Vestiges of the natural history of creation / [Anon].

  • Robert Chambers
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vestiges of the natural history of creation / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    sponding strata of distant parts of the earth; for instance, Russia and North America. In the old red sandstone, the marine plants, of which faint traces are observable in the Silurians, continue to appear. It would seem as if less change took place in the vegetation than in the animals of those early seas; and for this, as Mr. Miller has remarked, it is easy to imagine reasons. For example, an infusion of lime into the sea would destroy animal life, but be favourable to vegetation. As yet there were no land animals or plants, and for this the presumable reason is, that no dry land as yet existed. We are not left to make this inference solely from the absence of land animals and plants; in the arrangement of the primary (stratified) rocks, we have further evidence of it. That these rocks were formed in a generally hori- zontal position, we are as well assured as that they were formed at the bottom of seas. But they are always found greatly inclined in position, tilted up against the slopes of the granitic masses which are beneath them in geological order, though often shooting up to a higher point in the atmo- “sphere. No doubt can be entertained that these granitic masses, forming our principal mountain E
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