98 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



like a number of ships in full sail, or commonly like ' 

 great stacks or ricks of corn or turf. 



The Aran islands, according to O'Fflahertie, were 

 called, from their shape, "Ara, signifying a kid- 

 ney." The south sound, or strait to the south- 

 east, between Inisheer and the county Clare, was 

 formerly called Bealagh-na-Finnis, or " the way of 

 the Finnis-rock," the latter being a le"dge of rock 

 that extends out from the island. The strait 

 between Inisheer and Inishmaan still retains its old 

 name, while Gregorie's Sound, between Inishmaan 

 and Inishmore, used to be called Bealagh-na-haite, 

 from the hill Benaite, that lies over it on the north- 

 west. 



OUR COMMON BRITISH EOSSILS, AND 

 WHERE TO FIND THEM. 



By J. E. Taylor, E.L.S., E.G.S., &c. 



No. 1. 



THERE are few sciences which are more de- 

 pendent on others than that of geology. 

 Certainly there is none which sends the young 

 student so eagerly to other sciences for assistance. 

 The fossils he meets with in the rocks are far more 

 abundant than he imagined before he began to study 

 geology. Indeed, one of the chief causes of wonder 

 to the young geologist is the abundance of fossil re- 

 mains within the immediate neighbourhood of his 

 home, unless the latter happen to be on the old 

 granite or metamorphic rocks. He wonders how it 

 is he never noticed them before. "Whereas he was 

 blind, now he sees ! Eragments, or whole speci- 

 mens of fossils, animal and vegetable, are constantly 

 turning up before his eager and enthusiastic eyes, 

 either in their parent rocks, or in the Boulder clays 

 and drifts which have been formed out of them. 

 The very rocks of the hills and mountains seem to 

 be almost wholly composed of them — nay, the solid 

 dry land of the globe appears to have been mainly 

 put together by the agency or through the instru- 

 mentality of Life ! The abodes of all living forms 

 are on the sepulchres of the dead ! Existence and 

 extinction are strangely associated together. 



No sooner has the young beginner appreciated the 

 wealth of objects by which he is surrounded, or to 

 which he may obtain easy access, than the first fit of 

 collecting takes possession of him. His holidays are 

 spent in fossiliferous localities ; and his leisure time 

 in reading about them, or in arranging his cabinet. 

 At length he feels the need for more knowledge 

 than he possesses about the many strange forms he 

 comes across. He has an idea they are something 

 altogether different from anything now 'existing, 

 and a feeling of something like disappointment comes 

 over him when he learns that they are constructed 

 on the same plan, and that in many instances, the 

 same generic and even specific /orms are still in 



existence. This state of mind, however, soon gives 

 way to thorough admiration, for he now catches a 

 glimpse of the life-plan of the globe. He sees 

 that, beginning with the lowest and humblest of 

 organisms, it has graduated into the present fauna 

 and flora ; that the stream of life, issuing like a rill 

 from such obscure springs as are hardly discernible 

 iu the distant Laurentian period, has been gaining 

 in volume and depth as it has passed onward, in un- 

 broken continuity, through all the succeeding ages, 

 until it has opened out in the grand ocean of exist- 

 ing life ! Every fossil he picks up is a letter in the 

 great stone book, and many such letters, properly 

 put together, have spelled out some of the most 

 wonderful generalizations that have come before the 

 human mind. Eor geology as a science is peculiar 

 in this respect, that in proportion to the degree of 

 intellectual labour bestowed upon it, the resulting 

 knowlege is wider and broader than that afforded 

 by any other science, except, perhaps, astronomy. 

 Not only does the new knowledge tell the student 

 of other life-periods besides the present, and 

 extend the duration of the globe infinitely beyond 

 the brief thousands of years he thought it had been 

 in existence ; but it convinces him beyond a doubt, 

 that if the present living animals and plants are 

 evidences of Creational wisdom and power, the same 

 may be said of the bygone faunas and floras of pre- 

 ceding epochs. Nay, when he learns to properly 

 connect their nature and distribution with the pre- 

 sent, he sees that all are parts or links in the great 

 chain of vitality, of which existing animals and 

 plants are only the continued living forms ! 



The next step in the process of geological reason- 

 ing, which these objects will suggest, is no less in- 

 teresting or instructive. From seeing how many of 

 our rocks, especially limestones, are wholly formed 

 by vital agencies, the student perceives that the 

 physical geography of every past age is related to 

 the present. The rocks forming the dry land are 

 for the most part of marble origin — were formed 

 along the floors of ancient seas, when dry land 

 doubtless occupied the areas of existing oceans ! 

 No fact is more readily or surely known than that 

 sea and land have frequently changed places. Up- 

 heavals and depressions of the earth's crust, pro- 

 ducing marvellous physical results, and affecting the 

 distribution of life-forms in every period of our 

 planet's history, are nevertheless of insignificant 

 importance when we regard the bulk of our earth 

 as a planet. It is the sum total of these depres- 

 sions and upheavals, as well as of the atmospherical 

 and marine wear-and-tear of the solid rocks, that has 

 eventually given to the surface of the globe its pre- 

 sent physical geography. 



Of all these things the geological student has to 

 take heed. He discovers that geology, after all, is 

 but the total record of the physical geography of the 

 past ; and that, as Lyell and others have demon- 



