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    378 The Leader and Saturday Analyst.. [A...

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    • Aniiwct' to Uiuih AMlvr ami Thvovcth Q...

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    Thk J-Jkst Traces Ol- Lxve Is Til 10 Eai...

    wants Geologists are not unknown there , for t ! ie late Edward ForbeS and the present Messrs . Ramsay and Salter have been there , and as ' they have assured us , would gladly go again , Listening to the remarks of one of these . excellent geologists , we felt prompted to quote two lines of one of Dr . Watts ' s hy nans for the young , — "We have been there , and still would go / 'Tis like a little heaven below . " After haviri" -refreshed ourselves , let us sally forth with hammer in hand and zeal for science in our hearts . We soon find ourselves on the hills , and the best course is first to walk over or across them , and after having viewed their general contour , to descend into the valley below us , and hammer in certain promising places . A walk of about four miles up hill will tead us by a stony and . winding road along the Longmynd Hills , over long stretches of sheep pastures , bv rounded masses and grassy emine nces away trom everything human . One man only did we m eet on o ur last journey across these wild tracks . A kindly salutation and a clownish joke bein- over / on we passed , each of us not to see the other s like again tharmorning . Striking off into he scrubby and mossy wilderness , ' we coine to «? bright or green streak that marks an undercurrent . Soon we reach the only spring of water known hereabouts , and slake our thirst . On we travel , " Remotej unfriended , melancholy , slow , " until we at last arrive at the Longmynd Pule , a tall , . wind-swayed staff marking : the spot " of which we have been in search , and trom which as ' t'Hc countryman we passed assured us , we can see" over the world like / ' The day is rather hazy— when is a day ever otherwise , as tone ascends a mountain ; to gain a view ; ¦ J > ut we do * ee a great way , and can believe that if the clay were clear , fa kind of fabulous " day in all our mountain walks ) , we should really see half the neighbouring world . The view from the Worcestershire Beacon in the Malvern range is very extensive , but .. that from the Longmynd Pole is scarcely inferior , and well worth attempting to obtain . " even at tlie cost of , a solitary walk where neither cockneys , nor Worcester . fashionables , nor oppressed donkeys . pass us , nor Dr . Gully's water-drinking patients cast melancholy glances upon healthy men . . , ' ¦ Geologically regarded , the Longmynd Hills- represent what we at present consider the lowest sedimentary rocks . ; that is , rocks formed from the st-ditnent of very ancient seas , and formed at their bottoms . Altho . iu .-h onlv about eight hundred feet high , the thickness of the rocks of which they are composed is , wlien measured geologica lly , , at the outcrops of their highly inclined edges , more than 2 O O ( X > ieet ; in fact , the Government geolog'ic : tl surveyors . . sjiy ,. 26 , ( 00 feet . It is not at nil easy to conceive of the immense duration of time demanded for the sedimentary deposition of this mass of rocks ; and it would be difficult to makeTauy popular representation of such duration . In geological rsomenilature , they form the Cambrian rocks of Murehuson and of the geological surveyors , but only a part of the Cumbrian system of Sedgwick , who extends that term higher tip , so as to inehulea part of the lower Silurian system of Murchison . Thev repose on gneiss and granite , which according to the old P" ^ are " the " priimtive rocks " of the immense primary series . The primitive rocks contain no fossils , and no signs of . ancient life . Geological research has constantly tended to deepen , and thus multiply the evidences of life in the older sedimentary rocks , lor many vejirs , these Longmynd rocks , and the Cambrian rocks o-oiierallv , wore supposed to be destitute of all traces of organic remains , ' but recent and very minute search had led us to infer that there was some life , even in those very ancient seas , though , sis far as wo can at present incite , but little , its evidences being few and very far between . This 1 ifb , however , was certainly the most ancient upon our globe , speaking- always in accordance with our knowledge up to this dnyi ¦ § It was in 1856 tliat fossils were- first discovered m these rocks , in nearly vertical beds of hard , flaggy sandstone , occurring nlong the strike of tho Long-mynds , about a milo and a half east of the principal ridge . These consisted of the marks of the burrowings of worms upon tho wave-washed surfaces of the primitive strata , some smnll and othors . large , but all crowded together and crossed , iust us is tho case on the sun-shorca of tlio present nye . The shalo ' ( schists , siuidstones , and conglomerates ) of these lulls are , in fact , the ooze , sands and beaches of the primeval sens , and tho worms' burrows are before \ w to-day as they wore innumerable years ago , when tho son bottt over them nnd tho worms crawled and crept into little sand holes . The playground of tho primitive worm id hardened nnd handed clown to ' the latter days of the world , to become the ground for scientific discussion nnd grave deputations . Not to speak of ripple marl ?* und of ruin mark * , which are preserved upon tho stones as faithfully as if the surf rippled before us , and the rain poured down upon us nt this day , wo not use more particularly tho fragments of tho primeval crustacean found in these beda . The most distinct portion ( nnd yot very faint , ns most would think ) ia tho citudnl extremity of tholittlu creature ( which is affirmed to bo a snocios of ti'ilobite ) , and is named Paln / opt / ffo Jiamsai / i , that is , in plum English , tho aneiont tail-pioco of Eamsai /—not tlmt worthy l ' rofessor Juunijay has or ever hud a tail , but that tho trilobite having- hud n . tail , nnd its discoverer wishing to jrmuortnliso lVofeHsor Ramsay ( und hodesoryos it ) , bethought him of this mode of Bendingdown lliirnnuy to e-oolotfioul posterity . It in well to explain those thing's , for tho books and their writers never do , nnd otherwise some simplo people might think this caudal fragment luid n personal rola * tion to JMr . Kamsny . Although , that ' tyon tig in an Iuih no tail , wo onn assuro' our rondera that ho bus n hood , nnd u very good use , lip mukes of it in his favourite studios ;

