Omphalos : $b an attempt to untie the geological knot — John Shaqi
Omphalos : $b an attempt to untie the geological knotGosse, Philip Henry
Religion
Omphalos : $b an attempt to untie the geological knot
Gosse, Philip Henry
Bible and geology; Creation; Evolution (Biology)
The Quadrupeds came in in some force; not developed from the lowest to
the highest scale of organization; for the Monkey and the Bat occur in
sands, certainly not later, if not earlier, than the London Clay,
contemporaneously with the Racoon, and before the existence of any
Rodent or Cetacean. Some Carnivora, as the Wolf and the Fox, roamed the
woods, but the character of the epoch was given by the Pachyderms.
These, however, were not the massive colossi that browse in the African
or Indian jungles of our days; no Elephant, no Rhinoceros, no
Hippopotamus was as yet formed. But several kinds of Tapir wallowed in
the morasses; and a goodly number of largish beasts, whose affinities
were with the Pachydermata, while their analogies were with the
Ruminantia, served as substitutes for the latter order, which was wholly
wanting. These interesting quadrupeds, forming the genus
_Anoplotherium_, were remarkable for two peculiarities,--their feet were
two-toed, and their teeth were ranged in a continuous series, without
any interval between the incisors and the molars. They varied in size
from that of an ass to that of a hare.
The physical conditions of our earth, when it was tenanted by these
creatures, is thus described:--"All the great plains of Europe, and the
districts through which the principal rivers now run, were then
submerged; in all probability, the land chiefly extended in a westerly
direction, far out into the Atlantic, possibly trending to the south,
and connecting the western shores of England with the volcanic islands
off the west coast of Africa. The great mountain chains of Europe, the
Pyrenees, the Alps, the Apennines, the mountains of Greece, the
mountains of Bohemia, and the Carpathians, existed then only as chains
of islands in an open sea. Elevatory movements, having an east and west
direction, had, however, already commenced, and were producing important
results, laying bare the Wealden district in the south-east of England.
The southern and central European district, and parts of western Asia,
were the recipients of calcareous deposits (chiefly the skeletons of
_Foraminifera_), forming the Apennine limestone; while numerous islands
were gradually lifted above the sea, and fragments of disturbed and
fractured rock were washed upon the neighbouring shallows or
coast-lines, forming beds of gravel covering the Chalk. The beds of
Nummulites and Miliolites, contemporaneous with those containing the
Sheppey plants and the Paris quadrupeds, seem to indicate a deep sea at
no great distance from shore, and render it probable that there were
frequent alternations of elevation and depression, perhaps the result of
disturbances acting in the direction already alluded to.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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