The Religion of Geology and Its Connected Sciences Part 11

If this be doubted by any one, it must be because he has never been placed in circ.u.mstances to call into exercise his natural love of the beautiful and the sublime in creation. Let me persuade such a one, at least in imagination, to break away from the slavish routine of business or pleasure, and in the height of balmy summer to accompany me to a few spots, where his soul will swell with new and strong emotions, if his natural sensibilities to the grand and beautiful have not become thoroughly dead within him.

We might profitably pause for a moment at this enchanting season of the year, (June,) and look abroad from that gentle elevation on which we dwell, now all mantled over with a flowery carpet, wafting its balmy odors into our studies. Can any thing be more delightful than the waving forests, with their dense and deep green foliage, interspersed with gra.s.sy and sunny fields and murmuring streamlets, which spread all around us? How rich the graceful slopes of yonder distant mountains, which bound the Connecticut on either side! How imposing Mount Sugar Loaf on the north, with its red-belted and green-tufted crown, and Mettawampe too, with its rocky terraces on the one side, and its broad slopes of unbroken forest on the other! Especially, how beautifully and even majestically does the indented summit of Mount Holyoke repose against the summer sky! What sunrises and sunsets do we here witness, and what a mult.i.tude of permutations and combinations pa.s.s before us during the day, as we watch from hour to hour one of the loveliest landscapes of New England!

Let us now turn our steps to that huge pile of mountains called the White Hills of New Hamps.h.i.+re. We will approach them through the valley of the Saco River, and at the distance of thirty miles they will be seen looming up in the horizon, with the clouds reposing beneath their naked heads. As the observer approaches them, the sides of the valley will gradually close in upon him, and rise higher and higher, until he will find their naked granitic summits almost jutting over his path, to the height of several thousand feet, seeming to form the very battlements of heaven. Now and then will he see the cataract leaping hundreds of feet down their sides, and the naked path of some recent landslip, which carried death and desolation in its track. From this deep and wild chasm he will at length emerge, and climb the vast ridge, until he has seen the forest trees dwindle, and at length disappear; and standing upon the naked summit, immensity seems stretched out before him. But he has not yet reached the highest point; and far in the distance, and far above him, Mount Was.h.i.+ngton seems to repose in awful majesty against the heavens. Turning his course thither, he follows the narrow and naked ridge over one peak after another, first rising upon Mount Pleasant, then Mount Franklin, and then Mount Monroe, each lifting him higher, and making the sea of mountains around him more wide and billowy, and the yawning gulfs on either side more profound and awful, so that every moment his interest deepens, and reaches not its climax till he stands upon Mount Was.h.i.+ngton, when the vast panorama is completed, and the world seems spread out at his feet. Yet it does not seem to be a peopled world, for no mighty city lies beneath him. Indeed, were it there, he would pa.s.s it almost unnoticed. For why should he regard so small an object as a city, when the world is before him?--a world of mountains, bearing the impress of G.o.d's own hand, standing in solitary grandeur, just as he piled them up in primeval ages, and stretching away on every side as far as the eye can reach. On that pinnacle of the northern regions no sound of man or beast breaks in upon the awful stillness which reigns there, and which seems to bring the soul into near communion with the Deity. It is, indeed, the impressive Sabbath of nature; and the soul feels a delightful awe, which can never be forgotten. Gladly would it linger there for hours, and converse with the mighty and the holy thoughts which come crowding into it; and it is only when the man looks at the rapidly declining sun that he is roused from his revery and commences his descending march.

Let such a man next accompany me to Niagara. We will pa.s.s by all minor cataracts, and place ourselves at once on the margin of one that knows no rival. Let not the man take a hasty glance, and in disappointment conclude that he shall find no interest and no sublimity there. Let him go to the edge of the precipice, and watch the deep waters as they roll over, and, changing their sea-green brightness for a fleecy white, pour down upon the rocks beneath, and dash back again in spray high in the air. Let him go to the foot of the sheet, and look upward till the cataract swells into its proper size. Let him, on the Canada sh.o.r.e, take in the whole breadth of the cataract at once; and as he stands musing, let him listen to the deep thunderings of the falling sheet. Let him go to Table Rock, and creep forward to its jutting edge, and gaze steadily into the foaming and eddying waters so far beneath him, until his nerves thrill and vibrate, and he involuntarily shrinks back, exclaiming,--

"How dreadful And dizzy 'tis to cast one's eyes so low!