    England has not yet yielded the head of this crustacean , but its whohAxodv , or rather one very like it , has beenfound in Minnesota / United States , and isshamed Dikelocephalus Mbinesotensis , which , as far as we can guess ( for nobody condescends to English these names ) means mattock-headed ( . trilobite ) of Minnesota . Dtcephahis would be the Greek term for two-headed , and there is an appearance in the fossil which might have suggested this idea and name . The Greek of " -eoloKists , however , is not the Greek of Athens . . This fiiiut fossil tail is now boarded and lodged in the museum in Jermvn-street , London , where we have often gazed upon it reverently and in faith We respect its discoverer , and believe that he believes it to be a tail , and this is what we believe . Furthermore , % ve liave . . the melancholy belief that we ourselves east away two or three or more such tails when at Church Stretton , not knowing them to be tails ; but we must not proceed in this strain , only remarking- as we pass on— thereby hangs a iail . . , There are strata of like age and period elsewhere . Several thousand feet of grits lie at Harlech , in North Wales ; a coarse sandstone of this era is found upon a mountain near Bangor , and upon it . vcry . obscure remains of sea-weeds { chondntcs ) have been lbvmd ; similar weeds upon slates have been found near Skiddaw , m Cumberland ,-and something of the same kind at Bray Head , county-A \ n .-klow , Ireland . This latter locality is known as the source ot what may ' be a . still earlier trace of life—nai . nely , of the remains of a . * pucies of Hydroid polyp , or horny zoophyte ,, allied to . the bt > rtuk ; m , . and other flexible horny corals . This was discovered b . y Ax . Oldham , and bears the naiiie OkUiamia aniiqua [ O ?< lha » na radiata is ' another butless common , form ) , and marks , the surfaces of the old Irish schists , in myriads . All the specimens we have seen require to be carefully looked nt in order to . dvtyet- - the si ^ -ris of organic existence ; and for no fossils so much as these niost ancient ones , does the spectator feel the necessity of n -00-kxncallv educated eve . To this circumstance , probably , is due tlie fact that thev have only been , so ri ; ceiitly discovered . - / V \ e . nui-4 warn our readers that they would feel , grievously disj . pponik-d if thope fossils were . presented . to them for the first tune , un-der-. iifrhr wrought ¦ expectations of beholding distinct-and bold evidences Oi the first creatures of the most " remote eras of life . . The inferences to be deduced front these fossils are many -. vncl most interesting . We see , for example , that organic life has not : commenced upon our globe with the lowest grades , nor yet with the - highest . The ancient . luafrwbrni was radiant with guy colours , nnd ; more siyhtlv than the unctuous earth-worm of our anils . aiic Oldhamia niay possibly have been allied . to the flexible branching : ¦ Brvbzoaus ; but certaiiily the trilobite was far higher in the scale Qt organization than cither , and is very much removed from tiie siinulcst form of life . . Taking the DikeWplmlus ( also fo . nul in a very old reck ) with the crustacean . of the Louginynds , \ ya have at once " a decicled negative to the theory of the author of the ' V esl ltrcs , to the liiiisiavckian theory of development , anil to that most rcc-.-nt ii . odifi .