Miller, "to meet Dr. Balfour at Shrub Mount (Mr.
Hugh Miller's house), on the afternoon of next day. We met
accordingly at half-past three on Tuesday. He was a little annoyed
at Mrs. Miller's having given me the trouble, as he called it, but
received me quite in his ordinary kind, friendly manner. We
examined his chest and found that unusually well; but soon we
discovered that it was head symptoms that made him uneasy. He
acknowledged having been, night after night, up till very late in
the morning, working hard and continuously at his new book,
'which,' with much satisfaction, he said, 'I have finished this
day.' He was sensible that his head had suffered in consequence, as
evidenced in two ways: first, occasionally he felt as if a very
fine poignard had been suddenly passed through and through his
brain. The pain was intense, and momentarily followed by confusion
and giddiness, and the sense of being 'very drunk,'--unable to
stand or walk. He thought that a period of unconsciousness must
have followed this,--a kind of swoon,--but he had never fallen.
Second, what annoyed him most, however, was a kind of nightmare,
which for some nights past had rendered sleep most miserable. It
was no dream, he said; he saw no distinct vision, and could
remember nothing of what had passed accurately. It was a sense of
vague and yet intense horror, with a conviction of being abroad in
the night wind, and dragged through places as if by some invisible
power. 'Last night,' he said, 'I felt as if I had been ridden by a
witch for fifty miles, and rose far more wearied in mind and body
than when I lay down.' So strong was his conviction of having been
out, that he had difficulty in persuading himself to the contrary,
by carefully examining his clothes in the morning, to see if they
were not wet or dirty; and he looked inquiringly and anxiously to
his wife, asking if she was sure he had not been out last night,
and walking in this disturbed trance or dream. His pulse was quiet,
but tongue foul. The head was not hot, but he could not say it was
free from pain. But I need not enter into professional details.
Suffice it to say that we came to the conclusion that he was
suffering from an over-worked mind, disordering his digestive
organs, enervating his whole frame, and threatening serious head
affection. We told him this, and enjoined absolute discontinuance
of work, bed at eleven, light supper (he had all his life made that
a principal meal), thinning the hair of the head, a warm
sponging-bath at bed time, &c. To all our commands he readily
promised obedience, not forgetting the discontinuance of neck
rubbing, to which he had unfortunately been prevailed to submit
some days before. For fully an hour we talked together on these and
other subjects, and I left him with no apprehension of impending
evil, and little doubting but that a short time of rest and regimen
would restore him to his wonted vigor." It was a cheerful hour that
thus was passed, and his wife and family partook of the hopeful
feeling with which his kind friend, Professor Miller, had parted
with him. It was now near the dinner hour, and the servant entered
the room to spread the table. She found Mr. Miller in the room
alone. Another of the paroxysms was on him. His face was such a
picture of horror that she shrunk in terror from the sight. He
flung himself on the sofa, and buried his head, as if in agony,
upon the cushion. Again, however, the vision flitted by, and left
him in perfect health. The evening was spent quietly with his
family. During tea he employed himself in reading aloud Cowper's
"Castaway," the Sonnet on Mary Unwin, and one of his more playful
pieces, for the special pleasure of his children. Having corrected
some proofs of the forthcoming volume, he went up stairs to his
study. At the appointed hour he had taken the bath, but
unfortunately his natural and peculiar repugnance to physic had
induced him to leave untaken the medicine that had been prescribed.
He had retired into his sleeping-room,--a small apartment opening
out of his study, and which, for some time past, in consideration
of the delicate state of his wife's health, and the irregularity of
his own hours of study, he occupied at night alone,--and lain
sometime upon the bed. The horrible trance, more horrible than
ever, must have returned. All that can now be known of what
followed is to be gathered from the facts, that next morning his
body, half dressed, was found lying lifeless on the floor, the feet
upon the study rug, the chest pierced with the ball of the revolver
pistol, which was found lying in the bath that stood close by.[2]
The deadly bullet had perforated the left lung, grazed the heart,
cut through the pulmonary artery at its root, and lodged in the
rib in the right side. Death must have been instantaneous. The
servant by whom the body was first discovered, acting with singular
discretion, gave no alarm, but went instantly in search of the
doctor and minister; and on the latter the melancholy duty was
devolved of breaking the fearful intelligence to that now
broken-hearted widow, over whose bitter Borrow it becomes us to
draw the veil. The body was lifted and laid upon the bed. We saw it
there a few hours afterwards. The head lay back sideways on the
pillow. There was the massive brow, the firm-set, manly features,
we had so often looked upon admiringly, just as we had lately seen
them,--no touch nor trace upon them of disease,--nothing but that
overspread pallor of death to distinguish them from what they had
been. But the expression of that countenance in death will live in
our memory forever. Death by gunshot wounds is said to leave no
trace of suffering behind; and never was there a face of the dead
freer from all shadow of pain, or grief, or conflict, than that of
our dear departed friend. And as we bent over it, and remembered
the troubled look it sometimes had in life, and thought what must
have been the sublimely terrific expression that it wore at the
moment when the fatal deed was done, we could not help thinking
that it lay there to tell us, in that expression of unruffled,
majestic repose that sat upon every feature, what we so assuredly
believe, that the spirit had passed through a terrible tornado, in
which reason had been broken down; but that it had made the great
passage in safety, and stood looking back to us, in humble,
grateful triumph, from the other side.
On looking round the room in which the body had been discovered, a
folio sheet of paper was seen lying on the table. On the centre of
the page the following lines were written,--the last which that pen
was ever to trace:--
"DEAREST LYDIA,--My brain burns. I _must_ have _walked_; and a
fearful dream rises upon me. I cannot bear the horrible thought.
God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon me. Dearest
Lydia, dear children, farewell. My brain burns as the recollection
grows. My dear, dear wife, farewell."
HUGH MILLER.
What a legacy of love to a broken-hearted family! and to us, and
all who loved him, how pleasing to observe, that in that
bewildering hour, when the horror of that great darkness came down
upon that noble spirit, and some hideous, shapeless phantom
overpowered it, and took from it even the capacity to discern the
right from the wrong, humility, and faith, and affection, still
kept their hold;--amid the ruins of the intellect, that tender
heart remaining still unbroken! These last lines remain as the
surest evidence of the mysterious power that laid his spirit
prostrate, and of the noble elements of which that spirit was
composed,--humble, and reverent, and loving to the last.
Yesterday, at the request of friends, and under the authority of
the Procurator-Fiscal, a _post mortem_ examination of the body took
place. We subjoin the result:--
"EDINBURGH, December 26, 1856.
"We hereby certify, on soul and conscience, that we have this day
examined the body of Mr. Hugh Miller, at Shrub Mount, Portobello.
"The cause of death we found to be a pistol-shot through the left
side of the chest; and this, we are satisfied, was inflicted by his
own hand.
"From the diseased appearances found in the brain, taken in
connection with the history of the case, we have no doubt that the
act was suicidal under the impulse of insanity."
JAMES MILLER, W.T. GAIRDNER,
A.H. BALFOUR, A.M. EDWARDS.
We must ask to be excused from attempting any analysis of Mr.
Miller's character and genius, or any estimate of the distinguished
services he has rendered to literature, science, and the Christian
faith. His loss is too heavy a one,--his removal has come upon us
too suddenly and too awfully for mind or hand to be steady enough
for such a task. The voice of the public press has already told
what a place he had won for himself in the admiration and affection
of his countrymen; and for the delicate and tender way in which the
manner of his departure has universally been alluded to, were we
permitted to speak in the name of Mr. Miller's friends, we should
express our deepest gratitude. It is a beautiful and worthy tribute
that his brother journalists have rendered to the memory of one who
was a laborer along with them in elevating the talent and tone of
our newspaper literature.
As Free Churchmen, however, it would be unpardonable were we to
omit all reference, at such a time as this, to what he did on
behalf of the church of his adoption. Dr. Chalmers did not err
when, self-oblivious, he spake of Mr. Miller, as he so often did,
as the greatest Scotchman alive after Sir Walter Scott's death, and
as the man who had done more than all others to defend and make
popular throughout the country the non-intrusion cause. We know
well what the mutual love and veneration was of those two great men
for one another whilst living; and now that both are gone,--and
hereafter we believe still more so than even now,--their two names
will be intertwined in the grateful and admiring remembrance of the
ministers and members of the Free Church. It was die high honor of
the writer of these hurried lines to record the part taken by his
venerated relative in that great ecclesiastical struggle which
terminated in the Disruption. At that lime it was matter to him of
great regret that, as his office was that of the biographer, and
not of the historian, there did not occur those natural
opportunities of speaking of the part taken by Mr. Miller in that
struggle, of which he gladly would have availed himself. And he
almost wishes now that he had violated what appeared to him to be
his duty, in order to create such an opportunity. He feels as if in
this he had done some injustice to the dead,--an injustice which it
would gratify him beyond measure if he could now in any way repair,
by expressing it as his own judgment, and the judgment of the vast
body of his Church, that, next to the writings and actings of Dr.
Chalmers, the leading articles of Mr. Miller in this journal did
more than anything else to give the Free Church the place it holds
in the affections of so many of our fellow-countrymen.
But Mr. Miller was far more than a Free Churchman, and did for the
Christianity of his country and the world a far higher service than
any which in that simple character and office was rendered by him.
There was nothing in him of the spirit and temper of the sectarian.
He breathed too broad an atmosphere to live and move within such
narrow bounds. In the heat of the conflict there may have been too
much occasionally of the partisan; and in the pleasure that the
sweep and stroke of his intellectual tomahawk gave to him who
wielded it, he may have forgotten at times the pain inflicted where
it fell; but let his writings before and after the Disruption be
now consulted, and it will be found that it was mainly because of
his firm belief, whether right or wrong, that the interests of
vital godliness were wrapped up in it, that he took his stand, and
played his conspicuous part, in the ecclesiastical conflict. It is
well known that for some time past,--for reasons to which it would
be altogether unseasonable to allude,--he has ceased to take any
active part in ecclesiastical affairs. He had retired even, in a
great measure, from the field of general literature, to devote
himself to the study of Geology. His past labors in this
department,--enough to give him a high and honored place among its
most distinguished cultivators,--he looked upon but as his training
for the great life-work he had marked out for himself,--the full
investigation and illustration of the Geology of Scotland. He had
large materials already collected for this work; and it was his
intention, after completing that volume which has happily been left
in so finished a state, to set himself to their arrangement. The
friends of science in many lands will mourn over the incompleted
project which, however ably it may hereafter be accomplished by
another, it were vain to hope shall ever be so accomplished as it
should have been by one who united in himself the power of accurate
observation, of logical deduction, of broad generalization, and of
pictorial and poetic representation. But the friends of
Christianity cannot regret, that since it was the mysterious decree
of Heaven that he should prematurely fall,--his work as a pure
Geologist not half done,--he should have been led aside by the
publication of the Vestiges of Creation to that track of
semi-theological, semi-scientific research to which his later
studies and later writings have been devoted. That, as it now seems
to us, was the great work which it was given him on earth to
do,--to illustrate the perfect harmony of all that science tells us
of the physical structure and history of our globe, with all that
the Bible tells of the creation and government of this earth by and
through Christ Jesus our Lord. The establishment and exhibition of
that harmony was a task to which is it too much to say that there
was no man living so competent as he? We leave it to the future to
declare how much he has done by his writings to fulfil that task;
but mourning, as we now can only do, over his sad and melancholy
death,--to that very death, with all the tragic circumstances that
surround it, we would point as the closing sacrifice offered on the
altar of our faith. His very intellect, his reason,--God's most
precious gift,--a gift dearer than life,--perished in the great
endeavor to harmonize the works and word of the Eternal. A most
inscrutable event, that such an intellect should have been suffered
to go to wreck through too eager a prosecution of such a work. But
amid the mystery, which we cannot penetrate, our love, and our
veneration, and our gratitude, toward that so highly gifted and
truly Christian man shall only grow the deeper because of the cloud
and the whirlwind in which he has been borne off from our side.
On the 31st of December, two days after the obsequies had been
performed, Dr. Hanna resumed the subject in the following elevated
strain:
We have still but little heart to dilate on any political or
literary topic. Our thoughts can dwell on but one thrice melancholy
event. Need we name that event? Alas, no! It had occurred but a few
hours when the tidings of it struck our city with stunning,
stupefying, and deeply saddening blow. It has already thrilled our
whole land; and is on its way, through a hundred channels, to the
west, to the east, and to the south, carrying with it mourning and
lamentation throughout the vast area which is covered by the
language in which Hugh Miller wrote. Writing, as it were, amid the
deep shadows of the funeral chamber, and brought in a manner into
the very presence of the dead, we are made strongly to feel, and we
daresay our readers to a large extent will feel, too, the
nothingness of those discussions which usually occupy and engross
men. The weightiest matter that ever occupied the wisdom of cabinet
or the pen of journalist appears verily but fleeting and
transitory, when brought thus into prominent contrast with the
awful realities of human existence and destiny; and it is only when
reflection shows us that these matters are yet parts of a grand
Providential scheme, embracing man's happiness now, and entering
deeply into the question of his future and eternal well-being, that
we can see in them that amount of significance and importance which
they really possess.
From the firmament of British literature and science a great light
has departed. But yesterday we rejoiced in its beams, and now it
has set all suddenly and forever; and to us there remains but the
melancholy task of bewailing its departure, and tracing very
hastily and imperfectly its track. The intellectual powers of Hugh
Miller had certainly not declined. He was marked to the very last
by that wonderful robustness of mind which had characterized him
all through life. His sense was as manly, his judgment as sound and
comprehensive, his penetration as discriminating and deep, his
imagination as vigorous and bold, and his taste as pure and trusty,
as they had ever been. The whole of his great powers were found
working together up to the last week of his earthly career, with
their usually calm, noiseless strength, and finely balanced and
exquisitely toned harmony. We have evidence of this fact under his
own hand in recent numbers of the _Witness_. His last two articles
were, the one on Russia, and the other on our modern poets. The
former,--that on the resources of the Russian empire,--is
characterized by the same wide range of thinking, the same skill in
analysis, and the same power of grouping and arranging details, and
making them to throw light on some great principle, which usually
marked and notified his hand when employed on such subjects. The
latter,--that on the poets,--is rich and genial as usual,
betokening a full and unclouded recollection of all his early
reading in that department of our literature, abounding in the
finest touches of pathos and beauty, and redolent with a most
generous sympathy with kindred genius. It is not inconsistent with
what we have now stated, and it is the fact, that latterly the
inroads of disease, which had entrenched itself deeply in a
constitution originally strong, and which kept steadily advancing
upon the vital powers, had come so near the seat of the mind, that
for short intervals the noble spirit was sadly beclouded, and its
moral and intellectual action momentarily suspended. But, apart
from this, there seemed ground to believe that there was yet before
Mr. Miller much honorable and noble labor. The strong man, after
all his tasks, appeared to be still strong. His powers were
mellowing into richness and calm, matured strength; his conceptions
of great principles were growing yet wider; his store of facts,
literary as well as scientific, was accumulating with every busy
and laborious year that passed over him; and there did seem ground
to expect from his pen, unrivalled among his contemporaries in its
exquisite purity and calm power, many a deep thoughted article, and
many a profoundly reasoned and richly illustrated volume. We looked
to him for the solution of many a dark question in science; and we
certainly hoped, from that fine union of science and theology which
dwelt in him above all men, for a yet fuller and more complete
adjustment of the two great records of Creation,--that of the
Rocks, and that of Moses. But alas! all these hopes have suddenly
failed us. It seemed right otherwise to the Great Disposer of all.
He has said to his faithful servant, "Enough."
