The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1853-1911, 1855-11-08
sTRoUDsBURG, MONROE COUNTY, Pa NOVEMBER s, 1855.

green earth, and entering on our down
ward path, our first step may take US be
low the dust of Adam, and beyond th
limits of recorded time. From the mo
ment we leave the mere surface-soil AM
touch even the nearest of the tertiart
beds all traces of human remains disap
! pear; so that let our grave be as shallow
as it may in even the latest stratifed bed
We have to make it in the dust of de
parted world. Formation now follow
form atiOns, composed chiefly of sand, ,anc
( clay, and lime, and presenting thick
nest of more than thousand feet EACH
AS We descend through these, one OF th,
most sublime fctions of mythology be
comes sober truth; for at our every steE
an age hies past. We find ourselves OF
road where the lapse Of duration il
marked-not by the succession of seasons
and of years,-but by the slow excava.
tion, BY water, Of the deep valleys in rock
marble; by the return of continent to
the bosom of an ocean in which ages be.
fore it had been slowly formed; or by the
departure of one world, and the forma.
ton of another. And accordingly, il
your first step took US below the line
which is consecrated by human dust, we
have to take but few steps more, before
we begin to find that the fosail remains OF
all those forms of animal life with which
we are most familiar, are diminishing, and
that their places are gradually supplied
by strange and yet stranger forms, till, in
the last fossiliferous formation of this d.
vision, trace of existing species become
extremely rare, and extinct species every
where predominate.
The secondary rocks receive US as into
a new fossiiferous world, or into q new
series of worlds. Taking the chalk for
nation as the first member of this series,
we fud a qualification upwards of a thous-
and feet thick. Who shall compute the
tracks Of time necessary for its slow sed-
imeptary deposition! So vast vas it,and
to widely different were It's physical con-
ditions from those which followed, that
only one trace of animal species still liv-
ing is to be found in it. Crowded as it
is with Genealogical remains, for exam
pie, not a she'll of one of the seven thous-
and existing species is discoyerable.--
Types of organic life, before unknown,
arrest our attention. and prepare us for
still more surprising forms. Descending
to the system next in order-tbe polite
with its many subdivisions, ond its thick
ness of about half mile, we recognize
new proofs of the dateless antiquity of the
earth. For, enormous as this bed is, it
was obviously formed by deposition from
sea and river water. And SO gradual
and tranquil was the operation, that, in
some places, the organic remains of the
successive strata are arranged with a
shelve like regularity reminding US of
the well-ordered cabinet of naturalist -
Here, too, the last trace of animal species
still living, has vanished. Even this link
is gone. We have reached point when
the earth was in the possession Of the gi
gaDtio forms of Saurian reptiles,-mon-
sters more appalling than the poets fan
cy ever feigned; and these are their cat
acombs. Descending through the later
red sandstone and saliferous marls of
two thousand feet in thickness, and which
exhibit, in their very variegated strain, a
succession of numerous physical changes,
cur subterranean path brings Us to the
carboniferous system, or coal formations.
These coal strata, many thousands of feet
thick, consist entirely of the spoils of sue
cessive ancient vegetable worlds. But in
the rank jungles and luxuriant wilder
nesses which arc here accumulated and
compressed, We recognise no plant of any
existing species. Here, too, We have pass
ed below the last trace of reptile life
The speaking footprints impressed on the
preceding rocks, are absent here. Nor
is there single convincing indication that
these primeval forests ever echoed to the
voice of birds. But between these strata,
beds of limestone of enormous thickness
interposed; each proclaiming the prolong-
cd existence and final extinction Of a cre-
alton. For these limestone beds are not
so much the charnel- houses of fossil ami
mails, as the remains of the animals them
selves.
The mountain masses of stone which
now surround US, extending for miles in
length and breadth, were once sentient
xistenceS-testaceou and coralline,--
living at the bottom of ancient seas and
lakes. How countless the ages necessary
for their aceum ulation; when the forma-
ton of only few inches of the strata re-
quired the life and death of many gener-
ations! Here, the mind is not merely
carried back through immeasurable per-
iods, but, while standing amidst the pet
rifed remains of this succession of pri-
meval forests and extinct races of animals
piled up into sepulchral mountains, we
seem to be encompassed by the thickest
shadow of the valley of death.
On quitting these stupendous monu-
nents of death, we leave behind us the
last vestige of land plants, and pass down
to the old rcd sandstone. The geological
character of this vast formation, again,
tells of ages innnmerable. For, though
many thousand feet in depth, it is obvl-
ously derived from the materials of more