Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1876-09-16

y VIC uOR blauu.
e find that there is large limestou
d plain in part of which Nashville stand
t Then there are your Cumberland higf
t lands away eastward. Then westwar
e there is also a highland, some Ion
t distance west, that tips into a gull
J and on that gulf there rest other bed
] until you come to the valley of tn
. Mississippi. Here we have beds whicl
: form the present foundation upol
which the CITY stands. Upon eacl
) side you have beds of rock superposet
f one above the other. These pointing
> to diagram on the black board be
ing deposited upon those below mus
naturally be more recent. You MAJ
say In general terms (in any country
? than America), }, house is more recen
2 than its foundation. Here, / have
} discovered, that this is not always the
case, for you sometimes move your
houses and put new foundations under
them. Then bed of rock which lies
: over another is younger-more recent
than the bed of rock upon which il
lies. So, when we say these beds are
younger than those, we do so because
these have been deposited upon the
others. What do we find here? An.
imals, masses of clay, shale, limestone
stamped as the uDquestionable evil
dence Of being formed of the mud al
the bottom of the ocean. You have
your thick beds of coal which can be
demonstrated to be the charred and
altered remains of forests which grew
upon the same surface when it had be-
come dry land. You may your
selves by calculating the enormous pc
riods it took to grow these forests upon
that soil aud then to turn them back
to beds of coal. 1t is quite easy to
see that these forests were not trees
like our present trees, and that the
surface which we now call Tennessee
was something totally different from
what we now know. See how simple
these calculations are. There can be
no doubt that the beds Of rock were
formed one above another, in the or
der of their date-the oldest at the
| bottom, the newest at the top. There
is not the slightest difficulty in draw
ing conclusions as to the conditions
under which these beds of rock were
formed; and in drawing all these con-
cluslons, you make no greater assump-
! ton whatever than you make In his
torlcal evidence, that is to say, you as
sumo that the course of nature has
been generally uniform, just as your
belief of ancient testimony depends
upon your belief, that the motives of
the men in ancient times were similar
to those we now see. So plants, for
ests and trees did not grow in the sea,
and shell and star-fish no more grew
upon the land than they do now. In
other words there is no greater as
sumption in archaeological than in the
historical conclusion. But the differ
enee is this, the archaeological is, on
the whole, more trustworthy than the
other, because no human hand has
been able to meddle with the evidence
which is in the rocks. We may pur-
sue this course of inquiry further and
we find that while all this great plain
which forms the foundation of the
city, belongs to some of the oldest
rocks on the globe, this highland of
the Cumberland district belongs TO
what is called the Carboniferous form
alton, both silurian and carboniferous
being parts of an extremely ancient
period Of the worlds history. But
when we come to these beds which lie
westward toward the Mississippi, we
come to something quite different
There is evidence here of this land
having been worn away and that these
beds were originally the bottom of the
sea. Then they have been upheaved.
That evidence is clear, because we
find upon these beds shell-fsh and
others which can only live at the bot
tom of the sea. These belong to a
much greater period of the worlds
history, what we call the period of
tertiary formation. Among these beds
is what is known as green sand, priced
by your agriculturalists on account of
its fertilizing qualities. To show how
perfectly trustworthy our conclusions
are with reference to this green sand
being formed at the bottom of the sea,
in that remarkable cruise in which |
the Challenger, British vessel, has
just completed a tour of discovery,
they have brought back abundant evil
dence that in some parts of the exist
ing sea bottom green sand is formed,
indistinct in its character from that |
which forms the ancient crust of the |
earth, and it is actually being formed |
now under these conditions. And |
though we had no reason to doubt the |
genuineness of archaeological evidence |
it is now supplemented by observations |
not confined to one locality, but ex-
tending over the whole globe, by |
means of which we fill up this evil
dence that exists here and elsewhere. |
For example, that shows us that the |
ancient history of the world presents |
no sudden appearance of animal or
vegetable formation-no great catas-
even and gradual progress extending |
through periods of time Of which it is |
almost impossible for even the most
vivid Imagination to form an adequate |
conception. know it is thought very |
often that men of science are in the |
habit of drawing largely from their |
Imagination, but it is really not so. |
The most sober. careful, consideration |
of facts forces upon you more and /
more determinedly the conviction that
the theory respecting which we have |
this archaeological evidence of pc
riod of the past history Of the world |
is of duration which, in comparison |
with our human standard, may be re-
garded as almost absolutely infinite. |
Take, for example, the case of the
cataract of Niagara, where have been
recently spending some time, so that /
might fill myself with the grandeur
and beauty of that extraordinary nat
tural phenomenon it is quite easy to |
see that the Niagara River has formed |
its own valley, has cut its way back |
through the plateau of rock from |
which it falls for some six miles. There
is not the slightest difficulty in seeing
THAI. The great cliff from which It
tumbles is formed of two kinds OF frock
hard rock at the top and soft rock
underneath. The water undermines
the soft rock below, when the solid
stratum above falls over. You can
trace the gradual excavation of that
valley for\six miles from that marvel
Ions bluff Which, from Proctar's monu-
ment overlooks the plain Of Ontario.
Now. the rate at which that work is
going on has not yet been positively as
certained, but we may be perfectly
certain O am now speaking largely
within limits) that that work of cutting
back does not go on at the rate Of a
ward in a year. We have six miles Of
such cutting, which will bring you to
period of 10000 years for the cutting
back of Niagara alone. 1t is an i'm
material matter to me how many years
it takes, but it.would be nearer proba-
bility, much nearer the truth, If / said
A L. kak I