and disappeared shortly afterwards; while lately we have read of the destruction of the island of Juan Fernandez after its existence for at least two centuries. In like manner we hear of the snow on Cotopaxi, 18,858 feet above the level of the sea, having all melted in a single night; and of a valley 1000 feet wide, having been filled up with mud brought down by a flood; and of rivers dammed up, and lakes formed almost instantaneously by the eruption of volcanoes and the shock of earthquakes; of an extensive line of coast having been raised up at Chili, and immersed under a wave in the East Indies, by the operation of similar causes acting at once, and not bit by bit. Of course we are aware that Mr. Lyell has proved to the satisfaction of the nonconforming geologist, that it must have required 10,000 years for the Niagara river to cut for itself the trough, through which it flows from Lake Erie to the Horse-shoe Fall. But Mr. Fairholme has proved equally to the satisfaction of the conforming, that the same effect might have been produced in half the time. To attempt, then, to argue from such uncertain premises is the height of absurdity. Indeed, were we to follow the example of the myriad-age-believers, we could show from their own data that the world could not have existed more than 120,000 years, or at most, not more than 360,000, a sad falling off from Mr. Sedgwick's countless myriads of ages. For we are told, that in Scandinavia there are no less than three layers of sea shells; one at the height of 200 feet, another at 400, and the last at 800, where the fossil remains of a whale are to be found. We are told further, that the land rises at the rate of four feet in a century. Hence, says Mr. Lyell, it would require 5000 years to lift up the lowest deposit. Now, supposing an equal period for each layer, 20,000 years would have elapsed since the whale was in its native element. Further, as marine shells have been found on the Himalaya, about 16,000 feet high, the same rate of rise will give 40,000 years since the marine shells were at the bottom of the sea. Hence, allowing 40,000 years for each of the three formations-primary, transition, and secondary-we may infer, that the world has been made about 120,000, the magnus annus of Orpheus; and thus all the discoveries of christian geologists merely bring us to the a priori calculations of heathen philosophers; and were we to triple the period to allow for the interme

*Thus Mr. Lyell has, with all the gravity of a geologist, calculated, that as the coast of Chili was once raised five feet for a hundred miles by one shock of an earthquake, it would take only a repetition of 2000 shocks of equal violence to produce a mountain chain 100 miles and 10,000 feet high. But the ingenious gentleman has forgotten, that as the length of the chain must increase with its height-for otherwise it would be topheavy-the violence of each successive shock must increase in a geometric ratio. We leave him, therefore, to calculate the force required to

diate formations, we should only arrive at the magnus annus of Cassander. All this is, however, but the child's play of science, verging to a premature dotage, or else undermining faith by a show of reasoning founded on presumed facts; such as the philosophers of Athens relied on, when they refused their assent to the doctrine of the resurrection preached by St. Paul, because they relied, like Hume, on the principle of its being contrary to the laws of nature, and because they had never seen such an event themselves; a reason which Lord Brougham, the papa of theology, and the trumpeter of geology, has told us, is a very limited ground of deduction indeed."

The truth is, we have no data to go upon. Even coal, of whose component parts none seem to be unknown to us, will not let out the secret, torture it as we may, of the time required for its production. Hence the vagueness of Dr. Buckland's description of its formation. "Its earliest stages," says the fanciful geologist, "were amongst the swamps and forests of the primeval earth, where it flourished in the form of gigantic calamites, and stately lepidodendra and sigillaria; from their native beds these plants were torn away by the storms and inundations of a humid climate, and transplanted into some adjacent lake, estuary, or sea,* where they floated on the waters, until they sank, saturated, to the bottom, and being buried in the detritus of adjacent lands, become transferred to a new estate, among the members of the mineral kingdom. A long interment followed, during which a course of chemical changes and new combinations of their vegetable elements have converted them to the mineral condition of coal. By the elevating force of subterranean fires, these beds of coal have been uplifted from beneath the waters to a new position in the hills and mountains, where they are accessible to the industry of man;" and the Professor might have added, inaccessible also; when the seam dips under the sea, which sometimes breaks through the pits, and renders them, as the fire-damp does others, useless.

