It is familiar knowledge that the earth which we inhabit is a globe of somewhat less than 8000 miles in diameter, being one of a series of eleven which revolve at different distances around the sun, and some of which have satellites in like manner revolving around them.  The sun, planets, and satellites, with the less intelligible orbs termed comets, are comprehensively called the solar system, and if we take as the uttermost bounds of this system the orbit of Uranus (though the comets actually

The nebular hypothesis almost necessarily supposes matter to have originally formed one mass.  We have seen that the same physical laws preside over the whole.  Are we also to presume that the constitution of the whole was uniform?—that is to say, that the whole consisted of similar elements.  It seems difficult to avoid coming to this conclusion, at least under the qualification that, possibly, various bodies, under peculiar circumstances attending their formation, may contain elements which ar

Although the earth has not been actually penetrated to a greater depth than three thousand feet, the nature of its substance can, in many instances, be inferred for the depth of many miles by other means of observation.  We see a mountain composed of a particular substance, with strata, or beds of other rock, lying against its sloped sides; we, of course, infer that the substance of the mountain dips away under the strata which we see lying against it.  Suppose that we walk away from the mountai

We can scarcely be said to have passed out of these rocks, when we begin to find new conditions in the earth.  It is here to be observed that the subsequent rocks are formed, in a great measure, of matters derived from the substance of those which went before, but contain also beds of limestone, which is to no small extent composed of an ingredient which has not hitherto appeared.  Limestone is a carbonate of lime, a secondary compound, of which one of the ingredients, carbonic acid gas, present

We advance to a new chapter in this marvellous history—the era of the Old Red Sandstone System .  This term has been recently applied to a series of strata, of enormous thickness in the whole mass, largely developed in Herefordshire, Shropshire, Worcestershire, and South Wales; also in the counties of Fife, Forfar, Moray, Cromarty, and Caithness; and in Russia and North America, if not in many other parts of the world.  The particular strata forming the system are somewhat different in different

We now enter upon a new great epoch in the history of our globe.  There was now dry land.  As a consequence of this fact, there was fresh water, for rain, instead of immediately returning to the sea, as formerly, was now gathered in channels of the earth, and became springs, rivers, and lakes.  There was now a theatre for the existence of land plants and animals, and it remains to be inquired if these accordingly were produced. The Secondary Rocks, in which our further researches are to be prose

The next volume of the rock series refers to an era distinguished by an event of no less importance than the commencement of land animals.  The New Red Sandstone System is subdivided into groups, some of which are wanting in some places; they are pretty fully developed in the north of England, in the following ascending order:—1.  Lower red sandstone; 2.  Magnesian limestone; 3.  Red and white sandstones and conglomerate; 4.  Variegated marls.  Between the third and fourth there is, in Germany,

The chronicles of this period consist of a series of beds, mostly calcareous, taking their general name ( Oolite System ) from a conspicuous member of them—the oolite—a limestone composed of an aggregation of small round grains or spherules, and so called from its fancied resemblance to a cluster of eggs, or the roe of a fish.  This texture of stone is novel and striking.  It is supposed to be of chemical origin, each spherule being an aggregation of particles round a central nucleus.  The oolit

The record of this period consists of a series of strata, in which chalk beds make a conspicuous appearance, and which is therefore called the cretaceous system or formation.  In England, a long stripe, extending from Yorkshire to Kent, presents the cretaceous beds upon the surface, generally lying conformably upon the oolite, and in many instances rising into bold escarpments towards the west.  The celebrated cliffs of Dover are of this formation.  It extends into northern France, and thence no

The eocene period presents, in three continental groups, 1238 species of shells, of which forty-two, or 3.5 per cent, yet flourish.  Some of these are remarkable enough; but they all sink into insignificance beside the mammalian remains which the lower eocene deposits of the Paris basin present to us, shewing that the land had now become the theatre of an extensive creation of the highest class of animals.  Cuvier ascertained about fifty species of these, all of them long since extinct.  A consi

