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Title: Landscape in History, and Other Essays

Author: Archibald Geikie

Release date: January 18, 2021 [eBook #64325]

Language: English

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LANDSCAPE IN HISTORY

AND OTHER ESSAYS


[Illustration: Logo]


LANDSCAPE IN HISTORY

AND OTHER ESSAYS

By

SIR ARCHIBALD GEIKIE
D.C.L., F.R.S.






London
Macmillan and Co., Limited
New York: The Macmillan Company
1905

Glasgow: Printed at the University Press
by Robert Maclehose and Co. Ltd.




PREFACE


The present volume consists of a collection of Essays and Addresses
which have appeared at intervals since the publication of my
_Geological Essays at Home and Abroad_. Half of them deal with
Scenery in its geological relations and in its influence on human
progress--a subject which for many years has engrossed much of my
thought. Others discuss the problem of the Age of the Earth, while two
are biographical, and one deals with the place of Science in modern
education.

I have to thank the editors of the _Fortnightly_, _Contemporary_,
and _International Quarterly_ Reviews for their courtesy in readily
according me permission to reprint the essays which have appeared in
these publications.

_15th January, 1905._




CONTENTS

                                                    PAGE
I

LANDSCAPE IN HISTORY,                                  1


II

LANDSCAPE AND THE IMAGINATION,                        28


III

LANDSCAPE AND LITERATURE,                             76


IV

THE ORIGIN OF THE SCENERY OF THE BRITISH ISLANDS,    130


V

THE CENTENARY OF HUTTON'S 'THEORY OF THE EARTH,'     158


VI

GEOLOGICAL TIME,                                     198


VII

THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF CHARLES DARWIN,              234


VIII

HUGH MILLER: HIS WORK AND INFLUENCE,                 257


IX

SCIENCE IN EDUCATION,                                282


X

THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA,                                  308




I

Landscape in History[1]


Among the obscure problems in the history of mankind a foremost
place must be given to the question of the origin and distribution
of the various races of men. Undoubtedly two main factors in the
differentiation of these races have been climate and geography. These
same physical conditions still perpetuate, if they did not actually
originate, the racial distinctions. Even where we may hesitate to adopt
a theory as to the initial start of any one of the great branches of
mankind, we can hardly fail to recognise that the several nations or
tribes comprised within one of these branches are marked off from
each other by more or less definite peculiarities, of which some
at least may probably be referred to the influence of environment.
The landscapes of a country, the form, height, and trend of its
mountain-ranges, the position and extent of its plains and valleys,
the size and direction of its rivers, the varying nature of its soils
and climate, the presence or absence of useful minerals, nearness to
or distance from the sea, the shape of the coast-line whether rocky or
precipitous, or indented with creeks and harbours--all these and other
aspects of the scenery of the land have contributed their share to the
moulding of national history and character. For illustrations of this
external influence we need go no further than the British Isles, and
contrast the aspect and history of central England with those of the
Scottish Highlands.[2]

Some of these dominant elements in our surroundings remain permanently
with little or no appreciable change. The mountains and the plains
are now essentially what they were in the infancy of man, though
their mantle of vegetation may have been greatly altered. In other
cases, geological processes are continually at work, effecting changes
which, though individually of small account, become important in the
course of centuries by constant repetition. Thus on some parts of our
coast-line there has been a great destruction of land, in others the
land has gained on the sea. But man himself has become a geological
agent, and has in that capacity greatly modified the surface of many
of the countries which he has inhabited. The progress of agriculture
has led to the draining of mosses, the felling of forests and the
transformation of heaths and wastes into arable land. The increase of
sheep and cattle has been the means of clothing the hills with pasture,
in place of their former rough herbage and copsewood. And man himself
becomes involved in the consequences of the changes which he sets in
motion. This subject may obviously be discussed independently either
from the scientific or from the historical side. Any investigation
which deals with the changes that have taken place in the outward
aspect of a country since man first set foot upon its surface, and
with the sources of information regarding them, must obviously appeal
strongly to the lover of science, inasmuch as it brings before him the
evidence for various kinds of geological process, the actual operation
and rate of progress of which he may thereby be enabled to watch and
determine. It may thus be made to throw light upon one of the vexed
problems of science--the value of time in geological inquiry. But it is
of the relations of such an investigation to human history that I would
first more particularly speak. Such inquiries seem to me eminently
calculated to engage the sympathies and even the active co-operation of
literary students. There can be no doubt that the advancement of our
knowledge of the mutations of the land since the beginning of history
must depend largely upon help from the study of historical documents.

