PUBLISHED MONTHLY AT THREE DOLLARS PER ANNUM-JNO. R. THOMPSON, EDItor.

RICHMOND, SEPTEMBER, 1855.

THE PRE-ADAMITE WORLD.

specting them are still but theories-in many points inconsistent and obscure.

We begin with the ancient theories.

Few studies are more intrinsically inter-Among these that of ARISTOTLE stands con

esting than Geology. There is not one, at the present time, which enjoys more of the attention of the learned or general reader. This is not to be wondered at. The Earth is the birth-place and scene of action of our race, and of a vast variety of races of other animals than man. Its creation and age, the changes it seems undoubtedly to have undergone, all these considerations render Geology deeply interesting. At present, no liberally educated mind, or mind of any desire of knowledge, should be without some acquaintance with this subject. The general reader

cannot fail to meet with continual references to the theories of the learned on the subject of the strata of the earth, of its contents, age, and other circumstances of its past and present condition, as well as of the actual operations going on, in its interior and on its surface. A general knowledge of past and recent discoveries and facts, all subjects of gratifying interest, tends greatly to expand and enrich the mind.

spicuous. His theory was, that matter exis ted from eternity-was self-existent; and some even of modern Atheists have resorted to this theory rather than admit the creative power and intelligence of a Great First Cause.*

The next theory was that of EPICURUSthe Atomic theory. This was, that before der it is now in, there was an infinite empty the world was brought into that form and orspace in which were an innumerable comsizes and shapes, which by their weight were pany of solid particles or atoms of different sizes and shapes, which by their weight were in continual motion, and that by the various occursions of these, all the bodies of the universe were framed into that order they now are in; that is, that atoms of matter were brought together by matter and motion, and thus this world with its wonders (of fortuitous concourse of atoms. power, design and wisdom) originated in the

Although the Cartesian theory cannot properly be called ancient, yet having been broached before the modern theories drawn Besides the mental enjoyment, and resour- from the facts disclosed by Natural Philosoces for mental employment afforded by Ge-phers styled Geologists, it may be here menology, the vast uses of minerals and metals tioned. It was proposed by the celebrated for the comfort, luxury, and power of civili- French Philosopher, Des Cartes. The theory zed man, render this science of incalculable is, that the Globe and the planetary systems service to our race-to its progress in arts and suns were produced by mechanical laws while it opens to the reflecting and religious of matter. He, however, admitted, that mind, subjects of "wonder, gratitude, and these laws were originally impressed on matlove," and leads it irresistibly to the grand ter by an intelligent Creator; but the forms and exalting truth of an Infinite, Great, Wise, and aggregations and motions of matter and Beneficent Creator, Governor, and Bene- were produced by these laws, without any factor of all things, of all events, and of all further or more direct and immediate applibeings. cation and direction of an overruling and guiding intelligence.

All the modern theories of the origin of

The several theories which have been held, in different ages, by Philosophers of the greatest note, may be

reduced to four. First, such as suppose the world to have existed as it is from eternity. Second, such as attribute the formation of the world as it is to God, but still assert the pre-existence and eternity of matter.

Before proceeding directly to the subject of our paper, it may be entertaining, if not instructive, to recal to the mind of the reader, the theories of ancient Philosophers respecting the origin of our earth. Although these theories are vain and unphilosophical according to our present knowledge of the laws of matter, yet it is but justice to the Third, such as deny eternity to the world, but assert the ancients to acknowledge, that while the mod-origin of it to have been by a casual concourse of atoms, erns have discovered many facts unknown and, fourthly, such as endeavor to explain the origia of the Universe and all appearances of Nature, merely by formerly, their own accounts of the origin the mechanical laws of the motions of matter. See Ori and changes of our globe, the theories re-gines Sacra; London, 1667, folio, page 423.

our Earth, admit the original creation of says, "In the beginning God created the matter by an infinitely Wise, Powerful and Heavens and the Earth," the word beginning Benevolent Being.

In the present paper we intend to accept the order of the strata, and the various fossil remains contained in them, as they are arranged and classified by the writers of the school of "indefinite ages" before the creation of Man.