I'll look no more, Lest my brain turn."

Next, let him stand upon that rock till the sun approaches so near the western horizon that a glorious bow, forming an almost entire circle on the cataract and the spray, shall clothe the scene with unearthly beauty, and, in connection with the emerald green of the waters, give it a brilliancy fully equal to its sublimity. And finally, if he would add the emotions of moral to natural sublimity, let him follow to Ontario, the deep gulf through which all these waters flow, and, gathering up the evidence, which he will find too strong to resist, that they themselves have worn that gulf backward seven miles, let him try the rules of geological arithmetic to see if he can reach the period of its commencement. Surely, when he reviews the emotions of that day, he will never again doubt that the magnificent scenery of our world is the result of benevolent design on the part of the Creator.

If, now, we cross the Atlantic, we shall easily find scenes of natural beauty and sublimity, that have long elicited the wonder and delight of thousands of genuine taste. Shall we turn our steps first to the valleys and mountains of Wales? To an American eye, indeed, they lack one important feature, in being so dest.i.tute of trees. But then their wild aspect, their ragged and rocky outlines, present a picture of the sublimity of desolation rarely equalled. And as you ascend the mountains,--Snowdon, for instance, the highest of them all,--you find their summits, not rounded, as our American mountains, by former drift agency, nor forming continuous ridges, but shooting up in ragged peaks and edges, as if they formed the teeth of mother earth; although, in fact, it was the tooth of time that has gnawed them into their present forms. As you approach the summit, you feel animated in antic.i.p.ation of the splendid prospect about to open upon you. But the clouds begin to gather, and soon envelop the mountain top; and though you reach the pinnacle, the dense mist limits your vision to a circle of a few rods in diameter. But ere long the vapor begins to break away, and the lofty cliffs and deep caverns around you are revealed. Now and then, the lake, so often found in the recesses of these mountains, is half seen through the opening cloud, and, magnified by the obscurity, it seems more distant and grand than if distinctly visible. Gradually the clouds open in various directions, disclosing gulf after gulf, lake after lake, mountain after mountain, and, finally, the Irish Channel, dotted with sails; and the whole scene lies spread out before you in glories that cannot be described. You are standing upon the pinnacle of England, and you feel as if almost the whole of it lay within the circle of vision. After enjoying so splendid a scene, you are thankful that the cloud hid it at first from your sight, and so much enhanced your pleasure by opening vista after vista, till the whole became one magnificent circle of picturesque beauty and sublimity.[14]

To relieve the mind after gazing long on such scenes of rugged grandeur, let us turn our course southerly, and follow down the romantic banks of the Wye, where every turn presents some new beauties, occasionally disclosing the ruins of some old castle, or magnificent abbey, (Tinton,) and at length Bristol, with its aristocratic adjunct, Clifton, turns your thoughts from the works of nature to those of man. And yet, even Clifton's elegant Crescent is but a meagre show by the side of the magnificent gorge which the Avon has cut in the rocks just before it enters Bristol Channel.

Pa.s.sing over to the Isle of Wight, and traversing its sh.o.r.es, we shall witness many unique examples of natural beauty, swelling sometimes into sublimity,--such are the chalk cliffs near its western extremity, from two hundred to six hundred feet high,--sometimes hollowed out into magnificent domes, and the pillars of chalk, called _Needles_, in the midst of the sea, alive with sea gulls and cormorants, and forming the remnants of the chalk bridge that once united the island to England. There, too, Alum Bay, with its many-colored strata of clay, unites the interesting in geology with the picturesque in scenery.

Along the southern coast, also, are the stupendous cliffs and the romantic under-cliffs, as well as the ragged _chines_, where an almost tropical climate attracts the invalid, while the cool sea breezes draw thither the wealthy and the fas.h.i.+onable.

But if sublime scenery pleases us more, we must traverse the Highlands of Scotland,--

"Land of brown heath and s.h.a.ggy furze,"

land of lofty and naked mountains, embosoming lakes of great beauty, and full of historic and poetic interest.

Pa.s.sing over Loch Lomond, the queen of Scottish lakes, you go through the long shadow of Ben Lomond, propped by many lesser mountains. Rising into the Highlands, the sterility and wildness increase, and reach their maximum in Glencoe, whose wildness and sublimity are indeed indescribable; but if seen, they can never be forgotten. Still farther north, Ben Nevis lifts its uncovered head above all other mountains in the British Isles; so high, indeed, that often, during the whole summer, it retains a portion of its snowy, wintry mantle.

