1844. 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



145 



the strong, death and the digestive process of the living continually 

 adding to the soil, and the soil abstracting matter continually from the 

 atmosphere and the waters ; the fossil kingdom enlarging as species 

 generate and decay ; the mineral kingdom increasing in every vibration 

 of Time, as generations rise and decay, and as matter composing the 

 beds of earth changes in its character and qualities. As the n.iked 

 polypes elaborate silica, as stony polypes, crustaceous, and molluscous 

 animals elaborate calx and soda, so the vegetable species elaborate the 

 elements of potash, many peculiar acids, and a variety of vegetable 

 products, so animals elaborate oils, animal matter, iron, &c. ; the 

 elements of the one, and the elements of the other, uniting in death 

 and contributing to form beds of the earth, in which, although every 

 organic form is obliterated, individual character exists sufficient to 

 enable man to identify its previous condition as a product of the earth. 

 Place a bed of black mould by the side of a bed of chalk, how great is 

 the contrast, how diversified the material, trace each to the fountain 

 head of production, and the like phenomena are observable, countless 

 species, differing from each other in form and character uniting in 

 death, and producing one result: blend the one with the other, after 

 subjecting them to climate and consequent chemical action and change, 

 and the results are the varied beds and mineral aggregates of this 

 earth. 



" It is generally considered," says Professor Brande, " that lime is 

 elaborated by animal species-," such, indeed, is the expressed opinion 

 of Linnffius and other writers, but it can scarcely yet be said to be the 

 general opinion of geologists. Still, qualified as this admission is, it 

 leads the way to admissions still more important — to a knowledge of 

 facts still more essential to the elucidation of the enigma of nature : it is 

 also admitted that vegetable earth is produced by the decomposition of 

 vegetables, that much of its material is abstracted from the compounds 

 air and water, and much more is formed by the digestive process of 

 animals which feed upon it. The vegetable body, springing from a 

 basis of vegetable and animal matter, is found, on ultimate analysis, to 

 consist of the elements of air and water, and of carbon, the latter con- 

 stituting the bulk of the vegetable body: the union of these com- 

 pounds in definite proportions, determining, of necessity, the character 

 of the plant, and the link in the chain of vegetable life extending in a 

 graduated scale from the tremellae, which have neither form nor size 

 defined, nor appearance of organic structure, to the fungi, mosses, 

 lichens, grasses, plants, and, finally, to fruit and forest trees. 



In all climates we observe the first manifestations, the gradual 

 increase, and the vast local accumulations of vegetable earth : the 

 pulverulent lichens, requiring no vegetable soil in the first effort of 

 vegetative life, clothe the barren rock, and in the gradual decay of 

 portions of the roots and minute branches an exceedingly fine earth is 

 formed, gradually accumulating and concealing the rock on which they 

 grow from view : by this continuned increase the plant is eventually 

 destroyed by a too rich soil, it perishes, and in its place foliaceous 

 lichens, plants of larger growth, spring up, destroying all that remains 

 of their humble predecessors, and these in turn give place to mosses. 

 In the plains the acrid grasses and plants yield gradually to species of 

 a more succulent and generous nature, and terrestrial animals always 

 follow in the wake of the vegetable creation. The fossil kingdom is 

 inimical to vegetable life, but as the mineral kingdom forms by and in 

 the decomposition and recombination of these bodies, so the vegetable 

 kingdom, when favoured by warmth and moisture, increases in extent 

 and variety. Humboldt has remarked that in the Canary Islands, 

 Guinea, and the rocky coasts of Peru, the pioneers of vegetable life 

 are succulent plants: in the Pacific, vegetation forms very rapidly, 

 from a variety of causes, and favoured by heat and moisture : in the 

 deserts, as previously observed, the earth remains barren and unpro- 

 ductive age after age, and every region of the earth presents not only 

 mineral and geographical features peculiar to itself, but also peculiar 

 vegetation: "Thus," as Lamoreaux remarks, "the bason of the 

 Atlantic, the west sea of the Indies, comprising most of the Gulf of 

 Mexico, the East coast of South America, the Indian Ocean and its 

 gulfs, the shores of New Holland and the adjacent isles ; the Mediter- 

 ranean and the Red Sea, all have a marked vegetation of their own, 

 differing from each other." 



In form, in matter, and in motions. Nature is equally variable: the 

 production of one day disappears in the next; the ethenal fluid 

 becomes atriform, vaporous, or aqueous; the aqueous becomes con- 

 solidated as rock. Again they change, and again and again, as locally 

 affected, without regard being had to their usefulness or to their 

 utility. All things are Produced, all things are Producing, all things 

 are perpetually changing in tlieit parts and qualities. A stratum 

 is formed to-day, it is destroyed on the morrow ; the ocean retires 

 before the earth; the earth is overwhelmed by the flood ; the innu- 

 merable phenomena constituting earth being necessarily produced by 



uniting and contending motions, and uniting and contending matters, 

 originating in one and in many causes. 