Let us look back upon that work. We by no means aim at giving a
calm, well weighed, and deeply pondered estimate of it, but only
such a glance as the circumstances permit and require. His great
and special work was his advocacy of the principles of the Free
Church. Mr. Miller was _par excellence_ the popular expounder and
defender of these principles, whether in their embryotic state in
the Non-Intrusion party, or as embodied in the fully developed and
completely emancipated Free Protesting Church of Scotland. For this
service, in connection with which he would have best liked to be
remembered, as he best deserved it, he had unconsciously been
undergoing a course of preparation even when a boy. He himself has
told us with what eagerness he devoured, at that period of life,
the legendary histories of Wallace and Bruce; and the occupation
had its use. It gave him a capacity for admiring what was great
though perilous in exploit, and for truly and largely sympathizing
with what was patriotic and self-sacrificing in character; and so
it created a groundwork for his own future thinking and acting. The
admiration he then bore to these earliest of our "Scottish
Worthies," who vindicated on Bannockburn, and kindred fields,
Scotland's right to be an independent and free country, he
afterwards transferred to our later "Worthies," whom he revered as
greater still. Not that he ever lost his admiration of the former,
or ceased to value the incalculable services they rendered to the
Scottish nation; but that he regarded Knox and Melville as men
occupying a yet higher platform,--as gifted with a yet deeper
insight into their country's wants,--as, in short, carrying forward
and consummating the glorious task which Wallace and Bruce had but
begun. He saw that unless our reformers had come after our heroes,
planting schools, founding colleges, and, above all, imparting to
their countrymen a scriptural and rational faith, in vain had Bruce
unsheathed his sword,--in vain had Wallace laid down his life.
Wallace and Bruce had created an independent country; Knox and
Melville had created an independent people. They were the creators
of the Scottish nation,--the real enfranchisers of our people; and
it was this that taught Mr. Miller to venerate these men so
profoundly, and that made him in his inmost soul a devoted
follower, and to the utmost extent of his great faculties a
defender, of their cause. He was a soldier from love,--pure,
heroic, chivalrous devotion soaring infinitely above the partisan.
He saw that the Church of Scotland was the creator of the rights
and privileges of the people of Scotland,--that she was the grand
palladium of the country's liberties,--that while she stood an
independent and free institution, the people stood an independent
and free nation,--and that bonds to her meant slavery to them.
Therefore did he gird on the sword when he saw peril gathering
around her. The privileges,--the entire standing of the common
people, as given them by the Reformation,--he saw to be in danger:
he was "one of themselves;" and he felt and fought as if almost the
quarrel had been a personal one, and the question at issue his own
liberty or slavery. How richly equipped and nobly armed he came
into the field, we need not here state. What fulness yet precision
of ecclesiastical lore,--what strength and conclusiveness of
argument,--what flashes of humor, wit, and sarcasm,--and in what a
luminous yet profoundly philosophical light did he set the great
principles involved in the controversy, making them patent in the
very cottages of our land, and so fixing them in the understandings
of the very humblest of our people, that they never afterwards
could be either misunderstood or forgotten! It was thus that the
way was prepared for the great result of the 18th of May, 1843.
Of Mr. Miller, as a man of science and a public journalist, we
cannot speak at present at any length. In him the love of science
was deeply seated and early developed. The first arena on which he
appeared--obscure and humble as it was--afforded him special
opportunities of initiating himself into what to him was then, and
continued ever afterwards to be, a most fascinating study. The
study of geology was eagerly prosecuted amid the multifarious
duties, and during the brief pauses, of a busy life. Several
original discoveries rewarded his patient and laborious
investigations. He succeeded at length in placing his name in the
first rank of British scientific thinkers and writers. His works
are characterized by a fine union of strict science, classic
diction, and enchanting description, which rises not unfrequently
into the loftiest vein of poetry. The fruits of his researches were
ever made to bear upon the defence and elucidation of the Oracles
of Truth. Our common Christianity owes much to his pen. Viewing him
as a journalist, Mr. Miller not only excelled in article
writing,--the most difficult of all kinds of composition,--but, as
will be generally admitted, he has introduced a new era into
newspaper writing. If the moral tone of our newspaper press is
higher now than it was twenty-five years ago, we have Mr. Miller in
large degree to thank for it; and to him, too, is to be traced that
purer style and more philosophic spirit which begins to be
discernible in the columns of our public journals.
But the character in which his personal friends will deplore him
most, and will most frequently recall his memory, will be that of
the man. How meek and gentle he was!--how unpretending and modest,
even as a very child!--how true and steady in friendship!--how wise
and playful his mirth!--how ripened and chastened his wisdom!--how
ready to counsel!--how willing to oblige!--how generous and large
his sympathies! No little jealousies, no fretful envyings, had he!
Even in opposition, how noble and manly was he: if a powerful, he
was a fair and open antagonist; and whatever hard blows were
dealt, they were dealt in his own journal. We have seen him in
various moods and in all circumstances; but never did we hear him
utter an unkind or disparaging word of man. He was, too, a sincere
and humble Christian; and the lively faith which he cherished in
the adorable Redeemer and his all-efficacious sacrifice, bore
abundantly its good fruits in a life including no ordinary variety
of condition and trial, and running on to such term as to make
abundantly manifest what manner of man he was.
The article which follows is from the _Edinburgh News_. It is evidently
from the pen of one who was intimately acquainted with Hugh Miller, and
is worthy of attention, not only for its eloquent and discriminating
notices of his works, but also for its statements respecting his great
designs, never, alas, to be accomplished.
It is not many months since we chronicled the death of the greatest
of living Scotsmen, and the prince of modern philosophers--Sir
William Hamilton. These last few days have bereft us of another of
our countrymen not less illustrious, and known all over the world
as one of the princes of geology. We cannot well estimate the loss
which society sustains in the death of Mr. Miller. He occupied a
foremost place among us, and there is none on whom his mantle can
fall. In the world of letters his name takes high rank, for
undoubtedly he was one of the ablest writers in our literature. Who
can have read without delight his manly, vigorous language, soaring
sometimes into the highest eloquence, anon plunging into the depths
of metaphysical argument, or grappling with the dry technicalities
of science, yet ever rolling along with the same easy, onward flow?
His style has all the charm of Goldsmith's sweetness, with the
infusion of a rich vigor that gives it an air of great originality.
He is one of the few writers who have successfully conjoined the
graces of literature with the formal details of science, and whose
works are perused for their literary excellences, independently
altogether of their scientific merit. His writings will ever be
regarded among the classics of the English language. For obvious
reasons we pass over his editorial labors. It is on the republic of
science that his death will fall most heavily. There can be little
doubt that he has done more to popularize his favorite department
than any other writer. Of all geological works, his enjoy, perhaps,
the widest circulation--not in this country, merely, but all over
the world, and especially in the United States. His reputation,
however, does not rest solely on his standing as an exponent of
science to the people; he was himself an original and accurate
observer. When the infant science of geology was battling for
existence against the opposing phalanx of united Christendom, Hugh
Miller, then a mere lad, was quietly working as a stone-mason in
the north of Scotland, and employing his leisure time among the
fossil fishes of the Old Red Sandstone, and the ammonites and the
belemnites of the Lias, that abound in the neighborhood of
Cromarty. As years rolled slowly away, he continued his
observations, and when at length, in 1841, the results were given
to the world in his well known "Old Red Sandstone," every one was
charmed with the novelty and beauty of the style, and his
reputation as a writer was at once established. Men of science,
however, though acknowledging the graphic and elegant diction of
his descriptions, had some doubts as to their truthfulness. Indeed,
by some geologists they were cast aside as fanciful, and other
restorations of the Old Red fishes were proposed and adopted. Those
who are acquainted with Old Red ichthyolites, or who have had the
pleasure of examining the exquisite series in Mr. Miller's
collection, may well smile at the absurdity of the restorations
that were adopted. Yet some of these found their way into a work of
no little popularity,--Mantell's "Medals of Creation." It is
sufficient to state that the drawings there given bear no
resemblance to anything in the heavens above or on the earth
beneath, or in the waters under the earth, nor to any fossil
organism that has ever been discovered. At length the progress of
investigation led to the discarding of these monstrosities, and
Miller's restorations were returned to, as, after all, the true
ones. "The Old Red Sandstone" formed an era in the history of
fossil geology. That formation had hitherto been regarded as well
nigh barren of organic remains; but Mr. Miller demonstrated that it
contains at least three successive stages, each characterized by a
suite of uncouth and hitherto unknown fishes. A few years later he
published his "Footprints of the Creator." This is undoubtedly his
_chef-d'oeuvre_, exhibiting, as it does, the full powers of his
massive intellect and his poetic imagination. As a piece of
scientific investigation and research, it is of a very high order;
as a reply to the crudities of the development theory, it is
unanswerable; and as a contribution to our physico-theological
literature, it ranks, with Chalmers' "Astronomical Lectures," among
the finest in this or any other language. Some of the ideas are as
profound as they are original, opening up a new field of thought,
which it was doubtless the intention of the deceased himself to
cultivate. His published works, however, contain but a fraction, of
the labors of his lifetime. For many years past he has been, one of
the most energetic members of the Royal Physical Society, at whose
meetings he from time to time made known the progress of his
researches. Were these papers collected, they would form several
goodly volumes. But their author studiously refrained from
publishing them, save occasionally in the columns of the _Witness_
newspaper. It was his intention that they should each form a part
of the great work of his life, to which for many years his leisure
moments had been devoted. His design was to combine the results of
all his labors among the different rock formations of Scotland into
one grand picture of the geological history of our country. For
this end he had explored a large part of the Scottish counties,
anxious that his statements should rest as far as possible upon the
authority of his own personal investigations. His knowledge of the
geology of the country was thus far more extensive than was
generally supposed. We may refer particularly to that branch of it
on which he bestowed the unremitted attention of his closing
years,--the palæontological history of the glacial beds,--that
strange and as yet almost unknown period that ushered in the
existing creation. He studied it minutely along the shores of the
Moray Firth, on the east coast of Scotland, along the shores of
Fife and the Lothians, and on the coast of Ayrshire and the Firth
of Clyde. This last summer he made a tour through the centre of the
island, and obtained boreal shells at Buchlyvie in
Stirlingshire,--the _omphalos_ of Scotland. The importance of this
discovery, in connection with those he had previously made in
following out the same chain of evidence, can only be appreciated
by those who have paid some attention to geology. We may state
briefly that it proves the central area of Scotland to have been
submerged beneath an icy sea, and icebergs to have grated along
over what is now the busy valley of the Forth and Clyde, while the
waters were tenanted by shells at present found only in the
Northern Ocean. A large part of his work is written, though it is
to be feared that much knowledge, amassed in the course of its
preparation, has perished with him. In particular, there were whole
sections of his Museum understood only by himself. Every little
fragment had its story, and contributed its quota of evidence to
the truth of his descriptions. There is, perhaps, but another mind
in Britain,--that of Sir Philip Egerton,--that can catch up the
thread, and read off, though with difficulty, the meaning of those
carefully arranged fragments. Yet, even with such aid, much must
long, if not forever, remain dark and obscure. The work on which he
was more immediately engaged at the time of his death was partly
theological, partly scientific. It was to embrace the substance of
some lectures lately delivered, and a paper read last year before
the British Association at Glasgow on the fossil plants collected
by himself from the Oolite and Old Red Sandstone of Scotland. It
was likewise to contain the figures of some thirty or forty
hitherto undescribed species of vegetables. We hope that, as it was
all but ready for publication, it may yet be given to the world.
The name of Hugh Miller will ever stand forth as synonymous with
all that is honest and manly; as the impersonation of moral courage
and indomitable energy; as the true ideal of a self-educated man.
From the humblest sphere of life, and from the toils of a
stone-mason's apprentice, without means, without friends, without
other than the most rudimentary education, he rose, by his own
unaided and unwearied exertions, to fill one of the brightest pages
in the annals of our country. And when, in future years, an example
is sought of unconquerable perseverance, of fearless integrity, and
of earnest, ceaseless activity, the voice of universal approbation
shall proclaim--"_the stone-mason of Cromurty_." We have spoken of
this mournful event only as a public calamity; yet, to those who
were personally acquainted with the departed, it is invested with
no ordinary sadness. Long, long shall they remember the playful
fancy, the rich humor, the warm, genial heart of their friend. His
simple, open frankness endeared him to every one, though his
retiring disposition prevented him from making many intimate
friendships. To those who enjoyed this higher privilege, his death
must have caused the most poignant regret. Yet what can even their
sorrow be to that of the relatives of the departed? We lament the
death of one who was alike an honor to his profession, to
literature, to science, and to his country,--one of the most loved
and cherished of friends. Let us not forget to mingle our sympathy
and our sorrow with that deeper grief that mourns the loss of a
husband and a father.
As coming from a different quarter, and presenting a somewhat different
view, the following, from the _London Literary Gazette_, should have a
place here.
Hugh Miller was born at Cromarty in 1805. In his early life he
worked as a laborer in the Sandstone quarries in his native
district, and afterwards as a stone-mason in different parts of
Scotland. In a work published in 1854, "My Schools and
Schoolmasters, or the story of my Education," Mr. Miller gives a
most interesting account of his early history, and of the training
and self-culture by which he rose to honorable rank in literature
and science. Notwithstanding the unpretending statements of this
narrative, and the disavowal of any other elements of success than
are within ordinary reach, every reader of that book feels that
homage is due to a genius original and rare, as well as to natural
talents diligently and judiciously cultivated. While professedly
written for the benefit of the working classes of his own country,
there are few who may not derive pleasant and profitable lessons
from this most remarkable piece of autobiography. After being
engaged in manual labor for about fifteen years, Mr. Miller was for
some time manager of a bank that was established in his native
town. While in this position, a pamphlet that he published, on the
ecclesiastical controversies which then distracted Scotland,
attracted the attention of the leaders of the party who now form
the Free Church, and they invited him to be editor of the _Witness_
newspaper, then about to be established for the advocacy of their
principles. Mr. Miller had already published a volume of "Legendary
Tales of Cromarty," of which the late Baron Hume, nephew of the
historian, himself a man of much judgment and taste, said it was
"written in an English style, which he had begun to regard as one
of the lost arts." The ability displayed by Mr. Miller as editor of
the _Witness_, and the influence exerted by him on ecclesiastical
and educational events in Scotland, are well known. Mr. Miller did
not confine his newspaper to topics of local or passing interest.
In its columns he made public his geological observations and
researches; and most of his works originally appeared in the form
of articles in that newspaper. It was in 1840, the year at which
the autobiographical memoir closes, that the name of Hugh Miller
first became widely known beyond his own country.
At the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of
Science at Glasgow that year, Sir Roderick, then Mr. Murchison,
gave an account of the striking discoveries recently made in the
Old Red Sandstone of Scotland. M. Agassiz, who was present, pointed
out the peculiarities and the importance of these discoveries; and
it was on this occasion that he proposed to associate the name of
Mr. Miller with them, by the wonderful fossil, the _Pterichthys
Milleri_, specimens of which were then under the notice of the
section. Dr. Buckland, following M. Agassiz, said that "he had
never been so much astonished in his life by the powers of any man
as he had been by the geological descriptions of Mr. Miller. He
described these objects with a felicity which made him ashamed of
the comparative meagreness and poverty of his own descriptions in
the 'Bridgewater Treatise,' which had cost him hours and days of
labor. He (Dr. Buckland) _would give his left hand to possess such
powers of description as this man_; and if it pleased Providence to
spare his useful life, he, if any one, would certainly render the
science attractive and popular, and do equal service to theology
and geology." At the meetings of the Association, the language of
panegyric and of mutual compliment is not unfrequent, and does not
signify much; but these were spontaneous tributes of praise to one
comparatively unknown. The publication of the volume on the "Old
Red Sandstone," with the details of the author's discoveries and
researches, more than justified all the anticipations that had been
formed. It was received with highest approbation, not by men of
science alone, for the interest of its facts, but by men of
letters, for the beauty of its style. Sir Roderick Murchison, in
his address to the Geological Society that year, "hailed the
accession to their science of such a writer," and said that "his
work is, to a beginner, worth a thousand didactic treatises." The
_Edinburgh Review_ spoke of the book being "as admirable for the
clearness of its descriptions, and the sweetness of its
composition, as for the purity and gracefulness that pervade it."
The impression made by such a testimony was the more marked, that
the reviewer spoke of the writer as a fellow countryman,
"meritorious and self-taught."
