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the best evidence of the lapse of time. I remember having been much struck with the evidence of denudation, when viewing volcanic islands, which have been worn by the waves and pared all round into perpendicular cliffs of one or two thousand feet in height; for the gentle slope of the lava-streams, due to their formerly liquid state, showed at a glance how far the hard, rocky beds had once extended into the open ocean. The same story is still more plainly told by faults,— those great cracks along which the strata have been up-heaved on one side, or thrown down on the other, to the height or depth of thousands of feet; for since the crust cracked, (it makes no great difference whether the up-heaval was sudden, or, as most geologists now believe, was very slow and effected by many starts), the surface of the land has been so completely planed down by the action of the sea that no trace of these vast dislocations is externally visible.
The Craven fault, for instance, extends for upwards of 30 miles, and along this line the vertical displacement of the strata has varied from 600 to 3000 feet. Prof. Ramsay has published an account of a downthrow in Anglesea of 2300 feet; and he informs me that he fully believes there is one in Merionethshire of 12,000 feet; yet in these cases there is nothing on the surface to show such prodigious movements; the pile of rocks on the one or other side having been smoothly swept away. The consideration of these facts impresses my mind almost in the same manner as does the vain endeavour to grapple with the idea of eternity.
I have made these few remarks because it is highly important for us to gain some notion, however imper- fect, of the lapse of years. During each of these years, over the whole world, the land and the water has been peopled by hosts of living forms. What an infinite number of
the best evidence of the lapse of time. I remember having been much struck with the evidence of denudation, when viewing volcanic islands, which have been worn by the waves and pared all round into perpendicular cliffs of one or two thousand feet in height; for the gentle slope of the lava-streams, due to their formerly liquid state, showed at a glance how far the hard, rocky beds had once extended into the open ocean. The same story is still more plainly told by faults,— those great cracks along which the strata have been upheaved on one side, or thrown down on the other, to the height or depth of thousands of feet; for since the crust cracked (it makes no great difference whether the upheaval was sudden, or, as most geologists now believe, was very slow and effected by many starts), the surface of the land has been so completely planed down by the action of the sea, that no trace of these vast dislocations is externally visible.
The Craven fault, for instance, extends for upwards of 30 miles, and along this line the vertical displacement of the strata has varied from 600 to 3000 feet. Prof. Ramsay has published an account of a downthrow in Anglesea of 2300 feet; and he informs me that he fully believes there is one in Merionethshire of 12,000 feet; yet in these cases there is nothing on the surface of the land to show such prodigious movements; the pile of rocks on the one or other side having been smoothly swept away. The consideration of these facts impresses the mind almost in the same manner as does the vain endeavour to grapple with the idea of eternity.
I have made these few remarks because it is highly important for us to gain some notion, however imperfect, of the lapse of time. During each .. year, over the whole world, the land and the water have been peopled by hosts of living forms. What an infinite number of