Now upon this inflated description, which is a kind of hybrid style, produced from the union of the language of a Seneca and Darwin, we have to remark, that the primeval earth consisted,

produce the mountains of America in their whole length and height. Besides, we should be glad to know where all the matter is to come from, and where all the water displaced is to go. For though we may call spirits from the vasty deep, yet granite, except when converted into gas, will not answer to our call.

* Although the Professor has thus cleverly entrenched himself in the verbiage of a legal conveyance, we conceive he will gain nothing by his manœuvre, should he be required to decide whether the coal-field in England was originally a fresh-water lake or a salt-water sea; for it could not be both. As soon as he puts in his answer, we shall be ready to take exceptions, on whatever point he chooses to join issue.

we presume, of land and water; and if so, that it had hills upon its surface, above the water; for if not, where did the lepidodendra grow? The hills, too, we guess, were formed of different strata, disposed in their usual order, reckoning from the lowest, of primary, transition, secondary, and alluvial; and if so, the coal beds must have been found, as they now are, in the transition strata of that primeval earth, or else the whole stratification of the geologist falls to pieces; by whom we are taught that certain strata follow each other in a given order, and who point to that very stratification in proof of the countless myriads of ages required for the production of the rocks in their present state.

Here, then, we have another of those reasonings in a circle, so common to persons of considerable fancy, but of no reflection; and until Dr. Buckland is pleased to enlighten us upon the subject of his primeval earth, we shall be content to believe that geology and materialism are like the sisters described by Ovid, quibus facies non omnibus una

Nec diversa tamen."

Mr. Fairholme, too, seems to have been struck with the unsatisfactory account of the Professor, especially when the geologist says, that "the causes which collected the vegetables in beds thus piled above each other, and separated by strata of vast thickness, composed of drifted sand and clay, receive illustration from the manner in which drifted timber, from the existing forests of America, is now accumulated in the estuaries of the great rivers of that continent." Upon which Mr. Fairholme remarks, It is singular, that though geologists invariably point to these great deposits in the American estuaries and lakes, as distinct examples of coal deposits, that we hear of no such saving-banks elsewhere. But granting even that such woods, rivers, lakes, and estuaries, have existed during millions of years, during which the whole intervening series of rocks has been deposited by an action, which we are told has ever existed, and is still seen in force in America, we may fairly ask, why are such deposits of coal not irregularly interspersed throughout the whole series of rocks? and why is that useful, half-vegetable, half-mineral, substance found only once, to any extent,* in the whole structure of the earth? Can it be that only once in those myriads of ages swamps and forests have been able to produce these deposits of vegetable matter? And yet if we are to adopt this theory of boundless periods, such must have been the case: for we are told by the Professor, that "our grand supplies of

"It is not only coal that occurs but once," says Mr. Fairholme, "but the different leading members of the geological series of rocks are never repeated. Thus, we have but one group of carboniferous rocks; but one formation of magnesian limestone; but one instance of blue lias; but one formation of chalk," &c. &c.

fuel are derived almost exclusively from the strata of the transition series:" and hence we are cautioned by our consistent geologist to be very economical in the use of this valuable article; for "it is of limited extent, and when once exhausted is gone for ever;" since not even the Creator himself, without the swamps and forests of the primeval earth, could give us the comfortless bog-peat, much less the crackling blaze of the candle coal; and hence, in the language of Othello, the last of geologists will say to the contents of his last shovel, "If I put thee on, thou cunningest pattern of all excellence, I know not the Promethean hand that can thy light relume." So that all we can gain by this theory of past millions of years is the doleful assurance that in a much fewer millions of years to come, all our blast furnaces will be blown out, and our rail-roads be as deserted as Hyde Park is on a September Sunday; although as a set-off it should be stated, that no Moloch machine will be able to perpetuate infant slavery, for the high and holy purpose of putting a profit of d. into the pockets of the white-slave-drivers.*

