INTEREST OF ITS HISTORY. 27 



incident in that progress which it is the great object of 

 geology to unfold. Geology is in fact the Physical Geo- 

 graphy of former ages. For just as the geographer endea- 

 vours to depict the existing aspects of sea and land, the 

 climates they enjoy, and the plants and animals by which 

 they are peopled, so the geologist labours to recall the 

 aspects of the past the distributions of sea and land at 

 each successive stage, the plants and animals by which they 

 were characterised, and by inference the nature of the phy- 

 sical conditions, genial or ungenial, by which they were sur- 

 rounded. The methods of the one are but the methods of 

 the other ; and the more the geologist knows of the exist- 

 ing operations of nature, the better will he be able to inter- 

 pret the operations of the past. The phenomena of the 

 present are patent, and for the most part explicable ; those 

 of the past are obscure, and, in proportion to their distance 

 and obscurity, the greater the interest excited and the in- 

 genuity required for their interpretation. 



And surely if men take an interest in the history of their 

 own race in the mounds and barrows, the tombs and 

 pyramids, the towers and temples of bygone populations, 

 whose dates extend at most to a few thousand years much 

 more ought to be their enthusiasm in that higher history 

 which carries the inquirer from the historic to the prehis- 

 toric, and beyond the prehistoric into events and aspects 

 whose distance can only be indefinitely indicated by eras 

 and cycles. The events of the one history are scattered 

 over a small portion of the earth's surface, and for the most 

 part only under a few feet of rubbish ; the events of the 

 other are universal, and found in every stratum that enters 

 into the composition of the rocky crust. The events of the 

 one history are no doubt more direct and immediate ; but the 

 remoteness of the other, their strangeness and their variety, 

 should only excite our interest the more, and exalt our con- 