Yet farther north, we come to the unique terraces, called the _Parallel Roads of Glen Roy_, formerly supposed to be the work of giants; but now, that they are known to be the product of nature, proving not only objects of great scenographical interest, but a problem of special importance and difficulty in geology.

If we should pa.s.s from Scotland to the north-east part of Ireland, taking Staffa in our way, we should find in the basaltic columns of Fingal's Cave, and the Giant's Causeway, what seems, at first view, to be stupendous human structures, or rather the architecture of giants. But you soon find it to be only an example--

"Where nature works as if defying art, And, in defiance of her rival powers, By these fortuitous and random strokes, Performing such inimitable feats, As she, with all her rules, can never reach."

Let any one sail along the coast for a few miles at the Giant's Causeway, enter some of the deep and echoing caverns, overhung by the basaltic ma.s.s, and see the columns rising tier above tier, sometimes four hundred feet in height, and a.s.suming every wild and fantastic shape; or let him walk over the acres of columns, whose tops are as perfectly polygonal and as accurately fitted to one another as the most skilful architect could make them, and he will confess how superior Nature is, when she would present a model for human imitation; and how with accurate system she can combine the wildest disorder, and thus delight by symmetry, while she awes by sublimity.

Let us next pa.s.s over to continental Europe. We have reached the Rhine at Bonn, and the steamboat takes us at once into the midst of the romantic Drachenfels, or seven mountains, the result of volcanic agency, and still presenting more or less of the conical outline peculiar almost to modern volcanoes. These are the commencement of the romantic scenery of the Rhine. From thence to Bingen, some sixty or seventy miles, that river has cut its way through hills and mountains, sometimes rising one thousand feet. Along their base, the inhabitants have planted many a well-known town, while old castles, half crumbled down, recall continually the history of feudal ages; and here, too, springs up a mult.i.tude of remembrances of startling events in more recent times. The mind, indeed, finds itself drawn at one moment to some historical monument, and the next to scenery of surpa.s.sing beauty or sublimity; now the bold, overhanging rock, now the deep recess, now the towering mountain, now the quiet dell with its romantic villages; while every where on the north bank, the vine-clad terraces show us what wonders human industry can accomplish.

Nor does the Rhine lose its interest when we have emerged from its _Ghor_ into its more open valley, from Bingen to Basle, in Switzerland. On its right bank, the Vosges Mountains, and on its left, the Black Forest, with not infrequent volcanic summits, afford a fine resting-place for the eye, as the rail car bears us rapidly over the rich intervening level. Or if we turn aside,--as to Heidelberg, on the Neckar,--what can be a more splendid sight than to stand by the old castle above the town, and look down the valley as the sun is sinking in the west!

But after all, it is in Switzerland, and there only, that we meet with the climax of scenographical wonders. Nowhere else can we find such lakes in the midst of such mountains; such pleasant valleys bordered by such stupendous hills; such gorges, and precipices, and pa.s.ses, and especially such glaciers; such avalanches, such snow-capped mountains, while vegetation at their base, and far up their sides, is fresh and luxuriant.

Embark, for instance, at Zurich, and, crossing its beautiful lake, direct your course towards Mount Righi. As the heavy diligence lifts you above the lake, you begin to catch glimpses of the grandeur of the Swiss mountains to the south, piercing the clouds far off. Pa.s.sing the romantic Zug, you come to the valley between the Rossberg and the Righi, and the denuded face of the former tells you whence came the ma.s.s of ruins over which you clamber, and which buried the villages of Goldau, Bussingen, and Rothen several hundred feet deep with blocks of stone and soil. Long and steep is your ascent of Righi, nearly six thousand feet above the sea. But the views you obtain by the way become wider and grander at every step.

