Classics of modern science : $b (Copernicus to Pasteur)
History
Classics of modern science : $b (Copernicus to Pasteur)
Science; Science -- History
The intense cold of the Glacial period was spoken of in the tenth
chapter. Although we have not yet succeeded in detecting proofs of the
origin of man antecedently to that epoch, we have yet found evidence
that most of the testacea, and not a few of the quadrupeds, which
preceded, were of the same species as those which followed the extreme
cold. To whatever local disturbances this cold may have given rise in
the distribution of species, it seems to have done little in effecting
their annihilation. We may conclude, therefore, from a survey of
the tertiary and modern strata, which constitute a more complete and
unbroken series than rocks of older date, that the extinction and
creation of species have been, and are, the result of a slow and
gradual change in the organic world.
_Uniformity of change considered, thirdly, in reference to
subterranean movements._--Thirdly, to pass on to the last of the
three topics before proposed for discussion, the reader will find, in
the account given in the Second Book, Vol. II., of the earthquakes
recorded in history, that certain countries have, from time immemorial,
been rudely shaken again and again; while others, comprising by
far the largest part of the globe, have remained to all appearance
motionless. In the regions of convulsion rocks have been rent asunder,
the surface has been forced up into ridges, chasms have opened, or the
ground throughout large spaces has been permanently lifted up above
or let down below its former level. In the regions of tranquillity
some areas have remained at rest, but others have been ascertained,
by a comparison of measurements made at different periods, to have
arisen by an insensible motion, as in Sweden, or to have subsided very
slowly, as in Greenland. That these same movements, whether ascending
or descending, have continued for ages in the same direction has been
established by historical or geological evidence. Thus we find on the
opposite coasts of Sweden that brackish water deposits, like those
now forming in the Baltic, occur on the eastern side, and upraised
strata filled with purely marine shells, now proper to the ocean, on
the western coast. Both of these have been lifted up to an elevation
of several hundred feet above high-water mark. The rise within the
historical period has not amounted to many yards, but the greater
extent of antecedent upheaval is proved by the occurrence in inland
spots, several hundred feet high, of deposits filled with fossil shells
of species now living either in the ocean or the Baltic.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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