James Boswell - "The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D."

Anthony Trollope - "He Knew He Was Right"

Henry Bore - "The Story of the Invention of Steel Pens"

Horace Walpole - "Letters of Horace Walpole, V4"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: The Harvard Classics Volume 38

V >> Various >> The Harvard Classics Volume 38




As almost every country supplies illustrations of the same
phenomena, they who advocate the doctrine of alternate periods of
disorder and repose may appeal to the facts above described, as
proving that every district has been by turns convulsed by
earthquakes and then respited for ages from convulsions. But so
it might with equal truth be affirmed that every part of Europe
has been visited alternately by winter and summer, although it
has always been winter and always summer in some part of the
planet, and neither of these seasons has ever reigned
simultaneously over the entire globe. They have been always
shifting from place to place; but the vicissitudes which recur
thus annually in a single spot are never allowed to interfere
with the invariable uniformity of seasons throughout the whole
planet.

So, in regard to subterranean movements, the theory of the
perpetual uniformity of the force which they exert on the earth's
crust is quite consistent with the admission of their alternate
development and suspension for long and indefinite periods within
limited geographical areas.

If, for reasons before stated, we assume a continual extinction
of species and appearance of others on the globe, it will then
follow that the fossils of strata formed at two distant periods
on the same spot will differ even more certainly than the mineral
composition of those strata. For rocks of the same kind have
sometimes been reproduced in the same district after a long
interval of time; whereas all the evidence derived from fossil
remains is in favour of the opinion that species which have once
died out have never been reproduced. The submergence, then, of
land must be often attended by the commencement of a new class of
sedimentary deposits, characterized by a new set of fossil
animals and plants, while the reconversion of the bed of the sea
into land may arrest at once and for an indefinite time the
formation of geological monuments. Should the land again sink,
strata will again be formed; but one or many entire revolutions
in animal or vegetable life may have been completed in the
interval.

As to the want of completeness in the fossiliferous series, which
may be said to be almost universal, we have only to reflect on
what has been already said of the laws governing sedimentary
deposition, and those which give rise to fluctuations in the
animate world, to be convinced that a very rare combination of
circumstances can alone give rise to such a superposition and
preservation of strata as will bear testimony to the gradual
passage from one state of organic life to another. To produce
such strata nothing less will be requisite than the fortunate
coincidence of the following conditions: first, a never-failing
supply of sediment in the same region throughout a period of vast
duration; secondly, the fitness of the deposit in every part for
the permanent preservation of imbedded fossils; and, thirdly, a
gradual subsidence to prevent the sea or lake from being filled
up and converted into land.

It will appear in the chapter on coral reefs, that, in certain
parts of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, most of these conditions,
if not all, are complied with, and the constant growth of coral,
keeping pace with the sinking of the bottom of the sea, seems to
have gone on so slowly, for such indefinite periods, that the
signs of a gradual change in organic life might probably be
detected in that quarter of the globe if we could explore its
submarine geology. Instead of the growth of coralline limestone,
let us suppose, in some other place, the continuous deposition of
fluviatile mud and sand, such as the Ganges and Brahmapootra have
poured for thousands of years into the Bay of Bengal. Part of
this bay, although of considerable depth, might at length be
filled up before an appreciable amount of change was effected in
the fish, mollusca, and other inhabitants of the sea and
neighbouring land. But if the bottom be lowered by sinking at the
same rate that it is raised by fluviatile mud, the bay can never
be turned into dry land. In that case one new layer of matter may
be superimposed upon another for a thickness of many thousand
feet, and the fossils of the inferior beds may differ greatly
from those entombed in the uppermost, yet every intermediate
gradation may be indicated in the passage from an older to a
newer assemblage of species. Granting, however, that such an
unbroken sequence of monuments may thus be elaborated in certain
parts of the sea, and that the strata happen to be all of them
well adapted to preserve the included fossils from decomposition,
how many accidents must still concur before these submarine
formations will be laid open to our investigation! The whole
deposit must first be raised several thousand feet, in order to
bring into view the very foundation; and during the process of
exposure the superior beds must not be entirely swept away by
denudation.

In the first place, the chances are nearly as three to one
against the mere emergence of the mass above the waters, because
nearly three-fourths of the globe are covered by the ocean. But
if it be upheaved and made to constitute part of the dry land, it
must also, before it can be available for our instruction, become
part of that area already surveyed by geologists. In this small
fraction of land already explored, and still very imperfectly
known, we are required to find a set of strata deposited under
peculiar conditions, and which, having been originally of limited
extent, would have been probably much lessened by subsequent
denudation.

