Chapter I: HAVE endeavored, in the preceding part of my work, to explain and (12)

If we pass from these general considerations to individual examples, we find that schist is converted, by the vicinity of Plutonic erupted rocks, into a bluish-black, glistening roofing slate. Here the planes of stratification are intersected by another system of divisional stratification, almost at right angles with the former,* and thus indicating an action subsequent to the alteration.

[footnote] * On the double system of divisional planes, see Elie de Beaumont, 'Geologie de la France', p. 41; Credner, 'Geognosie Thuringens und des Harzes', s. 40; and Romer, 'Das Rheinische Uebergangsgebirge', 1844. s. 5 und 9.

The penetration of silica causes the argillaceous schist to be traversed by quartz, transforming it, in part, into whetstone and silicious schist; the latter sometimes containing carbon, and being then capable of producing galvanic effects on the nerves. The highest degree of silicifaction of schist is that observed in ribbon jasper, a material highly valuable in the arts,* and which is produced in the Oural Mountains p 260 by the contact and eruption of augitic porphyry (at Orsk), of dioritic porphyry (at Aufschkul), or of a mass of hypersthenic rock conglomerated into spherical masses (at Bogoslowsk). At Monte Serrato, in the island of Elba, according to Frederic Hoffman, and in Tuscany, according to Alexander Brongniart, it is formed by contact with euphotide and serpentine.

[footnote] *The silica is not merely colored by peroxyd of iron, but is accompanied by clay, lime, and potash. Rose, 'Reise', bd. ii., s. 187. On the formation of jasper by the action of dioritic porphyry, augite, and by persthene rock, see Rose, bd. ii., s. 169, 187, und 192. See, also, bd. i., s. 427, where there is a drawing of the porphyry spheres between which jasper occurs, in the calcareous graywacke of Bogoslowsk, being produced by the Plutonic influence of the augitic rock; bd. ii., s. 545; and likewise Humboldt, 'Asie Centrale', t. i., p. 486.

The contact and Plutonic action of granite have sometimes made argillaceous schist granular, as was observed by Gustav Rose and myself in the Altai Mountains (within the fortress of Buchtarminsk),* and have transformed it into a mass resembling granite, consisting of a mixture of feldspar and mica, in which larger laminae of the latter were again imbedded.**

[footnote] *Rose, 'Reise nach dem Ural', bd. i., s. 586-588.

[footnote] **In respect to the volcanic origin of mica, it is important to notice that crystals of mica are found in the basalt of the Bohemian Mittelgebirge, in the lava that in 1822 was ejected from Vesuvius (Monticelli, 'Storia del Vesuvio negli Anni 1821 e 1822', 99), and in fragments of agrillaceous alte imbedded in scoriaceous basalt at Hohenfels, not far from Gerolstein, in the Eifel (see Mitscherlich, in Leonhard, 'Basalt-Gebilde', s. 244). On the formation of feldspar in argillaceous schist, through contact with porphyry, occurring between Urval and Poïet (Forez), see Dufrenoy, in 'Geol. de la France', t. i., p. 137. It is probably to a similar contact that certain schists near Paimpol, in Brittany, with whose appearance I was much struck, while making a geological pedestrian tour through that interesting country with Professor Kunth, owe their amygdaloid and cellular character, t. i., p. 234.

Most geognosists adhere, with Leopold von Buch, to the well-known hypothesis "that all the gneiss in the silurian strata of the transition formation, between the Icy Sea and the Gulf of Finland, has been produced by the metamorphic action of granite.*

[footnote] * Leopold von Buch, in the 'Abhandlungen der Akad. der Wissenschaft zu Berlin, aus dem Jahr' 1842, s. 63, and in the 'Jahrbuchern fur Wissenschaftliche Kritik Jahrg.' 1840, s. 196.

In the Alps, at St. Gothard, calcareous marl is likewise changed from granite into mica slate, and then transformed into gneiss." Similar phenomena of the formation of gneiss and mica slate through granite present themselves in the oolitic group of the Tarantaise,* in which belemnites are p 261 found in rocks, which have some claim to be considered as mica slate, and in the schistose group in the western part of the island of Elba, near the promontory of Calamita, and the Fichtelgebirge in Baireuth, between Loomitz and Markleiten.**

[footnote] * Elie de Beaumont, in the 'Annales des Sciences Naturelles', t. xv., p. 362-372. "In approaching the primitive masses of Mont Rosa, and the mountains situated to the west of Coni, we perceive that the secondary strata gradually lose the characters inherent in their mode of deposition. Frequently assuming a character apparently arising from a perfectly distinct cause, but not losing their stratification, they somewhat resemble in their physical structure a brand of half-consumed wood, in which we can follow the traces of the ligneous fibers beyond the spots which continue to present the natural characters of wood." (See, also, the 'Annales des Sciences Naturelles', t. xiv., p. 118-122, and von Dechen, 'Geognosie', s. 553.) Among the most striking proofs of the transformation of rocks by Plutonic action, we must place the belemites in the schists of Nuffenen (in the Alpine valley of Eginen and in the Gries-glaciers), and the belemnites found by M. Charpentier in the so-called primitive limestone on the western descent of the Col de la Seigne, between the Enclove de Monjovet and the 'chalet' of La Lanchette, and which he showed to me at Bex in the autumn of 1822 ('Annales de Chimie', t. xxiii., p. 262).

[footnote] ** Hoffmann, in Poggend., 'Annalen', bd. xvi., s. 552, "Strate of transition argillaceous schist in the Fichtelgebirge, which can be traced for a length of 16 miles, are transformed into gneiss only at the two extremities, where they come in contact with granite. We can there follow the gradual formation of the gneiss, and the development of the mica and of the feldspathic amygdaloids, in the interior of the argillaceous schist, which indeed contains in itself almost all the elements of these substances."

Jasper, which,* as I have already remarked, is a production formed by the volcanic action of augitic porphyry, could only be obtained in small quantities by the ancients, while another material, very generally and efficiently used by them in the arts, was granular or saccharoidal marble, which is likewise to be regarded solely as a sedimentary stratum altered by terrestrial heat and by proximity with erupted rocks.

