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THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[January, 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF OCEANIC FOSSIL FORMATIONS. 

 Chapter IV. 



Having in the preceding numbers given (be Philosophy of Coral 

 Formations and their Architects, we now pass, bv a natural transition, 

 to the consideration of fossil bodies as generally diffused through the 

 superficial strata of the earth. 



Fossil, in Natural History, according to learned commentators of 

 the present day, denotes in genera], every thing that is dug out of the 

 earth, whether it be native thereto, as metals, stones, salts, earths, and 

 other minerals, or extraneous, as the bones of animals and the like; 

 this understanding of the term Fossil is, however, attended with very 

 great inconvenience to the student, who thus finds the two grand 

 divisions of the earth confusedly blended together, without any just 

 reason being assigned for removing the barrier erected by nature ; and 

 again, it is highly objectionable as perpetuating error and miscon- 

 ception of natural phenomena. The simple term fossil ought to be 

 exclusively confined to those bodies or fragments of bodies of animals 

 and vegetables, which, from their peculiar disposition and association, 

 have maintained their integrity of form and quality with very slight 

 alterations, and so much so, as to enable the naturalist to identify 

 their species, and consequently the conditions under which thev pre- 

 viously existed. The coral rag, sea shells, bones and teeth of fishes, 

 trees or parts of trees, herbaceous plants and fruits, the bones, tusks, 

 horns and other exuviae of land animals, found in lias, chalk, oolite, 

 and other formations of the northern hemisphere, so long aa their 

 elementary constituents remain unchanged, belong to the fossil king- 

 dom ; but the silicified and other mineralized bodies, which, although 

 they retain their primary organic configuration! have undergone a 

 complete change in their atomic structure or elementary constituents, 

 ought to bear the designation of secondary fossils, up to that point in 

 which they enter into and become absolutely one with the mineral 

 kingdom ; we are therefore compelled to adopt Mr. Parkinson's appel- 

 lation of Primary Fossil*, and Secondary Fossils, not for the reasons 

 assigned by him, but in order to denote the natural or mineralized 

 state of organic bodies. By many naturalists the term petrift 

 has been applied indiscriminately to all fossils: hut, independently of 

 the term petrifaction being an absurdity as applied to bodies in the 

 act of silicifying or otherwise mineralizing, it conveys erroneous im- 

 pressions to the mind respecting this class of phenomena; for many 

 organic bodies, as, for instance, the skeletons of lizards, elephants, and 

 other Species, some of which are now extinct, are converted into blue 

 lias, the human skeleton found at Guadaloupe is converted into .• ir- 

 bonate of lime ; others are found variously silicified, or as alunrin 

 organic bodies also pass by transition into shell limestone, or in 

 plot-' decomposition, into various species of marble, or into loams, 

 chalk, calcareous matter, clays and earths: again, wood is silicified as 

 wood opal, bituroenized as coal, or passes by decomposition into earth. 

 The stone of which Westminster Bridge is built, was quarried from 



one vast fossil formation, and carefully examined, will he found to 

 consist of calcareous matter, sea worms, shell fish, and other lime- 

 secreting species, slightly held together by the common cement of 

 calx; trom this cause it soon undergoes disintegration when exposed 

 to excess of moisture; the material of London Bridge is also fossil 

 formation, but its larger shells have passed into nodules of spar, and 

 the siliceous crystalline base fits it well for the purposes to which it 

 is applied. 



Fossils are Ancient, Modem, Recent, and Still Producing : in con- 

 tradistinction to modern geology, they are natural or primary earths, 

 from whence all extraneous bodies, such as sands, stones, rocks, salts, 

 and other minerals, derive their existence: they are divisible into 

 oceanic, or those exclusively belonging to sea waters, lacustrine or fresh 

 water, and terrestrial (here used to signify creatures of the drv Ian 1 1; 

 and inasmuch as there are living species peculiar to the earth, and 

 living species peculiar to the waters, so there are also proximate prin- 

 ciples and compounds produced by, and proceeding from these species, 

 peculiar to each, as is palpable to' all men, both from the nature of the 

 respective fossil beds, and from the nature of the earths produced bv 

 the decomposition of these fossils : thus, lime formations, the presence 

 in large masses of sodium and magnesium, of sea shells and other 

 marine exuviae, denote oceanic formations; vegetable earths, vegetable 

 lossil beds, and fossil bodies in whatever state of change they may 

 appear, are equally true indications of terrestrial action and of terres- 

 trial influences ; while beds of mixed qualities denote the combinations 

 of the one with the other. These distinctions, upon which natural 

 philosophy must eventually rest, have hitherto been lost sight of, for 

 although organic beings have been classified according to their re- 

 spective elements, no right conception has hitherto been formed of 

 the fossil or mineral kingdom, the latter proceeding from or gene- 



rating under local influences from the former, and consequently the 

 fossil kingdom, in the primary sequence of events, taking precedence 

 of the mineral kingdom. 