as we

is used to express an undefined period of time, At present, the theories as such, are divi- which was antecedent to the last great change ded into two systems or schools. One as- that affected the surface of the Earth, and serts that at a vast and indefinite length of to the creation of its present animal and time, far greater than 6,000 years-the ori- vegetable inhabitants; during which period ginal matter of our globe existed in a cha- a long series of operations and revolutions otic condition, and by the joint action of may have been going on; which, as they water and heat was gradually brought to so- are wholly unconnected with the history of lidity and form; that it passed through many the human race, are passed over in silence cataclasms, or destructive revolutions, by by the sacred historian, whose only concern which the successive races of animals have with them was barely to state that the mat been destroyed, and their remains fossilized ter of the Universe is not eternal and selfin the different strata. The theory further existent, but was originally created by the asserts, that each cataclasm more and more power of the Almighty.* suited the earth for the residence of more and more perfect forms of animal existences, until finally, it was rendered fit for the residence of MAN, who was then created to live on it. This is called the "Continental Theory of Geology," as opposed to the other theory maintained by many English writers, If we consider the Geological Record as a particularly by Grenville Penn, and Fair- history of our world through ages long anteholme. rior to the creation of Man, our first object These writers contend, that a period of should be to divide it into ages, or periods, 6,000 years, which is usually called the Sa- cannot in this instance reckon by cred or Bible Chronology, was sufficient years. The Stratified Rocks may be divided for the formation of the strata of the earth; into ten principal Formations, each of which and that all Geological facts which are well indicates an entirely new era in the Earth's ascertained can be best accounted for on the history; while each of the layers which supposition of the creation of the earth, with compose a formation indicates but some parall animal and vegetable existences, 6,000 tial revolution. Each formation contains years ago; and that man and other animals remains peculiar to itself, which do not exand vegetables whose fossils have been found tend into the neighboring deposits above or in the strata, were cotemporaneously created. below it; although there is a connection beThey contend, that the period from the cre- tween the different formations, more strong ation to the flood-the action of the diluvial in proportion to their proximity to each waters-and the combined operation of sec- other.t These Formations or systems are ondary causes to our age, are sufficient to as follows, beginning with the lowest. account satisfactorily for all Geological facts. 1st. The Lower Silurian. 2nd. The UpMany very learned and eminent Christian per Silurian. 3rd. The Devonian. 4th. The Geologists join in the theory of indefinite Carboniferous Formation. 5th. The Trias, ages before the existence of man, and ac- or Saliferous Formation. 6th. The Oölitic commodate this theory to the usual con- Formation. 7th. The Cretacious, or Chalk struction of the Bible Chronology, by sup- Formation. 8th. The Lower Tertiary, or posing that the first verse of Genesis is to Eocine. 9th. The Upper Tertiary, or Miobe taken as independent of the following cine and Pliocine. 10th. The Drift. sentences-that it is intended to teach the great truth that God created the Earth and Heavens, in contradiction to all heathen and Atheistical notions respecting the origin of the World. They contend, that when Moses

It is in the Lower Silurian formation that we begin to mark the gradual preparation of the Globe for the reception of its destined * Prof. Buckland's Bridgewater Treatise, page 25. t M. Agassiz' Principles of Zoology.

inhabitants. Before this period, we may appear to have been among the very first of suppose that there existed a globe, whose created beings. surface exhibited alternations of land and So low is the organization of the group of water; the land having in some places a animals, .constituting the true corals, that stratified appearance, and the thick masses former naturalists denied their animal char of strata resting on huge bosses and peaks acter, and from superficial examination of of granite and other igneous rock: but all their external appearance, placed them was then bare and desolate; not a moss nor among the wonders of the vegetable world. a lichen covered the naked skeleton of the But these apparently insignificant little creaglobe; not a sea-weed floated in the broad tures assume a greater importance in the ocean; not a trace existed even of the least history of our world, when we view them as highly organized animal or vegetable; every the authors of the immense coral reefs, and thing was still, and with the stillness of ab- limestone rocks, so widely spread, and imsolute death. The Earth was indeed pre-portant in nature. It is now clearly ascer pared, and the fiat of creation had gone tained that many strata of limestone are forth; but there was as yet no inhabitant, coral-reefs, formed by these creatures, and and no being endowed with life had been changed from the coraline form by great introduced to perform its part in the great and immense pressure. It is in the Ocean, mystery of Creation.* however, that the herculean labor and inTime rolled on, and as age after age dustry of the coral insect is displayed. Seas elapsed, the earth became adapted to the and shallows, once navigable, have become reception of life, the waters swarmed with in process of time so filled by these anianimated beings, and in the silurian strata mals, as to become impassable; and not the organic remains of many and distinct only barriers and reefs owe their origin to species of shell-fish are met with in abun- these humble means, but large lands, stretchdance; principally Graptolites, the very ing for miles in the centre of the Ocean, simplest form of animal existence; the rise gradually from beneath the surface of Polyps, or Coralines; the Crinoides, and a of the sea, and, becoming clothed with vermost singular and interesting race of Crus-dure and vegetation, at last offer a resting tacean animals called Trilobites, so called place for the daring seafarer. from the body being divided into three lobes Mr. Lyell is of opinion that corals build by two fissures, running through the length. upon the rims and in the craters of submaBeginning with the simplest form of orga- rine volcanoes; and this opinion derives nized beings, we find the species of Polyps confirmation from the fact, that these reefs called Graptolites, found in a fossil state. are always observed to be of a circular or These seem to have been, says Professor oval form, often surrounded by a deep, and Ansted, the horny skeletons and animals not sometimes an unfathomable Ocean.* Upon unlike those which are often met with on these foundations the reef-building saxigethe coral and sea-weeds of the coast of Eng-nous corals become attached, and slowly acland. They were formed like these, by a cumulating in numbers, and gradually devast multitude of individual Polyps attached positing their carbonate of lime, they by to a tough central mass, the whole constitu- degrees construct these large piles, which, ting a kind of compound animal, in which at last emerging from the Ocean's bosom, each individual works to increase the gene- appear as newly-formed continents and ral mass, and is affected by that which af- islands. The grand scale on which these fects this mass; but each, also, has a sepa- minute animals are at work, may be imarate existence, being provided with a stom-gined when we hear that there is a chain of ach and arms, to obtain and digest food, coral-reefs, nearly 500 miles in length, in and capable of being injured or destroyed the Indian Ocean; that on the coast of New without the functions of the complete body Holland is an unbroken line of the same, being at all interfered with. These animals nearly 400 miles long; and that between this and New Guinea, another coral forma* Professor Ansted. Pic. Sketches of Creation.