Yet it is precisely because we do not encounter at every step the
evidence of such gradations from one state of the organic world
to another, that so many geologists have embraced the doctrine of
great and sudden revolutions in the history of the animate world.
Not content with simply availing themselves, for the convenience
of classification, of those gaps and chasms which here and there
interrupt the continuity of the chronological series, as at
present known, they deduce, from the frequency of these breaks in
the chain of records, an irregular mode of succession in the
events themselves, both in the organic and inorganic world. But,
besides that some links of the chain which once existed are now
entirely lost and others concealed from view, we have good reason to
suspect that it was never complete originally.

It may undoubtedly be said that strata have been always forming
somewhere, and therefore at every moment of past time Nature has
added a page to her archives; but, in reference to this subject, it
should be remembered that we can never hope to compile a consecutive
history by gathering together monuments which were originally
detached and scattered over the globe. For, as the species of organic
beings contemporaneously inhabiting remote regions are distinct, the
fossils of the first of several periods which may be preserved in any
one country, as in America for example, will have no connection with
those of a second period found in India, and will therefore no more
enable us to trace the signs of a gradual change in the living
creation, than a fragment of Chinese history will fill up a blank in
the political annals of Europe.

The absence of any deposits of importance containing recent shells in
Chili, or anywhere on the western coast of South America, naturally
led Mr. Darwin to the conclusion that "where the bed of the sea is
either stationary or rising, circumstances are far less favourable
than where the level is sinking to the accumulation of conchiferous
strata of sufficient thickness and extension to resist the average
vast amount of denudation." [Footnote: Darwin's S. America, pp. 136,
139.] In like manner the beds of superficial sand, clay, and gravel,
with recent shells, on the coasts of Norway and Sweden, where the
land has risen in Post-tertiary times, are so thin and scanty as to
incline us to admit a similar proposition. We may in fact assume that
in all cases where the bottom of the sea has been undergoing
continuous elevation, the total thickness of sedimentary matter
accumulating at depths suited to the habitation of most of the
species of shells can never be great, nor can the deposits be thickly
covered by superincumbent matter, so as to be consolidated by
pressure. When they are upheaved, therefore, the waves on the beach
will bear down and disperse the loose materials; whereas, if the bed
of the sea subsides slowly, a mass of strata, containing abundance of
such species as live at moderate depths, may be formed and may
increase in thickness to any amount. It may also extend horizontally
over a broad area, as the water gradually encroaches on the subsiding
land.

Hence it will follow that great violations of continuity in the
chronological series of fossiliferous rocks will always exist, and
the imperfection of the record, though lessened, will never be
removed by future discoveries. For not only will no deposits
originate on the dry land, but those formed in the sea near land,
which is undergoing constant upheaval, will usually be too slight in
thickness to endure for ages.

In proportion as we become acquainted with larger geographical areas,
many of the gaps, by which a chronological table, like that given at
page 135, is rendered defective, will be removed. We were enabled by
aid of the labours of Prof. Sedgwick and Sir Roderick Murchison to
intercalate, in 1838, the marine strata of the Devonian period, with
their fossil shells, corals, and fish, between the Silurian and
Carboniferous rocks. Previously the marine fauna of these last-
mentioned formations wanted the connecting links which now render the
passage from the one to the other much less abrupt. In like manner
the Upper Miocene has no representative in England, but in France,
Germany, and Switzerland it constitutes a most instructive link
between the living creation and the middle of the great Tertiary
period. Still we must expect, for reasons before stated, that chasms
will for ever continue to occur, in some parts of our sedimentary
series.

Concluding remarks on the consistency of the theory of gradual change
with the existence of great breaks in the series.--To return to the
general argument pursued in this chapter, it is assumed, for reasons
above explained, that a slow change of species is in simultaneous
operation everywhere throughout the habitable surface of sea and
land; whereas the fossilisation of plants and animals is confined to
those areas where new strata are produced. These areas, as we have
seen, are always shifting their position, so that the fossilising
process, by means of which the commemoration of the particular state
of the organic world, at any given time, is effected, may be said to
move about, visiting and revisiting different tracts in succession.

