INTRODUCTION. Tl 



the occasional remarks and observations about volcanoes, 

 earthquakes, fluctuations of level in the land-surfaces, the 

 action of water, and other phenomena of dynamic geology, as 

 well as the scattered notes about the occurrence of fossils. 

 On the other hand, not a single writer of the ancient world 

 showed any interest in the firm earth-crust, not one observer 

 gave a thought to the composition of the rocks. Not the 

 most acute thinker of those cultured peoples had even a 

 shadowy premonition of the value that might appertain to 

 fossils as witnesses of a sequence of events in the history of 

 our earth. None suggested that our planet might have passed 

 through a succession of changes before attaining to its present 

 physical condition and configuration ; still less, that particular 

 phases in the history of change might be deciphered from the 

 character and superposition of the rocks. The evolution of 

 the earth and its denizens, which is at the present day the 

 great problem of geological and biological research, played no 

 part in the literature of antiquity; fanciful hypotheses and dis- 

 connected observations cannot be acknowledged as scientific 

 beginnings of research. 



SECOND PERIOD THE BEGINNINGS OF PALAEONTOLOGY 

 AND GEOLOGY. 



The downfall of the Roman Empire dealt a severe blow to 

 literary progress and healthful interest in natural phenomena. 

 The collapse of imperial power, the revolutionary instincts and 

 unrest, the variable migration of the races, the protracted 

 struggle between decaying heathendom and rising Christianity, 

 the personal wars of jealousy and greed in which Europe was 

 plunged during the greater part of the Middle Ages, all 

 combined to check any spontaneous desire towards scientific 

 investigation. 



A barren scholasticism took refuge in the monasteries and 

 cloister schools. The attitude of the Schoolmen, while it 

 made much of logical distinctions and the critical interpreta- 

 tion of old doctrines, was unfavourable to the direct observation 

 of nature. For many centuries (800-1300 A.D.) the Arabs were 

 the only nation in which the true spirit of ancient culture and 

 inquiry was kept alive. At great sacrifice they obtained 

 possession of the classical works of antiquity, translated them 



