4CO 



GEOLOGY GEOMANCY. 



pettier, they always lie under the secondary rocks, 

 ird are hence supposed to have been formed before 

 them. But although, in their relative situation, the 

 primitive rocks are always lowest, yet, when second- 

 ary rocks are absent, the primitive often appear at 

 the surface of the earth, and do, in fact, constitute 

 the summits of the greater part of the highest moun- 

 tains. When primitive rocks are stratified, the 

 strata are seldom horizontal : on the contrary, they 

 are often highly inclined, and sometimes nearly or 

 quite vertical. But whether these strata were ori- 

 ginally inclined, or whether, subsequently to their 

 formation, they were changed from a horizontal to 

 an inclined position, by the action of some powerful 

 cause, is a question on which the most distinguished 

 geologists are divided in opinion. The transition 

 rocks bear, also, some resemblance to the primitive ; 

 but there is less distinctness of their component 

 parts, and among them we meet the first occurrence 

 of organic remains of animals previously existing. 

 In the secondary or newest formations of rocks, we 

 find many and various remains of a former race of 

 inhabitants of the world. We can trace mechanical 

 operations in the growth of most rocks of this class, 

 and also the fragments of older rocks in the com- 

 pound structures met with among them. They are 

 earthy, and not crystalline, in their structure, and 

 the calcareous earth predominates in their composi- 

 tion. Though sometimes found on the summits of 

 primitive mountains, they are usually placed on the 

 declivities of these mountains, or at their feet, or 

 under the intervening valleys or plains. Deposits 

 of stones, gravel, sand, clay, earth, &c., are called 

 diluvial, when they are so extensive as to cover large 

 portions of the earth, and as to be evidently the re- 

 sults of floods of water, rolling over the whole extent 

 of the earth ; alluvial, when they are limited hi 

 extent, and may be ascribed to the operation of 

 causes now in action, as the sea, rivers, rains, &c. 

 The classification of rocks is either mineralogical or 

 geological. The former, resting upon the actual 

 composition of rocks, must, of course, take a form and 

 order of arrangement quite different from the latter, 

 in which their relative position and inferred compara- 

 tive ages form the basis of the system. In the arrange- 

 ments founded upon elementary composition, or other 

 mineralogical points of similarity, rocks are often 

 found, in near relation and approximation, which 

 belong to periods of formation far remote from each 

 other ; and older and more recent formations of rocks 

 often present striking similarities, in composition and 

 other respects, from which their relative ages could 

 not by any means be inferred. In opposition or con- 

 tradistinction to this, may be regarded the geognostic 

 or geological arrangement of rocks, which attempts 

 to follow the order in which they are supposed to 

 have been formed. The following is a brief state- 

 ment of the general grounds of geological opinions 

 and systems. All writers upon this subject agree in 

 this : that there are evident marks of at least three 

 distinct revolutions or changes, which have been 

 co-extensive with the surface of the earth, and which 

 occurred previously to the earth's assuming its pre- 

 sent form ; by which the order of things was wholly 

 changed, and all creatures living at such period en- 

 tirely destroyed ; and which have been followed, in 

 each case, by a new organization of things, partially, 

 but not wholly, similar to the preceding. Various 

 circumstances seem, also, to render it as probable, 

 that man was not a witness of any of these changes, 

 but that it was after the last of them that he was 

 numbered among the inhabitants of the earth ; and 

 it follows of course, from this, that the flood, of which 

 traditions exist in ail countries, is not one of those 

 alluded to. As each race of organized beings was 



successively overwhelmed by that destructive com- 

 motion, which was to terminate in the formation of a 

 new covering for the earth, various remains were 

 left, and are still to be recognised, which indicate 

 the form and size of those lost races of animals, and 

 show them, with few exceptions, to have been very 

 different from the races at present in existence. 

 These remains give us distinct accounts of the beings 

 who then inhabited this earth, as we now do ; but 

 they, unfortunately, give us no distinct account of 

 the events, which terminated in a change so destruc- 

 tive to them. In this respect, they resemble the 

 gigantic architectural and other artificial remains, 

 which are found in Asia and America, and which 

 date from a period, and belong to a race, of whidi 

 we have no other tidings, the impossibility of at- 

 taining which, only renders their inspection the more 

 interesting. The races of beings which were last 

 destroyed, lie in the upper strata of the earth, while 

 their predecessors are buried far beneath ; but each 

 present characteristics sufficient to mark and identify 

 them. The first, or those which are now found at 

 the lowest points in the earth, differ entirely from 

 those which now exist, and show that the relations 

 which were then established among the occupants of 

 the earth, were quite different from those now exist- 

 ing. Writers are, also, agreed in this : that, previ- 

 ously to the existence of those races, of whose re- 

 mains we were just speaking, and which, in point of 

 perfection, were so inferior to the present races of 

 animals, this planet was waste and void, and that it 

 existed in a fluid form, at least those parts now con- 

 stituting the primitive rocks, and that they became 

 solid by crystallization. The spheroidal form of the 

 earth, which is flattened at the poles, and the phe- 

 nomena presented by the internal structure of many 

 mountains, afford strong grounds for the belief, that 

 the mass of which they were formed, was in motion 

 when it began to become solid, and that it became 

 so before its parts could entirely assume a new 

 order of arrangement. See Breislak's work upon 

 geology. One of the most valuable works upon this 

 subject is that of Humboldt upon the relative position 

 of rocks in the two hemispheres. We may also refer 

 to the Transactions of the Geological Society of Lon- 

 don, commenced in 1807, and Leonhard's Charac- 

 teristics of Rocks, published at Heidelberg, 1823. 

 See, also, Cuvier's Theory of the Earth, with notes 

 by R. Jameson, Edinburgh, 1817 ; Lyell's Principles 

 of Geology, 3d edition, London, 1834, 4 vols. 12mo ; 

 Granville Penn's Geology; De la Beche's Geological 

 Manual, 3d edit., London, 1833, 8vo; Bucklnnd's 

 Reliquiae Dihiviana:, 2 vols. 4to, London, 1824, 1828. 

 GEOMANCY is called, by Cotgrave, divination 

 made by points and circles in the earth. Sparry, in 

 his translation of Cattan's Geomancie (written about 

 the middle of the sixteenth century, and translated in 

 1591), says: "Geomancie is a science and art, 

 which consisteth of points, prickes, and lines made, 

 instead of the foure elements, and of the starres and 

 planets of heaven, called the science of the earth, 

 because in times past it was made on it, as we will 

 hereafter declare. And thus every pricke signifieth 

 a starre, and every line an element, and every figure 

 the foure quarters of the worlde, that is to say, the 

 East, West, South, and North. Wherefore it is easy 

 to know, that geomancie is none other thing but 

 astrologie, and a third mean, that is to say, partici- 

 pating of two, which is alquemy. Geomancie is called 

 of gy, a Greeke worde which signifieth earth, and 

 mancie, which is to say, knowledge. Or, defining it 

 more properly, it is derived of gyos and magos, which 

 signifieth knowledge of earthly things by the power 

 of the superior bodies of the foure elements, the 

 seaven planets, and of the twelve signes of henvcu. 



