The Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal

A Period in the History of our Planet. By LOUIS AGASSIZ, Doctor of Philosophy and Medicine, LL.D. of Edinburgh and Dublin, Knight of the Order of the Red Eagle of Prussia, Professor of Natural History in the Academy of Neuchatel, &c. &c.

THERE is something peculiarly fascinating to the human mind in inquiries into the past history of the human race. What power has placed Man upon the earth, and called him to be its lord and master? Was he the first product of that creative energy which called forth the thousands of living beings upon our planet, or was he preceded by other creations? And what was the conformation of this earth before the energy of his mind, and the labour of his hands, had impressed upon it the indelible stamp of his existence? It were easy to multiply these questions, but difficult to give a just solution of them for the obscurity that conceals the early and remote yields but with difficulty to the torch of inquiry, and, when we even succeed in penetrating a step or two-in opening a slight path to the succeeding inquirer, the environs of this path become enveloped in darkness still more dense. Where it is man himself that still speaks to his fellow man, where he himself relates to him the history of his fortunes, we may no doubt more readily speak of understanding, of a right comprehension of occurrences; in a word, of knowledge of VOL. XXXV. NO. LXIX.-JULY 1843.

the past. But when the sources of history dry up in the infancy of nations, or only bubble up in the faint glimmer of enchantment and fable, the answer to our curious inquiries becomes more difficult, and the supposed resolution more doubtful. But who can resolve the enigmas which lie buried in the dark night of Time, antecedent to the creation of our species? Who is in possession of the spell that is to raise such hidden treasure?

"Where men are silent," says an ancient proverb, "stones must speak :" and daily experience adds new confirmation to the saying. And they speak to us, the stones and the rocks, the mountains and the valleys; but each has its own language, and each its own modes of speech; and like the tribes of America, none understands the language of the other, nor is it given to every human intellect to acquire the language of all, and in their peculiar expressions, to find the answer to his queries. Is it to be wondered at, that there is still so much interrogatory, and so little answer that is really understood?

But what has been done awakens the hope that something still better and more beautiful will be discovered: let then every one who can contribute his mite to the increase of the general knowledge do so fearlessly: however small it may be, it will not be lost.

It will easily be perceived, that I refer to Geology; and in fact, it is this science, and it alone, which promises to give us, some time or other, a satisfactory answer to the queries which we stated at the outset. It is the only positive science which endeavours laboriously to wring from the past, what it has long shrouded in a veil of nocturnal obscurity; and what it does not find here above, it beats, hammer in hand, out of the obstinate rock, by the dim light of the miner's lamp. It takes the torch from the hand of the historical antiquary, to penetrate still deeper into the obscurity which is unenlightened by mythology or tradition. For it has taken the history of the Earth for its problem; it will enquire what was there when man was not yet there; what lived before creation had crowned its work, by the formation of that being who alone can render himself intelligible to his race, by language and writing, across remote space and time.

Formerly scarce attended to, it is only in very recent times that Geology has risen to the rank of a science. The solution of the enigmas was sought for in a different way; people either rested satisfied with what they regarded as immediate divine revelation, or sought to gain their end by metaphysical investigation, and endless sets of inferences, without being very particular about having a foundation for them in fact. To interrogate the Earth itself about its history, was a notion which was late of occurring, but which, once it did occur, was so much the more zealously acted on; and we may now say, that Geology, like all new sciences, has for a while become the fashion.

And a most comfortable thing to be sure is such a science, in which the greater part still remains to be done, which as yet possesses no history, or at best, the history of a few decades! Moreover, it is a science, for the prosecution of which, collections are necessary. One can gratify one's dilettanteship under the semblance of performing a service to science. Which of its sisters, then, can contend with it in the possession of such captivating qualities? Not one of them! And it bids fair long to remain the bosom-child of scientific amateurs, and of the rich Mæcenases of poor naturalists. May it derive from them all the benefit that it can derive, before they become tired of their plaything, and cast it aside for a new one!

I hope I shall not be accused of seeking to follow the fashion, in introducing a subject belonging to this my favourite science, which I have pursued with great predilection, and which I am now desirous to treat of, because it perhaps, more than any other geological subject, trenches upon everyday life, and is thus interesting for a wider public. The matter in hand is not an epoch, which lying at an immense remoteness, comes scarcely into indirect relation with our present one; it is an epoch of which the vast remains still stifle whole tracts and provinces under their deadly influences, and oppose themselves, as it were, like powerful dykes, to the progress of civilization; an epoch of which the remains attract so many tourists to our native Switzerland, who, lost in

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The Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, Volume 35