No long series of years has passed since the truth was recognised that
man is in large measure the creature of his environment; that his
material progress and mental development have been guided and modified
by the natural conditions in which he has been placed. The full extent
and application of this truth, however, are perhaps not even yet
comprehended. If the surrounding and limiting conditions have been
such potent factors in human development, we may well believe that any
serious change or modification in them cannot but have reacted upon
man. If nature alters her aspect to him, either spontaneously on her
own part or as the result of human interference with her ways, he too
will in some measure be affected thereby, and his relations to her will
be influenced. What then have been the kind and amount of the mutations
in the face of nature since man first appeared? Although the answer to
this question will here be sought in the evidence furnished by Great
Britain alone, it will be understood that the principles laid down
for the conduct of the inquiry with regard to this country must be of
general application to other regions of the globe.

Let me remark at the outset that considerable progress has been made
in the investigation of this question, both from its scientific and
its historical side. Lyell, and Prestwich, with the geologists who
have followed them, laid a solid foundation of knowledge regarding the
later mutations in the physical geography of Britain. Guest, Pearson,
Freeman, Green, and others, have shown in how many ways the historical
development of the people has been influenced by the topographical
features of the country. Yet in spite of all that has been done, I
do not hesitate to say that we are still only a little way beyond
the threshold of this wide subject. No one has realised more vividly
at once the importance of the inquiry and the imperfection of the
available data than the late Mr. J. R. Green. He would fain have been
able to reconstruct the successive phases through which our landscapes
have passed since the dawn of history; and he did more in this respect
with his materials than perhaps any other living man could have done.
But the detailed evidence was wanting to him; and it has still in
large measure to be gathered before the ideal of the historian can
be reached. Now, I am desirous of insisting upon the fact that this
detailed evidence does not lie shut up from the reach of all but the
practised man of science and the mature historian. Much of it, whether
in the literary or scientific domain, may be gleaned by any young
undergraduate who will bring to the task quickness of observation and
accuracy of judgment. As the harvest is abundant but the labourers few,
I would fain enlist the sympathy and co-operation of any who may be
able and willing to help.

There are four obvious sources of information regarding former
conditions of the land. First comes the testimony of historical
documents, then that of place-names, next that of tradition, and
lastly, that of geological evidence.

(1) One might suppose that for what has taken place during the
historical period, the documentary records would be all sufficient.
But as it is only recently that the subject has been determined to be
worthy of the historian's serious attention, we cannot look for much
light to be thrown upon it in the pages of the ordinary histories.
Still less need we expect to meet with any full measure of information
regarding it in the original documents from which such histories have
been mostly compiled. In truth, the facts of which we are in search
must be gleaned from brief allusions and implications rather than from
actual descriptions. It was no part of the duty of an old chronicler
purposely to record any natural fact, short of some terrific earthquake
or storm that destroyed human life and damaged human property. But in
describing historical events he could hardly avoid reference to woods,
lakes, marshes, and other natural features which served as boundaries
to the theatre of these events. By comparing, therefore, his local
topography with the present aspect of the same localities, we may
glean some interesting particulars as to changes of landscape in the
course of centuries. Such a comparison, however, to be effective and
trustworthy, involves two special qualifications. The inquirer must be
master of the language and style of the author he is studying, and he
must be completely familiar with the present condition of the ground to
which allusion is made. The want of this combination of knowledge has
led to some curious blunders on the part of able scholars.

It is evident, then, that an ample domain of research is here opened
out to the student. In a general sense, every kind of historical
document may be available for the purposes of the inquiry. England
fortunately possesses in Domesday Book the results of a minute
examination of the greater part of the country in the latter half
of the eleventh century. For other portions of our islands much
information may be gleaned in quarters that might be thought the most
unlikely. Besides the narratives of the old Chronicles, which might
be expected to contain at least occasional incidental reference to
physical features, Charters and other legal documents, in dealing with
the holding and transference of land, not infrequently throw light on
the former aspect of the ground with which they are connected. The
Cartularies of some of our ancient abbeys, besides affording glimpses
into the inner life of these establishments, which do not seem to have
been always abodes of peace and studious retirement, give indications
of the former areas of forest, woods and mosses, or the positions
of lakes now reduced in size or effaced. Old Acts of Parliament,
looked at from our present point of view, are by no means always
repulsive reading. They have one great advantage over their modern
representatives in that they are often commendably brief; and in their
occasional quaint local colouring, they afford material for interesting
comparison with existing topography.