Reaching the summit near sunset, you may be gratified by a panoramic view of a large part of Switzerland, embracing its wildest and grandest scenery. Yet, if the clouds prevent, you wait for the morning, in the hope of being more fortunate. With the earliest dawn you awake, and proceed to the summit of the mountain, where hundreds, perhaps, from all civilized lands, are congregated, to witness the rising of the sun. But a dense cloud envelops the mountain, and hope almost dies within you. Wait, however, a few moments, and the rising sun will depress the clouds below the mountain's summit, and a scene of glory shall open upon you, which can never be erased from your memory. Look now, for the sun's first rays have shed a flood of glory over the clouds which now fill the valleys beneath your feet. A fleecy white predominates; but the colors of the prism tinge the edges of the clouds, and no part of the solid earth rises above them, save the pinnacle on which you stand, and to the south the higher peaks of the Bernese Alps,--the Jungfrau, the Eiger, the Shreckhorn, and the Wetterhorn,--covered with snow and glaciers, and seeming too pure to belong to earth. Indeed, the whole scene seemed to me to be unearthly; the fittest emblem that my eyes ever rested upon of celestial scenes; and one cannot repress the desire, when looking upon it, to be borne away on wings over the glorious scene, and to repose for a time upon the gorgeous bed, forgetful of the lower world. Yet when, at length, the clouds begin to break away, and disclose the deep valleys and blue lakes,--places made immortal by the deeds of such patriots and reformers as Tell and Zuinglius,--we feel again the attractions of earth; and as we descend to Lake Lucerne, we have before us such scenery as scarcely any other part of the world can furnish. And these scenes continue, in ever-changing aspects, wherever we wander along this enchanting lake; and though the exhausted brain fails at length, the objects of interest do not.

From this lake we might turn our course easterly, and soon find ourselves amid the glacial regions of the Oberland Alps--scenes full of deep and thrilling interest. But let us rather turn southerly, and, following down the great valley of Switzerland, find our way among the Alps of Savoy, where the same phenomena attain their maximum of interest and sublimity, and the great monarch of the Alps is seen, wearing his h.o.a.ry crown. As we pa.s.s along towards Lake Lehman, if the air be clear, the Bernese Alps loom up in unrivalled majesty; and as we sail over Lake Lehman, Mont Blanc, with some of its nearly equal a.s.sociates, shows its distant yet impressive form. Pa.s.sing without notice the almost unrivalled beauties of Lehman, and following up the Arve through its stupendous gorges, we catch views of Mont Blanc, as we approach it, that possess overpowering sublimity. At length, Chamouny is reached--a lovely vale in the midst of Alpine wonders.

From thence we first ascend the Flegre, thirty-five hundred feet above the valley, and sixty-five hundred above the ocean; and there we get a fine view of Mont Blanc and the Aiguilles, or Needles. Here distances are vastly diminished to the eye, and you seem in near proximity even with Mont Blanc; and, in fact, should any adventurous visitors have reached the top of that mountain, a good spy-gla.s.s will show them from this spot.[15]

On the opposite side of the valley from the Flegre, and at about the same height, is Montanvert, the most convenient spot for traversing the glacier called the Mer de Glace. If, however, one would see the lower extremity of that glacier, and the Arveron issuing from it, he must pa.s.s along the right hand side of the stream, and then he can follow up the glacier to Montanvert; and strange would it be if, in doing this, he should not hear and see the frequent avalanche.

We have now reached the field where everlasting war is carried on between heat and cold, summer and winter. Below us, verdure clothes the valleys, and climbs up the slopes of the hills; and there the shepherd watches his flocks. Above us there are fields of ice stretching many a league, save where some needle-shaped summit of naked rock, too steep for snow to rest upon, shoots up in lonely grandeur thousands of feet, and defies the raging elements. From these oceans of ice shoot forth down the valleys enormous glaciers, appearing like vast rivers of ice, winding among the hills, and pus.h.i.+ng, at the rate of a few inches each day, far into regions of vegetation; one year encroaching upon the shepherd's pasture ground, and anon, by the access of heat, driven back towards the summit; hurling down, from time to time, as they push forward, the thundering avalanche.

Without difficulty at Montanvert we can enter upon the glacier, and in spite of the deep _creva.s.se_, and the elemental war, which always rages in those lofty regions, we may make our way to their source. Nay, human feet, as already suggested, have pressed even the top of Mont Blanc; and should we reach this summit of the Alps, we should stand upon the loftiest point of Europe, and behold a scene which but few eyes ever have, or ever will, rest upon. We should

"breathe The difficult air of the iced mountain's top, Where the birds dare not build, nor insect's wing Flit o'er the herbless granite."

We should, in fact, have reached the climax of the sublime in natural scenery.

