The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1853-1911, 1855-11-08

habitation unjistrubed.
Immeasureably far behind US as W
have already left the fair face of the ex
tant creation, while travelling into th
night of ancient time, we yet fee!, as W
stand on the threshold of the next, or ST
lurian, system, and look down toward
the foundations of the earth, that we ar,
not half way on our course. Here, OF
surveying the fossil structures, we are frs
struck with the total change in the petri
fed inhabitants of the sea, as compared
with what we found in the mountain lime
stone; implying the lapse of long periods
of time, during the formation of the in
tervening old red sandstone which We
have just left But still more are we i'm
pressed with the lapse of duration, while
descending the long succession of strata
of which this PRIMARY fossiliferous forma
tion is composed, when We think of theil
slow derivation from the more ancient
rocks; of their oft-repeated elevation and
depression; of the long periods of repose
during which hundreds Of animal species
ran through their cycle of generations
and became extinct and of the continu-
ance Of this stratifying process, until these
thin beds had acquired, by union, the
immense thickness of a mile and half
Next below this, we reach the Cambrian
system, of almost equal thickness and
formed by the same slow process. Here
the gradual decrease of animal remains
admonishes US, that even the vast and
dreary empire Of death has its limits, and
that we are now in its outskirts. But
there is solitude greater than that of
the boundless desert, and a dreariness
more impressive than that which reigns
in a world entombed. On leaving the
state rocks of the Cambrian, and descend
ing to those of the Cumbrian formation,
we fud that the worlds of organic remains
are past, and that We have reached re-
gion older than death, because older than
life itself. Here, at least if life ever ex-
listed, all trace of it is obliterated by the
fusing power of the heat below. But we
have not even yet reached a resting place.
Passing down through the beds of mica
schist, many thousand feet in depth, to
the great gniess form alton, we find that
We have reached the limits of strati6ca-
ton itself The granite masses below,
of depth which man can never explore,
are not only crystalized themselves, but
the igeneous power acting through them,
has partially crystalized the rocks above.
Not only life, but the conditions of life,
are here at an end.
Now, is it possible for US to look from
our ideal position, backwardS and up
wards to the ten miles height-supposing
the strata to be piled regularly-from
which We have descended regularly, with
out feeling that we have reached point
of immeasurable remotness in terrestrial
antiquity? Can we think of the thin soil
of mans few thousand years, in contrast
with the succession of worlds we have
passed through; of the slow formation of
each of these worlds on worlds, by the
disintegration of more ancient materials
and their subsidence in waters; of the leaf
like thinness of great proportion of the
strata; of the consequent flow of time ne
cessary to form only few perpendicular
inches of all these miles; or of the long
periods of alternate elevation and depres-
sion, action and repose, which mark their
formation, without acknowledging that
the days and years of geology are ages
and cycles of ages! Let US conceive, if
We can, that atoms of one of these strata
have formed the sands of an hour-glass;
and that each grain counted moment,
and we may then make some approxima-
ton to the past periods of geology; periods
in the computation of which the longest
human dynasty, and even the date of tho
pyramids, would form only an insignifi.
cant fraction. Or, remembering that
only one species of animals has, SO far as
We know, died out during the sixty or
seventy centuries of mans historic exis-
tence upon earth, can we think of the
thousands, not of generations, but of spc-
cies, of races, which we have passed in
our downward track, and which have all
run through their ages of existence and
ceased; of the recurrence of this change
again and again, even in the same strata;
and of the many times over the strata
must be repeated in order to equal the
vast sum of the entire series, without feel
ing that we are standing, in idea, on
ground so immeasurably far back in the
night of time, as to fill the mind with awel
How dreadful is this placep Here, at as
incalculable secular distince, probably,
from the first creation of organic life, as
that is from the last creation-here, si-
lence once reigned: the only sound which
occasionally broke the intense stiffness
being the voice of subterranean thunder :
the only motion (not felt, for there was
none to feel it, an earthquake; the only
phenomenon, molten sea shot up from
the ferry gulf below, to form the mighty
framework of some future eontinent.--
And still that ancient silence seems to
impose its quelling influence, and to al
low in its presence the activity of nothing 9
but thought. And that thousht-what
direction mo ore natural for it to take than
to plunge still farther back into the dark
abyss Of departed time, till it has reached
First Efficient Cause!