-ation of it which Mr . Daruiii has put forth , and \ Uucli seems destined to receive a disapproving notice from nearly 000 , Jiternrv and scientific periodical of the day . ' ,. ' ,, , ,, Of Mr . Mackie ^ s little book we would speak kmdly , nml would commend it ns likely to be very useful to beginners . But , the aui hor must iu-cvpt a hint from us—meant in the most friendly s ] . n it : he would do well to write in simple and clear . Kngliah , and to ' o ^ rlioftall nttcmpls at superjluous metiiphor and ui \ ornate sty e . Altucti-a sublimity is not pleasing even to our friends , and really . w « cannot but smile at the attempts . made in some of these few png-es . Jlavo uof . the pnges appeared before under Mr . Jilaekie's editorml euro . If so , then the m . idvertencies . nnd confused sentences ¦ which « ' «>«¦ times -disfigure them are not to be set down to - the printer 01 reader . " We do not quote proofs of what we Pity , but hope tnc author will take a friendly admonition into candid eon-udernthm . Mr . Thomas A . Da vies * would not admit Hint any of the fossils fust described , ' or tiny fossils anywhere found , are the true iwoos 01 ancient life . Amidst a strange jumblo of inexplicable assertions , lie reproduces tho old and absurd theory that -tin ; fossils iicv .-r In a Hie , never were nnvthing but stones or something hlyotheni , nml noa evented , or , sis ho ' frequently juid clvgii . ntly uiHrnis , ft a toil us we 1 "" them It is very diffleuH to discover whiit is Ins own plnl-sojiio , for he contrndiots and oonfouiuls hi . nself . Tlnr nearest "I'P ™ " - " ¦ to n theory wo can find in this : " . n fossil is u stone * u- calK'i . 0 J collection of metallic or non-mptulli « nunfrnl crystal * , or jnn .. ij > nous masses of limestone in thu shnpe of a plant or amiunl , or pin i « oi them , or an impvinl upon some rock . " " To produce tho p . 'ln « - tion termed the fossil , ' two conditiuns nre necessary—the sui . stnco to give form , and the vitality , whore petrifaction will eiiHiie , iui . 1 J resultintr form will bo that of tho subatance which was in acmi . tit 1011 to take on tho petrifying vitality . " Kothing more positive ana direct vnn wo discover in tho volumo , und they who can > 'lUlv ( V " theory out of the nbovo greatly exoood us iu penetration . «» " « now givon 11 day to the reading : of this strange volume , and cm truly boy nt its close with one of okl-though in n difloront bciiso —Feraldi diom I , . .. , ,, \ vt > The worst ohnvnetoristio of the volume , however , is it-j n isne ^ nnd roc-UloMH lmigwi ^ o ngainst tho lute Hugh Mlllur , ( tho bin « 1 o « u "truly infldol structuve , " ) « ml inol «/* ivuly nil ffoolotfiato who 1 > u with him . Ho nfflrma , "if the B , u , logio fmtU bo two m 1 'jo oonoluHions , thu MosiUo iweoimt in u hugo fabric o "Ofroptum , m •« in meaning , falnu in » pirit , nml iiilao in directly Hinted nut * - J " is tho burden of . his song- w rather hia invective ; but hm MUb ""^ .

    378 The Leader And Saturday Analyst.. [A...

    378 The Leader and Saturday Analyst .. [ April 21 , 1860 .

    • Aniiwct' To Uiuih Amlvr Ami Thvovcth Q...

    • Aniiwct' to Uiuih AMlvr ami Thvovcth Qp » hj / M * . : n a ] lj 0 > rsSo ' PAYiros , Now yoi : k : liiuUl i \ ml Ourlton \ hondyn i Xiow ami i ? o » . W'

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), April 21, 1860, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_21041860/page/14/