To make still more clear the supposed working of this machinery, I
shall compare it to a somewhat analogous case that might be imagined
to occur in the history of human affairs. Let the mortality of the
population of a large country represent the successive extinction of
species, and the births of new individuals the introduction of new
species. While these fluctuations are gradually taking place
everywhere, suppose commissioners to be appointed to visit each
province of the country in succession, taking an exact account of the
number, names, and individual peculiarities of all the inhabitants,
and leaving in each district a register containing a record of this
information. If, after the completion of one census, another is
immediately made on the same plan, and then another, there will at
last be a series of statistical documents in each province. When
those belonging to any one province are arranged in chronological
order, the contents of such as stand next to each other will differ
according to the length of the intervals of time between the taking
of each census. If, for example, there are sixty provinces, and all
the registers are made in a single year and renewed annually, the
number of births and deaths will be so small, in proportion to the
whole of the inhabitants, during the interval between the compiling
of two consecutive documents, that the individuals described in such
documents will be nearly identical; whereas, if the survey of each of
the sixty provinces occupies all the commissioners for a whole year,
so that they are unable to revisit the same place until the
expiration of sixty years, there will then be an almost entire
discordance between the persons enumerated in two consecutive
registers in the same province. There are, undoubtedly, other causes,
besides the mere quantity of time, which may augment or diminish the
amount of discrepancy. Thus, at some periods a pestilential disease
may have lessened the average duration of human life; or a variety of
circumstances may have caused the births to be unusually numerous,
and the population to multiply; or a province may be suddenly
colonised by persons migrating from surrounding districts.

These exceptions may be compared to the accelerated rate of
fluctuations in the fauna and flora of a particular region, in which
the climate and physical geography may be undergoing an extraordinary
degree of alteration.

But I must remind the reader that the case above proposed has no
pretensions to be regarded as an exact parallel to the geological
phenomena which I desire to illustrate; for the commissioners are
supposed to visit the different provinces in rotation; whereas the
commemorating processes by which organic remains become fossilised,
although they are always shifting from one area to the other, are yet
very irregular in their movements. They may abandon and revisit many
spaces again and again, before they once approach another district;
and, besides this source of irregularity, it may often happen that,
while the depositing process is suspended, denudation may take place,
which may be compared to the occasional destruction by fire or other
causes of some of the statistical documents before mentioned. It is
evident that where such accidents occur the want of continuity in the
series may become indefinitely great, and that the monuments which
follow next in succession will by no means be equidistant from each
other in point of time.

If this train of reasoning be admitted, the occasional distinctness
of the fossil remains, in formations immediately in contact, would be
a necessary consequence of the existing laws of sedimentary
deposition and subterranean movement, accompanied by a constant
dying-out and renovation of 'species.

As all the conclusions above insisted on are directly opposed to
opinions still popular, I shall add another comparison, in the hope
of preventing any possible misapprehension of the argument. Suppose
we had discovered two buried cities at the foot of Vesuvius,
immediately superimposed upon each other, with a great mass of tuff
and lava intervening, just as Portici and Resina, if now covered with
ashes, would overlie Herculaneum. An antiquary might possibly be
entitled to infer, from the inscriptions on public edifices, that the
inhabitants of the inferior and older city were Greeks, and those of
the modern towns Italians. But he would reason vary hastily if he
also concluded from these data, that there had been a sudden change
from the Greek to the Italian language in Campania. But if he
afterwards found three buried cities, one above the other, the
intermediate one being Roman, while, as in the former example, the
lowest was Greek and the uppermost Italian, he would then perceive
the fallacy of his former opinion, and would begin to suspect that
the catastrophes, by which the cities were inhumed might have no
relation whatever to the fluctuations in the language of the
inhabitants; and that, as the Roman tongue had evidently intervened
between the Greek and Italian, so many other dialects may have been
spoken in succession, and the passage from the Greek to the Italian
may have been very gradual, some terms growing obsolete, while others
were introduced from time to time.

If this antiquary could have shown that the volcanic paroxysms of
Vesuvius were so governed as that cities should be buried one above
the other, just as often as any variation occurred in the language of
the inhabitants, then, Indeed, the abrupt passage from a Greek to a
Roman, and from a Roman to an Italian city, would afford proof of
fluctuations no less sudden in the language of the people.

So, in Geology, if we could assume that it is part of the plan of
Nature to preserve, in every region of the globe, an unbroken series
of monuments to commemorate the vicissitudes of the organic creation,
we might infer the sudden extirpation of species, and the
simultaneous introduction o! others, as often as two formations in
contact are found to include dissimilar organic fossils. But we must
shut our eyes to the whole economy of the existing causes, aqueous,
igneous, and organic, if we fail to perceive that such is not the
plan of Nature.

I shall now conclude the discussion of a question with which we have
been occupied since the beginning of the fifth chapter--namely,
whether there has been any interruption, from the remotest periods,
of one uniform and continuous system of change in the animate and
inanimate world. We were induced to enter into that enquiry by
reflecting how much the progress of opinion in Geology had been
influenced by the assumption that the analogy was slight in kind, and
still more slight in degree, between the cases which produced the
former revolutions of the globe, and those now in every-day
operation. It appeared clear that the earlier geologists had not only
a scanty acquaintance with existing changes, but were singularly
unconscious of the amount of their ignorance. With the presumption
naturally inspired by this unconsciousness, they had no hesitation in
deciding at once that time could never enable the existing powers of
nature to work out changes of great magnitude, still less such
important revolutions as those which are brought to light by Geology.
They therefore felt themselves at liberty to indulge their
imaginations in guessing at what might be, rather than enquiring what
is; in other words, they employed themselves in conjecturing what
might have been the course of Nature at a remote period, rather than
in the investigation of what was the course of Nature in their own
times.