In 1847 appeared "First Impressions of England and its People," the
result of a tour made during the previous year. Some parts of this
book, especially the account of the pilgrimages to
Stratford-on-Avon, and the Leasowes, and Olney, and other places
memorable for their literary associations, are as fine pieces of
descriptive writing as the English language possesses. This magic
of style characterized all his works, whether those of a more
popular kind, or his scientific treatises, such as the "Old Red
Sandstone," and "Footprints of the Creator," a volume suggested by
the "Vestiges of Creation," and subversive of the fallacies of that
superficial and plausible book. Not one of the authors of our day
has approached Hugh Miller as a master of English composition, for
the equal of which we must go back to the times of Addison, Hume,
and Goldsmith. Other living writers have now a wider celebrity, but
they owe it much to the peculiarities of their style or the
popularity of their topics. Mr. Miller has taken subjects of
science, too often rendered dry and repulsive, and has thrown over
them an air of attractive romance. His writings on literature,
history, and politics, are known to comparatively few, from having
appeared in the columns of a local newspaper. A judicious selection
from his miscellaneous articles in the _Witness_ would widely
extend his fame, and secure for him a place, in classic English
literature, as high as he held during his life as a periodical
writer and as a scientific geologist.
The personal appearance of Mr. Miller, or "Old Red," as he was
familiarly named by his scientific friends, will not be forgotten
by any who have seen him. A head of great massiveness, magnified by
an abundant profusion of sub-Celtic hair, was set on a body of
muscular compactness, but which in later years felt the undermining
influence of a life of unusual physical and mental toil. Generally
wrapped in a bulky plaid, and with a garb ready for any work, he
had the appearance of a shepherd from the Rosshire hills rather
than an author and a man of science. In conversation or in
lecturing, the man of original genius and cultivated mind at once
shone out, and his abundant information and philosophical acuteness
were only less remarkable than his amiable disposition, his
generous spirit, and his consistent, humble piety. Literature and
science have lost in him one of their brightest ornaments, and
Scotland one of its greatest men.
* * * * *
On the Sabbath following Mr. Miller's death, sermons referring to the
event were preached in many of the churches in Edinburgh. Some of these
were reported in the newspapers, among which may be mentioned those by
the Rev. Drs. Hanna, Guthrie, Hetherington, Begg, and Tweedie.
On Monday, December the 29th, the Funeral Obsequies were performed. The
following account of the imposing ceremonial is from the _Edinburgh
Witness_.
FUNERAL OF MR. HUGH MILLER.
The mortal remains of this truly great man were consigned to the
grave on Monday, amid the most marked demonstrations of sorrow on
the part of the entire community.
The private company, numbering about sixty individuals, met at
Shrub Mount, the residence of the deceased at Portobello, about a
quarter to one in the afternoon. Amongst those present were the
Lord Provost of Edinburgh; A.M. Dunlop, Esq., M.P.; A. Black, Esq.,
M.P.; Professors Simpson, Balfour, and Fraser; Rev. Principal
Cunningham; Professor James Buchanan; Rev. Drs. Guthrie, Candlish,
Hanna, Bruce, Begg, Hetherington, and Wylie; Rev. Messrs. M'Kenzie
of Dunfermline, Cameron and Hunter of Nagpoor; Maurice Lothian,
Esq.; Geo. Dalziell, Esq., W.S.; W. Wood, Esq.; R. Paul, Esq.;
Francis Russell, Esq., advocate; M. Torrance, Esq.; Dr. Russell;
Dr. Geo. Bell; J.F. Macfarlan, Esq.; Archibald Gibson, Esq.; and
Councillor Johnston. The devotional exercises were conducted by Dr.
Guthrie, who was deeply affected during the prayer, and whose
feelings at times threatened to overcome him.
Thirteen two-horse mourning coaches were here in waiting to convey
the company to the place of sepulture in the Grange Cemetery,
preceded by the hearse, which had four horses.
The melancholy event, as might have been expected, cast a gloom
over the whole of Portobello; and the Provost and Magistrates,
anticipating the general feeling of the inhabitants, to whom Mr.
Miller had endeared himself by his genius and the modesty of his
demeanor, and also by the readiness which he ever displayed to
contribute to their intellectual elevation, by taking part in
several courses of popular lectures in the town, recommended the
closing of the different shops,--a request which was at once
readily complied with. Another striking proof of the general desire
to pay the last tribute of respect to the remains of the deceased,
was furnished by the circumstance that upwards of one hundred
gentlemen, many of whom had, so recently as the previous Tuesday,
listened to the reading of one of the ablest of his lectures, by
the Rev. Mr. Wight, the Congregational minister, met at half-past
twelve in the Free Church, in order to accompany the funeral,
either on foot or in carriages, to the burial place,--a distance of
about four miles. After a short, impressive religious service,
conducted by the Rev. Mr. Philip and the Rev. Mr. Wight, they
proceeded to join the private company, who had by this time taken
their places in the mourning carriages, on their way to Edinburgh.
On reaching the General Post-Office, in Waterloo Place, the ranks
of the funeral procession were largely augmented, there being here
as many as from twenty to thirty private carriages in waiting,
filled with the leading citizens, and a large body of the
inhabitants, of all ranks, classes, and denominations, drawn up in
line three or four abreast.
The Kirk-Session of Free St. John's, of which Mr. Miller was an
office-bearer, headed by the Rev. Dr. Guthrie and the Rev. Dr.
Hanna, who left the carriage at the Post-Office, occupied the front
of the procession, immediately followed by the Royal Physical
Society, of which the lamented deceased was a leading member, the
_employes_ in the _Witness_ office, and a large body of the general
public. A still more numerous body of the citizens, as well as of
parties from Glasgow, Liverpool, Stirling, Bridge of Allan, and
other parts of the country, drew up in the rear of the long line of
carriages, while the sides of the streets were also lined with
mourners, who accompanied the procession to the Cemetery. Besides
the large concourse of people who here joined the procession, the
whole front of the Register Office and the corners of the North
Bridge were densely occupied by some thousands of spectators; and
it may be safely said, that no event since the death of Dr.
Chalmers has caused such deep-felt sorrow and regret in Edinburgh.
The numbers present in the funeral _cortege_ must have amounted to
from one to two thousand; indeed, one paper states that "at one
time there could not have been many less than four thousand people
in the procession;" whilst another journal says, that although the
inclemency of the weather, the day being one of the dreariest of
the season, "kept back many who would otherwise have swelled the
line of mourners, even with this drawback, it has been informed
that the attendance was even greater than on the occasion of the
funeral of Dr. Chalmers in 1847."
After a short delay, caused by these accessions to the procession,
the whole moved up the North Bridge. It was gratifying to observe
that nearly all the shops on the North and South Bridges, and in
Nicolson and Clerk streets, along which the _cortege_ passed, were
closed; and along the whole route many a saddened countenance and
tearful eye could be seen, all testifying to the deep respect
entertained for him whose manly form had so often traversed these
same streets.
On reaching the entrance of the Grange Cemetery, the coffin was
removed from the hearse, and borne shoulder high to the tomb,
followed by the pall-bearers and the general company. The ground
selected for the burial-place is the westmost space but one on the
northern side of the Cemetery, and in a line with the graves of Dr.
Chalmers, Sir Andrew Agnew, and Sheriff Speirs, with which it is in
close proximity. As many of our readers are aware, the situation is
one of surpassing scenic beauty, and was described by the
deceased's own matchless pen but a few years ago, on the occasion
of the burial of Chalmers; and certainly in the grave of Hugh
Miller a new feature of attraction has been added to the spot.
The pall-bearers were Mr. Miller's oldest son,--a boy about
fourteen years of age,--who was accompanied by his younger brother,
six or seven years old; Mr. A. Williamson, his half-brother and
nearest kinsman; Mr. Fairly, his partner in business; Rev. Dr.
Guthrie, Rev. Dr. Hanna, Mr. Dunlop, M.P., Mr. R. Paul, and
Principal Cunningham.
The mournful ceremony was now near its close. As the heavy, dull
sound, caused by the fall of the damp earth upon the coffin, fell
upon the ear, a sad and painful sensation crept over the frame,
increased as this was by the wintry aspect of the day and the heavy
leaden sky, which, like a pall, was spread over the face of nature,
in striking harmony with the solemnity of the scene. A few minutes
more, and all was over; and the vast company, uncovered, paid the
closing mark of respect to the ashes of the mighty dead. A touching
scene occurred at the close of all. After the whole of the company
had retired, a laboring man, clad in humble habiliments, seized
hold of a handful of ivy or laurel leaves, and gently strewed them
upon the grave, while the tearful eye eloquently spoke of the
strength of his feelings.
So passed away one of whom Dr. Chalmers made the remark that "since
Scott's death he was the greatest Scotchman that was left." "The space
his name occupied in the literary and scientific world," says another,
"could hardly have been conjectured, but for the blank he leaves behind
him now that he has left it. Other men may have extended the domain of
science wider; but no man has done more to extend the circle of its
votaries by the magic of his style and the life-like power of his
descriptions; nor has any man done more to keep together the claims, too
often made to appear divergent, of Science and Religion, and to blend
them into one intelligent and reasonable service. It was worth while to
have lived to effect this, even at the cost of the clouds which saddened
and darkened the close. But
----'glory without end
Scatters the clouds away; and on that name attend
The thanks and praises of all time.'"
A PRAYER
BY JOHN KNOX,
MADE AT THE FIRST ASSEMBLIE OF THE CONGREGATION, WHEN THE
CONFESSION OF OUR FAITHE AND WHOLE ORDERS OF THE CHURCH WAS THERE
RED AND APPROVED.[3]
O Lord God Almightie, and Father moste mcrcifull, there is none lyke
thee in heaven nor in earthe, which workest all thinges for the glorie
of thy name and the comfort of thyne elect. Thou dydst once make man
ruler over all thy creatures, and placed hym in the garden of all
pleasures; but how soone, alas, dyd he in his felicitie forget thy
goodness? Thy people Israel also, in their wealth dyd evermore runne
astray, abusinge thy manifold mercies; lyke as all fleshe contynually
rageth when it hath gotten libertie and external prosperitie. But such
is thy wisdome adjoyned to thy mercies, deare Father, that thou sekest
all means possible to brynge thy chyldren to the sure sense and lyvely
feelinge of thy fatherly favour. And therefore when prosperitie wyll not
serve, then sendest thow adversitie, graciously correctinge all thy
chyldren whome thou receyvest into thy howshold. Wherfore we, wretched
and miserable synners, render unto thee most humble and hartie thankes,
that yt hath pleased thee to call us home to thy folde by thy Fatherly
correction at this present, wheras in our prosperitie and libertie we
dyd neglect thy graces offered unto us. For the which negligence, and
many other grevous synnes whereof we now accuse our selves before thee,
thow mightest moste justly have gyven us up to reprobate mynds and
induration of our hartes, as thow haste done others. But such is thy
goodnes, O Lord, that thou semest to forget alt our offences, and haste
called us of thy good pleasure from all idolatries into this Citie most
Christianlye refourmed, to professe thy name, and to suffer some crosse
amongest thy people for thy truth and Gospell's sake; and so to be thy
wytnesses with thy Prophets and Apostles, yea, with thy dearely beloved
Sonne Jesus Christ our head, to whome thow dost begynne here to fashion
us lyke, that in his glorie we may also be lyke hym when he shall
appear. O Lord God, what are we upon whome thowe shuldest shewe this
great mercye? O moste lovynge Lord, forgyve us our unthankfulnes, and
all our synnes, for Jesus Christ's sake. O heavenly Father, increase thy
Holy Spirit in us, to teache our heartes to cry Abba, deare Father! to
assure us of our eternal election in Christ; to revele thy wyll more and
more towards us; to confirme us so in thy trewthe, that we may lyve and
dye therein; and that by the power of the same Spirit we may boldlely
gyve an accompts of our faith to all men with humblenes and mekenes,
that whereas they backbyte and slaunder us as evyll doers, they may be
ashamed and once stopp their mowthes, seinge our good conversation in
Christ Iesu, for whose sake we beseche thee, O Lord God, to guide,
governe, and prosper this our enterprise in assemblinge our bretherne,
to prayse thy holie name. And not only to be here present with us thy
children according to thy promesse, but also mercifullie to assist thy
like persecuted people, our Bretherne, gathered in all other places,
that they and we, consentinge together in one spirite and truethe, may
(all worldly respectes set a part) seke thy onely honor and glorie in
all our and their Assemblies.
SO BE IT.
THE TESTIMONY OF THE ROCKS.
LECTURE FIRST.
THE PALÆONTOLOGICAL HISTORY OF PLANTS.
Palæontology, or the science of ancient organisms, deals, as its
subject, with all the plants and animals of all the geologic periods. It
bears nearly the same sort of relation to the _physical_ history of the
past, that biography does to the civil and political history of the
past. For just as a complete biographic system would include every name
known to the historian, a complete palæontologic system would include
every fossil known to the geologist. It enumerates and describes all the
organic existences of all the extinct creations,--all the existences,
too, of the present creation that occur in the fossil or semi-fossil
form; and, thus coextensive in space with the earth's surface,--nay,
greatly more than coextensive with the earth's surface,--for in the vast
hieroglyphic record which our globe composes, page lies beneath page,
and inscription covers over inscription,--coextensive, too, in time,
with every period in the terrestrial history since being first began
upon our planet,--it presents to the student a theme so vast and
multifarious, that it might seem but the result, on his part, of a
proper modesty, conscious of the limited range of his powers, and of
the brief and fleeting term of his life, were he to despair of being
ever able effectually to grapple with it. "But," to borrow from one of
the most ingenious of our Scottish metaphysicians, "in this, as in other
instances in which nature has given us difficulties with which to cope,
she has not left us to be wholly overcome." "If," says Dr. Thomas Brown,
in his remarks on the classifying principle,--"if she has placed us in a
labyrinth, she has at the same time furnished us with a clue which may
guide us, not, indeed, through all its dark and intricate windings, but
through those broad paths which conduct us into day. The single power by
which we discover resemblance or relation in general, is a sufficient
aid to us in the perplexity or confusion of our first attempts at
arrangement. It begins by converting thousands, and more than thousands,
into one; and, reducing in the same manner the numbers thus formed, it
arrives at last at the few distinctive characters of those great
comprehensive tribes on which it ceases to operate, because there is
nothing left to oppress the memory or the understanding."
But, is this all? Can the Palæontologist but say that that classifying
principle, which in every other department of science yields such
assistance to the memory, is also of use in his, or but urge that it
enables him to sort and arrange his facts; and that, by converting one
idea into the type and exemplar of many resembling ones, it imparts to
him an ability of carrying not inadequate conceptions of the mighty
whole in his mind? If this were all, you might well ask, Why obtrude
upon us, in connection with your special science, a common
semi-metaphysical idea, equally applicable to all the sciences,--in
especial, for example, to that botany which is the science of existing
plants, and to that zoology which is the science of existing animals?
Nay, I reply, but it is not all. I refer to this classifying principle
because, while it exists in relation to all other sciences as a
principle--to use the words of the metaphysician just quoted--"given to
us by nature,"--as a principle of _the mind within_,--it exists in
Palæontological science as a principle of nature itself,--as a principle
palpably _external to the mind_. It is a marvellous fact, whose full
meaning we can as yet but imperfectly comprehend, that myriads of ages
ere there existed a human mind, well nigh the same principles of
classification now developed by man's intellect in our better treatises
of zoology and botany, were developed on this earth by the successive
geologic periods; and that the by-past productions of our planet, animal
and vegetable, were chronologically arranged in its history, according
to the same laws of thought which impart regularity and order to the
works of the later naturalist and phytologists.
I need scarce say how slow and interrupted in both provinces the course
of arrangement has been, or how often succeeding writers have had to
undo what their predecessors had done, only to have their own
classifications set aside by _their_ successors in turn. At length,
however, when the work appears to be well nigh completed, a new science
has arisen, which presents us with a very wonderful means of testing it.
Cowley, in his too eulogistic ode to Hobbes,--smit by the singular
ingenuity of the philosophic infidel, and unable to look through his
sophisms to the consequences which they involved,--could say, in
addressing him, that
"only God could know
Whether the fair idea he did show
Agreed entirely with God's own or no."
And he then not very wisely added,--
"This, I dare boldly tell,
'T is so like truth, 't will serve our turn as well."
