156 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



would have been the case had it constituted the first disrajDted pellicle of a 

 molten globe. In the next place, we do not know that granite always is the 

 foundation-rock of every area. We do not know, moreover, in many, nay 

 most, cases, that it is the lowest rock, for human labour has never penetrated 

 through it, scarcely, indeed, even into it. Thirdly, there is no evidence to 

 prove it is an igneous, i. e., a fire-formed, or molten product. On the contrary, 

 the existence in it of numerous cavities half empty, half filled with water shows 

 that at most hot water or steam has been the active agent of the heat present 

 in its formation. Indeed, to us it appears that granite presents none of the 

 conditions which it should do of a fire-formed, or once fused rock. Its crys- 

 talHne condition, considering the substances of which it is composed, seems 

 decidedly against that theory, for taking one of its constituents, quartz, for ex- 

 ample, will anyone point out a single instance of heat -melted silex that is not 

 vitreous, or glassy after fusion ; or a single instance, on the other hand, of a crys- 

 talline condition resulting from the action upon that substance of dry heat. 

 Take the felspar, and if you are anything at all of a chemist, wiU you teU us if 

 the soda, or the potash which it contains is now in the state in which it should 

 be if your granite had ever been fused. All that it is allowable to state of 

 granite is that it is a condition of rock which has been produced at every geo- 

 logical period in tlie deep-seated regions of the earth unmediately below its 

 stratified crust. The truth is, we do not know what is the fundamental rock 

 of the stratified crust of the globe, unless the old gneiss be regarded as such, 

 and vdWx it some of the oldest granites, not aU granites indiscriminately. 



We should also be inclined to take objection to some of our author's opinions 

 in respect to the physical conditions of the planets, although in others we 

 shoald be disposed to concur. Eor example, we should regard the moon as 

 presenting to us a worn-out consolidated globe, not a world in a first or even 

 early stage of condition. If our own globe is presumed to have consolidated, 

 from a vaporous state, it must first have passed through a liquid condition ; 

 and then the consolidation carried stiU further, earths and the solid materials 

 would be produced. In the process of time the balance of fluid and gas re- 

 maining as sea and atmosphere would be condensed also, and a solid worn-out 

 globe like the moon would appear to be the inevitable result. 



Tlie new doctrine attempted to be inculcated by our author's book may be 

 briefly given and best by a few short extracts from the early part (p. 24 et seq.). 



After describing a period of desolation to which he believes the world, after 

 the destruction of the first human or pre-adamic race, was reduced, and for the 

 warrantry for which state of things he pleads the biblical passage, " and no 

 plant of the field was yet in the earth, and no herb of the field liad yet grown, 

 for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not 

 a man to till the ground." Oiu' author continues, 



" The new order of things is thus ushered in by a statement of the effects of 

 some great overturn or ruin which had extinguished the existence of the vege- 

 tabl(> and animal world, and had snatched from the earth the race of tlie sixth 

 day men." * -* * Por " though on the sixth day God created man, male 

 and female, and blessed them, saying, ' Be fruit fid, and multiply and replenish 

 tlio earth, and subdue it,' however fully that blessing may once have been re- 

 alized, now at least no remains of that race were anywhere to be found, ' for 

 there was not a man to till the ground.' And if all vegetation was thus 

 obliterated, and man extinguished, we conclude that the tribes of the lower 

 animals must also have perished ; and that the earth, of whose creation and 

 fiirnishiiif^ wo have read in the first chapter of Genesis, was at the period re- 

 ferreil to in the openhig of this succeedmg passage a desolate waste, wherein 

 neither ]^lant nor animal gave token of the creative wisdom and power of God. 

 The dumb rocks alone retained the traces of a brighter era, but the remains 



