2 A Penod in the History of our Planet. 



tho past. But when the sources of history dry up in the in- 

 fancy 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 1 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 pene- 

 trate 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. 