We now know, however, that no mere resemblance to truth will for any
considerable length of time serve its turn. It is because the
resemblances have, like those of Hobbes, been mere resemblances, that so
much time and labor have had to be wasted by the pioneers of science in
their removal; and, now that a wonderful opportunity has occurred of
comparing, in this matter of classification, the human with the Divine
idea,--the idea embodied by the zoologists and botanists in their
respective systems, with the idea embodied by the Creator of all in
geologic history,--we cannot perhaps do better, in entering upon our
subject, than to glance briefly at the great features in which God's
order of classification, as developed in Palæontology, agrees with the
order in which man has at length learned to range the living
productions, plant and animal, by which he is surrounded, and of which
he himself forms the most remarkable portion. In an age in which a class
of writers not without their influence in the world of letters would
fain repudiate every argument derived from _design_, and denounce all
who hold with Paley and Chalmers as anthropomorphists, that labor to
create for themselves a god of their own type and form, it may be not
altogether unprofitable to contemplate the wonderful parallelism which
exists between the Divine and human systems of classification,
and--remembering that the geologists who have discovered the one had no
hand in assisting the naturalists and phytologists who framed the
other--soberly to inquire whether we have not a new argument in the fact
for an identity in constitution and quality of the Divine and human
minds,--not a mere fanciful identity, the result of a disposition on the
part of man to imagine to himself a God bearing his own likeness, but an
identity real and actual, and the result of that creative act by which
God formed man in his own image.
The study of plants and animals seems to have been a favorite one with
thoughtful men in every age of the world. According to the Psalmist,
these great "works of the Lord are sought out of all them that have
pleasure therein." The Book of Job, probably the oldest writing in
existence, is full of vivid descriptions of the wild denizens of the
flood and desert; and it is expressly recorded of the wise old king,
that he "spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon, even
unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall; and also of beasts, and
of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes." Solomon was a zoologist
and botanist; and there is palpable classification in the manner in
which his studies are described. It is a law of the human mind, as has
been already said, that, wherever a large stock of facts are acquired,
the classifying principle steps in to arrange them. "Even the rudest
wanderer in the fields," says Dr. Brown, "finds that the profusion of
blossoms around him--in the greater number of which he is able himself
to discover many striking resemblances--may be reduced to some order of
arrangement." But, for many centuries, this arranging faculty labored
but to little purpose. As specimens of the strange classification that
continued to obtain down till comparatively modern times, let us select
that of two works which, from the literary celebrity of their authors,
still possess a classical standing in letters,--Cowley's "Treatise on
Plants," and Goldsmith's "History of the Earth and Animated Nature." The
plants we find arranged by the poet on the simple but very inadequate
principle of size and show. Herbs are placed first, as lowest and least
conspicuous in the scale; then flowers; and, finally, trees. Among the
herbs, at least two of the ferns--the true maidenhair and the
spleenwort--are assigned places among plants of such high standing as
sage, mint, and rosemary: among the flowers, monocotyledons, such as the
iris, the tulip, and the lily, appear among dicotyledons, such as the
rose, the violet, the sunflower, and the auricula: and among trees we
find the palms placed between the plum and the olive; and the yew, the
fir, and the juniper, flanked on one side by the box and the holly, and
on the other by the oak. Such, in treating of plants, was the
classification adopted by one of the most learned of English poets in
the year 1657.
Nor was Goldsmith,-who wrote more than a century later, much more
fortunate in dealing with the animal kingdom. Buffon had already
published his great work; and even he could bethink him of no better
mode of dividing his animals than into wild and tame. And in Goldsmith,
who adopted, in treating of the mammals, a similar principle, we find
the fishes and molluscs placed, in advance of the sauroid, ophidian, and
batrachian reptiles,--the whale united in close relationship to the
sharks and rays,--animals of the tortoise kind classed among animals of
the lobster kind, and both among shell fish, such as the snail, the
nautilus, and the oyster. And yet Goldsmith was engaged on his work
little more than eighty years ago. In fine, the true principles of
classification in the animal kingdom are of well nigh as recent
development as geologic science itself, and not greatly more ancient in
even the _vegetable_ kingdom. It would, of course, be wholly out of
place to attempt giving a minute history here of the progress of
arrangement in either department; but it can scarce be held that the
natural system of plants was other than very incomplete previous to
1789, when Jussieu first enunciated his scheme of classification; nor
did it receive its later improvements until so late as 1846, when, after
the publication, in succession, of the schemes of De Candolle and
Endlicher, Lindley communicated his finished system to the world. And
there certainly existed no even tolerably perfect system of zoology
until 1816, when the "Animal Kingdom" of Cuvier appeared. Later
naturalists,--such as Agassiz, in his own special department, the
history of fishes, and Professor Owen in the invertebrate
divisions,--have improved on the classification of even the great
Frenchman; but for purposes of comparison between the scheme developed
in geologic history and that at length elaborated by the human mind, the
system of Cuvier will be found, for at least our present purpose,
sufficiently complete. And in tracing through time the course of the
vegetable kingdom, let us adopt, as our standard to measure it by, the
system of Lindley.
Commencing at the bottom of the scale, we find the Thallogens, or
flowerless plants which lack proper stems and leaves,--a class which
includes all the algæ. Next succeed the Acrogens, or flowerless plants
that possess both stems and leaves,--such as the ferns and their allies.
Next, omitting an inconspicuous class, represented by but a few
parasitical plants incapable of preservation as fossils, come the
Endogens,--monocotyledonous flowering plants, that include the
palms, the liliaceæ, and several other families, all characterized
by the parallel venation of their leaves. Next, omitting another
inconspicuous tribe, there follows a very important class,--the
Gymnogens,--polycotyledonous trees, represented by the conifers; and
cycadaceæ. And, last of all, come the Dicotyledonous Exogens,--a class
to which all our fruit, and what are known as our "forest trees,"
belong, with a vastly preponderating majority of the herbs and flowers
that impart fertility and beauty to our gardens and meadows. This last
class, though but one, now occupies much greater space in the vegetable
kingdom than all the others united.
Such is the arrangement of Lindley, or rather an arrangement the slow
growth of ages, to which this distinguished botanist has given the last
finishing touches. And let us now mark how closely it resembles the
geologic arrangement as developed in the successive stages of the
earth's history.
[Illustration: Fig. 1.[4]
-+-------------------------
| Thallogens.
Silurian. |
| Acrogens.
-+-----+-------------------
| | | Gymnogens.
Old Red. | | |
| | |
-+-----+-----+-------------
| | | | Monocotyledons.
Carboniferous. | | | |
| | | |
-+-----+-----+-----+-------
Permian. | | | |
-+-----+-----+-----+-------
Triassic. | | | |
-+-----+-----+-----+-------
| | | | : Dicotyledons.
Oolitic. | | | | :
| | | | |
-+-----+-----+-----+-----+-
| | | | |
Cretaceous. | | | | |
| | | | |
-+-----+-----+-----+-----+- Dicotyledonous Trees.
| | | | |
Tertiary. | | | | |
| | | | |
-+-----+-----+-----+-----+-
Geologic [Thal. Ac. Gy. Mon. Dic.] arrangement.
Lindley's [Thal. Ac. Mon. Gy. Dic.] arrangement.
THE GENEALOGY OF PLANTS.]
The most ancient period of whose organisms any trace remains in the
rocks seems to have been, prevailingly at least, a period of
Thallogens. We must, of course, take into account the fact, that it has
yielded no land plants, and that the sea is everywhere now, as of old,
the great habitat of the algæ,--one of the four great orders into which
the Thallogens are divided. There appear no traces of a terrestrial
vegetation until we reach the uppermost beds of the Upper Silurian
System. But, account for the fact as we may, it is at least worthy of
notice, that, alike in the systems of our botanists and in the
chronological arrangements of our geologists, the first or introductory
class which occurs in the ascending order is this humble Thallogenic
class. There is some trace in the Lower Silurians of Scotland of a
vegetable structure which may have belonged to one of the humbler
Endogens, of which, at least, a single genus, the _Zosteraceæ,_ still
exists in salt water; but the trace is faint and doubtful, and, even
were it established, it would form merely a solitary exception to the
general evidence that the first known period of vegetable existence was
a period of Thallogens. The terrestrial remains of the Upper Silurians
of England, the oldest yet known, consist chiefly of spore-like bodies,
which belonged, says Dr. Hooker, to Lycopodiaceæ,--an order of the
second or acrogenic class. And, in the second great geologic
period,--that of the Old Red Sandstone,--we find this second class not
inadequately represented. In its lowest fossiliferous beds we detect a
Lycopodite which not a little resembles one of the commonest of our club
mosses,--_Lycopodium clavatum_,--with a minute fern and a large striated
plant resembling a calamite, and evidently allied to an existing genus
of Acrogens, the equisetaceæ. In the Middle Old Red Sandstone there also
occurs a small fern, with some trace of a larger; and one of its best
preserved vegetable organisms is a lepidodendron,--an extinct ally of
the Lycopodiums; while in the upper beds of the system, especially as
developed in the south of Ireland, the noble fern known as _Cyclopteris
Hibernicus_ is very abundant. This fern has been detected also in the
Upper Old Red of our own country, mingled with fragments of contemporary
calamites. With, however, these earliest plants of the land yet known,
there occurs a true wood, which belonged, as shown by its structure, to
a gymnospermous or polycotyledonous tree, and which we find associated
with remains of Coccosteus and Diplacanthus.
[Illustration: Fig. 2.
CYCLOPTERIS HIBERNICUS.
(Nat. size.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 3.
CONIFER OF THE LOWER OLD RED SANDSTONE.
Cromarty.
(Mag. forty diameters.)]
And here let me remark, that the facts of Palæontological science compel
us to blend, in some degree, with the classification of our modern
botanists, that of the botanists of an earlier time. In a passage
already quoted, Solomon is said to have discoursed of plants, "from the
cedar tree that is in Lebanon, to the hyssop that springeth out of the
wall,"--from the great tree to the minute herb; and Cowley rose, in his
metrical treatise, as has been shown, from descriptions of herbs and
flowers to descriptions of fruit and forest trees. And as in every age
in which there existed a terrestrial vegetation there seem to have been
"trees" as certainly as "herbs," the palæontological botantist finds that
he has, in consequence, to range his classes, not in one series, but in
two,--the Gymnogens, or cone-bearing trees, in a line nearly parallel
with the Acrogens, or flowerless, spore-bearing herbs. But the
arrangement is in no degree the less striking from the circumstance that
it is ranged, not in one, but in two lines. It is, however, an untoward
arrangement for the purposes of the Lamarckian, whose peculiar
hypothesis would imperatively demand, not a double, but a single column,
in which the ferns and club mosses would stand far in advance, in point
of time, of the Coniferæ. In the Coal Measures, so remarkable for the
great luxuriance of their flora, both the Gymnogens and Acrogens are
largely developed, with a very puzzling intermediate class, that, while
they attained to the size of trees, like the former, retained in a
remarkable degree, as in the Lepidodendra and the Calamites, the
peculiar features of the latter. And with these there appear, though
more sparingly, the Endogens,--monocotyledonous plants, represented by a
few palm-like trees (Palmacites), a few date-like fruits
(Trigonocarpum), and a few grass-like herbs (Poacites). In the great
Secondary division, the true dicotyledonous plants first appear; but, so
far as is yet known, no dicotyledonous wood. In the earlier formations
of the division a degree of doubt attaches to even the few leaves of
this class hitherto detected; but in the Lower Cretaceous strata they
become at once unequivocal in their character, and comparatively
abundant, both as individuals and species; and in the Tertiary deposits
they greatly outnumber all the humbler classes, and appear not only as
herbs, but also as great trees. Not, however, until shortly before the
introduction of man do some of their highest orders, such as the
Rosaceæ, come upon the scene, as plants of that great garden--including
the fields of the agriculturist--which it has been part of man's set
task upon earth to keep and to dress. And such seems to be the order of
classification in the vegetable kingdom, as developed in creation, and
determined by the geologic periods.
[Illustration:
Fig. 4.[5]
-+-----+-----+-------------------------------
| | | Rad. Art. Mol.
Silurian. | | |
| | | | Fishes.
-+-----+-----+-----+-------------------------
| | | |
Old Red. | | | |
| | | | | Reptiles.
-+-----+-----+-----+-----+-------------------
| | | | |
Carboniferous. | | | | |
| | | | |
-+-----+-----+-----+-----+-------------------
Permian. | | | | |
-+-----+-----+-----+-----+-------------------
Triassic. | | | | |
-+-----+-----+-----+-----+-------------------
| | | | | | Birds.
Oolitic. | | | | | | : Mammals.
| | | | | | :
-+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-------
| | | | | | :
Cretaceous. | | | | | | :
| | | | | | :
-+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-------
| | | | | | | Pla. Mam.
Tertiary. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
-+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-
Recent. | | | | | | | | Man.
-+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-
Geologic [Rad. Art. Mol. Fish. Rep. Bird. Mam. Man.] Arrangement.
Cuvier's [Rad. Art. Mol. Fish. Rep. Bird. Mam. Man.] Arrangement.
THE GENEALOGY OF ANIMALS.]
The parallelism which exists between the course of creation, as
exhibited in the animal kingdom, and the classification of the greatest
zoologist of modern times, is perhaps still more remarkable. Cuvier
divides all animals into vertebrate and invertebrate; the invertebrates
consisting, according to his arrangement, of three great
divisions,--mollusca, articulata, and radiata; and the vertebrates, of
four great classes,--the mammals, the birds, the reptiles, and the
fishes. From the lowest zone at which organic remains occur, up till
the higher beds of the Lower Silurian System, all the animal remains yet
found belong to the invertebrate divisions. The numerous tables of stone
which compose the leaves of this first and earliest of the geologic
volumes correspond in their contents with that concluding volume of
Cuvier's great work in which he deals with the mollusca, articulata, and
radiata; with, however, this difference, that the three great divisions,
instead of occurring in a continnous series, are ranged, like the
terrestrial herbs and trees, in parallel columns. The chain of animal
being on its first appearance is, if I may so express myself, a
threefold chain;--a fact nicely correspondent with the further fact,
that we cannot in the present creation range _serially_, as either
higher or lower in the scale, at least two of these divisions,--the
mollusca and articulata. In one of the higher beds of the Upper Silurian
System,--a bed which borders on the base of the Old Red Sandstone,--the
vertebrates make their earliest appearance in their fourth or ichthyic
class; and we find ourselves in that volume of the geologic record which
corresponds to Cuvier's volume on the fishes. In the many-folded pages
of the Old Red Sandstone, till we reach the highest and last, there
occur the remains of no other vertebrates than those of this fourth
class; but in its uppermost deposits there appear traces of the third or
reptilian class; and in passing upwards still, through the
Carboniferous, Permian, and Triassic Systems, we find reptiles
continuing the master existences of the time. The geologic volume in
which these great formations are included corresponds to the Cuvierian
one devoted to the Reptilia. Early in the Oolitic System, birds,
Cuvier's second class of the vertebrata, make their first appearance,
though their remains, like those of birds in the present time, are rare
and infrequent; and, for at least the earlier periods of their
existence, we know that they were,--that they haunted for food the
waters of the period, and waded in their shallows,--only from marks
similar to those by which Crusoe became first aware of the visits paid
to his island by his savage neighbors,--their footprints, left impressed
on the sands over which they stalked of old. This early Oolitic volume
corresponds in its contents to the section devoted by Cuvier, in his
great work, to his second class, the birds. And in the Stonisfield
slate,--a deposit interposed between the "Inferior" and "Great
Oolites," we detect the earliest indications of his first or
mammaliferous class, apparently represented, however, by but one
order,--the Marsupiata, or pouched animals, to whose special place in
the scale I shall afterwards have occasion to refer. Not until we reach
the times of the Tertiary division do the mammals in their higher orders
appear. The great Tertiary volume corresponds to those volumes of Cuvier
which treat of the placental animals that suckle their young. And
finally,--last born of creation,--man appears upon the scene, in his
several races and varieties; the sublime arch of animal being at length
receives its keystone; and the finished work stands up complete, from
foundation to pinnacle, at once an admirably adjusted occupant of space,
and a wonderful monument of Divine arrangement and classification, as it
exists in time. Save at two special points, to which I shall afterwards
advert, the particular arrangement unfolded by geologic history is
exactly that which the greatest and most philosophic of the naturalists
had, just previous to its discovery, originated and adopted as most
conformable to nature: the arrangements of geologic history as exhibited
in time, if, commencing at the earliest ages, we pursue it downwards, is
exactly that of the "Animal Kingdom" of Cuvier read backwards.
