Geology as a Science, applied to the reclamation of land from the sea, the construction of harbours, the formation of railroads, and the discovery of coal

Preface

. Our thirst for history is insatiable. The Bible particularly never palls the mind in repetition, because it figures out to us the records of our physical, religious, and social histories in which our best interests are commingled not less for our mental consolation and moral instruction, than our delight. Nor is it less a cause of the interest ex cited by the sacred volume that it gives us information of the earliest existence of man, and of the world to which his mortal career is confined. The mind involuntarily reverts from the vast expanse of the estuary — to the dropping rill from whence the mighty river springs ; and a contemplation of the immutable beauties of this earth would be un satisfactory without we could accompany it by the earliest records of the chaos from which the Al- VI

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. mighty hand called it into existence. The physical history of the world has, indeed, in all times occu pied the researches of the learned, the speculative, or the visionary ; and it has too often happened that they have cast themselves, under the influence of imagination, from the solid rock of Holy Writ, into the boundless ocean of bewildering error. Archimedes wished for a fulcrum to move a world ; and theorists have exhausted their resources in endeavours to assign causes for events which lie beyond their means of comprehension. Whilst it is our aim to avoid such errors, we cannot but know that considerable boldness of investigation is requisite before we shall faithfully trace the cos mogony of the globe, and draw a true outline of the sequence of changes it has undergone in pass ing from a chaotic state, to one of order and form, inhabited by a living world, at the head of which is man.

But the brief history we wish to submit to the reader in this place is composed of the incidents which partly originated the following treatise on Geology. In the year 1836, at the request of

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VII Hyde Clarke, Esq., the projector of the plan of crossing Morecambe Bay by a railway to form a connection with the isolated sea coast of Cumberland, the author made a survey and report on the practicability of effecting that object, and suggested a method similar to that detailed in these pages. This circumstance gave rise to a lengthened epistolary discussion with that gentleman on the nature and influence of tidal action in sedimentary deposition ; and on the manner in which it was affected by the laws of conformation incidental to our globe. Having previously bestowed considerable attention on Geological systems, this ■correspondence awoke all the author's predilections on that subject, and induced him to perse vere in their pursuit until the result of his labours attained the following shape.

He was the more influenced in investigating Geological dispensations, as their solution materially affected an object •of such vital interest to his country, and with which he has long been engrossingly occupied — the silting up and reclamation of estuaries from the dominion of the sea.

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. VIII In his correspondence with Mr. Clarke, many incidents arose which gradually brought to hght new and extended views on different portions of the topic ; and the author has to express his obli gations to that gentleman for suggestions which led to the developement of a general law of tidal action in the organization of the earth. WTiilst the author has been enabled to lay before Mr. Clarke an important feature hi the formation of harbours and silting up of estuaries, he has great gratifi cation in expressing to that gentleman the pleasure he felt from a correspondence which rendered that an object of amusement and interest, which other wise would have been solely an affair of dry unas sisted investigation. In framing a general scheme of railways for Great Britain, the author of the following work found that it also involved the vital interests of Ireland ; and in carrying out a scheme thus en larged, he found himself constrained, in order to give the entire subject a proper connection, to rest his data upon a Geological theory, somewhat more than he could have wished, however true that theory

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. IX might be. At the moment of time when the body of this work had been printed off, and when the best means of information were unavailable, the Second Report of the Irish Commission on Rail ways was published. The uncommon ability and high national value of that Report are here fully and readily acknowledged. Though the author's scheme may in some features differ from that of the Irish Commission, yet, notwithstanding, he now ven tures on publishing what he had previously said on the planning of Railways in Ireland ; and the more especially as a modification of the two schemes may perhaps furnish the best practical course which could be taken. Such a remodification of those plans maybe properly dispensed with in this place; and he shall here claim a fair attention only to the objects already described— to the central wealth of Irish territory, and the sum of its western population.

He ventures to submit that these claim a central line, and immediate communication with Belfast. The Irish Commission Report has noticed in passing, what the reader will find more extensively a

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. X and exactly handled in the following pages. It is there observed, " Should a Railway communication be continued from Lancaster to Glasgow, which appears to be not improbable," — and it is gratifying to meet with a remark so plain, from authorities thus able and influential, — " the mail might be forwarded, by that route, to Portpatrick for the north of Ireland, so as to reach Belfast, perhaps, in about 19 or 20 hours." In stating such an opinion, it is obvious that the Commission must have contemplated the construction of a line of railway from Portpatrick to North Lan cashire, and another to Newcastle-upon-Tyne ; on this view a railway from Portpatrick to Glasgow by the shortest available route, would be impera tively called for; and thus the main outline of the scheme of national railways described in the following pages, is amply justified.