Thus far I have described, almost without exception, only what I have seen. But let us now venture into regions where we have only the description of others to guide us. Let us enter the region of ancient Armenia, a country composed of wide plains, bounded and intersected by precipitous mountains. As we journeyed south-easterly over one of these plains, a remarkable conical summit would arrest our attention, at the distance of sixty miles. Day after day, as we approached, it would creep up higher and higher above the horizon, developing its commanding features, and rivetting more intensely the attention upon it. As we came near its base, we should see that its top rose far into the region of eternal ice, whose gla.s.sy surface would reflect the light like a mirror, and whose lower edge had shot forth enormous glaciers as far as the heat would allow them to descend. In the plain below, we should be sweltering in a tropical heat; but the same sun that melted us would make no impression upon the wintry crown of the mountain. We could not keep our eyes or thoughts turned away from an object so sublime. And it would deepen the impression to learn that this gigantic cone, shooting up three and a half miles, was once a volcano; and still more would it deepen our interest to learn that this is the mountain which universal tradition in that region regards as the Mount Ararat, the resting-place of the ark. It would strike us forcibly to realize that what seems to us now to be a pillar of heaven, was the patriarch's stepping-stone from the antediluvian into the postdiluvian world.

One more example may suffice. Go with me to the Sandwich Islands, and we shall get an impressive glimpse of the princ.i.p.al agency by which the earth's crust has been ridged, furrowed, and dislocated. As we land upon Hawaii, we perceive it to be composed mainly of lava of no very ancient date. We ascend a lofty _plateau_, and many a league in advance of us we see a column of smoke rising from a vast plain. Directing our course thither, while yet some miles from it, we descend a steep slope to a broad terrace, and then another slope to a second terrace. These slopes and terraces extend circularly around the pillar of smoke like the seats of a vast amphitheatre.

Coming near to this column, our steps are arrested on the margin of a vast gulf, fifteen hundred feet deep, and from eight to ten miles in circ.u.mference, whose bottom is the seat of the most remarkable volcano on the globe;--I mean Kilauea. Wait here till night closes around us, and we shall witness a scene of awful sublimity. Over the immense area of that gulf will the volcanic agency beneath be exerted. Ever and anon, and mingling in strange discord, will hissings and groanings, mutterings and thunderings, be heard rolling from side to side, and making the earth tremble around. Then from one and another volcanic cone--perhaps from fifty--will the glowing lava burst forth; red-hot stones will be driven furiously upward; vapor, and smoke, and flames will be poured out, and the dark and jagged sides of that vast furnace will glow with unearthly splendor; and here and there will lakes of liquid lava appear, one or two miles in extent, heaving up their billows, and das.h.i.+ng their fiery spray high into the air. O, there is not on earth a livelier emblem of the world of despair; and yet we know it is not the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, nor the abode of lost spirits. We know it to be only one of the safety-valves of our globe, and an exhibition of that mighty agency within the globe which has heaved and dislocated its crust; and, therefore, as we gaze upon the scene, and forget our fatigue and sleep, we experience only the emotions of awful sublimity, which can hardly fail to rise into adoration of that infinite Being who can say, even to this agency, Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther.

These are samples only of those delightful emotions which he experiences, who possesses a taste for natural scenery. And kindred emotions will be awakened within him, wherever he wanders among the works of G.o.d. They form some of the purest and most satisfying pleasures which this world affords.

They const.i.tute pleasant oases along the dreary journey of life; and so deeply does memory engrave them on her tablet, that no change of time or circ.u.mstances can hide them from our view. Now, it is obvious that if the Author of nature and of the human soul had been malevolent, instead of making every thing which man meets in creation "beauty to his eye, and music to his ear," he would have made all offensive and painful. Instead of the delightful emotions of beauty and sublimity which now rise within us as we open our eyes upon nature, feelings of aversion and fear would haunt us. Every sound would have been discordant, and every sight terrific. He could not have been even indifferent to our happiness, when he commissioned those desolating agencies of nature, fire and water, to ridge up and furrow out the earth's surface as the groundwork of the future landscape. For he has taken care that the result should be a scene productive of pleasure only to the soul that is in a healthy state.

Benevolence only, infinite benevolence, could have done this.

