The Old Red Sandstone, Or, New Walks in an Old Field |
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Page 31
... edge . I returned to the quarry , convinced that a very ex- quisite pleasure may be a very cheap one , and that the busiest employments may afford leisure enough to enjoy it . The gunpowder had loosened a large mass in one of the ...
... edge . I returned to the quarry , convinced that a very ex- quisite pleasure may be a very cheap one , and that the busiest employments may afford leisure enough to enjoy it . The gunpowder had loosened a large mass in one of the ...
Page 32
... edge , and was much struck by the appearance of the plat- form on which it had rested . The entire surface was ridged and furrowed like a bank of sand that had been left by the tide an hour before . I could trace every bend and ...
... edge , and was much struck by the appearance of the plat- form on which it had rested . The entire surface was ridged and furrowed like a bank of sand that had been left by the tide an hour before . I could trace every bend and ...
Page 74
... edge of the creature's snout , where a line running along the back would bisect a line running along the belly , but this part is less perfectly shown by my specimens than any other . The two arms or paddles are placed so far forward as ...
... edge of the creature's snout , where a line running along the back would bisect a line running along the belly , but this part is less perfectly shown by my specimens than any other . The two arms or paddles are placed so far forward as ...
Page 97
... edge of a saw or comb ; and the order , thus dis- tinguished , is found wonderfully to agree with an order formed previously on another principle of classi- fication , the Acanthopterygii , or thorny - finned order of Cuvier , excluding ...
... edge of a saw or comb ; and the order , thus dis- tinguished , is found wonderfully to agree with an order formed previously on another principle of classi- fication , the Acanthopterygii , or thorny - finned order of Cuvier , excluding ...
Page 109
... edge of each seems jagged into a row of prickles ( see Plate VI . fig . 3 ) . The jaws of the Cheirolepis were armed with thickly - set sharp teeth , like those of its cotemporaries the Osteolepis and Diplopterus . CHAPTER V. The ...
... edge of each seems jagged into a row of prickles ( see Plate VI . fig . 3 ) . The jaws of the Cheirolepis were armed with thickly - set sharp teeth , like those of its cotemporaries the Osteolepis and Diplopterus . CHAPTER V. The ...
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Common terms and phrases
abundance acquainted Agassiz ancient animal appearance Balruddery body bone bony Caithness carboniferous cartilaginous Cephalaspis character Cheiracanthus Coal Measures coast Coccosteus colour composed conglomerate Cornstone cotemporaries covered creature Cromarty crustacean curious deposit depth described diluvium Dipterus edge Edinburgh enamelled entire existing feet fins fish Forfarshire fossils fragments furnished geological geologist gneiss granitic gray hills Holoptychius huge hundred ichthy ichthyolite beds inch jaws Lias lime limestone localities Lower Old Red marked mass middle minute Moray Moray Frith Murchison nigh nodules northern occur ocean Old Red Sand Old Red Sandstone Oolite organisms osseous Osteolepis pebbles peculiar period plates portion precipices present Pterichthys quarry rays reader remains reptiles resembling ridge rock scales schists Scotland seems shells shore side Silurian skeleton species specimens spines stone strata stratified clay stratum surface Sutor tail teeth thick thickly tion trilobite tubercules vast vegetable vertebral column vertebrated
Popular passages
Page 90 - See through this air, this ocean, and this earth, All matter quick, and bursting into birth! Above, how high progressive life may go ! Around, how wide ! how deep extend below ! Vast chain of being! which from God began; Natures...
Page 260 - Of fish, that with their fins and shining scales Glide under the green wave, in sculls that oft Bank the...
Page 33 - ... a more conclusive proof that the bank which had enclosed them so long could not have been created on the rock on which it rested. No workman ever manufactures a half-worn article, and the stones were all half-worn! And if not the bank, why then the sandstone underneath? I was lost in conjecture, and found I had food enough for thought that evening, without once thinking of the unhappiness of a life of labour.
Page 90 - Natures ethereal, human, angel, man, Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see, No glass can reach; from infinite to thee; From thee to nothing — On superior...
Page 216 - Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present — advances us in the dignity of thinking beings.
Page 28 - ... employments — to work in a quarry. Bating the passing uneasiness occasioned by a few gloomy anticipations, the portion of my life which had already gone by had been happy beyond the common lot. I had been a wanderer among rocks and woods — a reader of curious books when I could get them — a gleaner of old traditionary stories; and now I was going to exchange all my day-dreams, and all my amusements, for the kind of life in which men toil every day that they may be enabled to eat, and eat...
Page 285 - Fill'd with the face of heaven, which, from afar Comes down upon the waters, all its hues, From the rich sunset to the rising star, Their magical variety diffuse ; And now they change ; a paler shadow strews Its mantle o'er the mountains; parting day Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues With a new colour as it gasps away, The last still loveliest, till — 'tis gone — and all is gray.
Page 30 - ... fields; but the sun rose in a clear atmosphere, and the day mellowed, as it advanced, into one of those delightful days of early spring, which give so pleasing an earnest of whatever is mild and genial in the better half of the year. All the workmen rested at midday, and I went to enjoy my half-hour alone on a mossy knoll in the neighboring wood, which commands through the trees a wide prospect of the bay and the opposite shore.
Page 26 - ... perhaps it is too true that, with some good, you have received much evil at their hands. It must be confessed they have hitherto been doing comparatively little for you, and a great deal for themselves. But upper and lower classes there must be, so long as the world lasts ; and there is only one way in which your jealousy of them can be well directed. Do not let them get ahead of you in intelligence. It would be alike unwise and unjust to attempt casting them down to your own level...
Page 29 - ... and simple and rude as I had been accustomed to regard these implements, I found I had much to learn in the way of using them. They all proved inefficient, however, and the workmen had to bore into one of the inferior strata, and employ gunpowder. The process was new to me, and I deemed it a highly amusing one : it had the merit, too, of being attended with some such degree of danger as a boating or rock excursion, and had thus an interest independent of its novelty.