Not only is this so, but on the more perfect lines here sug gested, and according to the Report of the Irish Commission, it would seem quite practicable to reach Glasgow, from London, in 16 hours, by the way of Whitehaven, (steam navigation from thence

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. XI to Kirkcudbright,) and by the valley of the Cree, through the town of Ayr. . In the course of his researches the author has felt, that however many have passed over the field, there is still something left for him to glean ; and if, in presenting a general theory, he may have committed some errors in detail, he trusts that, like his predecessors, an amendment of such errors, by future Geologists and men of science and ex perience, may add to the progress of more exact knowledge. He shall rejoice, therefore, in con templating the results of the future, in the hope that his humble labours may prove useful in contributing to the perfection of some happier author. He cannot but perceive that in the anxiety of speculators to attain a better system of Geology, they had been too often induced to discard the only certain data which they possess in the revelations of the sacred volume.

That volume, however, in the true spirit of its letter, composed in an oriental language, yet definite in its applied sense, the author of the following pages believes to be founded in exact truth.

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. However defective his own efforts may be, the author humbly relies upon the spirit of his motives as an excuse for the attempt made to render Geology more exact and plain in scientific classification. If the five orders into which he has thought proper to divide Geology, be considered either inapplicable or erroneous, he is ready to stand corrected. Yet as an humble follower of an inspired penman, he must have good reasons as signed for consenting to any change of either principles or deductions. Because he believes Divine revelation to be true and unassailable. For he feels that both the science of Geology, and its professors, must gain a more intimate connection with the sacred and conservating influence emanating from the records of Holy Writ. In conclusion, if this work should fail to be of utility to the general mass of his fellow-beings, the author nevertheless trusts that he may have contributed some mite to the advancement and welfare of his native country. He means well ; and whatever doubts may be entertained of the

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. XIII efficiency of his labours, he is conscious of having been animated throughout by good-will towards man, and a humble desire to vindicate the power and wisdom of God. .ikehead, Wigton, Cumberland, Aiugust 1, 1838. CONTENTS.

Chapter I. On Geology As

A SCIENCE. True science is a classification of phenomena, conceptions, and ideas, concerning such matters of thought as become the subject of notice, reflection, and examination. It is indeed a prescribed form contrived in aid of the human understanding. Science is therefore a simplification of our ideas, for rendering abstruse and complicated questions familiar and plain ; suited alike for general and comprehensive views in the application of our thoughts, or descending to particular and trivial details. Considered in such a light, it is an instrument by which information is readily gathered; we are thereby enabled to communicate what we know more distinctly, and order and exactness in investigation are preserved. Subjecting the various branches of our reflection and forethought to well constructed forms, rays of true light are separated from the confused elements in which they previ- ON GEOLOGY ously lay concealed; and a power is thus framed by human invention, like unto infinite wisdom itself, which constantly works out extended designs according to easy and applicable rules.

To dis tinguish sound science from that which may be fanciful and spurious, is therefore worthy of our careful solicitude and consideration. The elements of science, or the materials of which its frame-work is composed, should always be clearly defined, and easily separated from each other, so that grounds of wrangling about constituent parts should not remain a subject of dispute. In determining on various orders and classes, the scheme of any science should be exact and obvious. Pure science may be indeed well illustrated by referring to the alphabet of language, — and in the language of enumeration, to the cardinal signs by which quantities are expressed. Though these be composed of nothing but generalised fictions, yet by their conversion in use to particular objects, our conceptions assume definite and comprehensive forms of intelligence, whether extending even to infinitude, to minute and detached objects, or to a communication and recording of our ideas.

In deed, by a species of typical transfusion, the verb is rendered significant in language ; we learn its right use, and its meaning becomes exact and known, when stripped of its abstract features in an applied sense. Such symbols even aid investiga tion, lead to the invention of fresh instruments of AS A SCIENCE. 3 thought, and contribute to our store of knowledge, though they be but abstract signs and mere fictions. Because, when applied, they lose the quality of abstraction, and become the essential signs by which actual being is denoted and made known, In short, they then lose the property of generalization altogether, and assume that of particulariza tion, the practical object for which they have been designedly framed. Pure science is so far aptly illustrated. It enables us to bring our thoughts out of darkness and confusion, and place them in order, harmony, and light.