Among historical documents I include poems of all kinds and ages. Our
earliest English literature is poetical; and from the days of Caedmon
down to our own time, the typical characters of landscape have found
reflection in our national poetry. It is not merely from what are
called descriptive poems that information of the kind required is to
be gathered. The wild border-ballad, full of the rough warfare of the
time, has a background of bare moorland, treacherous moss-hags, and
desolate hills, which can be compared with the aspect of the same
region to-day. The gentler lyrics of a later time take their local
colouring from the glades and dells, the burns and pastures where
their scenes are laid. In the stately cadence of the _Faery Queen_,
among the visionary splendours of another world, the rivers of England
and Ireland are pictured, each with its characters touched off as
they appeared in the days of Elizabeth. And in Drayton's quaint, but
somewhat tiresome _Polyolbion_, abundant material is supplied for a
comparison between the topography of England at the beginning of the
seventeenth century and that of our own time.[3]

But these comparisons have still to be worked out. As an example of
the kind of use that may be made of them, and of the light which our
poetry may cast, not only upon physical changes, but upon historical
facts, I would refer to the passages in Barbour's poem of _The Bruce_
descriptive of the Battle of Bannockburn.[4] I do not contend for the
complete historical veracity of the Archdeacon of Aberdeen, though I
think he hardly deserves the sweeping and contemptuous condemnation
meted out to him by J. R. Green. As he was born only some two years
after the battle, as he had travelled a good deal, and as the field of
Bannockburn lay across the land-route from the north to the south of
Scotland, we may believe him to have made himself personally acquainted
with the ground. At least, he could easily obtain information from
many who had been themselves actors in the fight. He had no object
to gain by drawing on his imagination for the local topography, more
especially as his little bits of local description were not in any way
required for the glorification of his hero. I think, therefore, that
when Barbour describes a piece of ground, we may take his description
as a fairly accurate representation of the topography, at least in his
own day; and the scene could hardly have changed much in the generation
that had passed since the time of Bruce. Now, many persons who have
visited the site of the Battle of Bannockburn have felt some difficulty
in understanding why the English army did not easily outflank the left
wing of the Scots. At present, a wide fertile plain stretches for
miles north and south on the east side of the low plateau on which
Bruce's forces were drawn up.[5] A small body of the English cavalry
did, indeed, make its way across this plain until overtaken and cut to
pieces by Randolph. But why was this force so easily dispersed, and why
was no more formidable and persistent effort made to turn that left
flank? It is very clear that, had the topography been then what it is
now, the Battle of Bannockburn must have had a far other ending.

The true explanation of the difficulty seems to me to be supplied by
some almost casual references in Barbour's account of the operations.
He makes Bruce, in addressing his followers, allude to the advantage
they would gain should the enemy attempt to pass by the morass beneath
them. The poet further narrates how the Carse, that is, the low flat
land on the left, was dotted with pools of water: how the English, in
order to effect a passage, broke down houses, and tried to bridge over
these pools with doors, windows, and thatch from the cottage roofs;
and how, with the assistance of their compatriots in Stirling Castle,
they were so far successful that Clifford's troop of horse, and,
possibly, some more of the English army, got safely over to the hard
ground beyond. We thus learn that Bruce's famous device of the 'pots'
was only an extension of the kind of defence that nature had already
provided for him. The ground on his left, now so dry and so richly
cultivated, was then covered with impassable bogs and sheets of water;
and the huge army of Edward was consequently compelled to crowd its
attack into the narrow space between these bogs and the higher grounds
on Bruce's right.

(2) Another wide field of inquiry for information touching changes in
the aspect of the country is supplied by the etymology of place-names.
These names, at least those of them that date from old times, possess a
peculiar value and interest as abiding records of the people who gave
them, and also, in many cases, of the circumstances in which they were
given. We are at present concerned only with those that embody some
physical fact in the topography. Many of these are as appropriate now
as they were at first; for the features to which they were applied have
remained unaltered. Ben Dearg shows the same red slopes that struck
the earliest Celtic tribes who looked up to it from the bays and glens
of Skye. The big stones on the summit of Penmaenmawr still stand as
memorials of the British people who erected them and gave their name to
the hill.

But in innumerable instances the appositeness of the designation
has been lost. The name has, in fact, been more permanent than the
feature to which it is applied. The one has survived in daily speech
from generation to generation: the other has wholly passed away. By
comparing the descriptive epithet in the name with the present aspect
of the locality, some indication, or even, perhaps, some measure of
the nature and amount of the changes in the topography, may still be
recovered.

Now in researches of this kind the liability to blunder is so great,
and many able writers have blundered so egregiously, that the inquiry
ought not to be entered upon without due preparation, and should not
be continued without constant exercise of the most scrupulous caution.
The great danger of being betrayed into error by the plausibilities of
phonetic etymology should never for a moment be lost sight of. Where
possible, the earliest form of the name should be recovered, for in the
course of time local names are apt to be so corrupted as to lose all
obvious trace of their original orthography.