_My third argument in favor of the divine benevolence is founded on the arrangements for the distribution of water on the globe._

We should expect on so uneven a surface as the earth presents, that this element, which forms the liquid nourishment of all organic life, and which in many other ways seems indispensable, must be very unequally distributed, and fail entirely in many places; and yet we find it in almost every spot where man erects his habitation. And those places where there is a deficiency are usually extended plains; not, as we should expect, the mountainous regions. The latter are usually well watered; and this is accomplished in three ways. In the first place, in most mountainous countries, the strata are so much tilted up, as to prevent the water from running off. In the second place, the pervious strata are frequently interrupted by faults sometimes filled by impervious matter. In the third place, the comminuted materials that cover the rocks as soils, are often so fine, or of such a nature, as to prevent the pa.s.sage of water; and thus much of the water that falls upon elevated land remains there, while enough percolates through the pervious materials to water the valleys and supply the streams. These carry it to the lakes and the ocean, where it is returned by evaporation in the form of clouds, and thus an admirable system of circulation is kept up, whereby this essential element is purified, and conveyed to every part of the surface where man or beast require it.

There is one recent discovery, which deserves notice here, because it depends upon the geological structure of the earth. When pervious and impervious strata alternate, and are considerably inclined, water may be brought from great depths by hydrostatic pressure, if the impervious stratum be bored through and the water-bearing deposit be reached. A perpetual fountain may thus be produced, and water be obtained in a region naturally deficient in it. An Artesian fountain of this description, in the suburbs of Paris, has been brought from the enormous depth of eighteen hundred feet![16]

Now, just consider that to deprive the earth of water is to deprive it of inhabitants, and you cannot but see in the means by which it is so widely, nay, almost universally, diffused, and made to circulate for purification,--the most decided marks of divine benevolence. Why is it not as striking as the curious means by which the blood and the sap of animals and plants are sent to every part of the system to supply its waste, and give it greater development?

_I derive a fourth geological argument for the benevolence of the Deity, from the manner in which the metallic ores are distributed through the earth's crust._

It can hardly be doubted, by the geologist, that nearly every part of the earth's crust, and its interior too, have been some time or other in a melted state. Now, as the metals and their ores are usually heavier than other rocks, we should expect that they would have acc.u.mulated at the centre of the globe, and have been enveloped by the rocks so as to have been forever inaccessible to man. And the very great weight of the central parts of the earth--almost twice that of granite--leads naturally to the conclusion that the heavier metals may be acc.u.mulated there, though this is by no means a certain conclusion; since at the depth of thirty-four miles air would be so condensed by the pressure of the superinc.u.mbent ma.s.s as to be as heavy as water; water at the depth of three hundred and sixty-two miles would become as heavy as quick-silver; and at the centre steel would be compressed into one fourth, and stone into one eighth, of its bulk at the surface. Still it is most probable that the materials naturally the heaviest would first seek the centre. And yet, by means of sublimation, and expansion by internal heat, or the segregating power of galvanic action, or of some other agents, enough of the metals is protruded towards the surface, and diffused through the rocks in beds, or veins, so as to be accessible to human industry. Here, then, we find divine benevolence, apparently in opposition to gravity, providing for human comfort.

I have said that these metals were accessible to human industry. And it does require a great deal of labor, and calls into exercise man's highest ingenuity to obtain them. They might have been spread in immense ma.s.ses over the surface; they might all have been reduced to a metallic state in the great furnace, which we have reason to suppose is always in blast, within the earth. But then there would have been no requisition upon the exertion and energy of man. And to have these called into exercise is an object of greater importance to society than to supply it with the metals.

G.o.d, therefore, has so distributed the ores as to stimulate man to explore and reduce them, while he has placed so many difficulties in the way as to demand much mental and physical effort for their removal. Man now, therefore, receives a double benefit. While the metals themselves are of immense service, the discipline of body and mind requisite for obtaining them is of still greater value. This is the combined result of infinite wisdom and benevolence.