It appeared to them far more philosophical to speculate on the
possibilities of the past, than patiently to explore the realities of
the present; and having invented theories under the influence of such
maxims, they were consistently unwilling to test their validity by
the criterion of their accordance with the ordinary operations of
Nature. On the contrary. the claims of each new hypothesis to
credibility appeared enhanced by the great contrast, in kind or
intensity, of the causes referred to and those now in operation.

Never was there a dogma more calculated to foster indolence, and to
blunt the keen edge of curiosity, than this assumption of the
discordance between the ancient and existing causes of change. It
produced a state of mind unfavourable in the highest degree to the
candid reception of the evidence of those minute but incessant
alterations which every part of the earth's surface is undergoing,
and by which the condition of its living inhabitants is continually
made to vary. The student, instead of being encouraged with the hope
of interpreting the enigmas presented to him in the earth's
structure--instead of being prompted to undertake laborious enquiries
into the natural history of the organic world, and the complicated
effects of the igneous and aqueous causes now in operation--was
taught to despond from the first. Geology, it was affirmed, could
never rise to the rank of an exact science; the greater number of
phenomena must for ever remain inexplicable, or only be partially
elucidated by ingenious conjectures. Even the mystery which invested
the subject was said to constitute one of its principal charms,
affording, as it did, full scope to the fancy to indulge in a
boundless field of speculation.

The course directly opposed to this method of philosophising consists
in an earnest and patient enquiry, how far geological appearances are
reconcilable with the effect of changes now in progress, or which may
be in progress in regions inaccessible to us, but of which the
reality is attested by volcanos and subterranean movements. It also
endeavours to estimate the aggregate result of ordinary operations
multiplied by time, and cherishes a sanguine hope that the resources
to be derived from observation and experiment, or from the study of
Nature such as she now is, are very far from being exhausted. For
this reason all theories are rejected which involve the assumption of
sudden and violent catastrophes and revolutions of the whole earth,
and its inhabitants--theories which are restrained by no reference to
existing analogies, and in which a desire is manifested to cut,
rather than patiently to untie, the Gordian knot.

We have now, at least, the advantage of knowing, from experience,
that an opposite method has always put geologists on the road that
leads to truth--suggesting views which, although imperfect at first,
have been found capable of improvement, until at last adopted by
universal consent; while the method of speculating on a former
distinct state of things and causes has led invariably to a multitude
of contradictory systems, which have been overthrown one after the
other--have been found incapable of modification--and which have
often required to be precisely reversed.

The remainder of this work will be devoted to an investigation of the
changes now going on in the crust of the earth and its inhabitants.
The importance which the student will attach to such researches will
mainly depend on the degree of confidence which he feels in the
principles above expounded. If he firmly believes in the resemblance
or identity of the ancient and present system of terrestrial changes,
he will regard every fact collected respecting the cause in diurnal
action as affording him a key to the interpretation of some mystery
in the past. Events which have occurred at the most distant periods
in the animate and inanimate world will be acknowledged to throw
light on each other, and the deficiency of our information respecting
some of the most obscure parts of the present creation will be
removed. For as, by studying the external configuration of the
existing land and its inhabitants, we may restore in imagination the
appearance of the ancient continents which have passed away, so may
we obtain from the deposits of ancient seas and lakes an insight into
the nature of the subaqueous processes now in operation, and of many
forms of organic life which, though now existing, are veiled from
sight. Rocks, also, produced by subterranean fire in former ages, at
great depths in the bowels of the earth, present us, when upraised by
gradual movements, and exposed to the light of heaven, with an image
of those changes which the deep-seated volcano may now occasion in
the nether regions. Thus, although we are mere sojourner's on the
surface of the planet, chained to a mere point in space, enduring but
for a moment of time, the human mind is not only enabled to number
worlds beyond the unassisted ken of mortal eye, but to trace the
events of indefinite ages before the creation of our race, and is not
even withheld from penetrating into the dark secrets of the ocean, or
the interior of the solid globe; free, like the spirit which the poet
described as animating the universe,

------ire per omnes
Terrasque, tractusque maris, ccelumque profisndutn.

[Footnote: "To go through all binds, and the tracts of the ocean, and
the boundless heaven."]