Let us then, in grappling with the vast multiplicity of our subject,
attempt reducing and simplifying it by means of the classifying
principle; not simply, however,--again to recur to the remark of the
metaphysician,--as an internal principle given us by nature, but as an
external principle _exemplified_ by nature. Let us take the organisms of
the old geologic periods in the order in which they occur in time;
secure, as has been shown, that if our chronology be correct, our
classification will, as a consequence, be good. It will be for the
natural theologians of the coming age to show the bearing of this
wonderful fact on the progress of man towards the just and the solid,
and on the being and character of man's Creator,--to establish, on the
one hand, against the undue depreciators of intellect and its results,
that in certain departments of mind, such as that which deals with the
arrangement and development of the scheme of organic being, human
thought is not profitlessly revolving in an idle circle, but progressing
Godwards, and gradually unlocking the order of creation. And, on the
other hand, it will be equally his proper business to demand of the
Pantheist how,--seeing that only _persons_ (such as the Cuviers and
Lindleys) could have wrought out for themselves the real arrangement of
this scheme,--how, I say, or on what principle, it is to be held that it
was a scheme originated and established at the beginning, not by a
_personal_, but by an impersonal God. But our present business is with
the _fact_ of the parallel arrangements, Divine and human,--not with the
inferences legitimately deducible from it.
[Illustration: Fig. 5.
OLDHAMIA ANTIQUA;--the oldest known Zoophyte.
Wrae Head, Ireland.]
[Illustration: Fig. 6.
PALÆOCHORDA MINOR.
(One half nat. size.)]
Beginning with the plants, let us, however, remark, that they do not
precede in the order of their appearance the humbler animals. No more
ancient organism than the _Oldhamia_ of the Lowest Irish Silurians, a
plant-like zoophyte somewhat resembling our modern sertularia, has yet
been detected by the geologist; though only a few months ago the
researches of Mr. Salter in the ancient rocks of the Longmynd,
Shropshire, previously deemed unfossiliferous, have given, to it what
seem to be contemporary vegetable organisms, in a few ill-preserved
fucoids. So far as is yet known, plants and animals appear together. The
long upward march of the animal kingdom takes its departure at its
starting point from a thick forest of algæ. In Bohemia, in Norway, in
Sweden, in the British Islands, in North America, wherever, in fine,
what appears to be the lowest, or at least one of the lowest, zones of
life has yet been detected, the rocks are found to be darkened by the
remains of algæ, so abundantly developed in some cases, that they
compose, as in the ancient Lower Silurians of Dumfriesshire, impure beds
of anthracite several feet in thickness. Apparently, from the original
looseness of their texture, the individual plants are but indifferently
preserved; nor can we expect that organisms so ancient should exhibit
any _very_ close resemblance to the plants which darken the half-tide
rocks and skerries of our coasts at the present time. We do detect,
however, in some of these primordial fossils, at least a noticeable
likeness to families familiar to the modern algæologist. The cord-like
plant, _Chorda filum_, known to our children as "dead men's ropes,"
from its proving fatal at times to the too adventurous swimmer who gets
entangled in its thick wreaths, had a Lower Silurian representative,
known to the Palæontologist as the _Palæochorda_, or ancient chorda,
which existed apparently in two species,--a larger and smaller. The
still better known _Chondrus crispus_, the Irish moss or carrageen of
our cookery-books, has likewise its apparent though more distant
representative in _Chondritis_, a Lower Silurian algæ, of which there
seems to exist at least three species. The fucoids, or kelp weeds,
appear to have had also their representatives in such plants as
_Fucoides gracilis_ of the Lower Silurians of the Malverns; in short,
the Thallogens of the first ages of vegetable life seem to have
resembled, in the group, and in at least their more prominent features,
the algæ of the existing time. And with the first indications of land we
pass direct from the Thallogens to the Acrogens,--from the sea weeds to
the fern allies. The Lycopodiaceæ;, or club mosses, bear in the axils of
their leaves minute circular cases, which form the receptacles of their
spore-like seeds. And when, high in the Upper Silurian System, and just
when preparing to quit it for the Lower Old Red Sandstone, we detect our
earliest terrestrial organisms, we find that they are composed
exclusively of those little spore receptacles. The number of land plants
gradually increases as we ascend into the overlying system. Still,
however, the Flora of even the Old Red is but meagre and poor; and you
will perhaps permit me to lighten this part of my subject, which
threatens too palpably to partake of the poverty of that with which it
deals, by a simple illustration.
[Illustration: Fig. 7.
LYCOPODIUM CLAVATUM.]
[Illustration: Fig. 8.
EQUISETUM FLUVIATILE.]
We stand, at low ebb, on the outer edge of one of those iron-bound
shores of the Western Highlands, rich in forests of algæ, from which,
not yet a generation bygone, our Celtic proprietors used to derive a
larger portion of their revenues than from their fields and moors. Rock
and skerry are brown with sea weed. The long cylindrical lines of
_Chorda filum_, many feet in length, lie aslant in the tideway; long
shaggy bunches of _Fucus serratus_ and _Fucus nodosus_ droop heavily
from the rock sides; while the flatter ledges, that form the uneven
floor upon which we tread, bristle thick with the stiff, cartilaginous,
many-cleft fronds of at least two species of chondrus,--the common
carrageen, and the smaller species, _C. Norvegicus_. Now, in
the thickly-spread fucoids of this Highland shore we have not a
_very_ inadequate representation of the first, or thallogenic
vegetation,--that of the great Silurian period, as exhibited in the
rocks, from the base to nearly the top of the system. And should we add
to the rocky tract, rich in fucoids, a submarine meadow of pale shell
sand, covered by a deep green swathe of zostera, with its jointed
saccharine roots and slim flowers, unfurnished with petals, we would
render it perhaps more adequately representative still.
[Illustration: Fig. 9.
OSMUNDA REGALIS. (Royal Fern.)]
We cross the beach, and enter on a bare brown moor, comparatively
fertile, however, in the club mosses. One of the largest and finest of
the species, _Lycopodium clavatum_, with its long scaly stems and
upright spikes of lighter green,--altogether a graceful though
flowerless plant, which the herd-boy learns to select from among its
fellows, and to bind round his cap,--goes trailing on the drier spots
for many feet over the soil; while at the edge of trickling runnel or
marshy hollow, a smaller and less hardy species, _Lycopodium inundatum_,
takes its place. The marshes themselves bristle thick with the deep
green horse tail, _Equisetum fluviatile_, with its fluted stem and
verticillate series of linear brandies. Two other species of the same
genus, _Equisetum sylvaticum_ and _Equisetum arvense_, flourish on the
drier parts of the moor, blent with two species of minute ferns, the
moonwort and the adder's tongue,--ferns that, like the magnificent royal
fern (_Osmunda regalis_), though on a much humbler scale, bear their
seed cases on independent stems, and were much sought after of old for
imaginary virtues, which the modern schools of medicine refuse to
recognize. Higher up the moor, ferns of ampler size occur, and what
seems to be rushes, which bear atop conglobate panicles on their smooth
leafless stems; but at its lower edge little else appears than the
higher Acrogens,--ferns and their allies. There occurs, however, just
beyond the first group of club mosses,--a remarkable exception in a
solitary pine,--the advance guard of one of the ancient forests of the
country, which may be seen far in the background, clothing with its
shaggy covering of deep green the lower hill-slopes. And as we found in
the Thallogens of that littoral zone over which we have just passed,
representatives of the marine flora of the Silurian System, from the
first appearance of organisms in its nether beds, to its bone-bed of the
Upper Ludlow rocks, in which the Lycopodites first appear, so in the
Acrogens of that moor, with its solitary coniferous tree, we may
recognize an equally striking representative of the terrestrial flora
which existed during the deposition of these Ludlow rocks, and of the
various formations of the Old Red Sandstone, Lower, Middle, and Upper.
[Illustration: Fig. 10.
PINUS SYLVESTRIS. (Scotch Fir.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 11.
CALAMITE? Of the Lower Old Red Sandstone. Shetland. (One eighth nat.
size.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 12.
LYCOPODITE? Of the Lower Old Red Sandstone. Thurso. (Mag. two
diameters.)]
In the upper beds of the Upper Silurian, as has been already remarked,
Lycopodites are the only terrestrial plants yet found. In the Lower Old
Red Sandstone we find added to these, with Thallogens that bear at least
the same _general_ character as in the system beneath, minute ferns, and
a greatly larger plant, allied to the horse tails. The Old Red flora
seems to have been prevailingly an acrogenic flora; and yet with almost
its first beginnings,--contemporary with at least the earlier fossils of
the system in Scotland, we find a true polycotyledonous tree, not lower
in the scale than the araucarites of the Coal Measures,--which in
structure it greatly resembles,--or than the pines or cedars of our own
times (see Fig. 3). In the Middle Old Red Sandstone there occurs, with
plants representative apparently of the ferns and their allies, a
somewhat equivocal and doubtful organism, which may have been the
panicle or compound fruit of some aquatic rush; while in the Upper Old
Red, just ere the gorgeous flora of the Coal Measures began to be, there
existed in considerable abundance a stately fern, the _Cyclopteris
Hibernicus_ (see Fig. 2), of mayhap not smaller proportions than our
monarch of the British ferns, _Osmunda regalis_, associated with a
peculiar lepidodendron, and what seems to be a lepidostrobus,--possibly
the fructiferous spike or cone of the latter, mingled with carbonaceous
stems, which, in the simplicity of their texture, and their abundance,
give evidence of a low but not scanty vegetation. Ere passing to the
luxuriant carboniferous flora, I shall make but one other remark. The
existing plants whence we derive our analogies in dealing with the
vegetation of this early period, contribute but little, if at all, to
the support of animal life. The ferns and their allies remain untouched
by the grazing animals. Our native club mosses, though once used in
medicine, are positively deleterious; the horse tails, though harmless,
so abound in silex, which wraps them round with a cuticle of stone, that
they are rarely cropped by cattle; while the thickets of fern which
cover our hill-sides, and seem so temptingly rich and green in their
season, scarce support the existence of a single creature, and remain
untouched in stem and leaf, from their first appearance in spring, until
they droop and wither under the frosts of early winter. Even the insects
that infest the herbaria of the botanist almost never injure his ferns.
Nor are our resin-producing conifers, though they nourish a few beetles,
favorites with the herbivorous tribes in a much greater degree. Judging
from all we yet know, the earliest terrestrial flora may have covered
the dry land with its mantle of cheerful green, and served its general
purposes, chemical and others, in the well-balanced economy of nature;
but the herb-eating animals would have fared but ill even where it
throve most luxuriantly; and it seems to harmonize with the fact of its
non-edible character, that up to the present time we know not that a
single herbivorous animal lived among its shades. From all that
appears, it may be inferred that it had not to serve the purposes of the
floras of the passing time, in which, according to the poet,
"The world's bread depends on the shooting of a seed."
[Illustration: Fig. 13.
FERN? of Lower Old Red Sandstone. Orkney.
(Nat. Size.)]
The flora of the Coal Measures was the richest and most luxuriant, in at
least individual productions, with which the fossil botanist has formed
any acquaintance. Never before or since did our planet bear so rank a
vegetation as that of which the numerous coal seams and inflammable
shales of the carboniferous period form but a portion of the
remains,--the portion spared, in the first instance, by dissipation and
decay, and in the second by the denuding agencies. Almost all our
coal,--the stored up fuel of a world,--forms but a comparatively small
part of the produce of this wonderful flora. Amid much that was so
strange and antique of type in its productions as to set the analogies
of the botanist at fault, there occurred one solitary order, not a few
of whose species closely resembled their cogeners of the present time. I
refer, of course, to its ferns. And these seem to have formed no small
proportion of the entire flora of the period. Francis estimates the
recent dorsiferous ferns of Great Britain at thirty-five species, and
the species of all the other genera at six more,--forty-one species in
all; and as the flowering plants of the country do not fall short of
fourteen hundred species, the ferns bear to them the rather small
proportion of about one to thirty-five; whereas of the British Coal
Measure flora, in which we do not yet reckon quite three hundred species
of plants, about a hundred and twenty were ferns. Three sevenths of the
entire carboniferous flora of Britain belonged to this familiar class;
and for about fifty species more we can discover no nearer analogies
than those which connect them with the fern allies. And if with the
British Coal Measure we include those also of the Continent of America,
we shall find the proportions in favor of the ferns still greater. The
number of carboniferous plants hitherto described amounts, says M. Ad.
Brogniart, to about five hundred, and of these two hundred and
fifty,--one half of the whole,--were ferns.
[Illustration: Fig. 14.]
[Illustration: Fig. 15.]
[Illustration: Fig. 16.]
[Illustration: Fig. 17.]
[Illustration: Fig. 18.]
[Illustration: Fig. 19.]
[Illustration: FERNS OF THE COAL MEASURES.[6]]
[Illustration: Fig. 20.
ALTINGIA EXCELSA.
Norfolk Island Pine. (Young Specimen.)]
Rising in the scale from the lower to the higher vegetable forms of the
system,--from its ferns to its trees,--we find great conifers,--so great
that they must have raised their heads more than a hundred feet over the
soil; and such was their abundance in this neighborhood, that one can
scarce examine a fragment of coal beside one's household fire that is
not charged with their carbonized remains. Though marked by certain
peculiarities of structure, they bore, as is shown by the fossil trunks
of Granton and Craigleith, the familiar outlines of true coniferous
trees; and would mayhap have differed no more in appearance from their
successors of the same order that now live in our forests, than these
differ from the conifers of New Zealand or of New South Wales. We have
thus, in the numerous ferns and numerous coniferous trees of the Coal
Measures, known objects by which to conceive of some of the more
prominent features of the flora of which they composed so large a part.