[footnote] * Among the works of art which have come down to us from the ancient Greeks and Romans, we observe that none of any size -- as columns or large vases -- are formed from jasper; and even at the present day, this substance, in large masses, is only obtained from the Ural Mountains. The material worked as jasper from the Rhubarb Mountain (Raveniaga Sopka), in Altai, is a beautiful ribboned porphyry. The word 'jasper' is derived from the Semitic languages; and from the confused description of Theophrastus ('De Lapidibus', 23 and 27) and Pliny (xxxvii., 8 and 9), who rank jasper among the "opaque gems," the name appears to have been given to fragments of 'jaspachat', and to a substance which the ancients termed 'jasponyx', which we now know as 'opal-jasper'. Pliny considers a piece of jasper eleven inches in length so rare as to require his mentioning that he had actually seen such a specimen: "Magnitudinem jaspidis undecim unciarum vidimus, formatamque inde effigem Neronis thoracatam." According to Theophrastus, the stone which he calls emerald, and from which large obelists were cut, must have been an imperfect jasper.

This opinion is corroborated by the accurate observations on the phenomena of contact, by the remarkable experiments on fusion p 262 made by Sir James Hall more than half a century ago, and by the attentive study of granitic veins, which has contributed so largely to the establishment of modern geognosy. Sometimes the erupted rock has not transformed the compact into granular limestone to any great depth from the point of contact. Thus, for instance, we meet with a slight transformation -- a penumbra -- as at Belfast, in Ireland, where the basaltic veins traverse the chalk, and, as in the compact calcareous beds, which have been partially inflected by the contact of syenitic granite, at the Bridge of Boscampo and the Cascade of Conzocoli, in the Tyrol (rendered celebrated by the mention made of it by Count Mazari Peucati).*

[footnote[ *Humboldt, 'Lettre a M. Brochant de Villiers', in the 'Annales de Chimie et de Physique', t. xxiii., p. 261; Leop. von Buch, 'Geog. Briefe uber das sudliche Tyrol', s. 101, 105, und 273.

Another mode of transformation occurs where all the strata of the compact limestone have been changed into granular limestone by the action of granite, and syenitic or dioritic porphyry.*

[footnote] *On the transformation of compact into granular limestone by the action of granite, in the Pyrenees at the 'Montagnes de Rancie', see Dufrenoy, in the 'Memoires Geologiques', t. ii., p. 440; and on similar changes in the 'Montagnes de l'Oisans', see Elie de Beaumont, in the 'Mem. Geolog.', t. ii., p. 379-415; on a similar effect produced by the action of dioritic and pyroxenic porphyry (the 'ophite' described by Elie de Beaumont, in the 'Geologie de la France', t. i., p. 72), between Tolosa and St. Sebastian, see Dufrenoy, in the 'Mem. Geolog.', t. ii., p. 130; and by syenite in the Isle of Skye, where the fossils in the altered limestone may still be distinguished, see Von Dechen, in his 'Geognosie', p. 573. In the transformation of chalk by contact with basalt, the transposition of the most minute particles in the processes of crystallization and granulation is the more remarkable, because the excellent microscopic investigations of Ehrenberg have shown that the particles of chalk previously existed in the form of closed rings. See Poggend., 'Annalen der Physic', bd. xxxix., s. 105; and on the rings of aragonite deposited from solution, see Gustav Rose in vol. xlii., p. 354, of the same journal.

I would here wish to make special mention of Parian and Carrara marbles, which have acquired such celebrity from the noble works of art into which they have been converted, and which have too long been considered in our geognostic collections as the main types of primitive limestone. The action of granite has been manifested sometimes by immediate contact, as in the Pyrenees,* and sometimes, as in the main land of Greece, and in the insular groups in the gean Sea, through the intermediate layers of gneiss or mica slate.

[footnote] *Beds of granular limestone in the granite at Port d'Oo and in the Mont de Labourd. See Charpentier, 'Constitution Geologique des Pyrenes', p. 144, 146.

Both cases presuppose a simultaneous but heterogeneous process of transformation. p 263 In Attica, in the island of Euboea, and in the Peloponnesus, it has been remarked, "that the limestone, when superposed on mica slate, is beautiful and crystalline in proportion to the purity of the latter substance and to the smallness of its argillaceous contents; and, as is well known, this rock, together with beds of gneiss, appears at many points, at a considerable depth below the surface, in the islands of Paros and Antiparos."*

[footnote] *Leop. von Buch, 'Descr. des Canaries', p. 394; Fiedler, 'Reise durch das Konigreich Griechenland', th. ii., s., 181, 190, und 516.

We may here infer the existence of an imperfectly metamorphosed flotz formation, if faith can be yielded to the testimony of Origen, according to whom, the ancient Eleatic, Xenophanes of Colophon* (who supposed the whole earth's crust to have been once covered by the sea), declared that marine fossils had been found in the quarries of Syracuse, and the impression of a fish (a sardine) in the deepest rocks of Paros.

[footnote] *I have previously alluded to the remarkable passage in Origen's 'Philosophumena', cap. 14 ('Opera', ed. Delarue, t. i., p. 893). From the whole context, it seems very improbable that Xenophanes meant an impression of a laurel ([Greek words]) instead of an impression of a fish ([Greek words]). Delarue is wrong in blaming the correction of Jacob Gronovius in changing the laurel into a sardel. The petrifaction of a fish is also much more probable than the natural picture of Silenus, which, according to Pliny (lib. xxxvi., 5), the quarry-men are stated to have met with in Parian marble from Mount Marpessos. 'Servius ad Virg., AEn.', vi., 471.

The Carrara or Luna marble quarries, which constituted the principal source from which statuary marble was derived even prior to the time of Augustus, and which will probably continue to do so until the quarries of Paros shall be reopened, are beds of calcareous sandstone -- macigno -- altered by Plutonic action, and occurring in the insulated mountain of Apuana, between gneiss-like mica and talcose schist.*

[footnote] *On the geognostic relations of Carrara ('The City of the Moon', Strabo, lib. v., p. 222), see Savi 'Osservazioni sui terreni antichi Toscani', in the 'Nuova Giornale de' Letterati di Pisa', and Hoffmann, in Karsten's 'Archiv fur Mineralogie', bd. vi., s. 258-263, as well as in his 'Geogn. Reise durch Italien', s. 244-265.