In the changes continually taking place among inorganic bodies, 

 elementary principles, and gaseous compounds, the like difficulties 

 stand in tlio way of the man of science when he attempts to generalize 

 upon particular phenomenon. Life departing, the passive clothing of 

 life becomes a portion of the soil to which it is accidentally consigned, 

 and the subject of new forces, the nature of the influences exercised 

 upon it, determining the nature of the ultimate result. A forest is 

 prostrated by tempest or by flood, and the wreck covering perchance 

 several leagues, becomes gradually or suddenly entombed in the earth : 

 it is then, the nature of the earth, and the peculiar influences to which 

 it is exposed, determines the character the embedded fossil remains 

 will assume : thus within an earthy soil, they quickly decompose, be- 

 coming a portion of that soil; imbedded in saline earths, they are 

 preserved from decomposition, and become mineralized as coal; im- 

 bedded in peculiar clays, they perchance mineralize as slate; or, under 

 other circumstances, become siliceous bodies, or proximate causes of 

 the production of basalt; the ultimate result always depending upon 

 the nature of the material in its mixture, and upon the elements to 

 which they are subjected, and by which their changes are directed 

 and governed, the organic body in death becoming the subject of new 

 and peculiar disposition in its atomic parts and qualities, decomposing, 

 or consolidating, as the accidentsof circumstance may determine, their 

 primary qualities being for ever lost in their new dispositions. Again, 

 in the more complex organizations and combinations of nature, we see 

 the folly of generalizing upon single phenomenon ; for particular fossil 

 species may be found in certain strata which bear a striking analogy 

 to each other, but the Causes of Eflects thus manifest may widely differ 

 from each other; thus land animals maybe, and often are found in 

 oceanic beds : found, for instance, in the chalk and lias of England are 

 often the relics of elephants and other terrestrial animals, formerly 

 carried therein by running streams : and, again, oceanic animals 

 are abundantly found in terrestrial strata, not only as primarily 

 forming these strata, but also generally diffused through terrestrial earths 

 by the moving causes of flood and fire : the accidents of a day, 

 of an hour, may in a few fleeting moments have produced this 

 complicated state of affiiirs: but, if the primary causes of many terres- 

 trial vegetable species being locally generated and produced, forming 

 noble forests, verdant savannahs and plains still exist, it follows as a 

 necessary consequence, that the sum of terrestrial earth as vegetable 

 soil still continues to increase; for in all bodies decomposition and re- 

 combination is rapidly going on, and all aluminous earths are the results 

 proceeding therefrom. In the rainless regions, particularly the great 

 deserts of the earth, immense local areas are nearly or wholly devoid 

 of life, and as a necessary consequence vegetable earths are not to be 

 found unless deposited in the line of rivers, in deltas, and narrow 

 valleys, such as the Oasis; and this alone is a great testimony that 

 the earths which cover the valleys are not produced as is generally 

 asserted by the disintegration of ancient rocks, for the nature of the 

 silt of rivers is always coDsonent to the nature of the soil, thus in 

 some streams it is almost wholly composed of salts and vegetable 

 earths, whereas in the absence of vegetable earth the matters held 

 in suspension are such as charaterize the fossil soil, as magnesia, 

 carbonate of lime, :soda, iron, mucilagine salt, sulphuric acid, and 

 other compounds belonging to fossil soils only. On the other hand, in 

 local areas of the globe favourable for the development and increase 

 of vegetable species, vegetable earths abound also, the local extent of 

 production of the one depending on the increase of the other, for 

 even when deposited in the beds of lakes and rnnning streams, it is 

 necessary that the ratio of increase be continually such as is conso- 

 nent with the increase and decomposition of organic bodies from 

 whence the supply is obtained. Thus it is, primary or fossil soils 

 uncovered with vegetable species, and exposed to the action of run- 

 ning waters, suffer degradation to a very great extent, the hills and 

 mountains become intersected with ravines, and beds of rivers are 

 carried below the adjacent soil : the mountain ranges of Arabia and 

 other parts of Asia, of Africa and Australia, suffer degradation to a 

 vast extent during the monsoms or rainy season, the abstracted ma- 

 terial being carried into and spread over the valleys and plains, or 

 otherwise over the bed of the ocean from whence it was primarily 

 derived, but in those places where vegetable species abound, the earth 

 is protected from abrasion, and not only so, but the decomposed vege- 

 table bodies carried by the waters into'the valleys prevents any furtlier 

 decomposition. 



It is an error generally embraced in the present day that the earth 

 receives no increase, but merely changes in its parts and qualities, 

 ai.djthat the sum of consolidated matter and of the waters continue the 

 same for ever. This, although in cunlorniity to the opinions of ancient 

 I hilosophers, is as entirely at variance with the nature of things 



