Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1865 Excerpt: ... and metamorphic rocks); the second to be termed secondary (comprehending the aqueous or fossiliferous strata); while the remainder, or third class, called load, included the supposed effects of local floods, and the deluge of Noah, and corresponded to what, in modern classifications, are known as alluvium and drift. In the primitive class (such as granito and gneiss), ho said, thero are no organic remains, nor any signs of materials derived from the ruins of preexisting rocks. Their origin, therefore, may have been purely chemical, antecedent to the creation of human beings, and probably coeval with the birth of the world itself. The secondary formations, on the contrary, which often contain sand, pebbles, and organic remains, must have been mechanical deposits, produced after the planet bad become the habitation of animals and plants. This bold generalization formed at the time an important step in the progress of geology, and sketched out correctly some of the leading divisions into which rocks may be separated.--Lyell. 174. The noxt important advance was made by W"ernor, an eminent German mineralogist, Professor in a mining school at Freyburg, in Saxony. He asserted the existence of four rock formations, which originally extended over the whole globe, and followed each other in an invariable order. The first and lowest of these, termed "primary" or "primitive," included granite--the basis; then mica-slate and clay-slate--rocks of a crystalline character and wholly devoid of organic remains. Besting upon these, "Werner taught the existence of a series of strata, intermediate in character between the older and the newer formations, having to some extent a crystalline texture, but yet exhibiting occasionally signs of a mechani...
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