244 Epitome of the Progress of Natural Science. 



still we have in geology the most conclusive evidence of the crust 

 of the earth having been penetrated, in every country, by the 

 most surprising masses of mineral matter in the state of igneous 

 fusion. Devastations of this character are less fatal to life 

 than aqueous deluges, which afford less time for escape, and are 

 not* so easily forgotten as those which do not sweep away whole 

 generations. It is not wonderful that we know so little of the 

 effects produced by volcanoes in ancient times, or of the periods 

 when they prevailed, since even the eruptions of Skapta Jokul, 

 in Iceland, in 1783, are only known to the curious. Yet we are 

 told, that those Icelandic lavas, spread into broad lakes of fire, 

 sometimes from twelve to fifteen miles wide, and one hundred 

 feet deep. 



That this planet has at all times been subject to scourgings 

 both from water and fire, is most true. The ancients believed 

 in alternate catastrophes of this kind. The Egyptians, especially, 

 considered them to be punitive and purifying visitations from 

 the gods ; an opinion adopted by the Stoics. The cataclysm, or 

 deluge, swept away all organized bodies ; and the ecpyrosis, or 

 conflagration, consumed the globe itself. This doctrine has even 

 been continued by the founders of our holy religion, who have 

 taught that the Noachic deluge was inflicted upon the world, on 

 account of the sins of man, and that the next punitive visitation 

 is to be from fire. These opinions acquired greater force among 

 the ancients by the observations they could not avoid making of 

 fossil marine remains, buried at great elevations and distances 

 from the ocean. Various conjectures were offered to account 

 for this class of phenomena. The celebrated geographer, Strabo, 

 whose extensive travels had brought the geological phenomena 

 of many countries under his notice, and especially those attendant 

 upon earthquakes, was the first to assert the reasonable opinion, 

 which obtains in our day, that islands, as well as continents and 

 seas, are sometimes elevated from below, and sometimes de- 

 pressed. This is one of the many instances of a great mind hav- 

 ing put mankind upon the right track in vain. Strabo died in the 

 year 25 of our era, and eighteen hundred years had elapsed be- 

 fore this announcement of subterranean dynamics was generally 

 recognized by geologists. In vain too, had the true solar theory 

 been taught by Aristarchus, in the third century before Christ ; 

 near eighteen centuries elapsed before it was revived by Coperni- 



