279 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



eniu 

 erm 



being enjoys a bliss like that of creating " 

 (Niebuhr, "History of Rome," vol. i, p. 5). 

 LYELL Principles of Geology, bk. i, ch. 4, 

 p. 61. (A., 1854.) 



1357. GEOLOGY HAS INDUSTRIAL 



VALUE Money Wasted in Vain Search for 

 Coal Knowledge of Formations Would Save 

 Outlay. " Whatever withdraws us from 

 the power of the senses," says the moralist 

 [Johnson], " whatever makes the past, the 

 distant, or the future predominate over 

 the present, advances us in the dignity of 

 thinking beings." And geology, in a pe- 

 culiar manner, supplies to the intellect an 

 exercise of this ennobling character. But 

 it has, also, its cash value. The time and 

 money squandered in Great Britain alone 

 in searching for coal in districts where the 

 well-informed geologist could have at once 

 pronounced the search hopeless, would much 

 more than cover the expense at which geo- 

 logical research has been prosecuted through- 

 out the world. MILLER Old Red Sandstone, 

 ch. 10, p. 177. (G. & L., 1851.) 



1358. GEOLOGY, ONCE A SYSTEM OF 

 CATASTROPHES Now Accords with the Har- 

 mony of Nature Theology Seeks the Same 

 Harmony. A century ago there was none 

 [geology]. Science went out to look for it, 

 and brought back a geology which, if Nature 

 were a harmony, had falsehood written al- 

 most on its face. It was the Geology of Cat- 

 astrophism a geology so out of line with 

 Nature, as revealed by the other sciences, 

 that on a priori grounds a thoughtful mind 

 might have been justified in dismissing it 

 as a final form of any science. And its 

 fallacy was soon and thoroughly exposed. 

 The advent of modified uniformitarian prin- 

 ciples all but banished the word " catastro- 

 phe " from science, and marked the birth of 

 geology as we know it now. Geology, that 

 is to say, had fallen at last into the great 

 scheme of law. Religious doctrines, many 

 of them at least, have been up to this time 

 all but as catastrophic as the old geology. 

 They are not on the lines of Nature as we 

 have learned to decipher her. If any one 

 feels, as science complains that it feels, that 

 the lie of things in the spiritual world as 

 arranged by theology is not in harmony 

 with the world around, is not, in short, sci- 

 entific, he is entitled to raise the question 

 whether this be really the final form of 

 those departments of theology to which 

 his complaint refers. He is justified, more- 

 over, in demanding a new investigation with 

 all modern methods and resources; and 

 science is bound by its principles, not less 

 than by the lessons of its own past, to sus- 

 pend judgment till the last attempt is made. 

 DRUMMOND Natural Law in the Spiritual 

 World, int., p. 17. (H. Al.) 



1359. GEOLOGY, ORIGIN OF Ancient 

 Egyptians Herodotus Knew that Egypt 

 Had Been Once Submerged. We know that 

 the Egyptian priests were aware, not only 

 that the soil beneath the plains of the Nile, 



but that also the hills bounding the great 

 valley, contained marine shells; and Herod- 

 otus inferred from these facts that all lower 

 Egypt, and even the highlands above Mem- 

 phis, had once been covered by the sea 

 ["Euterpe," 12]. As similar fossil remains, 

 occur in all parts of Asia hitherto explored, 

 far in the interior of the continent as well 

 as near the sea, they could hardly have 

 escaped detection by some Eastern sages 

 not less capable than the Greek historian 

 of reasoning philosophically on natural phe- 

 nomena. LYELL Principles of Geology, bk. 

 i, ch. 2, p. 6. (A., 1854.) 



1360. GEOLOGY TESTIFIES TO A 



BEGINNING The chain of life in geologic- 

 al time presents a wonderful testimony to 

 the reality of a beginning. Just as we know 

 that any individual animal must have had 

 its birth, its infancy, its maturity, and 

 will reach an end of life, so we trace species 

 and groups of species to their beginning, 

 watch their culmination, and perhaps fol- 

 low them to their extinction. . . . But 

 its revelation of the fact that nearly all 

 the animals and plants of the present day 

 had a very recent beginning in geological 

 time, and its disclosure of the disappear- 

 ance of one form of life after another as 

 we go back in time, till we reach the com- 

 paratively few forms of life of the Lower 

 Cambrian, and finally have to rest over the 

 solitary grandeur of Eozoon, oblige it to say 

 that nothing known to it is self-existent 

 and eternal. DAWSON Facts and Fancies In- 

 Modern Science, lect. 3, p. 118. (A. B. P. S.) 



1361. GEOMETRY A GROWTH FROM 

 BUILDER'S ARTS The Straight Line Is the 

 Stretched Line. It must be clearly under- 

 stood that elementary geometry was not 

 actually invented by means of definitions, 

 axioms, and demonstrations like Euclid's. 

 Its beginnings really arose out of the daily 

 practical work of land-measurers, masons, 

 carpenters, tailors. This may be seen in 

 the geometrical rules of the altar-builders 

 of ancient India, which do not tell the brick- 

 layer to draw a plan of such and such lines, 

 but to set up poles at certain distances, and 

 stretch cords between them. It is instruct- 

 ive to see that our term straight line still 

 shows traces of such an early practical 

 meaning; line is linen thread, and straight 

 is the participle of the old verb to stretch. 

 If we stretch a thread tight between two 

 pegs, we see that the stretched thread must 

 be the shortest possible; which suggests 

 how the straight line came to be defined 

 as the shortest distance between two points. 

 Also, every carpenter knows the nature of 

 a right angle, and he is accustomed to par- 

 allel lines, or such as keep the same dis- 

 tance from one another. TYLOR Anthro- 

 pology, ch. 13, p. 319. (A., 1899.) 



1362. GERM A SEED Each Propa- 

 gates Only Its Kind. From their respect- 

 ive viruses you may plant typhoid fever, 

 scarlatina, or smallpox. W r hat is the crop 