Whether at some points granular limestone may not have been formed in the interior of the earth, and been raised by gneiss and syenite to the surface, where it forms vein-like fissures,* is a question on which I can not hazard an opinion, owing to my own want of personal knowledge of the subject.

[footnote] *According to the assumption of an excellent and very experienced observer, Karl von Leonhard. See his 'Jahrbuch fur Mineralogie', 1834 s. 329, and Bernhard Cotta, 'Geognosie', s. 310.

p 264 According to the admirable observations of Leopold von Buch, the masses of dolomite found in Southern Tyrol, and on the Italian side of the Alps, present the most remarkable instance of metamorphism produced by massive eruptive rocks on compact calcareous beds. The formation of the limestone seems to have proceeded from the fissures which traverse it in all directions. The cavities are every where covered with rhomboidal crystals of magnesian bitter spar, and the whole formation, without any trace of strtification, or of the fossil remains which it once contained, consists only of a granular aggregation of crystals of dolomite. Talc laminae lie scattered here and there in the newly-formed rock, traversed by masses of serpentine. In the valley of the Fassa, dolomite rises perpendicularly in smooth walls of dazzling whiteness to a height of many thousand feet. It forms sharply-pointed conical mountains, clustered together in large numbers, but yet not in contact with each other. The contour of their forms recalls to mind the beautiful landscape with which the rich imagination of Leonardi da Vinci has embellished the back-ground of the portrait of Mona Lisa.

The geognostic phenomena which we are now describing, and which excite the imagination as well as the powers of the intellect, are the result of the action of augite porphyry manifested in its elevating, destroying, and transforming force.*

[footnote] *Leop. von Buch, 'Geognostische Briefe an Alex. von Humboldt', 1824, s. 86 and 82; also in the 'Annalen de Chemie', t. xxiii., p. 276, and in the 'Abhandl. der Berliner Akad. aus der Jahren 1822 'und' 1823, s. 83-136; Von Dechen, 'Geognosie.' s. 574-576.

The process by which limestone is converted into dolomite is not regarded by the illustrious investigator who first drew attention to the phenomenon as the consequence of the tale being derived from the black porphyry, but rather as a transformatiion simultaneous with the appearance of this erupted stone through wide fissures filled with vapors. It remains for future inquirers to determine how transformation can have been effected without contact with the endogenous stone, where strata of dolomite are found to be interspersed in imestone. Where, in this case, are we to seek the concealed channels by which the Plutonic action is conveyed? Even here it may not, however, be necessary, in conformity with the old Roman adage, to believe "that much that is alike in nature may have been formed in wholly different ways." When we find, over widely extended parts of the earth, that two phenomena are always associated together, as, for instance, the occurrence of melaphyre p 265 and the transformation of compact limestone into a crystaline mass differing in its chemical character, we are, to a certain degree, justified in believing, where the second phenomenon is manifested unattended by the appearance of the first, that this apparent contradiction is owing to the absence, in certain cases, of some of the conditions attendant upon the exciting causes. Who would call in question the volcanic nature and igneous fluidity of basalt merely because there are some rare instances in which basaltic veins, traversing beds of coal or strata of sandstone and chalk, have not materially deprived the coal of its carbon, nor broken and slacked the sandstone, not converted the chalk into granular marble? Wherever we have obtained even a faint light to guide us in the obscure domain of mineral formation, we ought not ungratefully to disregard it, because there may be much that is still unexplained in the history of the relations of the transitions, or in the isolated interposition of beds of unaltered strata.

After having spoken of the alteration of compact carbonate of lime into granular limestone and dolomite, it still remains for us to mention a third mode of transformation of the same mineral, which is ascribed to the emission, in the ancient periods of the world, of the vapors of sulphuric acid. This transformation of limestone into gypsum is analogous to the penetration of rock salt and sulphur, the latter being deposited from sulphureted aqueous vapor. In the lofty Cordilleras of Quindin, far from all volcanoes, I have observed deposits of sulphur in fissures in gneiss, while in Sicily (at Cattolica, near Girgenti), sulphur, gypsum, and rock salt belong to the most recent secondary strata, the chalk formations.*

[footnote] *Horrman, 'Geogn. Reise', edited by Von Dechen, s. 113-119, and 380-386; Poggend., 'Annalen der Physik', bd. xxvi., s. 41.

I have also seen on the edge of the crater of Vesuvius, fissures filled with rock salt, which occurred in such considerable masses as occasionally to lead to its being disposed of by contraband trade. On both declivities of the Pyrenees, the connection of diorite and pyroxene, and colomite, gypsum, and rock salt, can not be questioned;* and here, as in the other phenomena which we have been considering, every thing bears evidence of the action of subterranean forces on the sedimentary strata of the ancient sea.

[footnote] *Dufrenoy, in the 'Memoires Geologiques', t. ii., p. 145 and 179.

There is much difficulty in explaining the origin of the beds of pure quartz, which occur in such large quantities in South America, and impart so peculiar a character to the chain of p 266 the Andes.*

[footnote] *Humboldt, 'Essai Geogn. sur le Gisement des Roches', p. 93; 'Asie Centrale', t. iii., p. 532.

In descending toward the South Sea, from Caxamarca toward Guangamarca, I have observed vast masses of quartz, from 7000 to 8000 feet in height, superposed sometimes on porphyry devoid of quartz, and sometimes on diorite. Can these beds have been transformed from sandstone, as Elie de Beaumont conjectures in the case of the quartz strata on the Col de la Poissonniere, east of Briançon?*

[footnote] *Elie de Beaumont, in the 'Annales des Sciences Naturelles', t. xv., p. 362; Murchison, 'Silurian System', p. 286.

In the Brazils, in the diamond district of Minas Geraes and St. Paul, which has recently been so accurately investigated by Clausen, Plutonic action has developed in dioritic veins sometimes ordinary mica, and sometimes specular iron in quartzose itacolumite. The diamonds of Grammagoa are imbedded in strata of solid silica, and are occasionally enveloped in laminae of mica, like the garnets found in mica slate. The diamonds that occur furthest to the north, as those discovered in 1829 at 58 degrees lat., on the European slope of the Uralian Mountains, bear a geognostic relation to the black carboniferous dolomite of Adolffskoi* and to augitic porphyry, although more accurate observations are required in order fully to elucidate this subject.

