The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1886-12-17
Antiquity OF 1HE EARTH. AND
REGENCY OF MAN.

d~ersianding. = p Whercupon are the
foundations thereof fasteneda OF who laid The
cornerstone thereof; when the morning stars
sang together, and al the sons OF God shouted
for JOY Job xxyviii, A..
Turning to the inspired record to ascer-
tain the origin of things as they now are,
We learn, of our earth, that it assumed its
present state a few thousand years ago, iii
consequence of a creative process, or of a
series OF creative acts concluding with the
creation of man. Possessed of this fact re-
81 Getting the date of man introduction on
the earth, we proceed to examine the globe
itself. And here we find that the mere
shell Of the earth takes us back through
an unknown series OF ages, in which crea-
tion appears to have followed creation at
the distance of vast intervals between. By
means of these the geoloeist can demon
strate that the crust of the earth has q nat
nral history. Let us descend with him,
aud traverse an ideal section of a
portion Of the carth's crust. Quit
ting the living surface Of the green
earth, and entering on Il down
ward path. onr first step may take us
limits Of recorded time. From the moment
We leave the surface soil, and touch even
the nearest of the Tertiary beds, all traces
of human remains disappear. so let our
grave be as shallow as it may be in even
the latest stratified bed, we have to make
it in the dust Of a departed world. Forma-
ton now follows formation, composed
chiefly of sand, and clay, and lime, and
presenting a thickness of more than a
thousand feet each. As we descend through
these, one of the most sublime fictions of
mythology becomes sober truth. for at our
every step an age flies past. We find our
selves ON a road where the lapse of du-
ration is marked--no by the succession of
seasons and years-but by the slow exca-
walton, by water, of deep valleys in reck
marble; by the return of n continent to the
bosom ot an ocean in which ages before it
had been slowly formed; or by the depar-
ture of one world and the formation If an
other
Advancing into the Secondary Rocks,
we enter upon a new series of worlds.
Taking the chalk formation as the first
member OF this series, we find a stratitica-
ton upwards OF a thousand feet thick.
Who shall compute the tracts of time nee
essary for its slow sedimentary deposition,
So vast was it, and so widely different were
its physical conditions from those which
followed, that scarcely a trace of animal
species still living is to be found in it.
Types of organic life, before unknown, ar
rest our attention, and prepare us for still
more surprising forms. Descending into
the system next III order-the Oelitic-with
its many subdivisions, and its thickness OF
about half a mile, we recognize new proofs
of the dateless antiquity of the earth. For,
enormous as this bed is, it was obviously
formed by the deposition from sea and river
water. Here, too, the last trace of animal
species still living has vanished. Even
this link is gone. We have reached a point
where the earth was in possession of the
gigantic forms of Saurian reptiles, mon
sters more appalling than the poets fancy
ever feigned; and these are their cata-
combs. Descending through the later
red sandstone, and saliferous marls of two
thousand feet feet in thickness, and which
exhibit, in their very varigated strata, a
succession of numerous physical changes,
our subterranean path brings us to the
C~arboniferous system, or coal formations.
These coal strata, many thousands Of feet
thick, consist entirely of the spells Of sue
cessive ancient vegetable worlds. But in
the rank jungIes and luxuriant wilderness
es which are here accumulated and COM
listing species. Nor is there a single con-
vincing indication that these primeval for
ests ever echoed to the voice of birds. But
between these strata, beds of limestone of
enormous thickness are %interposed, each
proclaiming the prolonged existence and
final extinction Of a creation. For these
limestone beds are not SO much the charnel
houses Of fossil organisms as the remains
of the organisms themselves.
These mountain masses of stone which
now surround us, extending for miles in
length and breadth, were once sentient ex-
istence-testaceous and coraline-living at
the bottom of anc seas and lakes. How
countless the ages necessary Tor their accu-
mutation, when the formation OF only a
few inches of the strata required the life
and death of many generations. Here, the
mind is not only carried back through i'm
measurable periods, but while standing
amidst the petrified remains of this success
sion of primeval forests and extinct races
of animals piled up into sepulchral oun
tains, we seem to be c~ncompassed by the
thickest shadow Of the valley of death.
On quitting these st%upendous monuments
of death, we leave behind us the last vestige
of land plants, and pass down to the Old
Red sandstone. Here, too, we have passed
below the last trace of animal life. The
speaking footprints impressed on the car
boniferous strata are absent here. The
geological character of this vast formation,
again, tells of ages innumerable. Fer,
though many a thousand feet in depth, it
is obviously derived from the materials of
mere ancient rocks, fractured, decomposed,
and slowly deposited in water. The grad