305 THE 



CHAPTER Xlil 

 The first Epoch. 



"The land that hath no summer flowers,- 

 Where never living creature stood; 

 The wild, dim, polar solitude: 

 How different from this land of ours ! " 



Mary Howitt. 



THE first great period, commences with the granitic and ends 

 with the coal formation. Beneath the most ancient deposits lies 

 a crystaline rock which, under the name of granite, is familiar to 

 to every one. Lofty mountain chains, sometimes rearing their 

 Alpine summits far beyond the limit of perpetual snow, look 

 down in solitary grandeur upon the scenes below. The hardest 

 and most indestructable of all rocks, it seems fitted for the foun- 

 dation or superstructure of the entire mass. Occasionally it is 

 found of a more recent origin, exhibiting the appearance of hav-^ 

 ing been ejected after the deposition of the newer strata; probably 

 the result of intense heat acting under great pressure. We may 

 suppose then that there was a time, "the beginning," when a 

 globe existed having alternations of stone and water, no soil was 

 upon its surface, which was a bare rock, presenting innumerable 

 rugged peaks; not a sea-weed floated in the waters, nor a lichen 

 grew on the rock; no sound was there except the monotonous and 

 angry dash of the waves upon the bare and desolate coast. But 

 even then, the atmosphere, perhaps surcharged with carbonic acid, 

 was actively engaged in crumbling down the barren rocks, and 

 we may suppose that the waves and the winds urged their com- 

 bined force as now; the fragments of granite thus torn off, were 

 deposited -in the bed of the ocean, and we find them compacted 

 under the name of gneiss. If during this action, the felspar was 

 partly decomposed, then the quartz or silex, would be deposit- 