But though unlimited periods of slow formation is the great gun of the geologist, he will not disdain to use a piece of smaller calibre, when he is to manoeuvre for a rapid formation. Thus we are told that in a tropical climate stone is manufactured in a few years from sand-banks and the fragments of shell and coral; just, we presume, as scagliola is in England to order. But yet, even in temperate latitudes, we do not hear of Nature thus verifying the principle of suiting the supply to the demand of the geologists. Again, while some strata are appealed to in proof of processes so slow as to require myriads of ages for their elaboration, yet in proof of a sudden revolution we are told to view a fish, discovered with another in its mouth, but which it had not time to swallow, before it was locked up in a mountain by the sudden shock of an earthquake. Now that an oyster, muscle, or cockle, should be unable to escape from a slowly encasing deposit, is reasonable enough; but a fish, that could move freely, would scarcely undergo patiently the process of being embalmed in stone, at least if it were alive; and if dead, it would be surely destroyed before a geological undertaker could arrive, and act the part of the Egyptian embalmers, described by Herodotus. But the most curious instance of the versatility of geological genius is, where we are told of 270 species of Ammonites, that

It has been calculated that, at the present rate of consumption, the coals in England will last about 2,000 years. But as the rate will be rather an ascending than descending series, until the scarcity reduces consumption-which will be hardly felt till the last century-the stock will be exhausted earlier. Should it, however, continue 6,000 years, it will then require another primeval earth to furnish a fresh supply, and thus to verify the theory of Dr. Buckland.

differ according to the strata in which they are found, and vary in size from a line to more than four feet in diameter; and though the question is not of little moment, we hear from Dr. Buckland, that "it is useless to speculate on the physical or final causes which produced these curious changes of species, during some of the early and middle ages of geological chronology." Why needless? we ask. For if the speculation be founded on facts, and conducted with logical precision, it must lead to truth; and in that case the speculation is the thing most needful. But if it cannot arrive at that end, then indeed it is worse than useless-mischievous. But even allowing the species to be as numerous as the stars of heaven, of which the catalogue is increasing daily, how can the geologist prove by the difference of size, organs, and functions of animals, that they belong to different periods? Are the myriads of infusoria, visible only by a solar microscope, of a different period from the bottle-nose and spermaceti whale?

But while the geologists would have us thus believe that the globe itself has existed for myriads of ages, they tell us that the present modification of the strata, together with the plants and animals upon it, are of recent date. That man is a fresh formation, is asserted by Scripture, and seems to be confirmed by the traditions of the past, and the discoveries of the present. Our comparatively recent knowledge of America, and our positively recent acquaintance with the Pacific and Australia, together with our nearly complete ignorance of the interior of Africa, and of Asia, and the little improvements which till lately have taken place in machinery, afford inferential evidence of man's recent existence; while, on the other hand, the building of the pyramids, which may be fairly traced to 4000 years ago, would go to prove that man had been a much longer occupant of the earth. Hence it is not easy to come to a decision, especially when we bear in mind the improbability that a world so peculiarly fitted for man, as regards the metals and minerals, totally useless to every other creature, should have been left for countless millions of years without its appropriate inhabitant. Should it however be argued, that these myriads of ages were requisite for the full growth of all those substances, of which man alone can make any use, and with which in a savage state he not only can, but does actually dispense, the argument will, on the latter supposition, prove that things have been made without necessity; and on the former, that the Creator is the slave of necessity, and is bound by the laws of that very matter which he has himself made; and thus, again, geology brings us only back to the heathen doctrine, that Jove is weaker far than Fate, as stated by Eschylus in the Prometheus.

Here, then, we might bring this article to a close. But we are unwilling to dismiss the subject without explicitly stating