In the miocene sub-period, the shells give eighteen per cent. of existing species, shewing a considerable advance from the preceding era, with respect to the inhabitants of the sea.  The advance in the land animals is less marked, but yet considerable.  The predominating forms are still pachydermatous, and the tapir type continues to be conspicuous.  One animal of this kind, called the dinotherium , is supposed to have been not less than eighteen feet long; it had a mole-like form of the shoulde

The shells of the older pliocene give from thirty-five to fifty; those of the newer, from ninety to ninety-five per cent. of existing species.  The pachydermata of the preceding era now disappear, and are replaced by others belonging to still existing families—elephant, hippopotamus, rhinoceros—though now extinct as species.  Some of these are startling, from their enormous magnitude.  The great mastodon, whose remains are found in abundance in America, was a species of elephant, judged, from pe

We have now completed our survey of the series of stratified rocks, and traced in their fossils the progress of organic creation down to a time which seems not long antecedent to the appearance of man.  There are, nevertheless, monuments of still another era or space of time which it is all but certain did also precede that event. Over the rock formations of all eras, in various parts of the globe, but confined in general to situations not very elevated, there is a layer of stiff clay, mostly of

Thus concludes the wondrous chapter of the earth’s history which is told by geology.  It takes up our globe at the period when its original incandescent state had nearly ceased; conducts it through what we have every reason to believe were vast, or at least very considerable, spaces of time, in the course of which many superficial changes took place, and vegetable and animal life was gradually developed; and drops it just at the point when man was apparently about to enter on the scene.  The com

The general likelihood of an organic creation by law having been shewn, we are next to inquire if science has any facts tending to bring the assumption more nearly home to nature.  Such facts there certainly are; but it cannot be surprising that they are comparatively few and scattered, when we consider that the inquiry is into one of nature’s profoundest mysteries, and one which has hitherto engaged no direct attention in almost any quarter. Crystallization is confessedly a phenomenon of inorga

It has been already intimated, as a general fact, that there is an obvious gradation amongst the families of both the vegetable and animal kingdoms, from the simple lichen and animalcule respectively up to the highest order of dicotyledonous trees and the mammalia.  Confining our attention, in the meantime, to the animal kingdom—it does not appear that this gradation passes along one line, on which every form of animal life can be, as it were, strung; there may be branching or double lines at so

It is now high time to advert to the system formed by the animated tribes, both with a view to the possible illustration of the preceding argument, and for the light which it throws upon that general system of nature which it is the more comprehensive object of this book to ascertain. The vegetable and animal kingdoms are arranged upon a scale, starting from simply organized forms, and going on to the more complex, each of these forms being but slightly different from those next to it on both si

The human race is known to consist of numerous nations, displaying considerable differences of external form and colour, and speaking in general different languages.  This has been the case since the commencement of written record.  It is also ascertained that the external peculiarities of particular nations do not rapidly change.  There is rather a tendency to a persistency of type in all lines of descent, insomuch that a subordinate admixture of various type is usually obliterated in a few gen

It has been one of the most agreeable tasks of modern science to trace the wonderfully exact adaptations of the organization of animals to the physical circumstances amidst which they are destined to live.  From the mandibles of insects to the hand of man, all is seen to be in the most harmonious relation to the things of the outward world, thus clearly proving that design presided in the creation of the whole—design again implying a designer, another word for a Creator . It would be tiresome to

We have now to inquire how this view of the constitution and origin of nature bears upon the condition of man upon the earth, and his relation to supra-mundane things. That enjoyment is the proper attendant of animal existence is pressed upon us by all that we see and all we experience.  Everywhere we perceive in the lower creatures, in their ordinary condition, symptoms of enjoyment.  Their whole being is a system of needs, the supplying of which is gratification, and of faculties, the exercise

Thus ends a book, composed in solitude, and almost without the cognizance of a single human being, for the sole purpose (or as nearly so as may be) of improving the knowledge of mankind, and through that medium their happiness.  For reasons which need not be specified, the author’s name is retained in its original obscurity, and, in all probability, will never be generally known.  I do not expect that any word of praise which the work may elicit shall ever be responded to by me; or that any word