Geology and Revelation: or, the Ancient History of the Earth, considered in the geological facts and revealed religion.Molloy, Gerald
Religion
Geology and Revelation: or, the Ancient History of the Earth, considered in the geological facts and revealed religion.
Molloy, Gerald
Bible and geology; Bible and science
It would carry us too far from our present purpose to draw out this
theory in all its details. But we cannot for-bear briefly to touch upon
some of the bold and startling conclusions to which it has led. The
Geologist having, by patient and varied exercise, in the regions of
existing Glaciers, trained his eye and his judgment in the observation
of those phenomena that mark the action of moving ice, soon begins to
discover that they are not wanting in other countries. They are not
to be found, indeed, beneath the burning sun of Africa, nor on the
borders of the Mediterranean Sea. But as he travels northward they
begin by degrees to appear; and when at length he reaches the shores
of the Baltic, they are spread out profusely before him as they were
in the bosom of the Alps. All this had puzzled Geologists for years;
but the clue has been found at last. What is going on to-day in
Switzerland, and in Greenland, and on the shores of Labrador, must have
been going on, ages ago, in Germany, and in Denmark, and on the shores
of the Baltic. We may argue from the effect to the cause. Here are the
moraines, the erratics, the perched blocks, and the surfaces of rock
furrowed and scratched with ice: at some past time there must have been
the moving Glaciers and the floating Icebergs.
Following out this line of argument, and applying it to countries
nearer home, Geologists have come to the conclusion that the Grampian
Hills in Scotland, the mountains of Kerry in Ireland, the Snowdonian
heights in Wales, and many other ranges of hills in these islands,
were in former times subjected to the action of moving ice. Nay, it
is contended, with much show of reason, that these islands must have
been, for a considerable time, in great part submerged beneath the
sea, and traversed by floating Icebergs. When large erratic blocks are
found in the immediate neighborhood of the formation from which they
have been derived, then it is easy to explain their origin and to trace
their course. But it often happens that the nearest rock of the same
mineral composition, and therefore, the nearest rock from which they
can possibly have been derived, is separated from the site which they
now occupy by a lofty chain of mountains. By what means, then, have
they been transported hither? Not by moving water, for their sharp
edges and projecting angles are still preserved. Not by Glaciers; for
a Glacier cannot climb a steep mountain ridge. It would seem, indeed,
that in the present geographical distribution of land and water, there
is no natural cause which could carry them from the parent rocks to
their present position. But if we suppose that in some long past age of
the world, Great Britain and Ireland were submerged beneath the sea,
and that Icebergs floated in the waters above, the problem is solved
at once. The fragments of far distant rocks frozen into the Icebergs
might then have been carried over the summits of what are now lofty
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