Contrived by intelli gence in the first place, its purpose is a help to intelligence itself, and_in knowledge a means to an end. Spurious science, producing erroneous deductions, is equally obvious, as shown in the delusive doctrine of the Rent of Land, originally propounded by the late Mr. Ricardo, and since adopted by Political Economists as an echo. Assuming that land is naturally worn out by cultivation, which is true as regards improvident cropping, yet erroneous so far as profitable and provident husbandry are concerned, he made it appear that a wilderness exceeded in fertility and productiveness an old cultivated country like England. Upon these false premises he proceeded to frame the outlines of Political Economy —overlooking the important fact that commerce, the division of labour, the progres sive accumulation of capital, and the application of available arts and science in an old cultivated ON GEOLOGY. country, have raised the productive powers of the husbandman individually above what it is possible to attain, or is effected, in any newly discovered land.

It is so far obvious that the elements of which any science may be compounded ought to be distinct and truly applicable to an elucidation and classification of facts. As Geology proposes to investigate the changes which the earth has undergone in its progress to wards a state of maturity, so the elements of science must be drawn from the sequence of its fabrication and modification, in configuration and products, which originated with primeval designs, and the application of physical forces, according to which God made the earth by his power — established the world by his wisdom, and stretched out the heavens by his understanding. In six days God completed his works. The first five days, or periods of con structing the earth for the abode of man, give at the same time in science the best Geological division of the subject.

The sixth period is the state of man, in which his busy affairs are the subject matter of history; and in which the Creator has taken rest, so far as the construction of our earth is concerned. But whilst the work of mundane creation remained in his hand, to say that the pro cesses were comparatively slow, and by either chance or necessity, would be impious, and a denial of the infinite power and wisdom of the Deity. In all the vast and various institutions AS A SCIENCE. 5 of system within system, each of which is per fect within itself, and adapted to that within which it exists and works, — in those splendid models of supreme wisdom, when rightly understood, we ob serve one common simplicity in design, harmony in construction, and comprehensive exactness in even the most trivial matters.

In tracing designs so multifarious and perfect, shall we view the earth as an exception to the general rule here noticed, and by no means a complete system within itself, progressing from a state of embryo to maturity? A negative deduction would be irrational. We must therefore endeavour to trace the true history of the earth's construction in the various stages o of progressive change which it has gone through in producing those wonderful ends, wherein so many beauties and uses are displayed. The earth is a system working within itself, and though non-sentient, framed on principles of perfect design and mechanism, as if it were a sentient being. This is so far undeniable. The deduction cannot be with held. To the order of creation we must appeal in the construction of Geological science. An inspired writer has informed us that the earth was made in a sequence of events.

The evidences, we may yet gather from its present state, attest the faithfulness of the Sacred Interpreter; and all subsequent philosophers agree, that it has been subjected to many changes in composition and figure- On such premises we shall proceed to ON GEOLOGY describe the formation of the earth in an humble endeavour to give Geology more exactness as a science. It is out of materials, drawn from the true order of creation, that we purpose giving to Geology its appropriate alphabet, and shall pro ceed in our task accordingly. On the just application of those incidents we must depend for a correct interpretation of the laws by which they are regulated, and which constitute science. In its diurnal course the earth turns round, and we enjoy day and night accordingly. Periods of labour and rest have just limits assigned them.

Arrangements so simple and effective in the system of the universe, are true models of exactness in detail. On tracing the progressive steps by which an allwise God has constructed the earth, proceeding from first causes to ultimate consequences, we must admit that an easy and provident chain of principles pervades the entire scheme to which we owe the wonderful ends brought about. Provident and economical means obviously run throughout God's works in general. These even apply to man as a necessary law of being, mitigated by the endowment of reason, and a just balance in his moral temperament. All other creatures of God's goodness are subject to the same universal regula tions of order, harmony, and design. In the inves tigation before us these impressions shall be our guide. Though we are unable to comprehend the origin AS A SCIENCE. of matter and mind, we must at the same time view them as instruments and means in the hands of Infinite wisdom and power.

Our proper task is therefore to adore and humbly trace them ; gaining a right acquaintance with incidents which belong to, or flow from, a state of being offered to our notice. They are. But whilst we have hitherto failed in mastering the economy exercised in the humblest system of Nature's handyworks, it would be gross folly to proceed in the investigation of still higher mysteries. Our means of knowledge are limited to incidents, laws, and facts, which belong to perfect systems in the eye of Providence. Even these are confused and dislocated in the limits of the human understanding, although we know that they work according to regular and systematic laws. By experience and observation, and by just inferences, in which the progress and action of Nature's laws are carefully watched, we begin to design and frame modes of thought, which en large the extent of intelligence in man, augment the sum of his happinesss, and promote a Creator's designs, manifested as they are in Christian peace and blessedness. Such, indeed, is the conclusion to which true science leads ; a consolation which defies sophistry, aud before which false ideas fall prostrate.