It must be generally understood, that entire change in configu- 

 ration or properties of organic bodies is far from being a necessary 

 or invariable consequence of the cessation of life ; for as is de.- 

 moustrated by nature in various parts of the earth, years, ages, 

 nay, revolutions of time may pass away, and still organic bodies 

 remain constant to their original form and qualities; thus, much 

 of the strata of Europe, formed in periods extending far beyond 

 the records of man, consist wholly of peculiar families, uniting and 

 united with the fragments and comminuted particles of other species 

 common to the age, temperature, and element in which they lived and 

 propagated their kind. These extensive fossil formations bear uner- 

 ring testimony to the gradual development of oceanic, lacustrine, and 

 terrestrial beds, to the laws of force and combination by which they 

 were produced, and to the laws of nature which govern their produc- 

 tion : they also speak of the progressive development of life as advo- 

 cated by many learned writers, of genera branching into orders, and 

 of orders blanching into species, as the accidents of climate, asso- 

 ciation, and conformation inav determine. A great portion of oceanic 

 soil is of necessity hidden from our view by reason of the depth of 

 the waters, or from being covered in by terrestrial matters, and another 

 and still larger portion escapes the immediate cognizance of the 

 from the changes it has undergone in decomposition and recom- 

 bination of its parts; but the vast extent of fossil beds, and their 

 general diffusion in and throughout the superficial strata, are the 

 enduring memorials that such things were, and that to them this 

 iv body we inhabit is indebted fur its present form, compo- 

 sition, and character: to the relics of these once living generations 

 we must, therefore, look for explanation of the causes of effects mani- 

 fest in the varied phenomena of creation, destruction, and re-pro- 

 duction. As in life and throughout the great chain of existence, the 

 living arc subservient to the living, so do we find all, the living and 

 il, subservient to the great end of nature, the increase of con- 

 solidated matter, and the ultima:.' maturity of the earth. 



The transition from life to death is natural; of the numerous com- 

 pounds el alienated by living species, nothing is lost ; portions thereof 

 may return to the elements from whence they were abstracted, but 

 the bulk of the body remains as the building material in the hands of 

 nature, with which the edifice el beauty is built : thus the matters of 

 which the various beds of the earth is composed, whether in com- 

 minuted particles or in fossil or mineral forms, boast of one common 

 parent ige, and become in the end subservient to the one common 

 purpose. It is, indeed, singularly beautiful to observe the countless 

 changes, and modifications of change, the capacities, powers, attri- 

 butes, quantities and qualities, proceeding from the one common 

 fountain, Ian. — still increasing in its quantities, and in its varieties as 

 it rolls onward in the trackless paths of eternity, increasing in its 

 qualities and powers by multiplication of qualities and powers, its end 

 being lost sight of in the fathomless regions of space. 



The earth we inhabit, so far as the discoveries of man extend, con- 

 sists of innumerable beds horizontally, vertically, or otherwise dis- 

 posed, being sometimes of homogeneous and at other times of mixed 

 qualities, and divisible into the living, tin Joxsi/, and tin mineral king- 

 doms. In the natural changes which take place, we observe, ou the 

 largest possible scale, the gradual or sudden transition of the one of 

 these divisions into the other; thus the trees of a forest are swept 

 away from their native resting place, the coral polypifers cease to 

 perform the functions of life, and the one and the other enter into the 

 fossil state, and according to their local disposition and arrangement, 

 if favourable to such further development, into the mineral state. 

 Thus the bases of many of the madrepore structures consolidate with 

 the grow th of the polyps into limestone rock, trees mineralize as coal, 

 peats are converted into an adhesive clay, and eventually into clay 

 slate, &e., there being one indivisible chain of results from the organic 

 to the mineral body; the living kingdom, in the primary sequence of 

 events, taking the precedence of and being the proximate cause of 

 production of the fossil and mineral kingdoms, the latter being the 

 inevitable consequence of the former, which preserves its entirety 

 only so long as it is enabled to resist surrounding influences; fur on 

 absorption of elementary and gaseous products, on exposure to atmo- 

 spheric influences, to flood, or to fire, a change inevitably takes place 

 in its organic arrangement, and it then becomes a body of other nature 

 and of other name. The living system is the secreting power, for by 

 the functional operations of life, the elements of air and water, and 

 the compound properties of other bodies, are converted into earths 

 and gaseous matters; which being thus generated, continue to exist 

 as compound products after the cessation of life, preserving their 

 primary qualities or uniting with each other in variable proportions, 