[footnote] *Rose, 'Reise nach dem Ural', bd. i., s. 364 und 367.

Among the most remarkable phenomena of contact, we must, finally, enumerate the formation of garnets in argillaceous schist in contact with basalt and dolerite (as in Northumberland and the island of Anglesea), and the occurrence of a vast number of beautiful and most various crystals, as garnets, vesuvian, augite, and ceylanite, on the surfaces of contact between the erupted and sedimentary rock, as, for instance, on the junction of the syenite of Monzon with dolomite and compact limestone.

[footnote] *Leop. von Buch, 'Briefe', s. 109-129. See also, Elie de Beaumont 'On the Contact of Granite with the Beds of the Jura', in the 'Mem. Geol.' t. ii., p. 408.

In the island of Elba, masses of serpentine, which perhaps nowhere more clearly indicate the character of erupted rocks, have occasioned the sublimation of iron glance and red oxyd of iron in fissures of calcareous sandstone.

[footnote] *Hoffman, 'Reise', s. 30 und 37.

We still daily find the same iron glance formed by sublimation from the vapors and the walls of the fissures of open veins on the margin of the crater, and in the fresh lava currents of the volcanoes of Stromboli, Vesuvius, and AEtna.*

[footnote] *On the chemical process in the formation of specular iron, see Gay Lussac, in the 'Annales de Chimie', t. xxii., p. 415, and Mitscherlich, in Poggend., 'Annalen', bd. xv., s. 630. Moreover, crystals of olivine have been formed (probaby by sublimation) in the cavities of the obsidian of Cerro del Jacal, which I brought from Mexico (Gustav Rose, in Poggend., 'Annalen', bd. x., s. 323). Hence olivine occurs in basalt, lava, obsidian, artificial scoriae in meteoric stones, in the syenite of Elfdale, and (as hyalosiderite) in the wacke of the Kaiserstuhl.

The veins that p 267 are thus formed beneath our eyes by volcanic forces, where the contiguous rock has already attained a certain degree of solidification, show us how, in a similar manner, mineral and metallic veins may have been every where formed in the more ancient periods of the world, where the solid but thinner crust of our planet, shaken by earthquakes, and rent and fissured by the change of volume to which it was subjected in cooling, may have presented many communications with the interior, and many passages for the escape of vapors impregnated with earthy and metallic substances. The arrangement of the particles in layers parallel with the margins of the beins, the regular recurrence of analogous layers on the opposite sides of the veins (on their different walls), and, finally, the elongated cellular cavities in the middle, frequently afford direct evidence of the Plutonic process of sublimation in metalliferous veins. As the traversing rocks must be of more recent origin than the traversed, we learn from the relations of stratification existing between the porphyry and the argentiferous ores in the Saxon mines (the richest and most important in Germany), that these formations are at any rate more recent than the vegetable remains found in carboniferous strata and in the red sandstone.*

[footnote] *Constantin von Veust, 'Ueber die Porphyrgebilde', 1835, s. 89-96; also his 'Belenchtung der Werner'schen Gangtheorie', 1840, s. 6; and C. von Wissenbach, 'Abbildungen merkwurdiger Gangverhaltnisse', 1836, fig. 12. The ribbon-like structure of the veins is, however, no more to be regarded of general occurrence than the periodic order of the different members of these masses.

All the facts connected with our geological hypotheses on the formation of the earth's crust and the metamorphism of rocks have been unexpectedly elucidated by the ingenious idea which led to a comparison of the slags or scoriae of our smelting furnaces with natural minerals, and to the attempt of reproducing the latter from their elements.*

[footnote] *Mitscherlich, 'Ueber die kunstliche Darstellung der Mineralien', in the 'Abhandl. der Akademie der Wiss. zu Berlin', 1822-3, s. 25-41.

In all these operations, the same affinities manifest themselves which determine chemical combinations both in our laboratories and in the interior of the earth. The most considerable part of p 268 the simple minerals which characterize the more generally diffused Plutonic and erupted rocks, as well as those on which they have exercised a metamorphic action, have been produced in a crystalline state, and with perfect identify, in artificial mineral products. We must, however, distinguish here between the scoriae accidentally formed, and those which have been designedly produced by chemists. To the former belong feldspar, mica, augite, olivine, hornblende, crystallized oxyd of iron, magnetic iron in octahedral crystals, and metallis titanium;* to the latter, garnets, idocrase, rubies (equal in hardness to those found in the East), olivine, and augite.**

[footnote] *In scoriae crystals of feldspar have been discovered by Heine in the refuse of a furnace for copper fusing, near Sangerhausen, and analyzed by Kersten (Poggend., 'Annalen', bd. xxxiii., s. 337); crystals of augite in scoriae at Sahle (Mitscherlich, in the 'Abhandl. der Akad. zu Berlin', 1822-23, s. 40); of oliving by Seifstrom (Leonhard, 'Basalt-Gebilde', bd. ii., s. 495); of mica in old scoriae of Schloss Garpenberg (Mitscherlich, in Leonhard, op. cit., s. 506); of magnetic iron in the scoriae of Chatillon sur Seine (Leonhard, s. 441); and of micaceous iron in potter's clay (Mitscherlich, in Leohnard, op. cit., s. 234). [See Ebelmer's papers in 'Ann. de Chimie et de Physique', 1847; also 'Report on the Crystalline Slags', by John Percy, M.D., F.R.S., and William Hallows Miller, M.A., 1847. Dr. Percy, in a communication with which he has kindly favored me, says that the minerals which he has found artificially produced and proved by analysis are Humboldtilite, gehlenite, olivine, and magnetic oxyd of iron, in octahedral crystals. He suggests that the circumstance of the production of gehlenite at a high temperature in an iron furnace may possibly be made available by geologists in explaining the formation of the rocks in which the natural mineral occurs, as in Fassathal in the Tyrol.] -- Tr.

