Some Salient Points in the Science of the Earth

Name: Some Salient Points in the Science of the Earth
Author: Dawson, John William, Sir

Dawson, John William, Sir

Geology; Paleontology

References:--On Rusichnites (a form of Bilobite), _Canadian
    Naturalist_, 1864. On Footprints of Limulus compared with
    Protichnites, etc. _Ibid._ On Footprints and Impressions of Aquatic
    Animals and Imitative Markings, _Amer. Journal of Science_, 1873.
    On Burrows and Tracks of Invertebrate Animals, _Quarterly Journal
    of Geological Society_, 1890. On Footprints of Carboniferous
    Batrachians. "Acadian Geology," "Air-breathers of the Coal Period,"
    etc.




                    _PRE-DETERMINATION IN NATURE._


                      DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF

                           ELKANAH BILLINGS,

                        First Palæontologist of

                   the Geological Survey of Canada,

               who laid the Foundations of our Knowledge

                of the Invertebrate Fossils of Canada.


Fixity of Laws and Properties of Energy and Matter--Permanence of
Continents and Oceans--The Permanent and the Changeable--Permanence of
Animal and Vegetable Forms and Structures--Principles of Construction
in the Parts of Trilobites--In the Skeletons of Sponges--In Early
Vertebrates--In Plants Laws of Fixity and Diversity

[Illustration: Restoration of Protospongia Tetranema. Quebec group;
Siluro-Cambrian, Little Metis (p. 335).]




CHAPTER XII.

_PRE-DETERMINATION IN NATURE._


The natural prejudice of persons not acquainted with geology is that
in the world all things continue as they were from the beginning.
But a little observation and experience dispels this delusion, and
perhaps replaces it with an opposite error. When our minds have been
familiarized with the continuous processes by which vaporous nebulæ
may be differentiated into distinct planets, and these may be slowly
cooled from an incandescent state till their surfaces become resolved
into areas of land and water; and still more, when we contemplate the
grand procession of forms of life from the earliest animals and plants
to man and his contemporaries, we become converts to the doctrine that
all things are in a perpetual flux, and that every succeeding day sees
them different from what they were the day before. In this state of
mind the scientific student is apt to overlook the fact that there are
many things which remain the same through all the ages, or which, once
settled, admit of no change. I do not here refer to those fundamental
properties of matter and forces and laws of nature which form the basis
of uniformitarianism in geology, but to determinations and arrangements
which might easily have been quite different from what they are, but
which, once settled, seem to remain for ever.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

Some Salient Points in the Science of the EarthDawson, John William, Sir

Science

Some Salient Points in the Science of the Earth

Dawson, John William, Sir

Geology; Paleontology

References:--On Rusichnites (a form of Bilobite), _Canadian
    Naturalist_, 1864. On Footprints of Limulus compared with
    Protichnites, etc. _Ibid._ On Footprints and Impressions of Aquatic
    Animals and Imitative Markings, _Amer. Journal of Science_, 1873.
    On Burrows and Tracks of Invertebrate Animals, _Quarterly Journal
    of Geological Society_, 1890. On Footprints of Carboniferous
    Batrachians. "Acadian Geology," "Air-breathers of the Coal Period,"
    etc.




                    _PRE-DETERMINATION IN NATURE._


                      DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF

                           ELKANAH BILLINGS,

                        First Palæontologist of

                   the Geological Survey of Canada,

               who laid the Foundations of our Knowledge

                of the Invertebrate Fossils of Canada.


Fixity of Laws and Properties of Energy and Matter--Permanence of
Continents and Oceans--The Permanent and the Changeable--Permanence of
Animal and Vegetable Forms and Structures--Principles of Construction
in the Parts of Trilobites--In the Skeletons of Sponges--In Early
Vertebrates--In Plants Laws of Fixity and Diversity

[Illustration: Restoration of Protospongia Tetranema. Quebec group;
Siluro-Cambrian, Little Metis (p. 335).]




CHAPTER XII.

_PRE-DETERMINATION IN NATURE._


The natural prejudice of persons not acquainted with geology is that
in the world all things continue as they were from the beginning.
But a little observation and experience dispels this delusion, and
perhaps replaces it with an opposite error. When our minds have been
familiarized with the continuous processes by which vaporous nebulæ
may be differentiated into distinct planets, and these may be slowly
cooled from an incandescent state till their surfaces become resolved
into areas of land and water; and still more, when we contemplate the
grand procession of forms of life from the earliest animals and plants
to man and his contemporaries, we become converts to the doctrine that
all things are in a perpetual flux, and that every succeeding day sees
them different from what they were the day before. In this state of
mind the scientific student is apt to overlook the fact that there are
many things which remain the same through all the ages, or which, once
settled, admit of no change. I do not here refer to those fundamental
properties of matter and forces and laws of nature which form the basis
of uniformitarianism in geology, but to determinations and arrangements
which might easily have been quite different from what they are, but
which, once settled, seem to remain for ever.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Some Salient Points in the Science of the Earth

Some Salient Points in the Science of the Earth

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