Chapter II. On The Primary Formation Of The Earth

We may assume that the earth in its primeval form consisted of a cluster of matter or nebulæ, driven out of universal fluidity by the ordinary laws of gravitation, and finally concentrated in an embodied mass, that repulsed the forces of fluidity, and afforded a place of rest to some of the denser and unshapen atoms that had previously floated about in the regions of endless space. Motion and rest are therefore antagonist powers on which organic being greatly depends. An accumulated mass having been driven from the neighbouring parts of the Planetary System, by more active forces, which occupied the free and open regions of infinite space, gravitation fixed and steadied the earth in its orbit on ordinary laws. For as bodies in motion acquire additional force and power of pressure corresponding to their velocity; and as bodies in a state of rest possess no force and pressure except their intrinsic density, so light and active atoms have a necessary tendency to drive inactive atoms into dense and motionless masses.

Why a stone falls to the earth, and sparks are prone to fly upwards, is an exhibition of those opposing forces, according to which solids and fluids may be equally qualified to resist and drive off each other. The former by their density ; the latter by the additional force they gain from activity, and the influence which atoms in motion exercise upon each other. Hence unshapen and sluggish atoms are necessarily driven into nuclei or clusters, and acquire a power of resistance according to the aggregate force by which they rest upon and cling to a common state of being ; and those powers which are adequate to drive them into dense masses, are equally qualified to fix and steady them in their position eternally, until being is prone to take and preserve order and form. Thus the solidity of the earth commenced, by its becoming a place of rest to which masses of sluggish atoms were thus driven, fabricated on syste matic principles,and cemented together on cohesive laws.

Solidity was separated from fluidity, and organic harmony had a beginning. A system so perfect and orderly within itself, though non-sentient, could not spring from chance. Organic form, indeed, implies mental agency and design. Every fact we are acquainted with verifies the in ference to which this truth leads. But as we are totally unable to comprehend how mind operates on matter, and to what extent it either is or has been applied to the organisation and preservation of the b2 universe, so are we bound to accept an obvious conclusion, though unable to penetrate the mys teries by which volition is able to interfere with and regulate physical forces. We observe the planetary system working in perfect order and harmony, and witness the effects produced. Yet first causes are hidden from our view.

If we are unable to master the working of lower systems, which we can investigate intimately, how shall we compre hend those which may be equally intricate, and also lay at an immeasurable distance ? We may, therefore, assume that bodies in motion have an inalienable tendency to fall into disorderly courses, and to establish an unmitigated chaos, unless rectified and steadied by overruling omnipotence and intelligence. As regulated action originated with, and sprang from eternal volition ; as physical laws were preserved and combined with that state of rest which the system of the universe discloses in detail, it becomes the province of science to pencil out the progressive changes to which the earth has been subjected in past periods of time. Here we reap the proper elements of Geology, frame a plain al phabet for science to work with, and gain a more intimate acquaintance with dormant truths.

Reconstruction in the configuration of the earth is a leading feature which Geology proposes to de scribe. The alphabet of science must, therefore, be sought in a sequence of changes. From the beginning of the earth, and up to the present time, the mobility of matter and a chemical assortment of atoms, have been the ceaseless agents of reconstruction on our globe, in addition to animal in dustry, decay, and resuscitation. Violence and chao3 have been subdued, and order and harmony have arisen in obedience to Divine commands. Even adverse elements have been converted into economical uses. Unless an admission so requi site be made, philosophy is but an idle dream. When we accept the interposition of the Divine will, however, — which we have no evidence to gain say, and a multiplicity of proofs in verification of, — we by no means deny, but confirm the limitation of our researches to strictly physical laws.

Though the interference of human intelligence, in directing his busy toils, has changed the very features of our globe, and progressively converted an original wilderness into a smiling land teeming with the nutritive products of the earth, yet the fact by no means withdraws the influence of physical agency, when placed under the direction of the human will. Such distinctions certainly define their due limits. Every act of mind, — and we may well ask how can mind act at all, whilst we know only that it does so, — may be placed in the category of supernatural agency, inasmuch as it controls and imparts a new direction to physical forces. Though working by the help of physics, yet exercising a controlling agency at the same time, an instrument of power is evinced which interferes with natural laws, and modifies the very face of the land in an industrial country like England.

