SOME MODERN ASPECTS OF GEOLOGY. 641 



But the history written in the rocks is long and difficult to 

 read. Here, the record is scanty ; there, lost, or, worse still, mis- 

 leading. Only by the most minute and careful tracing out of 

 every clew can we hope to read aright the glorious tale. A thou- 

 sand earnest students are collecting observations and comparing 

 their results. Astronomy, physics, chemistry, mineralogy, and 

 biology are all contributing to the sum of what old Mother Earth 

 herself can tell us of her history. 



If such a task as this is worthy to arrest the attention and ex- 

 cite the interest of all intelligent men and women, then I may feel 

 justified in speaking of some of the modem aspects of geology. 



If we would understand the true significance of the present 

 outlook in geological science, we must take at least a glance at its 

 past history. 



Ages before it became a science, geology itself existed. The 

 germs of an interest in the history of the earth are as old as man's 

 own questionings about the origin of himself and his surround- 

 ings. In the religions of all ancient peoples are cosmogonies and 

 theories of the world innumerable ; and fanciful as these are, they 

 still bear witness to an appreciation of the mysterious in nature 

 amounting even to a worship. 



With the advent of Christianity and the acceptance of the 

 Bible, geology became a burning question which has hardly ceased 

 to smolder, even in our day. The Mosaic account of the creation 

 and the true meaning of fossil remains were eagerly discussed by 

 the early Church fathers and by the keenest minds of the Re- 

 naissance. Tertullian, Leonardo da Vinci, and Voltaire alike ex- 

 hausted upon them their sharpest wit and their profoundest wis- 

 dom. No assertion could be too absurd to secure a following, 

 provided it accorded with the six creative days. One supposed 

 that the shells imbedded in the rocks on mountain-summits owed 

 their existence to a certain " plastic force " inherent in matter ; 

 another imagined them produced by the influence of the sun or 

 stars. Still others were so blasphemous in their mad defense of 

 Scripture as to assert that fossils were only the waste debris 

 formed in earlier and unsuccessful attempts of the Deity to create 

 a world. And, lastly, Voltaire, in bitter irony, maintained that 

 in his opinion the fossils of the mountains were merely shells 

 dropped from the pilgrims' hats as they journeyed homeward 

 from the Holy Land ! The decrees of religious dogma as to what 

 interpretation was to be placed upon facts which the rocks dis- 

 closed, were as stern and implacable as those placed by the Church 

 on Galileo ; but still more stern and implacable were the facts 

 themselves. For centuries the fierce war raged on one battle-field 

 after another, and from each, Dogma sullenly retired, leaving the 

 victory to Truth. This fascinating phase of the history of geology 



YOL. XXXV. 41 