If I mistake not, there is such a relation between the amount of useful metals and the wants of society as could have resulted only from divine benevolence. The metal most widely diffused, and the only one occurring in all the rock formations, from the oldest to the newest, is iron;--the metal by far the most important to civilized society. This is also by far the most abundant, and easily obtained. It often forms extensive beds, or even mountain ma.s.ses upon the surface. All the other metals are confined almost exclusively to the older rocks. Among them, lead, copper, and zinc are probably most needed, and accordingly they are next in quant.i.ty and in the facility with which they may be explored. Manganese, mercury, chrome, antimony, cobalt, a.r.s.enic, and bis.m.u.th are more difficult to obtain; but the supply is always equal to the demand. In the case of tin, silver, platinum, and gold, we find some interesting properties to compensate in a great measure for their scarcity. Gold and platinum possess a remarkable power of resisting those powerful agents of chemical change which destroy every thing else. They are never oxidized in the earth, and with a very few exceptions, the most powerful reagents leave them untouched, while platinum will not yield in the most powerful heat of the furnace. Gold, silver, and tin are capable of an astonis.h.i.+ng extension, whereby they may be spread over the surface of the more abundant metals to protect and adorn them; and since the discovery of the galvanic mode of accomplis.h.i.+ng this, so easily is it done, that I know not but a gold or silver surface is to become as common as metallic articles.

_My fifth geological argument for the divine benevolence is derived from the joint and desolating effects of ice and water upon the earth's surface, both before and after man's creation._

In northern countries, and perhaps in high southern lat.i.tudes, it seems that after the deposition of the tertiary rocks, and after the surface had a.s.sumed essentially its present shape, it was subjected for a long time to a powerful agency, whereby the rough and salient parts were worn down and rounded, the rocks in place smoothed and furrowed, valleys scooped out, huge blocks of stone transported far from the parent bed, piled up, and thick acc.u.mulations of bowlders, sand, and gravel, strewn promiscuously over the surface. At the commencement of this process, the ocean, probably loaded with ice, stood above a large part of the present continents. It soon began to subside, or the land to rise, and a more quiet action succeeded. The joint action of the ocean and the glaciers on the land ground down into sand, clay, and loam, the coa.r.s.er drift, and sorted it in the form of beaches, terraces, and alluvial deposits. All this while, both the land and the water seem to have been, for the most part, dest.i.tute of inhabitants. But these were the very processes needed for man and his contemporary races, who were to appear during the latter part of the pleistocene period. In other words, the soils were thus got ready for nouris.h.i.+ng the vegetation necessary to sustain the new creation, which would convert these desolate and deserted sea-beds into regions of fertility and happiness to teeming millions.

Now, just consider what must have been the effect of these mighty aqueous and glacial agencies upon the earth's surface. Over the level regions they strewed the finer materials; and where the rocks had been thrown up into ridges and displaced by numerous fissures, or subsequently worn into bluffs and precipices by the ocean, it needed just such an agency to smooth down those irregularities, to fill up those gulfs, to give to the hills and valleys a graceful outline, and to cover all the surface with those comminuted materials that would need only cultivation to make them a fertile soil. Some rocks do, indeed, decompose and form soils; but this process would be too slow, unless in moist and warm regions, where it is easier to find a footing for plants than in climes more uncongenial to their growth. We cannot then hesitate to regard this tremendous agency of ice and water in northern and high southern regions as decidedly beneficial in its influence. It must, indeed, have spread terrible destruction over those regions. But it seems that a time was chosen for its operation when the globe was almost dest.i.tute of organic life, and not long before the time when a new and n.o.bler creation than those previously occupying the earth was to be placed upon it. Desolating as this agency must have appeared, and actually was, at the time, yet who can doubt, when we see the ultimate fruits of it, that its origin was divine benevolence?

In the ultimate results of aqueous inundations at the present day, we can trace the same benevolent design. Those floods do, indeed, produce partial evils; nay, life, as well as property, often falls a prey to them. But they produce those alluvial soils which are more prolific of vegetation than any other on the globe. Who has not heard of the fertility of the banks of the Nile, the Niger, the Ganges, the Amazon, and the Mississippi?

all of them the fruit of inundations. Truly, such floods as these may be said _to clap their hands_ in praise of the divine goodness.

_My sixth geological argument for the divine benevolence is derived from the existence of volcanoes._

The first impression made on the mind by the history of volcanic action is, that its effects are examples rather of vindictive justice than of benevolence. And such is the light in which they are regarded by Mr.

Gisborne, an able English divine, in his "Testimony of Natural to Revealed Religion." He looks, indeed, upon all the disturbances that have taken place in the earth's crust as evidence of a fallen condition of the world, as mementoes of a former penal infliction upon a guilty race. And aside from the light which geology casts upon the subject, this would be a not improbable conclusion. Take for an example the case of volcanoes and earthquakes.