[footnote] **Of minerals purposely produced, we may mention idocrase and garnet (Mitscherlich, in Poggend., 'Annalen der Physik', bd. xxxii., s. 340); ruby (Gaudin, in the 'Comptes Rendus de l'Academie de Science', t. iv., Part i., p. 999); olivine and augite (Mitscherlich and Berthier, in the 'Annales de Chimie et de Physique', t. xxiv., p. 376). Notwithstanding the greatest possible similarity in crystalline form, and perfect identity in chemical composition, existing, according to Gustav Rose, between augite and hornblende, hornblende has never been found accompanying augite in scoriae, nor have chemists ever succeeded in artificially producing either hornblende or feldspar (Mitscherlich in Poggend., 'Annalen', bd. xxxiii., s. 340, and Rose, 'Reise nach dem Ural', bd. ii., s. 358 und 363). See also, Beaudant, in the 'Mem. de l'Acad. des Sciences', t. viii., p. 221, and Becquerel's ingenious experiments in his 'Trait de l'Electricite,' t. i., p. 334; t. iii., p. 218; and t. v., p. 148 and 185.

These minerals constitute the main constituents of granite, gneiss, and mica schist, of basalt, dolerite, and many porphyries. The artificial production of feldspar and mica is of most especial geognostic importance with reference to the theory of the formation of gneiss by the metamorphic agency of argillaceous schist, which contains all the constituents of granite, p 269 potash not excepted.*

[footnote] *D'Aubuisson, in the 'Journal de Physique', t. lxviii., p. 128.

It would not be very surprising, therefore, as is well observed by the distinguished geognosist, Von Dechen, if we were to meet with a fragment of gneiss formed on the walls of a smelting furnace which was built of argillaceous slate and graywacke.

After having taken this general view of the three classes of erupted, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks of the earth's crust, it still remains for us to consider the fourth class, comprising 'conglomerates', or 'rocks of detrius'. The very term recalls the destruction which the earth's crust has suffered, and likewise, perhaps reminds us of the process of cementation, which has connected together, by means of oxyd of iron, or of some argillaceous and calcareous substances, the sometimes rounded and sometimes angular portions of fragments. Conglomerates and rocks of detritus, when considered in the widest sense of the term, manifest characters of a double origin. The substances which enter into their mechanical composition have not been alone accumulated by the action of the waves of the sea or currents of fresh water, for there are some of these rocks the formation of which can not be attributed to the action of water. "When basaltic islands and trachytic rocks rise on fissures, friction of the elevated rock against the walls of the fissures causes the elevated rock to be inclosed by conglomerates composed of its own matter. The granules composing the sandstones of many formations have been separated rather by friction against the erupted volcanic or Plutonic rock than destroyed by the erosive force of a neighboring sea. The existence of these friction 'conglomerates', which are met with in enormous masses in both hemispheres, testifies the intensity of the force with which the erupted rocks have been propelled from the interior through the earth's crust. This detritus has subsequently been taken up by the waters, which have then deposited it in the strata which it still covers."*

[footnote] *Leop. von Buck, 'Geognost. Briefe', s. 75-82, where it is also shown why the new red sandstone (the 'Todtliegende' of the Thuringian flotz formation) and the coal measures must be regarded as produced by erupted porphyry.

Sandstone formations are found imbedded in all strata, from the lower silurian transition stone to the beds of the tertiary formations, superposed on the chalk. They are found on the margin of the boundless plains of the New Continent, both within and without the tropics, extending like breast-works along the ancient shore, against which the sea once broke its foaming waves.

p 270 If we cast a glance on the geographical distribution of rocks, and their relations in space, in that portion of the earth's crust which is accessible to us, we shall find that the most universally distributed chemical substance is 'silicic acid', generally in a variously-colored and opaque form. Next to solid silicic acid we must reckon carbonate of lime, and then the combinations of silicic acid with alumina, potash, and soda, with lime, magnesia, and oxyd of iron.

The substances which we designate as 'rocks' are determinate associations of a small number of minerals, in which some combine parasitically, as it were, with others, but only under definite relations; thus, for instance, although quartz (silica), feldspar, and mica are the principal constituents of granite, these minerals also occur, either individually or collectively, in many other formations. By way of illustrating how the quantitative relations of one feldspathic rock differ from another, richer in mica than the former, I would mention that, according to Mitscherlich, three times more alumina and one third more silica than that ossessed by feldspar, give the constituents that enter into the composition of mica. Potash is contained in both -- a substance whose existence in many kinds of rocks is probably antecedent to the dawn of vegetation on the earth's surface.

The order of succession, and the relative age of the different formations, may be recognized by the superposition of the sedimentary, metamorphic, and conglomerate strata; by the nature of the formations traversed by the erupted masses, and -- with the greatest certainty -- by the presence of organic remains and the differences of their structure. The application of botanical and zoological evidence to determine the relative age of rocks -- this chronometry of the earth's surface, which was already present to the lofty mind of Hooke -- indicates one of the most glorious epochs of modern geognosy, which has finally, on the Continent at least, been emancipated from the sway of Semitic doctrines. Palaeontological investigations have imparted a vivifying breath of grace and diversity to the science of the solid structure of the earth.

The fossiliferous strata contain, entombed within them, the floras and faunas of by-gone ages. We ascend the stream of time, as in our study of the relations of superposition we descend deeper and deeper through the different strata, in which lies revealed before us a past world of animal and vegetable life. Far-extending disturbances, the elevation of great mountain chains, whose relative ages we are able to define, attest the p 271 destruction of ancient and the manifestation of recent organisms. A few of these older structures have remained in the midst of more recent species. Owing to the limited nature of our knowledge of existence, and from the figurative terms by which we seek to hide our ignorance, we apply the appellation 'recent structure' to the historical henomena of transition manifested in the organisms as well as in the forms of primitive seas and of elevated lands. In some cases these organized structures have been preserved perfect in the minutest details of tissues, integument, and articulated parts, while in others, the animal, passing over soft argillaceous mud, has left nothing but the traces of its course,* or the remains of its undigested food, as in the coprolites.**

[footnote] *[In certain localities of the new red sandstone, in the Valley of the Connecticut, numerous tridactyl markings have been occasionally observed on the surface of the slabs of stone when split asunder, in like manner as the ripple-marks appear on the successive layers of sandstone in Tilgate Forest. Some remarkably distinct impressions of this kind, at Turner's Falls (Massachusetts), happening to attract the attention of Dr. James Deane, of Greenfield, that sagacious observer was struck with their resemblance to the foot-marks left on the mud-banks of the adjacent river by the aquatic birds which had recenty frequented the spot. The specimens collected were submitted to Professor G. Hitchcock, who followed up the inquiry with a zeal and success that have led to the most interesting results. No reasonable doubt now exists that the imprints in question have been produced by the tracks of bipeds impressed on the stone when in a soft state. The announcement of this extraordinary phenomenon was first made by Professor Hitchcock, in the 'American Journal of Science' (January, 1836), and that eminent geologist has since published full descriptions of the different species of imprints which he has detected, in his splendid work on the geology of Massachusetts. -- Mantell's 'Medals of Creation', vol. ii., p. 310. In the work of Dr. Mantell above referred to, there is, in vol. ii., p. 815, an admirable diagram of a slab from Turner's Falls, covered with numerous foot-marks of birds, indicating the track of ten or twelve individuals of different sizes.] -- Tr.

