Principles of Geology: Being an Inquiry how for the Former Changes of the Earth's Surface are Referrable to Causes Now in Operation, Volume 3John Murray, 1834 - Geology |
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action ages alluvium alteration ancient animals and plants aquatic aqueous become beds bones bottom breccia buried Calanna calcareous Campania causes caverns caves century changes clay cliffs climate coast cone considerable continually coral delta deposits depth dikes distinct district drifted earth earthquakes elevation Eocene epoch eruptions Etna example existing extinct fissures floods formations formed fossil fossil shells fragments fresh-water geological geologist globe height hundred feet hyæna igneous imbedded inhabitants insects Ischia island isles lakes land lava limestone living loess marine marl mass matter Mediterranean miles mineral Miocene mountain newer Pliocene observed ocean organic remains origin peat peperino plants and animals quadrupeds recent species reefs regions rise rivers rocks sand scoriæ sediment sedimentary seen Sicily strata subaqueous submarine suppose terrestrial terrestrial animals terrestrial plants tertiary testacea thickness tion tract travertin tuff Val del Bove Val di Noto valley vegetable volcanic zoophytes
Popular passages
Page 348 - Millions of Spirits for his fault amerced* Of Heaven, and from eternal splendours flung For his revolt; yet faithful how they stood, Their glory withered: as when Heaven's fire Hath scathed the forest oaks, or mountain pines, With singed top their stately growth though bare Stands on the blasted heath.
Page 220 - ... tides. The heat of the sun so penetrates the mass of stone when it is dry, that it splits in many places, and breaks off in flakes.
Page 243 - Never was there a dogma more calculated to foster indolence, and to blunt the keen edge of curiosity^ than this assumption of the discordance between the former and the existing causes of change.
Page 39 - ... life, in the creation of which nature has been so prodigal. A scanty number of minute individuals, only to be detected by careful research, and often not detectable at all, are ready, in a few days or weeks, to give birth to myriads, which may repress or remove the nuisances referred to. But no sooner has the commission been executed, than the gigantic power becomes dormant...
Page 58 - France, at that time uninhabited, immediately after the discovery of the passage to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope.
Page 243 - ... which every part of the earth's surface is undergoing, and by which the condition of its living inhabitants is continually made to vary. The student, instead of being encouraged with the hope of interpreting the enigmas presented to him in the earth's structure — instead of being prompted to undertake laborious inquiries into the natural history of the organic world, and the complicated effects of the igneous and aqueous causes now in operation — was taught to despond from the first. Geology,...
Page 245 - ... requisite mineral ingredients. All are now agreed that it would have been impossible for human ingenuity to invent a theory more distant from the truth; yet we must cease to wonder, on that account, that it gained so many proselytes, when we remember that its claims to probability arose partly from its confirming the assumed want of all analogy between geological causes and those now in action. By what train of investigation were all theorists brought round at length to an opposite opinion, and...
Page 139 - In recently-expired animals I could not perceive the slightest offensive smell ; and in those long dead the skin with the hair on it remained unbroken and perfect, although so brittle as to break with a slight blow. The sand-winds never cause these carcasses to change their places, for in a short time a slight mound is formed round them, and they become stationary...
Page 187 - ... matrix capable of protecting them from chemical changes, much information of historical interest will remain inscribed, and endure for periods as indefinite as have the delicate markings of zoophytes or lapidified plants in some of the ancient secondary rocks. In almost every large ship, moreover, there are some precious stones set in seals, and other articles of use and ornament composed of the hardest substances in nature, on which letters and various images are carved — engravings which...