The Old Red Sandstone: Or, New Walks in an Old Field

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Gould & Lincoln, 1854 - Geology - 288 pages

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Page 177 - 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 61 - 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 61 - 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 239 - ... spines, which on these occasions are projected. I have witnessed a battle of this sort which lasted several minutes before either would give way ; and when one does submit, imagination can hardly conceive the vindictive fury of the conqueror...
Page 62 - The scale of existence from infinity to nothing, cannot possibly have being. The highest being not infinite must be, as has been often observed, at an infinite distance below infinity.
Page 220 - ... fish of an area at least a hundred miles from boundary to boundary, perhaps much more. The same platform in Orkney as at Cromarty is strewed thick with remains which exhibit unequivocally the marks of violent death. The figures are contorted, contracted, curved ; the tail in many instances is bent round to the head : the spines stick out ; the fins are spread to the full, as in fish that die in convulsions.
Page 237 - ... 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 42 - ... arms articulated at the shoulders, a head as entirely lost in the trunk as that of the ray (or skate,) and a long angular tail equal in length to a third of the entire figure.
Page 4 - Dogs" as one of the most disagreeable of all 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...
Page 42 - It opened with a single blow of the hammer ; and there, on a ground of lightcoloured limestone, lay the effigy of a creature fashioned apparently out of jet, with a body covered with plates, two powerful-looking arms articulated at the shoulders, a head as entirely lost in the trunk as that of the ray or the sun-fish, and a long angular tail.

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