[footnote] **[From the examination of the fossils spoken of by geologists under the name of 'Coprolites', it is easy to determine the nature of the food of the animals, and some other points; and when, as happened occasionally, the animal was killed while the process of digestion was going on, the stomach and intestines being partly filled with half-digested food, and exhibiting the coprolites actually 'in situ', we can make out with certainty not only the true nature of the food, but the proportionate size of the stomach, and the length and nature of the intestinal canal. Within the cavity of the rib of an extinct animal, the palaeontologist thus finds recorded, in indelible characters, some of those hieroglyphics upon which he founds his history. -- 'The Ancient World', by D. T. Ansted, 1847, p. 173.] -- Tr.

In the lower Jura formations (the lias of Lyme Regis), the ink bag of the sepia has been so wonderfully preserved, that the material, which myriads p 272 of years ago might have served the animal to conceal itself from its enemies, still yields the color with which its image may be drawn.*

[footnote] *A discovery made by Miss Mary Anning, who was likewise the discoverer of the coprolites of fish. These coprolites, and the excrements of the Ichthyosauri, have been found in such abundance in England (as, for instance, near Lyme Regis), that, according to Buckland's expression, they lie like potatoes scattered in the ground. See Buckland, 'Geology considered with reference to Natural Theology', vol. i., p. 188-202 and 305. With respect to the hope expressed by Hooke "to raise a chronology" from the mere study of broken and fossilized shells "and to state the interval of time wherein such or such castrophes and mutations have happened," see his 'Posthumous Works, Lecture', Feb. 29, 1688. [Still more wonderful is the preservation of the substance of the animal of certain Cephalopodes in the Oxford clay. In some specimens recently obtained, and described by Professor Owen, not only the ink bag, but the muscular mantle, the head, and its crown of arms, are all preserved in connection with the belemnite shell, while one specimen exhibits the large eyes and the funnel of the animal, and the remains of two fins, in addition to the shell and the ink bag. See Ansted's 'Ancient World', p. 147.] -- Tr.

In other strata, again, nothing remains but the faint impression of a muscle shell; but even this, if it belong to a main dividion of mollusca,* may serve to show the traveler, in some distant land, the nature of the rock in which it is found, and the organic remains with which it is associated.

[footnote] *Leop. von Buch, in the 'Abhandlungen der Akad. der Wiss. zu Berlin in dem Jahr' 1837, s. 64.

Its discovery gives the history of the country in which it occurs.

The analytic study of primitive animal and vegetable life has taken a double direction: the one is purely morphological, and embraces, especially, the natural history and physiology of organisms, filling up the chasms in the series of still living species by the fossil structures of the primitive world. The second is more specially geognostic, considering fossil remains in their relations to the superposition and relative age of the sedimentary formations. The former has long predominated over the latter, and an imperfect and superficial comparison of fossil remains with existing species has led to errors, which may still be traced in the extraordinary names applied to certain natural bodies. It was sought to identify all fossil species with those still extant in the same manner as, in the sixteenth century, men were led by false analogies to compare the animals of the New Continent with those of the Old. Peter Camper, Sommering, and Blumenbach had the merit of being the first, by the scientific application of a more accurate p 273 comparative anatomy, to throw light on the osteological branch of palaeontology -- the archaeology of organic life; but the actual geognostic views of the doctrine of fossil remains, the felicitous combination of the zoological character with the order of succession, and the relative ages of strata, are due to the labors of George Cuvier and Alexander Brongniart.

The ancient sedimentary formations and those of transition rocks exhibit, in the organic remains contained within them, a mixture of structures very variously situated on the scale of progressively-developed organisms. These strata contain but few plants, as, for instance, some species of Fuci, Lycopodiaceae which were probably arborescent, Equisetaceae, and tropical ferns; they present, however, a singular association of animal forms, consisting of Crustacea (trilobites with reticulated eyes, and Calymene), Brachiopoda ('Spirifer, Orthis'), elegant Sphaeronites, nearly allied to the Crinoidea,* Orthoceraitites, of the family of the Cephalopoda, corals, and, blended with these low organisms, fishes of the most singular forms, imbedded in the upper silurian formations.

[footnote] *Leop. von Buch, 'Gebirgsformationen von Russland', 1840, s. 24-50.

The family of the Cephalaspides, whose fragments of the species 'Pterichtys' were long held to be trilobites, belongs exclusively to the devonian period (the old red), manifesting, according to Agassiz, as peculiar a type among fishes as do the Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri among reptiles.*

[footnote] *Agassiz, 'Monographie des Poissons Fossiles du vieux Gres Rouge', p. vi. and 4.

The Goniatites, of the tribe of Ammonites,* a are manifested in the transition chalk, in the graywacke of the devonian periods, and even in the latest silurian formations.

[footnote] *Leop. von Buch, in the 'Abhandl. der Berl. Akad.', 1838, s. 149-168; Beyrich, 'Beitr. zur Kenntniss des Rheinischen Uebergangagebirges', 1837, s. 45.

The dependence of physiological gradation upon the age of the formations, which has not hitherto been shown with perfect certainty in the case of invertebrata,* is most regularly manifested in vertebrated animals.

[footnote] *Agassiz, 'Recherches sur les Poissons Fossiles', t. i., 'Introd.', p. xviii.; Davy, 'Consolation in Travel', dial. iii.

The most ancient of these, as we have already seen, are fishes; next in the order of succession of formation, passing from the lower to the upper, come reptiles and mammalia. The first reptile (a Saurian, the Monitor of Cuvier), which excited the attention of Leibnitz,* is found in cuperiferous schist of the Zechstein of Thuringa; the Palaeosaurus and Thecodontosaurus of Bristol are, according to Murchison, of the same age.