We have not inadequate conceptions of at once the giants of its forests
and the green swathe of its plains and hill-sides,--of its mighty trees
and its dwarf _underwood_,--of its cedars of Lebanon, so to speak, and
its hyssop of the wall. But of an intermediate class we have no
existing representatives; and in this class the fossil botanist finds
puzzles and enigmas with which hitherto at least he has been able to
deal with only indifferent success. There is a view, however,
sufficiently simple, which may be found somewhat to lessen, if not
altogether remove, the difficulty. Nature does not dwell willingly in
mediocrity; and so in all ages she as certainly produced trees, or
plants of tree-like proportions and bulk, as she did minute shrubs and
herbs. In not a few of the existing orders and families, such as the
Rosaceæ, the Leguminosæ, the Myrtaceæ, and many others, we have plants
of all sizes, from the creeping herb, half hidden in the sward, to the
stately tree. The wild dwarf strawberry and minute stone-bramble are of
the same order as our finer orchard trees,--apple, pear, and plum,--or
as those noble hawthorn, mountain ash, and wild cherry trees, that
impart such beauty to our lawns and woods; and the minute spring vetch
and everlasting pea are denizens of the same great family as the tall
locust and rosewood trees, and the gorgeous laburnum. Did there exist no
other plants than the Rosaceæ or the Leguminosæ, we would possess,
notwithstanding, herbs, shrubs, and trees, just as we do now. And in
plants of a greatly humbler order we have instances of similar variety
in point of size. The humblest grass in our meadows belongs to the same
natural order as the tall bamboo, that, shooting up its panicles amid
the jungles of India to the height of sixty feet, looks down upon all
the second class trees of the country. Again, the minute forked
spleenwort of Arthur Seat, which rarely exceeds three inches in length,
is of the same family as those tree-ferns of New Zealand and Tasmania
that rise to an elevation of from twenty to thirty feet. And we know how
in the ferns provision is made for the attainment and maintenance of the
tree-like size and character. The rachis, which in the smaller species
is either subterranean or runs along the ground, takes in the tree-fern
a different direction, and, rising erect, climbs slowly upwards in the
character of a trunk or stem, and sends out atop, year after year, a
higher and yet higher coronal of fronds. And in order to impart the
necessary strength to this trunk, and to enable it to war for ages with
the elements, its mass of soft cellular tissue is strengthened all round
by internal buttresses of dense vascular fibre, tough and elastic as the
strongest woods. Now, not a few of the more anomalous forms of the Coal
Measures seem to be simply fern allies of the types Lycopodiaceæ,
Marsileaceæ, and Equisetum, that, escaping from the mediocrity of mere
herbs, shot up into trees,--some of them very great trees,--and that had
of necessity to be furnished with a tissue widely different from that of
their minuter contemporaries and successors. It was of course an
absolute mechanical necessity, that if they were to present, by being
tall and large, a wide front to the tempest, they should also be
comparatively solid and strong to resist it; but with this simple
mechanical requirement there seems to have mingled a principle of a more
occult character. The Gymnogens or conifers were the highest vegetable
existences of the period,--its true trees; and all the tree-like fern
allies were strengthened to meet the necessities of their increased
size, on, if I may so speak, a _coniferous_ principle. Tissue resembling
that of their contemporary conifers imparted the necessary rigidity to
their framework; nay, so strangely were they pervaded throughout by the
coniferous characteristics, that it seems difficult to determine whether
they really most resembled the acrogenous or gymnogenous families. The
Lepidodendra,--great plants of the club moss type, that rose from fifty
to seventy feet in height,--had well nigh as many points of resemblance
to the coniferæ as to the Lycopodites. The Calamites,--reed-like,
jointed plants, that more nearly resemble the Equisetaceæ than aught
else which now exists, but which attained, in the larger specimens, to
the height of ordinary trees, also manifest very decidedly, in their
internal structure, some of the characteristics of the conifers. It has
been remarked by Lindley and Hutton of even Sphenophyllum,--a genus of
plants with verticillate leaves, of which at least six species occur in
our Coal Measures, and which Brogniart refers to one of the humblest
families of the fern allies,--that it seems at least as nearly related
to the Coniferæ as to its lowlier representatives, the Marsileaceæ. And
it is this union of traits, pertaining to what are now widely separated
orders, that imparts to not a few of the vegetables of the Coal Measures
their singularly anomalous character.
[Illustration: Fig. 21.
EAST INDIA TREE-FERN.[7]
(_Asophila perrotetiana._)]
[Illustration: Fig. 22.
SECTION OF STEM OF TREE-FERN.[8]
(_Cyathea._)]
[Illustration: Fig. 23.]
[Illustration: Fig. 24.]
[Illustration: Fig. 25.]
[Illustration: LEPIDODENDRON STERNBERGII.[9]]
[Illustration: Fig. 26.
CALAMITES MOUGEOTII.]
[Illustration: Fig. 27.
SPHENOPHYLLUM DENTATUM.]
[Illustration: Fig. 28.
SIGILLARIA RENIFORMIS.]
Let me attempt introducing you more intimately to one of those plants
which present scarce any analogy with existing forms, and which must
have imparted so strange a character and appearance to the flora of the
Coal Measures. The Sigillaria formed a numerous genus of the
Carboniferous period: no fewer than twenty-two different species have
been enumerated in the British coal fields alone; and such was their
individual abundance, that there are great seams of coal which seem to
be almost entirely composed of their remains. At least the ancient soil
on which these seams rest, and on which their materials appear to have
been elaborated from the elements, is in many instances as thickly
traversed by their underground stems as the soil occupied by our densest
forests is traversed by the tangled roots of the trees by which it is
covered; and we often find associated with them in these cases the
remains of no other plant. The Sigillaria were remarkable for their
beautifully sculptured stems, various in their pattern, according to
their species. All were fluted vertically, somewhat like columns of the
Grecian Doric; and each flute or channel had its line of sculpture
running adown its centre. In one species (_S. flexuosa_) the sculpture
consists of round knobs, surrounded by single rings, like the heads of
the bolts of the ship carpenter; in another (_S. reniformis_) the knobs
are double, and of an oval form, somewhat resembling pairs of
kidneys,--a resemblance to which the species owes its name. In another
species (_S. catenulata_) what seems a minute chain of distinctly
formed elliptical links drops down the middle of each flute; in yet
another (_S. oculata_) the carvings are of an oval form, and, bearing
each a round impression in its centre, they somewhat resemble rows of
staring goggle-eyes; while the carvings in yet another species (_S.
pachyderma_) consist chiefly of crescent-shaped depressions. The roots,
or rather underground stems, of this curious genus attracted notice,
from their singularity, long ere their connection with the carved and
fluted stems had been determined, and have been often described as the
"stigmaria" of the fossil botanist. They, too, have their curious
carvings, consisting of deeply marked stigmata, quincuncially arranged,
with each a little ring at its bottom, and, in at least one rare
species, surrounded by a sculptured star. Unlike true roots, they
terminate abruptly; each rootlet which they send forth was jointed to
the little ring or dimpled knob at the bottom of the stigmata; and the
appearance of the whole, as it radiated from the central mass, whence
the carved trunk proceeded, somewhat resembled that of an enormous
coach-wheel divested of the rim. Unfortunately we cannot yet complete
our description of this strange plant. A specimen, traced for about
forty feet across a shale bed, was found to bifurcate atop into two
great branches,--a characteristic in which, with several others, it
differed from most of the tree-ferns,--a class of plants to which
Adolphe Brogniart is inclined to deem it related; but no specimen has
yet shown the nature of its foliage. I am, however, not a little
disposed to believe with Brogniart that it may have borne as leaves some
of the supposed ferns of the Coal Measures; nowhere, at least, have I
found these lie so thickly, layer above layer, as around the stems of
Sigillaria; and the fact that, even in our own times, plants widely
differing from the tree-ferns,--such, for instance, as one of the
Cycadeæ,--should bear leaves scarce distinguishable from fern fronds,
may well reconcile us to an apparent anomaly in the case of an ancient
plant such as Sigillaria, whose entire constitution, so far as it has
been ascertained, appears to have been anomalous. The sculpturesque
character of this richly fretted genus was shared by not a few of its
contemporaries. The Ulodendra, with their rectilinear rows of circular
scars, and their stems covered with leaf-like carvings, rivalled in
effect the ornately relieved torus of a Corinthian column: Favularia,
Knorria, Halonia, many of the Calamites, and all the Lepidodendra,
exhibited the most delicate sculpturing. In walking among the ruins of
this ancient flora, the Palæontologist almost feels as if he had got
among the broken fragments of Italian palaces, erected long ages ago,
when the architecture of Rome was most ornate, and every moulding was
roughened with ornament; and in attempting to call up in fancy the old
Carboniferous forests, he has to dwell on this peculiar feature as one
of the most prominent, and to see, in the multitude of trunks darkened
above by clouds of foliage, that rise upon him in the prospect, the slim
columns of an elder Alhambra, roughened with arabesque tracery and
exquisite filagree work.
[Illustration: Fig. 29.
SIGILLARIA RENIFORMIS.
(Nat. size.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 30.
SIGILLARIA PACHYDERMA.
(One fourth nat. size.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 31.
STIGMARIA FICOIDES.
(One fourth nat. size.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 32.
FAVULARIA TESSELLATA.
(One fifth nat. size.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 33.
LEPIDODENDRON OBOVATUM.
(Nat. size.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 34.
CYCAS REVOLUTA.
(_Recent._)]
[Illustration: Fig.35.
ZAMIA PUNGENS.
(_Recent._)]
[Illustration: Fig. 36.
ZAMIA FENEONIS (PORTLAND OOLITE.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 37.
MANTELLIA NIDIFORMIS.
(Portland Dirt-bed.)]
In the Oolitic flora we find a few peculiar features introduced. The
Cyeadeæ,--a family of plants allied to the ferns on the one hand, and to
the conifers on the other, and which in their general aspect not a
little resemble stunted palms,--appear in this flora for the first time.
Its coniferous genera, too, receive great accessions to their numbers,
and begin to resemble, more closely than at an earlier period, the
genera which still continue to exist. The cypresses, the yews, the
thujas, the dammaras, all make their earliest appearance in the flora of
the Oolite. Among our existing woods there seem to be but two conifers
(that attain to the dignity of trees) indigenous to Britain,--the common
yew, _Taxus baccata_, and the common Scotch fir, _Pinus sylvestris_; and
yet we know that the latter alone formed, during the last few centuries,
great woods, that darkened for many miles together the now barren moors
and bare hill-sides of the Highlands of Scotland,--moors and hill-sides
that, though long since divested of their last tree, are still known by
their old name of _forests_. In the times of the Oolite, on the other
hand, Britain had from fourteen to twenty different species of conifers;
and its great forests, of whose existence we have direct evidence in the
very abundant lignites of the system, must have possessed a richness and
variety which our ancient fir woods of the historic or human period
could not have possessed. With the Conifers and the Cycadeæ there were
many ferns associated,--so many, that they still composed nearly two
fifths of the entire flora; and associated with these, though in reduced
proportions, we find the fern allies. The reduction, however, of these
last is rather in species than in individuals. The Brora Coal, one of
the most considerable Oolitic seams in Europe, seems to have been formed
almost exclusively of an equisetum,--_E. columnare_. In this flora the
more equivocal productions of the Coal Measures are represented by what
seems to be the last of the Calamites; but it contains no
Lepidodendra,--no Ulodendra,--no Sigillaria,--no Favularia,--no Knorria
or Halonia. Those monsters of the vegetable world that united to the
forms of its humbler productions the bulk of trees, had, with the
solitary exception of the Calamites, passed into extinction; and ere the
close of the system they too had disappeared. The forms borne by most of
the Oolitic plants were comparatively familiar forms. With the Acrogens
and Gymnogens we find the first indication of the Liliaceæ, or lily-like
plants,--of plants, too, allied to the Pandanaceæ or screw pines, the
fruits of which are sometimes preserved in a wonderfully perfect state
of keeping in the Inferior Oolite, together with Carpolithes,--palm-like
fruits, very ornately sculptured,--and the remains of at least one other
monocotyledon, that bears the somewhat general name of an Endogenite.
With these there occur a few disputed leaves, which I must persist in
regarding as dicotyledonous. But they formed, whatever their true
character, a very inconspicuous feature in the Oolitic flora; and not
until the overlying Cretaceous System is ushered in do we find leaves in
any considerable quantity decidedly of this high family; nor until we
enter into the earlier Tertiaries do we succeed in detecting a true
dicotyledonous tree. On such an amount of observation is this order of
succession determined,--though the evidence is, of course, mainly
negative,--that when, some eight or ten years ago, Dr. John Wilson, the
learned Free Church missionary to the Parsees of India, submitted to me
specimens of fossil woods which he had picked up in the Egyptian Desert,
in order that I might if possible determine their age, I told him, ere
yet the optical lapidary had prepared them for examination, that if they
exhibited the coniferous structure, they might belong to any geologic
period from the times of the Lower Old Red Sandstone downwards; but that
if they manifested in their tissue the dicotyledonous character, they
could not be older than the times of the Tertiary. On submitting them in
thin slices to the microscope, they were found to exhibit the peculiar
dicotyledonous structure as strongly as the oak or chestnut. And
Lieutenant Newbold's researches in the deposit in which they occur has
since demonstrated, on stratigraphical evidence, that not only does it
belong to the great Tertiary division, but also to one of the
comparatively modern formations of the Tertiary.
[Illustration: Fig. 38
EQUISETUM COLUMNARE.
(Nat. size.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 39.
CARPOLITHES CONICA.
(Reduced one third.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 40.
CARPOLITHES BUCKLANDII.[10]
(Reduced one third.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 41.
ACER TRILOBATUM.[11]
(Miocene of OEningen.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 42.
ULMUS BRONNII.[12]
(Miocene of Bohemia.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 43.
PALMACITES LAMANONIS.
(A Palm of the Miocene of Aix.)]
The earlier flora of this Tertiary division presents an aspect widely
different from that of any of the previous ones. The ferns and their
allies sink into their existing proportions; nor do the coniferæ,
previously so abundant, occupy any longer a prominent place. On the
other hand, the dicotyledonous herbs and trees, previously so
inconspicuous in creation, are largely developed. Trees of those
Amentiferous orders to which the oak, the hazel, the beech, and the
plane belong, were perhaps not less abundant in the Eocene woods than in
those of the present time: they were mingled with trees of the Laurel,
the Leguminous, and the Anonaceous or custard apple families, with many
others; and deep forests, in the latitude of London (in which the
intertropical forms must now be protected, as in the Crystal Palace,
with coverings of glass, and warmed by artificial heat), abounded in
graceful palms. Mr. Bowerbank found in the London clay of the island of
Sheppey alone the fruits of no fewer than thirteen different species of
this picturesque family, which lends so peculiar a feature to the
landscapes in which it occurs; and ascertained that the undergrowth
beneath was composed, in large proportion, of creeping plants of the
gourd and melon order. From the middle or Miocene flora of the Tertiary
division,--of which we seem to possess in Britain only the small but
interesting fragment detected by his Grace the Duke of Argyll among the
trap-beds of Mull,--most of the more exotic forms seem to have been
excluded. The palms, however, still survive in no fewer than thirty-one
different species, and we find in great abundance, in the place of the
other exotics, remains of the plane and buckthorn families,--part of a
group of plants that in their general aspect, as shown in the Tertiary
deposits of the Continent, not a little resembled the vegetation of the
United States at the present day. The nearer we approach to existing
times, the more familiar in form and outline do the herbs and trees
become. We detect, as has been shown, at least one existing _order_ in
the ferns of the Coal Measures; we detect at least existing _genera_
among the Coniferæ, Equisetaceæ, and Cycadaceæ of the Oolite; the
acacias, gourds, and laurels of the Eocene flora, and the planes,
willows, and buckthorns of the Miocene, though we fail to identify their
species with aught that now lives, still more strongly remind us of the
recent productions of our forests or conservatories; and, on entering,
in our downward course, the Pleistocene period, we at length find
ourselves among familiar _species_. On old terrestrial surfaces, that
date before the times of the glacial period, and underlie the boulder
clay, the remains of forests of oak, birch, hazel, and fir have been
detected,--all of the familiar species indigenous to the country, and
which still flourish in our native woods. And it was held by the late
Professor Edward Forbes, that the most ancient of his five existing
British floras,--that which occurs in the south-west of Ireland, and
corresponds with the flora of the northwest of Spain and the
Pyrenees,--had been introduced into the country as early, perhaps, as
the times of the Miocene. Be this, however, as it may, there can rest no
doubt on the great antiquity of the prevailing trees of our indigenous
forests.
The oak, the birch, the hazel, the Scotch fir, all lived, I repeat, in
what is now Britain, ere the last great depression of the land. The
gigantic northern elephant and rhinoceros, extinct for untold ages,
forced their way through their tangled branches; and the British tiger
and hyæna harbored in their thickets. Cuvier framed an argument for the
fixity of species on the fact that the birds and beasts embalmed in the
catacombs were identical in every respect with the animals of the same
kinds that live now. But what, it has been asked, was a brief period of
three thousand years, compared with the geologic ages? or how could any
such argument be founded on a basis so little extended? It is, however,
to no such narrow basis we can refer in the case of these woods. All
human history is comprised in the nearer corner of the immense period
which they measure out; and yet, from their first appearance in creation
till now they have not altered a single fibre. And such, on this point,
is the invariable testimony of Palæontologic science,--testimony so
invariable, that no great Palæontologist was ever yet an asserter of the
development hypothesis. With the existing trees of our indigenous woods
it is probable that in even these early times a considerable portion of
the herbs of our recent flora would have been associated, though their
remains, less fitted for preservation, have failed to leave distinct
trace behind them. We at least know generally, that with each succeeding
period there appeared a more extensively useful and various vegetation
than that which had gone before. I have already referred to the sombre,
unproductive character of the earliest terrestrial flora with which we
are acquainted. It was a flora unfitted, apparently, for the support of
either graminivorous bird or herbivorous quadruped. The singularly
profuse vegetation of the Coal Measures was, with all its wild
luxuriance, of a resembling cast. So far as appears, neither flock nor
herd could have lived on its greenest and richest plains; nor does even
the flora of the Oolite seem to have been in the least suited for the
purposes of the shepherd or herdsman. Not until we enter on the Tertiary
periods do we find floras amid which man might have profitably labored
as a dresser of gardens, a tiller of fields, or a keeper of flocks and
herds. Nay, there are whole orders and families of plants of the very
first importance to man which do not appear until late in even the
Tertiary ages. Some degree of doubt must always attach to merely
negative evidence; but Agassiz, a geologist whose statements must be
received with respect by every student of the science, finds reason to
conclude that the order of the Rosaceæ,--an order more important to the
gardener than almost any other, and to which the apple, the pear, the
quince, the cherry, the plum, the peach, the apricot, the victorine, the
almond, the raspberry, the strawberry, and the various brambleberries
belong, together with all the roses and the potentillas,--was introduced
only a short time previous to the appearance of man. And the true
grasses,--a still more important order, which, as the corn-bearing
plants of the agriculturist, feed at the present time at least two
thirds of the human species, and in their humbler varieties form the
staple food of the _grazing_ animals,--scarce appear in the fossil state
at all. They are peculiarly plants of the human period.
