LYELL AND RECENT GEOLOGY. 1 29 



as to past ages may be drawn. Lyell termed these 

 effects an autobiography of the earth. *' The forces 

 now operating upon earth are the same in kind and 

 degree as those which in the remotest times produced 

 geological changes." 



Probably, in consequence of the havoc caused by local 

 floods and earthquakes, a belief in great and universal 

 catastrophes was formed at a very early period ; and to 

 the Indian and Egyptian legends on this subject Lyell 

 appends the remark, that the traditional connection of 

 such catastrophes with a belief in repeated and universal 

 corruption of morals may be easily explained. 



At the end of the last century, the opinion was here and 

 there expressed that the submergence of large extents 

 of land, and the emergence of others, had taken place 

 slowly ; and the doctrine was in preparation that the 

 mineral masses fall into various groups, succeeding one 

 another in definite order. Werner then appeared and 

 founded the special science of " Geognosy." He was 

 not the first to see and teach the regular succession of 

 rocks, but the sensation which he caused was uni- 

 versal. From his time dates the violent controversy of 

 the Vulcanists and Neptunists, and into the midst of 

 this controversy fell Cuvier's great discoveries on the 

 animals of the Tertiary formation in the vicinity of 

 Paris. By the works of Cuvier and Lamarck on fossil 

 animals, the differences betwixt ancient and modern 

 organisms became apparent, and Cuvier's views, zoolo- 

 gical as well as geological, gained the victory. The 

 conviction was gradually established that long ages of 

 repose and quiescence alternated on earth with shorter 

 periods of universal catastrophes and revolutions."^^ 



K 