[footnote] *A Protosaurus, according to Hermann von Meyer. The rib of a Saurian asserted to have been found in the mountain limestone (carbonate of lime) of Northumberland (Herm. von Meyer, 'Palaeologica', s. 299), is regarded by Lyell ('Geology', 1832, vol. i., p. 148) as very doubtful. The discoverer himself referred it to the alluvial strata which cover the mountain limestone.

The Saurians are found in large numbers in the muschelkalk,* in the keuper, and in the oolitic formations, where they are the most numerous.

[footnote] *F. von Alberti, 'Monographie des Bunten Sandsteins, Muschelkalks und Keupers', 1834, s. 119 und 314.

At the period of these formations there existed Pleiosauri, having long, swan-like necks consisting of thirty vertebrae; Megalosauri, monsters resembling the crocodile, forty-five feet in length, and having feet whose bones were like those of terrestrial mammalia, eight species of large-eyed Ichthyosauri, the Geosaurus or 'Lacerta gigantea', of Sommering, and finally, seven remarkable species of Pterodactyles,* of Saurians furnished with membranous wings.

[footnote] *See Hermann von Meyer's ingenious considertions regarding the organization of the flying Saurians, in his 'Palaeologica', s. 228-252. In the fossil specimen of the Pterodactylus crassirostris, which, as well as the loonger known P. longirostris (Ornithocephalus of Sommering), was found at Solenhofen, in the lithographic slate of the upper Jura formation, Professor Goldfuss has even discovered traces of the membranous wing, "with the impressions of curling tufts of hair, in some places a full inch in length."

In the chalk the number of the crocodilial Saurians diminishes, although this epoch is characterized by the so-called crocodile of Maestricht (the Mososaurus of Conybeare), and the colossal, probably graminivorous Iguandon. Cuvier has found animals belonging to the existing families of the crocodile in the tertiary formation, and Scheuchzer's 'antediluvian man' ('homo diluvii testis'), a large salamander allied to the Axolotl, which I brought with me from the large Mexican lakes, belongs to the most recent fresh-water formations of Oeningen.*

[footnote] *[Ansted's 'Ancient World', p. 56.] -- Tr.

The determination of the relative ages of organisms by the superposition of the strata has led to important results regarding the relations which have been discovered between extinct families and species (the latter being but few in number) and those which still exist. Ancient and modern observations concur in showing that the fossil floras and faunas differ more from the present vegetable and animal forms in proportion as they belong to lower, that is, more ancient sedimentary formations. The numerical relations first deduced by Cuvier p 275 from the great phenomena of the metamorphism of organic life,* have led, through the admirable labors of Deshayes and Lyell, to the most marked results, especially with reference to the different groups of the tertiary formations, which contain a considerable number of accurately investigated structures.

[footnote] *Cuvier, 'Recherches sur les Ossemens Fossiles', t. i., p. 52-57. See, also, the geological scale of epochs in Phillips's 'Geology', 1837, p. 166-185.

Agassiz, who has examined 1700 species of fossil fishes, and who estimates the number of living species which have either been described or are preserved in museums at 8000, expressly says, in his masterly work, that, "with the exception of a few small fossil fishes peculiar to the argillaceous geodes of Greenland, he has not found any animal of this class in all the transition, secondary or tertiary formations, which is specifically identical with any still extant fish." He subjoins the important observation "that in the lower tertiary formations, for instance, in the coarse granular calcareous beds, and in the London clay,* one third of the fossil fishes belong to wholly extinct families.

[footnote] *[See 'Wonders of Geology', vol. i., p. 230.] -- Tr.

Not a single species of a still extant family is to be found under the chalk, while the remarkable family of the 'Sauroidi' (fishes with enameled scales), almost allied to reptiles, and which are found from the coal beds -- in which the larger species lie -- to the chalk, where they occur individually, bear the same relation to the two families (the Lepidosteus and Polypterus) which inhabit the American rivers and the Nile, as our present elephants and tapirs do to the Mastodon and Anaplotheriun of the primitive world."*

[footnote] *Agassiz, 'Poissons Fossiles', t. i., p. 30, and t. iii., p. 1-52; Buckland, 'Geology', vol. i., p. 273-277.

The beds of chalk which contain two of these sauroid fishes and gigantic reptiles, and a whole extinct world of corals and muscles, have been proved by Ehrenberg's beautiful discoveries to consist of microscopic Polythalamia, many of which still exist in our seas, and in the middle latitudes of the North Sea and Baltic. The first group of tertiary formations above the chalk, which has been designated as belonging to the 'Eocene Period', does not, therefore, merit that designation, since "the 'dawn of the world' in which we live extends much further back in the history of the past than we have hitherto supposed."*

[footnote] *Ehrenberg, 'Ueber noch jetzt lebende Thierarten der Kreidelnldung', in the 'Abhandl. der Berliner Akad.', 1839, s. 164.

As we have already seen, fishes, which are the most ancient of all vertebrata, are found in the silurian transition strata, p 276 and then uninterruptedly on through all formations to the strata of the tertiary period, while Saurians begin with the zechstone. In like manner, we find the first mammalia ('Thylacotherium Prevostii', and 'T. Bucklandii', which are nearly allied according to Valenciennes,* with marsupial animals) in the oolitic formations (Stonesfield schist), and the first birds in the most ancient cretaceous strata.**

[footnote] *Valenciennes, in the 'Comptes Rendus de l'Academie des Sciences', t. vii., 1838, Part ii., p. 580.

[footnote] **In the Weald clay; Bendant, 'Geologie', p. 173. The ornitholites increase in number in the gypsum of the tertiary formations. Cuvier, 'Ossemens Fossiles', t. ii., p. 302-328.

Such are, according to the present state of our knowledge, the lowest* limits of fishes, Saurians, mammalia, and birds.

[footnote] *[Recent collections from the southern hemisphere show that this distribution was not so universal during the earlier epochs as has generally been supposed. See papers by Darwin, Sharpe, Morris, and McCoy, in the 'Geological Journal'.] -- Tr'.