When we detect organic evidences belonging to an inert body such as the earth, which contains no mental system of self-regulation within, and therefore no means of self-organisation, the interference of om nipotent volition is proved so distinctly, that orga nic being in general is traced to a common origin and cause, which is ever active in the preservation of order and harmony throughout the w-hole uni verse. If a non-sentient body exhibits proofs of an organising influence, it would be irrational to deny a similar interference having originally moulded the clay of animated nature, and breathed the breath of life into its nostrils. Neither neg lecting these considerations, nor straining them to a mere verbal purpose, in place of distinct ideas, we shall learn how obvious and simple in the economy of the universe true physics are.

Geology must be accordingly limited to purely physical results, constantly worked out on omniscient principles. The earth is composed of two distinct classes of materials. Solid bodies in a state of rest, or having a tendency to such a state ; and fluids in the most extended sense, possessing an opposite tendency, or mobility and action. Rest itself, however, is but an exhibition of a universal law, according to which bodies possessing kindred affinities, form, and den sity, are naturally driven together, and amalgamate with or impinge upon each other. Not by assign ing to them any supernatural law of the attraction of gravitation ; but by laws consimilar to those which prevent the sea from encroaching on the dry land of the earth. The same rule of being, there fore, which applies to the earth as a body, applies to the universe.

Fluidity and solidity constitute the two opposing elements, which it is our especial object to consider and expound in connexion with each other. Placed in a constant state of action and re-action, solids are either driven more com pactly into aggregates, or dispersed by antagonist forces for a season, and again recollected together on physical laws. But this is not enough. There is a God. Har mony and organic action are the decrees of heaven. This admitted, Geology acquires an appropriate starting place, which is undeniably authenticated; and from whence cause and effect have worked out the ends originally designed by infinite wis dom. In the beginning the earth was without form and void. And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. Here Geology, as a science, commences; and the series of changes it has gone through con formable to the sequence of creation, give its proper alphabet.

Fluidity is an obvious law of nature, which, if we include volatility in this term, is ever actively at work above us, around us, and even beneath our feet. Chemical agency and action are equally apparent, and continually give rise to progressive changes. It is an admitted fact, that the temperature of the earth is higher, as far as it has been penetrated, proportionally from its surface downwards. It may be justly inferred, that this augmentation of heat increases on some law of progression towards its centre. If the most active and divisible particles of matter, or atoms of a spherical form, be engaged in driving dense and mishapen atoms, which are less readily divisible, into inert masses, the inter nal action which these masses generate within themselves, naturally occasions their dislocation, change of position, and eventual recomposition.

To these conclusions the atomic theory necessarily proceeds. A high tendency to divisibility in some atoms, and the reverse in others, would lead to an opinion that active atoms are prone to in sinuate themselves into the cavities of less com pact ones. As restlessness and activity are a common law of matter, in conformity to that regulated action for which eternal wisdom has provided, — if the earth were a solid ball, and acquiring internal heat pro gressively to its centre, assuming a ratio which facts sanction, it would finally burst asunder to and from that centre. Being seems a paradox indeed, according to which the contending powers of rest and activity reciprocally contribute to their regulation and control. Though the laws of weight and pressure in bodies be determined by their density or solid materials when at rest, those powers are also multiplied by the impetus given them and the pro jectile velocity acquired.

Hence the pressure of a single ounce in a state of activity, or elastic fluidity, may be adequate to displace a ton weight at rest, and propel it forwards. In conformity to this common law of being and physical forces, sparks fly upwards, rain descends from the heavens, a pellucid ocean rolls beds of shingle and sand on shore, and leaves them in a state of repose. There is no law of the attraction of gravitation required in these instances, distinct from the ordinary forces of matter ; but the velocity or rest of atoms more or less divided surpassing the forces of one another. Nor is it less an ordinary law of gravitation that dense clusters of atoms should repulse active ones conformable to the square of their surface ; and active atoms drive sluggish ones into masses. It is so far a great law in physics that fluids and solids should not agree; that they have a mutual ten dency to displace and separate from each other, and occupy distinct spaces in the universe, as divisi bility must be the freest in open space, and the least so when atoms come to rest upon each other.

When we speak of water and the atmosphere, fire and electricity, and of the sun as a generator of heat, we cannot strain our conceptions beyond atoms in a state of greater or less divisibility and activity. When we observe electricity cut its awful path through resisting elements, and descend on earth with force prodigious and speed indescribable, we catch a glance of that regulated action, over which an omnipotent God rules. Neither chance nor necessity could ever bridle powers so mighty. Supreme wisdom and design have. A truth so unanswerable is verified by the most palpable evi dences. The various masses of matter, therefore, which compose the solid parts of the planetary system, have been driven from their wandering courses through the regions of infinite space, and brought into perfect order and harmony by an Omniscient designer.