Association of American Geologists and Naturalists. 219 



and when the machinery of the heavens is understood, our tri- 

 umph in the amazing discovery is chastened by a profound con- 

 sciousness of humiUation, in view of our own comparative insig- 

 nificance. 



Geology summons to its aid all our senses ; its objects are ev- 

 ery where around us — they are constantly before our eyes and 

 beneath our feet ; we cannot escape from them if we would — 

 we see them — we feel and handle them. The telescope, whose 

 field of vision is the starry sky, is comparatively useless in the 

 fields of geology. We do, indeed, direct it to the snowy pinna- 

 cles, the inaccessible mountain cliffs, and the volcanic beacon 

 lights ; it is, however, only that we may judge of their bearing, 

 their distances and elevation ; but the telescope, while it pene- 

 trates the profound darkness of celestial space, and collects in a 

 bright focus the scattered rays, that have wandered from distant 

 worlds, is powerless, if directed towards the earth ; for, excepting 

 the occasional glare of volcanic fires, no light comes to us from 

 the profound recesses of our planet. 



MICROSCOPICAL RESEARCHES. 



Geology has, however, derived powerful aid from the micro- 

 scope, which, in astronomy, has not the smallest application. The 

 microscope has revealed to us the intimate and concealed struc- 

 ture of fossil plants — of petrified trees, whose delicate vessels had 

 been filled with mineral matter — siliceous, calcareous or metallic — 

 or whose substance had been converted into coal ; we discern the 

 fibres and tissue of primeval forests converted into stone ; their 

 resins and gums stored away in the dark beds of coal, are now, 

 as it were, created anew, like beings of yesterday, and thus we 

 restore the vegetation of remote ages. The microscope has 

 brought the most signal aid to comparative anatomy ; by its as- 

 sistance, thin sections of both fossil and modern teeth and bones 

 are compared, and thus analogies and contrasts are established 

 between the ancient and the recent races of animals. The earth 

 is the grand mausoleum of the beings that have lived and died 

 upon its surface, in its atmosphere, or in its waters. 



The laws of carnivorous as well as of vegetable regimen, and 

 the ordinary course of spontaneous decomposition do, indeed, 

 resolve by far the greater number of living beings into food, or 

 into new forms of animated existence — thus causing their ele- 