Although corals and Serpulidae occur in the most ancient formations simultaneously with highly-developed Cephalopodes and Crustaceans, thus exhibiting the most various orders grouped together, we yet discover very determinate laws in the case of many individual groups of one and the same orders. A single species of fossil, as Goniatites, Trilobites, or Nummulites, sometimes constitutes whole mountains. Where different families are blended together, a determinate succession of organisms has not only been observed with reference to the superposition of the formations, but the association of certain families and species has also been noticed in the lower strata of the same formation. By his acute discovery of the arrangement of the lobes of their chamber-sutures, Leopold von Buch has been enabled to divide the innumerable quantity of Ammonites into well-characterized families, and to show that Ceratites appertain to the muschelkalk, Arietes to the lias, and Goniatites to transition limestone and graywacke.*

[footnote] *Leop. von Buch, in the 'Abhandl. der Berl. Akad.', 1830, s. 135-187.

The lower limits of Belemnites are, in the keuper, covered by Jura limestone, and their upper limits in the chalk formations.*

[footnote] *Quenstedt, 'Flotzgebirge Wurtembergs', 1843, s. 135.

It appears, from what we now know of this subject, that the waters must have been inhabited at the same epoch, and in the most widely-remote districts of the world, by shell-fish, which were at any rate, in part, identical with the fossil remains found in England. Leopold von Buch has discovered exogyra and trigonia in the southern hemisphere (volcano of p 277 Maypo in Chili), and D'Orbigny has described Ammonites and Gryphites from the Himalaya and the Indian plains of Cutch, these remains being identical with those found in the old Jurassic sea of Germany and France.

The strata which are distinguished by definite kinds of petrifacations, or by the fragments contained within them, form a geognostic horizon, by which the inquirer may guide his steps, and arrive at certain conclusions regarding the identity or relative age of the formations, the periodic recurrence of certain strata, their parallelism, or their total suppression. If certain strata, their parallelism, or their total suppression. If we classify the type of the sedimentary structures in the simplest mode of generalization, we arrive at the following series in proceeding from below upward: 1. The so-called 'transition rocks', in the two divisions of upper and lower graywacke (silurian and devonian systems), the latter being formerly designated as old red sandstone. 2. The 'lower trias',* comprising mountain limestone, coal-measures, together with the lower new red sandstone (Todtliegende and Zechstein).** 3. The 'upper trias', including variegated sandstone,** muschelkalk, and keuper. 4. 'Jura limestone' (lias and oolite). 5. 'Green sandstone', the quader sanstein, upper and lower chalk, terminating the secondary formations, which begin with limestone. 6. 'Tertiary formations' in three divisions, distinguished as granular limestone, the lignites, and the sub-Apennine gravel of Italy.

[footnote] *Quenstedt, 'Flotzgebirge Wurtembergs', 1843, s. 13.

[footnote] ** Murchison makes two divisions of the 'bunter sandstone', the upper being the same as the 'trias' of Alberti, while the lower division, to which the 'Vosges sandstone' of Elie de Beaumont belongs -- the 'zeckstein' and the 'todtliegende' -- he forms his 'Permian' system. He makes the secondary formations commence with the 'upper trias', that is to say, with the upper division of our (German) bunter sandstone, while the Permian system, the carboniferous or mountain limestone, and the devonian and silurian strata, constitute his 'palaeozoic formatiions'. According to these views, the chalk and Jura constitute the upper, and the keuper, the muschelkalk, and the bunter sandstone the lower secondary formations, while the Permian system and the carboniferous limestone are the upper, and the devonian and silurian strata are the lower palaeooic formation. The fundamental principles of this general classification are developed in the great work in which this indefatigable British geologist purposes to describe the geology of a large part of Eastern Europe.

Then follow, in the alluvial beds, the colossal bones of the mammalia of the primitive world, as the mastodon, dinothrium p 278 missurium, and the megatherides, among which is Owen's sloth-like mylodon, eleven feet in the length.*

[footnote] *[See Mantell's 'Wonders of Geology', vol. i., p. 168.] -- Tr.

Besides these extinct families, we find the fossil remains of still extant animals, as the elephant, rhinoceros, ox, horse, and stag. The field near Bogota, called the 'Campo de Gigantes', which is filled with the bones of mastodons, and in which I caused excavations to be made, lies 8740 feet above the level of the sea, while the osseous remains, found in the elevated plateaux of Mexico, belong to true elephants of extinct species.*

[footnote] *Cuvier, 'Ossemens Fossiles', 1821, t. i., p. 157, 261, and 264. See, also, Humboldt, 'Ueber die Hochebene von Bogota', in the 'Deutschen Vierteljahrs-schrift', 1839, bd. i., s. 117.

The projecting spurs of the Himalaya, the Sewalik Hills, which have been so zealously investigated by Captain Cantley* and Dr. Falconer, and the Cordilleras, whose elevations are probably, of very different epochs, contain, besides numerous mastodons, the sivatherium, and the gigantic land tortoise of the primitive world ('Colossochelys'), which is twelve feet in length and six in height, and several extant families, as elephants, rhinoceroses, and giraffes; and it is a remarkable fact, that these remains are found in a zone which still enjoys the same tropical climate which must be supposed to have prevailed at the period of the mastodons.**

[footnote] *[The fossil fauna of the Sewalik range of hills, skirting the southern base of the Himalaya, has proved more abundant in genera and species of mammalia than that of any other region yet explored. As a general expression of the leading features, it may be stated, that it appears to have been composed of representative forms of all ages, from the 'oldest of the tertiary period down to the modern', and of 'all the geographical' divisions of the Old Continent grouped together into one comprehensive fauna. 'Fauna Antiqua Sivaliensis', by Hugh Falconer, M.D., and Major P. T. Cautley.] -- Tr.

Having thus passed in review both the inorganic formations of the earth's crust and the animal remains which are contained within it, another branch of the history of the organic life still remains for our consideration, viz., the epoch of vegetation, and the successive floras that have occurred simultaneously with the increasing extent of the dry land and the modifications of the atmosphere. The oldest transition strata, as we have already observed, contain merely cellular marine plants, and it is only in the devonian system that a few cryptogamic forms of vascular plants (Calamites and Lycopodiaceae) have been observed.*

[footnote] *Beyrich, in Karsteu's 'Archiv fur Mineralogie', 1844, bd. xviii., s. 218.