Bellevue gazette. [volume] (Bellevue City, N.T. [i.e. Neb.]) 1856-1858, 1858-06-10

So it is that on the Bad Lands we find
the water guage, which marks the rise
and fall of deluge which, if not that of
Noah, relieves that great phenomenon
from all the difficulties with which it has
been invested by the earlier skep,ics.
A deluge which, if not universal, was
at least extensive enough TO have SUBJ
merged all the living members Of popu-
alion as large and as widely spread as
that of Europe at the present time, not
only is possible, but is shown to have ac
,ualIy taken place.
We have corroboratiug evidence as 10
the seniority of the American continent
in the coal l-formations which Kansas and
iowa exhibit in common with the Atlantic
States. Vegetable life, in the valley Of
the Euphrates, did not begin until race
after race of extinct species of pants had
been buried in the valley of the Missouri.
This is noticed by Agassiz, in his work
on Lake Superior:
"It is n circumstance quite extraordin-
AIRY and unexpected" says this quick OBJ
server, 4" that the fossil plants of tertiary
beds Of Oeningen resemble more closely
the trees and shrubs which grow at pres
ent in the Eastern parts Of North Ameri-
ca, than those of any other parts of the
world; thus allowing us TO express COR
rectly the difference between the opposite
coasts of Europe and America, by saying
that the present Eastern America fora,
and, may add, the fauna also, have
more ancient character than those of Eu-
rope. The plants, especially the trees
and shrubs, growing in our days in the
United States, are, MS 1t were, old-fash-
ioned and the characteristic genera La
gomys, Chelydra, and the large Saaman-
ders with permanent gills, that remind Us
of the fossils of Oenngen, are at least
equally SO; they bear the marks Of form
er ages" And on the same peint Hugh
Miller says: Not only are we aVls,om-
ed to speak Of the Eastern continents as
the Old World, ia contradistiaction 10 that
post-diluyian world which succeeded it.
And yet equally, if we receive the term
in either of its acceptations, is America
AN older world silI-an older world than
that OF the Eastern continent-an older,
|
ductions, than the world before the Flood
And when the immigrant settler takes
AK amid the deep backwoods, to lay open
for the first time what he deems a new
: country, the great trees that fall before
) him-Ihs brushwood which he lops away
: with a sweep of his tool--lhe unfamiliar
herbs which he tramples under foot---lhe
! lazy fish like reptile that scarce siirs out
Of his path as he descends TO the neigh
boring creek to drink--the fierce alliga-
tor-iike tortoise, with the large limbs and
small carpace, that he sees watching
, among the reeds for fish and frogs, jus,
. as he reaches the water---and the little
2 hare like rodent, without a tail, that he
D starlles by the way all attest, by the an
2 tiqueness of the mould in which they are
a cast, how old a country the seemingly new
2 one really is-a country vastly older, IN
a type at least, than that Of the antedllu.
e yians and the palrarehs, and only TO be
: compared with that which fourished OF
the Eastern side Of the Atlantic long ere
;, The appearance Of man. and the remains
/. Of whose perished productions we fnd
Y Looked up in the IOeSs of the Rhine, oil
5 amid the lignites of Nassau. America
e is emphatically the old World"
d There is an interesting question no
d unfamiliar to the natural theologian which
d arises on this state of facts. Should g
y skeptic, if there had been such ia those
e days, have trayersed the expanses of lht
n West, he might have trrned upon lh'
n immense tracks of apparently useless
IS vegetation by which the soil was covered
i and 81 eeriEe ly asked, in the spirit of SOM
:, of our modern free-thlnkers, what wa
: the use in all this waste If power q
J. "What is there here to support life" h
s might cry, "eyen if life should come
IS Barley, maize, wheat, rye, rice, and IN
l. nutritive grasses, where are these In
'e stead Of these come ggantical tropics
S, plants, throwing outwards the thick blade
Ie of their edible foliage from their coars
IN trunks, and countless hosts of pine. mat
c. ting (each Fail the floor of the cart
N with the yellow spires of their Summe
r leaves. For what purpose is this e. An
a. yet, had he been able to have looked for
~ ward, he would have seen this apparer
pc waste of power the agent by which III
mt refinement, the comfort, and sustenanc
w of myriads to come were to be securet
of He would have seen these gigantic fores
he whose recesses were at one time traver
in ed only by the huge animals of the mi,
is die geological period, laying themselve
n tree after tree, down TO die in grav,
cd where their bodies, in the slow process
ne ages. were to be turned into vast laye
en- Of biIuminous coal. From these layer
nd deposited in fields which it would tai