Let me instance one other family of which the fossil botanist has not
yet succeeded in finding any trace in even the Tertiary deposits, and
which appears to have been specially created for the gratification of
human sense. Unlike the Rosaceæ, it exhibits no rich blow of color, or
tempting show of luscious fruit;--- it does not appeal very directly to
either the sense of taste or of sight: but it is richly odoriferous;
and, though deemed somewhat out of place in the garden for the last
century and more, it enters largely into the composition of some of our
most fashionable perfumes. I refer to the _Labiate_ family,--a family to
which the lavenders, the mints, the thymes, and the hyssops belong, with
basil, rosemary, and marjoram,--all plants of "gray renown," as
Shenstone happily remarks in his description of the herbal of his
"Schoolmistress."
"Herbs too she knew, and well of each could speak,
That in her garden sipped the silvery dew,
Where no vain flower disclosed a gaudy streak,
But herbs for use and physic not a few,
Of gray renown within those borders grew.
The tufted basil, pun-provoking thyme,
And fragrant balm, and sage of sober hue.
"And marjoram sweet in shepherd's posie found,
And lavender, whose spikes of azure bloom
Shall be erewhile in arid bundles bound,
To lurk amid her labors of the loom,
And crown her kerchiefs clean with meikle rare perfume.
"And here trim rosemary, that whilom crowned
The daintiest garden of the proudest peer,
Ere, driven from its envied site, it found
A sacred shelter for its branches here,
Where, edged with gold, its glittering skirts appear,
With horehound gray, and mint of softer green."
All the plants here enumerated belong to the labiate family; which,
though unfashionable even in Shenstone's days, have still their products
favorably received in the very best society. The rosemary, whose
banishment from the gardens of the great he specially records, enters
largely in the composition of eau de Cologne. Of the lavenders, one
species (_Lavendula vera_) yields the well known lavender oil, and
another (_L. latifolio_) the spike oil. The peppermint (_Meantha
viridus_) furnishes the essence so popular under that name among our
confectioners; and one of the most valued perfumes of the East (next to
the famous _Attar_, a product of the Rosaceæ) is the oil of the
_Patchouly_ plant, another of the labiates. Let me indulge, ere quitting
this part of the subject, in a single remark. There have been classes of
religionists, not wholly absent from our own country, and well known on
the Continent, who have deemed it a merit to deny themselves every
pleasure of sense, however innocent and delicate. The excellent but
mistaken Pascal refused to look upon a lovely landscape; and the Port
Royalist nuns remarked, somewhat simply for their side of the argument,
that they seemed as if warring with Providence, seeing that the favors
which he was abundantly showering upon them, they, in obedience to the
stern law of their lives, were continually rejecting. But it is better,
surely, to be on the side of Providence against Pascal and the nuns,
than on the side of Pascal and the nuns against Providence. The great
Creator, who has provided so wisely and abundantly for all his
creatures, knows what is best for us, infinitely better than we do
ourselves; and there is neither sense nor merit, surely, in churlishly
refusing to partake of that ample entertainment, sprinkled with delicate
perfumes, garnished with roses, and crowned with the most delicious
fruit, which we now know was not only specially prepared for us, but
also got ready, as nearly as we can judge, for the appointed hour of our
appearance at the feast. This we also know, that when the Divine Man
came into the world,--unlike the Port Royalists, he did not refuse the
temperate use of any of these luxuries, not even of that "ointment of
spikenard, very precious" (a product of the labiate family), with which
Mary anointed his feet.
[Illustration: Fig. 44.
CYCLOPHTHALMUS BUCKLANDI.
(A Fossil Scorpion of the Coal Measures of Bohemia.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 45.
FOSSIL DRAGON-FLY.
Solenhofen.]
Though it may at first seem a little out of place, let us anticipate
here, for the sake of the illustration which it affords, one of the
sections of the other great division of our subject,--that which treats
of the fossil animals. Let us run briefly over the geologic history of
insects, in order that we may mark the peculiar light which it casts on
the character of the ancient floras. No insects have yet been detected
in the Silurian or Old Red Sandstone Systems. They first appear amid the
hard, dry, flowerless vegetation of the Coal Measures, and in genera
suited to its character. Among these the scorpions take a prominent
place,--carnivorous arachnidæ of ill repute, that live under stones and
fallen trunks, and seize fast with their nippers upon the creatures on
which they prey, crustaceans usually, such as the wood-louse, or
insects, such as the earth-beetles and their grubs. With the scorpions
there occur cockroaches of types not at all unlike the existing ones,
and that, judging from their appearance, must have been foul feeders, to
which scarce anything could have come amiss as food. Books, manuscripts,
leather, ink, oil, meat, even the bodies of the dead, are devoured
indiscriminately by the recent _Blatta gigantea_ of the warmer parts of
the globe,--one of the most disagreeable pests of the European settler,
or of war vessels on foreign stations. I have among my books an
age-embrowned copy of Ramsay's "Tea Table Miscellany," that had been
carried into foreign parts by a musical relation, after it had seen hard
service at home, and had become smoke dried and black; and yet even it,
though but little tempting, as might be thought, was not safe from the
cockroaches; for, finding it left open one day, they ate out in half an
hour half its table of contents, consisting of several leaves.
Assuredly, if the ancient _Blattæ_ were as little nice in their eating
as the devourers of the "Tea Table Miscellany," they would not have
lacked food amid even the unproductive flora and meagre fauna of the
Coal Measures. With these ancient cockroaches a few locusts and beetles
have been found associated, together with a small _Tinea_,--a creature
allied to the common clothes-moth, and a _Phasmia_,--a creature related
to the spectre insects. But the group is an inconsiderable one; for
insects seem to have occupied no very conspicuous place in the
carboniferous fauna. The beetles appear to have been of the wood and
seed devouring kinds, and would probably have found their food among the
conifers; the _Phasmidæ_ and grasshoppers would have lived on the tender
shoots of the less rigid plants their contemporaries; the _Tinea_,
probably on ligneous or cottony fibre. Not a single insect has the
system yet produced of the now numerous kinds that seek their food among
flowers. In the Oolitic ages, however, insects become greatly more
numerous,--so numerous that they seemed to have formed almost
exclusively the food of the earliest mammals, and apparently also of
some of the flying reptiles of the time. The magnificent dragon-flies,
the carnivorous tyrants of their race, were abundant; and we now know,
that while they were, as their name indicates, dragons to the weaker
insects, they themselves were devoured by dragons as truly such as were
ever yet feigned by romancer of the middle ages. Ants were also common,
with crickets, grasshoppers, bugs both of the land and water, beetles,
two-winged flies, and, in species distinct from the preceding
carboniferous ones, the disgusting cockroaches. And for the first time
amid the remains of a flora that seems to have had its few
flowers,--though flowers could have formed no conspicuous feature in
even an Oolitic landscape,--we detect in a few broken fragments of the
wings of butterflies, decided trace of the flower-sucking insects. Not,
however, until we enter into the great Tertiary division do these become
numerous. The first bee makes its appearance in the amber of the Eocene,
locked up hermetically in its gem-like tomb,--an embalmed corpse in a
crystal coffin,--along with fragments of flower-bearing herbs and trees.
The first of the Bombycidæ too,--insects that maybe seen suspended over
flowers by the scarce visible vibrations of their wings, sucking the
honied juices by means of their long, slender trunks,--also appear in
the amber, associated with moths, butterflies, and a few caterpillars.
Bees and butterflies are present in increased proportions in the latter
Tertiary deposits: but not until that terminal creation to which we
ourselves belong was ushered on the scene did they receive their fullest
development. There is exquisite poetry in Wordsworth's reference to "the
soft murmur of the vagrant bee,"--
"A slender sound, yet hoary Time
Doth to the soul exalt it with the chime
Of all his years; a company
Of ages coming, ages gone,
Nations from before them sweeping."
And yet, mayhap, the naked scientific facts of the history of this busy
insect are scarcely less poetic than the pleasing imagination of the
poet regarding it. They tell that man's world, with all its griefs and
troubles, is more emphatically a world of flowers than any of the
creations that preceded it, and that as one great family--the
grasses--were called into existence, in order, apparently, that he
might enter in favoring circumstances upon his two earliest avocations,
and be in good hope a keeper of herds and a tiller of the ground; and as
another family of plants--the Rosaceæ--was created in order that the
gardens which it would be also one of his vocations to keep and to dress
should have their trees "good for food and pleasant to the taste;" so
flowers in general were profusely produced just ere he appeared, to
minister to that sense of beauty which distinguishes him from all the
lower creatures, and to which he owes not a few of his most exquisite
enjoyments. The poet accepted the bee as a sign of high significance:
the geologist also accepts her as a sign. Her entombed remains testify
to the gradual fitting up of our earth as a place of habitation for a
creature destined to seek delight for the mind and the eye as certainly
as for the grosser senses, and in especial marks the introduction of the
stately forest trees, and the arrival of the delicious flowers. And,
"Thus in their stations lifting toward the sky
The foliaged head in cloud-like majesty,
The shadow-casting race of trees survive:
Thus in the train of spring arrive
Sweet flowers: what living eye hath viewed
Their myriads? endlessly renewed
Wherever strikes the sun's glad ray,
Where'er the subtile waters stray,
Wherever sportive zephyrs bend
Their course, or genial showers descend."
LECTURE SECOND.
THE PALÆONTOLOGICAL HISTORY OF ANIMALS.
Amid the unceasing change and endless variety of nature there occur
certain great radical ideas, that, while they form, if I may so express
myself, the groundwork of the change,--the basis of the variety,--admit
in themselves of no change or variety whatever. They constitute the
aye-enduring tissue on which the ever-changing patterns of creation are
inscribed: the patterns are ever varying; the tissue which exhibits them
for ever remains the same. In the animal kingdom, for instance, the
prominent ideas have always been uniform. However much the faunas of the
various geologic periods may have differed from each other, or from the
fauna which now exists, in their general aspect and character, they were
all, if I may so speak, equally underlaid by the great leading ideas
which still constitute the master types of animal life. And these
leading ideas are four in number. _First_, there is the _star-like_ type
of life,--life embodied in a form that, as in the corals, the
sea-anemones, the sea-urchins, and the star-fishes, radiates outwards
from a centre; _second_, there is the _articulated_ type of life,--life
embodied in a form composed, as in the worms, crustaceans, and insects,
of a series of rings united by their edges, but more or less moveable on
each other; _third_, there is the bilateral or _molluscan_ type of
life,--life embodied in a form in which there is a duality of
corresponding parts, ranged, as in the cuttle-fishes, the clams, and
the snails, on the sides of a central axis or plane; and _fourth_, there
is the _vertebrate_ type of life,--life embodied in a form in which an
internal skeleton is built up into two cavities placed the one over the
other; the upper for the reception of the nervous centres, cerebral and
spinal,--the lower for the lodgment of the respiratory, circulatory, and
digestive organs. Such have been the four central ideas of the faunas of
every succeeding creation, except perhaps the earliest of all, that of
the Lower Silurian System, in which, so far as is yet known, only three
of the number existed,--the radiated, articulated, and molluscan ideas
or types. That Omnipotent Creator, infinite in his resources,--who, in
at least the details of his workings, seems never yet to have repeated
himself, but, as Lyell well expresses it, breaks, when the parents of a
species have been moulded, the dye in which they were cast,--manifests
himself, in these four great ideas, as the unchanging and unchangeable
One. They serve to bind together the present with all the past; and
determine the unity of the authorship of a wonderfully complicated
design, executed on a groundwork broad as time, and whose scope and
bearing are deep as eternity.
The fauna of the Silurian System bears in all its three great types the
stamp of a fashion peculiarly antique, and which, save in a few of the
mollusca, has long since become obsolete. Its radiate animals are
chiefly corals, simple or compound, whose inhabitants may have somewhat
resembled the sea-anemones; with zoophites, akin mayhap to the sea-pens,
though the relationship must have been a remote one; and numerous
crinoids, or stone lilies, some of which consisted of but a sculptured
calyx without petals, while others threw off a series of long, flexible
arms, that divided and subdivided like the branches of a tree, and were
thickly fringed by hair-like fibres. There is great variety and beauty
among these Silurian crinoids; and, from the ornate sculpture of their
groined and ribbed _capitals_ and slender _columns_, the Gothic
architect might borrow not a few striking ideas.
[Illustration: Fig. 46.
CYATHAXONIA DALMANI.]
The difference between the older and newer fashions, as exemplified in
the cup-shaped corals, may be indicated in a single sentence. The
ancient corals were stars of four rays, or of multiples of four; the
modern corals are stars of six rays, or of multiples of six. But though,
at a certain definite period,--that during which the great Palæozoic
division ended and the Secondary division began--nature, in forming
this class of creatures, discarded the number four, and adopted instead
the number six, the great leading idea of the star itself was equally
retained in corals of the modern as in those of the more ancient type.
[Illustration: Fig. 47.
GLYPTOCRINUS DECADACTYLUS.
(Hudson River Group, Lower Silurian.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 48.
CALYMENE BLUMENBACHII.]
[Illustration: Fig. 49.
ORTHISINA VERNEUILI.]
[Illustration: Fig. 50.
LITUITES CORNU-ARIETIS.]
[Illustration: Fig. 51.
LINGULA LOWISII.]
The articulata of the Silurian period bore a still more peculiar
character. They consisted mainly of the Trilobites,--a family in whose
nicely-jointed shells the armorer of the middle ages might have found
almost all the contrivances of his craft, anticipated, with not a few
besides which he had failed to discover; and which, after receiving so
immense a development during the middle and later times of the Silurian
period, that whole rocks were formed almost exclusively of their
remains, gradually died out in the times of the Old Red Sandstone, and
disappeared for ever from creation after the Carboniferous Limestone had
been deposited. The Palæontologist knows no more unique family than that
of the Trilobites, or a family more unlike any which now exists, or a
family which marks with more certainty the early rocks in which they
occur. And yet, though formed in a fashion that perished myriads of
ages ago, how admirably does it not exhibit the articulated type of
being, and illustrate that unity of design which, amid endless
diversity, pervades all nature. The mollusca of the Silurians ranged
from the high cephalopoda, represented in our existing seas by the
nautili and the cuttle-fishes, to the low brachipods, some of whose
congeners may still be detected in the terebratula of our Highland lochs
and bays, and some in the lingulæ of the southern hemisphere. The
cephalopods of the system are all of an obsolete type, that disappeared
myriads of ages ago,--a remark which, with the exceptions just
intimated, and perhaps one or two others, applies equally to its
brachipods; but of at least two of its intermediate families,--the
gasteropoda and lamellibranchiata,--several of the forms resemble those
of recent shells of the temperate latitudes. In its general aspect,
however, the Silurian fauna, antiquely fashioned, as I have said, as
became its place in the primeval ages of existence, was unlike any other
which the world ever saw; and the absence of the vertebrata, or at least
the inconspicuous place which they occupied if they were at all present,
must have imparted to the whole, as a group, a humble and mediocre
character. It seems to have been for many ages together a creation of
molluscs, corals, and Crustacea. At length, in an upper bed of the
system, immediately under the base of the Old Red Sandstone, the remains
of the earliest known fishes appear, blent with what also appears for
the first time,--the fragmentary remains of a terrestrial vegetation.