page 35.

* Dr. Comstock's and Mr. Lyell's Geologies

tion exists, 700 miles in extent!* How angular tail, composed of segments folding strange it is, that such simple means can re- over each other like the tail of the lobster. sist the ever-flowing and roaring sea- The animal, remarks Professor Ansted, that such simple animals can uprear a ma- seems not to have had antennæ, and to have sonry which shall resist the violence of the possessed short and rudimentary legs. From waves, and defy the power of the breakers. the absence of antennæ, and the want of Is it not strange that a single polyp can form powerful extremeties, as well as from the a structure in the bosom of the deep, which manner in which these fossils are found, we shall stand, a victorious antagonist to the may conclude that the different species storm, when the works of man shall have lived for the most part in shallow water, not crumbled into nothing before the relentless buried in mud, but floating near the surface fury of a disturbed ocean !† with their under side uppermost, feeding on Another curious animal belonging to the the minute and perhaps microscopic animacSilurian group, is the Lily Encrinite, so ules that usually abound in such localities.* called "because many of them exhibit The most peculiar organ of the Trilobite, the appearance of a cup-shaped flower, however, was the eye, which was composed opening on the top of a stalk, with nume- of four hundred minute spherical lenses placed rous tentacula or arms branching in all di- in separate compartments, and so situated rections for the seizure of prey!" The stalk that at the animal's usual place directly under and tentacula were composed of innumera- the surface of the water it could see everyble small plates of calcarious or bony sub- thing around without moving from the spot stance, connected by a muscular integu- in which it was lying.t Philosophers have ment, so as to be capable of bending in all remarked with delighted surprise the evidirections. The bottom of a sea, says dence afforded by the eye of the Trilobite, Chambers, filled with a number of such an- that the air and light were generally the imals, yielding to its every current and im- same in the early ages of the earth as now, pulse, and each spreading about its far- and that the sea must have been as clear; reaching arms for prey, must have been a for if the water had been that imaginary striking sight. Fragments and single bones turbid and compound chaotic fluid, from the of the Encrinite are found in vast quantities, precipitates of which some Geologists have forming in some places the principal portion supposed the materials of the surface of the of masses a hundred and twenty feet thick! earth to be derived, what use would the But by far the most interesting fossil of Trilobite have had for such delicate visual this period, is the Trilobite, an animal which organs ? "With regard to the atmosphere appears at one time to have been spread also we infer, that had it differed materially over the whole Earth, or in the waters on from its actual condition, it might have so the earth. There were several varieties of far affected the rays of light, that a corresthis curious animal, amounting, according to ponding difference from the eyes of existing M. Brogniant, to five genera, and seventeen Crustaceans would have been found in the species. The fossil remains of the Tribo- organs on which the impressions of such lite were long supposed to be those of in- rays were then received. Regarding sight sects; (Entomolithus paradoxus,) but after itself also, we learn from the resemblance of matured investigation they have been fixed these most ancient organizations to existing in the class of Crustaceans. The front part eyes, that the mutual relations of sight to of the body of the Trilobite was formed the eye, and of the eye to sight, were the like a large crescent shaped shield, while same at the time when Crustaceans endowed the hinder portion consisted of a broad tri- with the faculty of vision were first placed at the bottom of the primeval seas, as at the

29.

Comstock. Chambers In. for the People. Vol. 1, p. present moment."‡

f Sharpe's Magazine.

A most interesting description of these animals, illustrated by cuts, may be seen in Professor Buckland's Bridgewater Treatise.

Ansted's An. World.

This kind of eye is also common to the butterfly, and the dragonfly, the former of which has 35,000, and the latter 14,000 lenses!

Buckland's Bridgewater Treatise, vol. I. page 303.