The rocks beneath this ancient bone-bed have yielded, as I have already
said, no trace of any plant higher than the Thallogens, or at least not
higher than the Zosteracea,--plants whose proper habitat is the sea;
but, through an apparently simultaneous advance of the two kingdoms,
animal and vegetable,--though of course the simultaneousness may be but
merely apparent,--the first land plants and the first vertebrates
appear together in the same deposit.
What, let us inquire, is the character of these ancient fishes, that
first complete the scale of animated nature in its four master ideas, by
adding the vertebrate to the invertebrate divisions? So far as is yet
known, they all consist of one well marked order,--that placoidal order
of Agassiz that to an internal framework of cartilage adds an external
armature, consisting of plates, spines, and shagreen points of solid
bone. Either of the two kinds of dog-fishes on our coasts,--the spiked
or spotted,--maybe accepted as not inadequate representatives of this
order as it now exists. The Port Jackson shark, however,--a creature
that to the dorsal spines and shagreen-covered skin of the common
dog-fish adds a mouth terminal at the snout, not placed beneath, as in
most other sharks, and a palate covered with a dense pavement of
crushing teeth,--better illustrates the order as it first appeared in
creation than any of our British placoids.
[Illustration: Fig. 52.
PORT JACKSON SHARK.
(Cestracion Phillippi.)]
[Illustration:
Fig. 53.[13]
-----------------------
Silurian.
-----+-----------------Placoid.
| | Ganoid.
Old Red. | |
-----+----+------------
| |
Carboniferous. | |
-----+----+------------
Permian. | |
-----+----+------------
Triassic. | |
-----+----+------------
| |
Oolitic. | |
-----+----+----+----+--
Cretaceous. | | | | Ctenoid and Cycloid.
| | | |
-----+----+----+----+--
Tertiary. | | | |
| | | |
-----+----+----+----+--
Geologic [Pla. Gan. Cte. Cyc.] arrangement.
Agassiz's [Pla. Gan. Cte. Cyc.] arrangement.
THE GENEALOGY OF FISHES.]
[Illustration: Fig. 54.
AMBLYPTERUS MACROPTERTUS.
From the Coal at Saarbruck.
(A Ganoid of the Carboniferous System.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 55.
LEBIAS CEPHALOTES.
Cycloids of Aix. (_Miocene._)]
[Illustration: Fig. 56.
PLATAX ALTISSIMUS.
A Ctenoid of Monte Bolca. (_Eocene._)]
And here let me adduce another and very remarkable instance of the
correspondence which obtains between the sequence in which certain
classes of organisms were first ushered into being, and the order of
classification adopted, after many revisions, by the higher
naturalists. Cuvier, with not a few of the ichthyologists who preceded
him, arranged the fishes into two distinct series,--the Cartilaginous
and Osseous; and these last he mainly divided into the hard or
spiny-finned fishes, and the soft or joint-finned fishes. He placed the
sturgeon in his Cartilaginous series; while in his soft-finned order he
found a place for the Polypterus of the Nile and the Lepidosteus of the
Ohio and St. Lawrence. But the arrangement, though it seemed at the time
one of the best and most natural possible, failed to meet any
corresponding arrangement in the course of geologic history. The place
assigned to the class of fishes as a whole corresponded to their place
in the Palæontological scale;--- first of the vertebrate division in the
order of their appearance, they border, as in the "_Animal Kingdom_" of
the naturalist, on the invertebrate divisions. But it was not until the
new classification of Agassiz had ranged them after a different fashion
that the correspondence became complete in all its parts. First, he
erected the fishes that to an internal cartilaginous skeleton unite an
external armature of plates and points of bone, into his Placoid order;
next, gathering together a mere handful of individuals from among the
various orders and families over which they had been scattered,--the
sturgeons from among the cartilaginous fishes, and the lepidosteus and
polypterus from among the Clupia or herrings,--he erected into a small
ganoid order all the fishes that are covered, whatever the consistency
of their skeleton, by a continuous or nearly continuous armor of
enamelled bone, or by great bony plates that lock into each other at
their edges. Out of the remaining fishes,--those covered with scales of
a horny substance, and which now comprise nearly nine tenths of the
whole class,--he erected two orders more,--a Ctenoid order, consisting
of fishes whose scales, like those of the perch, are pectinated at
their lower edges like the teeth of a comb, and a Cycloid order,
composed of fishes whose scales, like those of the salmon, are defined
all around by a simple continuous margin; and no sooner was the division
effected than it was found to cast a singularly clear light on the early
history of the class. The earliest fishes--firstborn of their
family--seem to have been all placoids. The Silurian System has not yet
afforded trace of any other vertebral animal. With the Old Red Sandstone
the ganoids were ushered upon the scene in amazing abundance; and for
untold ages, comprising mayhap millions of years, the entire ichthyic
class consisted, so far as is yet known, of but these two orders.
During the times of the Old Red Sandstone, of the Carboniferous, of the
Permian, of the Triassic, and of the Oolitic Systems, all fishes, though
apparently as numerous individually as they are now, were comprised in
the ganoidal and placoidal orders. The period of these orders seems to
have been nearly correspondent with the reign, in the vegetable kingdom,
of the Acrogens and Gymnogens, with the intermediate classes, their
allies. At length, during the ages of the Chalk, the Cycloids and
Ctenoids were ushered in, and were gradually developed in creation until
the human period, in which they seem to have reached their culminating
point, and now many times exceed in number and importance all other
fishes. We do not see a sturgeon (our British representative of the
ganoids) once in a twelvemonth; and though the skate and dog-fish (our
representatives of the placoids) are greatly less rare, their number
bears but a small proportion to that of the fishes belonging to the two
prevailing orders, of which thousands of boat-loads are landed on our
coasts every day.
The all but entire disappearance of the ganoids from creation is surely
a curious and not unsuggestive circumstance. In the human family there
are races that have long since reached their culminating point, and are
now either fast disappearing or have already disappeared. The Aztecs of
Central America, or the Copts of the valley of the Nile, are but the
inconsiderable fragments of once mighty nations, memorials of whose
greatness live in the vast sepulchral mounds of the far West, or in the
temples of Thebes or Luxor, or the pyramids of Gizah. But in the rivers
of these very countries,--in the Polypterus of the Nile, or the
Lepidosteus of the Mississippi,--we are presented with the few surviving
fragments of a dynasty compared with which that of Egypt or of Central
America occupied but an exceedingly small portion of either space or
time. The dynasty of the ganoids was at one time coextensive with every
river, lake, and sea, and endured during the unreckoned _eons_ which
extended from the times of the Lower Old Red Sandstone until those of
the Chalk. I may here mention, that as there are orders of plants, such
as the Rosaceæ and the Grasses, that scarce preceded man in their
appearance, so there are families of fishes that seem peculiarly to
belong to the human period. Of these, there is a family very familiar on
our coasts, and which, though it furnishes none of our higher ichthyic
luxuries, is remarkable for the numbers of the human family which it
provides with a wholesome and palatable food. The delicate Salmonidæ and
the Pleuronectidæ,--families to which the salmon and turbot
belong,--were ushered into being as early as the times of the Chalk; but
the Gadidæ or cod family,--that family to which the cod proper, the
haddock, the dorse, the whiting, the coal-fish, the pollock, the hake,
the torsk, and the ling belong, with many other useful and wholesome
species,--did not precede man by at least any period of time appreciable
to the geologist. No trace of the family has yet been detected in even
the Tertiary rocks.
[Illustration: Fig. 57
PTERICHTHYS OBLONGUS.
(One half nat. size.)]
Of the ganoids of the second age of vertebrate existence,--that of the
Old Red Sandstone,--some were remarkable for the strangeness of their
forms, and some for constituting links of connection which no longer
exist in nature, between the ganoid and placoid orders. The Acanth
family, which ceased with the Coal Measures, was characterized,
especially in its Old Red species, by a combination of traits common to
both orders; and among the extremer forms, in which Palæontologists for
a time failed to detect that of the fish at all, we reckon those of the
genera Coccosteus, Pterichthys, and Cephalaspis. The more aberrant
genera, however, even while they consisted each of several species, were
comparatively short lived. The Coccosteus and Cephalaspis were
restricted to but one formation apiece; while the Pterichthys, which
appears for the first time in the lower deposits of the Old Red
Sandstone, becomes extinct at its close. On the other hand, some of the
genera that exemplified the general type of their class were extremely
long lived. The Celacanths were reproduced in many various species, from
the times of the Lower Old Red Sandstone to those of the Chalk; and the
Cestracions, which appear in the Upper Ludlow Rocks as the oldest of
fishes, continue in at least one species to exist still. It would
almost seem as if some such law influenced the destiny of genera in this
ichthyic class, as that which we find so often exemplified in our
species. The dwarf, or giant, or deformed person, is seldom a long
liver;--all the more remarkable instances of longevity have been
furnished by individuals cast in the ordinary mould and proportions of
the species. Not a few of these primordial ganoids wore, however, of the
highest rank and standing ever exemplified by their class; and we find
Agassiz boldly assigning a reason for their superiority to their
successors, important for the fact which it embodies, and worthy, as
coming from him, of our most respectful attention. "It is plain," we
find him saying, "that before the class of reptiles was introduced upon
our globe, the fishes, being then the only representatives of the type
of vertebrata, were invested with the characters of a higher order,
embodying, as it were, a prospective view of a higher development in
another class, which was introduced as a distinct type only at a later
period; and from that time the reptilian character, which had been so
prominent in the oldest fishes, was gradually reduced, till in more
recent periods, and in the present creation, the fishes lost all this
herpetological relationship, and were at last endowed with characters
which contrast as much, when compared with those of reptiles, as they
agreed closely in the beginning. Lepidosteus alone reminds us in our
time of these old-fashioned characters of the class of fishes as it was
in former days."
[Illustration: Fig. 58
PLEURACANTHUS LÆVISSIMUS.
(_Coal Measures._)
(Half nat. size.)]
The ancient fishes seem to have received their fullest development
during the Carboniferous period. Their number was very great: some of
them attained to an enormous size, and, though the true reptile had
already appeared, they continued to retain, till the close of the
system, the high reptilian character and organization. Nothing, however,
so impresses the observer as the formidable character of the offensive
weapons with which they were furnished, and the amazing strength of
their defensive armature. I need scarce say, that the Palæontologist
finds no trace in nature of that golden age of the world, of which the
poets delighted to sing, when all creatures lived together in unbroken
peace, and war and bloodshed were unknown. Ever since animal life began
upon our planet, there existed, in all the departments of being,
carnivorous classes, who could not live but by the death of their
neighbors, and who were armed, in consequence, for their destruction,
like the butcher with his axe and knife, and the angler with his hook
and spear. But there were certain periods in the history of the past,
during which these weapons assumed a more formidable aspect than at
others; and never were they more formidable than in the times of the
Coal Measures. The teeth of the Rhizodus--a ganoidal fish of our coal
fields--were more sharp and trenchant than those of the crocodile of the
Nile, and in the larger specimens fully four times the bulk and size of
the teeth of the hugest reptile of this species that now lives. The
dorsal spine of its contemporary, the Gyracanthus, a great placoid, much
exceeded in size that of any existing fish: it was a mighty spear head,
ornately carved like that of a New Zealand chief, but in a style that,
when he first saw a specimen in my collection, greatly excited the
admiration of Mr. Ruskin. But one of the most remarkable weapons of the
period was the sting of the Pleuracanthus, another great placoid of the
age of gigantic fishes. It was sharp and polished as a stiletto, but,
from its rounded form and dense structure, of great strength; and along
two of its sides, from the taper point to within a few inches of the
base, there ran a thickly-set row of barbs, hooked downwards, like the
thorns that bristle on the young shoots of the wild rose, and which must
have rendered it a weapon not merely of destruction, but also of
torture. The defensive armor of the period, especially that of its
ganoids, seems to have been us remarkable for its powers of resistance
as the offensive must have been for their potency in the assault; and
it seems probable that in the great strength of the bony and enamelled
armature of this order of fishes we have the secret of the extremely
formidable character of the teeth, spines, and stings that coexisted
along with it.
[Illustration: Fig. 59.
CARCHARIAS PRODUCTUS.
Cutting Tooth. (_Miocene._)]
[Illustration: Fig. 60.
PLACODUS GIGAS.
Crushing Teeth. (_Trias._)]
Such of the fishes of the present time as live on crustacea and the
shelled molluscs,--such as the Wrasse or rock-fish family, and at least
one of the Goby family, the sea-wolf,--have an apparatus of crushing
teeth greatly more solid and strong than the teeth of such of their
contemporaries as are either herbivorous or feed on the weaker families
of their own class. A similar remark applies to the ancient sharks, as
contrasted with those of later times. So long as the strongly-armed
ganoidal order prevailed in nature, the sharks were furnished with
massive crushing teeth; but when the ganoids waned in creation, and the
soft-scaled cycloid and ctenoid orders took and amply filled the place
which they had left vacant, the well known modern form of sharks' teeth
was introduced,--a form much rather suited for cutting soft bodies than
for crushing hard ones. In fine, the offensive weapons of the times of
the Coal Measures seem very formidable, just as those personal weapons
of the middle ages seem so that were borne at a time when every soldier
took the field cased in armor of proof. The slim scimitar or slender
rapier would have availed but little against massive iron helmets or
mail coats of tempered steel. And so the warriors of the period armed
themselves with ponderous maces, battle-axes as massive as hammers, and
double-handed swords of great weight and strength.
Before passing onwards to other and higher classes and orders, as they
occurred in creation, permit me to make the formidable armor of the
earlier fishes, offensive and defensive, the subject of a single remark.
We are told by Goethe, in his autobiography, that he had attained his
sixth year when the terrible earthquake at Lisbon took place,--"an
event," he says, "which greatly disturbed" his "peace of mind for the
first time." He could not reconcile a catastrophe so suddenly
destructive to thousands, with the ideas which he had already formed for
himself of a Providence all-powerful and all-benevolent. But he
afterwards learned, he tells us, to recognize in such events the "_God
of the Old Testament._" I know not in what spirit the remark was made;
but this I know, that it is the God of the Old Testament whom we see
exhibited in all nature and all providence; and that it is at once
wisdom and duty in his rational creatures, however darkly they may
perceive or imperfectly they may comprehend, to hold in implicit faith
that the Adorable Monarch of all the past and of all the future is a
King who "can do no wrong." This early exhibition of tooth, and spine,
and sting,--of weapons constructed alike to cut and to pierce,--to unite
two of the most indispensable requirements of the modern armorer,--a
keen edge to a strong back,--nay, stranger still, the examples furnished
in this primeval time, of weapons formed not only to kill, but also to
torture,--must be altogether at variance with the preconceived opinions
of those who hold that until man appeared in creation, and darkened its
sympathetic face with the stain of moral guilt, the reign of violence
and outrage did not begin, and that there was no death among the
inferior creatures, and no suffering. But preconceived opinion, whether
it hold fast, with Lactantius and the old Schoolmen, to the belief that
there can be no antipodes, or assert, with Caccini and Bellarmine, that
our globe hangs lazily in the midst of the heavens, while the sun moves
round it, must yield ultimately to scientific truth. And it is a truth
as certain as the existence of a southern hemisphere, or the motion of
the earth round both its own axis and the great solar centre, that,
untold ages ere man had sinned or suffered, the animal creation
exhibited exactly its present state of war,--that the strong, armed with
formidable weapons, exquisitely constructed to kill, preyed upon the
weak; and that the weak, sheathed, many of them, in defensive armor
equally admirable in its mechanism, and ever increasing and multiplying
upon the earth far beyond the requirements of the mere maintenance of
their races, were enabled to escape, as species, the assaults of the
tyrant tribes, and to exist unthinned for unreckoned ages. It has been
weakly and impiously urged,--as if it were merely with the geologist
that men had to settle this matter,--that such an economy of warfare and
suffering,--of warring and of bei
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