The Celtic place-names[6] are as a whole singularly descriptive. The
Celtic tribes, indeed, have manifested, in that respect, a keener
appreciation of landscape and a more poetical eye for nature than their
Saxon successors. Who that has ever stood beneath the sombre shadow of
the cloud that so often rests on the shoulder of the Grampians will
fail to recognise the peculiar fitness of the Gaelic name for the
highest summit of the chain--Ben-na-muig-dubh, 'the mountain of dark
gloom'? Or who has ever watched the Atlantic billows bursting into
white foam against the cliffs of Ardnamurchan and did not acknowledge
that only a poetic race could have named the place 'the headland of
the great ocean.' The colours of mountain and river have been seized
upon by these people as descriptive characters that have suggested
local names. Swiftness and sluggishness of flow have furnished
discriminating epithets for streams. Moors, forests, woodlands, copses,
groups of trees, solitary bushes, lakes, mosses, cliffs, gullies, even
single boulders, have received names which record features in the
landscape that struck the imagination of the old Celt, and which are
still in use, even when the features that suggested them have long
vanished out of sight. From this source glimpses may be had of the
character of the vegetation and of the wild animals in prehistoric
times. Thus we learn that the desolate, treeless tract of Ross-shire
known as the Dirriemore (great wood) must once have been clothed with
forest. How numerous wild boars were in the country is shown by the
frequent occurrence of the name of the animal (Torc, turk) in local
topography. The former haunts of the wolf are indicated by its Gaelic
appellation (madah, maddie) in Highland place-names. Many descriptive
names which have never found a place on any map are well known to the
Welsh and Gaelic-speaking inhabitants, who in the more mountainous and
trackless regions have often a wonderful acquaintance with the details
of the topography.

Here, then, in our Celtic place-names lies a wide and as yet, for
large districts, but little worked field for exploration. Civilisation
has advanced less rapidly and ruthlessly in the Celtic-speaking parts
of the country, where, too, there are fewer historical records of
progress and change. But the topographical names when carefully worked
out supply a good deal of information regarding former conditions of
surface whereof every other memorial has perished.

Our Saxon progenitors, also, gave appropriate local names; but with a
sturdy self-assertion, and prosaic regard for plain fact, they chose to
couple their own _cognomina_ with them. If a settler fenced in his own
inclosure he called it his 'ton' or his 'ham.' If he felled the trees
of the primeval woodlands and made his own clearance, it became his
'fold.' If he built himself a mud cottage, it was his 'cote,' or if he
attained to the dignity of a farm, he called it his 'stead.' As he and
his brethren increased their holdings and drew their houses together
for companionship and protection, the village kept their family name.
But besides these patronymic epithets, which are of such value in
tracing out the early settlement of the country, the English gave
more or less descriptive local names. In their 'holts' and 'hursts,'
'wealds' and 'shaws,' we can still tell where their woods lay. In their
'leighs,' 'fields,' and 'royds,' we can yet trace the open clearings in
these woods. But for the broad landmarks, rivers, and larger natural
features of the country, the Saxons were generally content to adopt, in
some more or less corrupted form, the names already given by the Celtic
tribes who had preceded them.

(3) As another but less reliable source of information regarding
alterations in the surface of the country, I would make brief allusion
to the subject of local tradition. In these days of education and
locomotion, we can hardly perhaps realise how tenacious, and on the
whole faithful, the human memory may be in spite of the absence of
written or printed documents. Even yet we see the unbroken and exact
record of the true boundaries of a parish or township handed down in
the annual beating of the bounds or riding of the marches. And even
where no such ceremony has tended to perpetuate the remembrance of
topographical details, tradition, though it may vary as to historical
facts, is often singularly true to locality. I am tempted to give what
seems to me a good example of this fidelity of tradition. Many years
ago among the uplands of Lammermuir I made the acquaintance of an old
maiden lady, Miss Darling of Priestlaw, who with her bachelor brothers
tenanted a farm which their family had held for many generations. In
the course of her observant and reflective life she had gathered up
and treasured in her recollection the traditions and legends of these
pastoral solitudes. I well remember, among the tales she delighted to
pour into the ear of a sympathetic listener, one that went back to the
time of the Battle of Dunbar. We know from his own letters in what
straits Cromwell felt himself to be when he found his only practicable
line of retreat through the hills barred by the Covenanting army, and
how he wrote urgently to the English commander at Newcastle for help in
the enemy's rear. It has usually been supposed that his communications
with England were kept up only by sea. But the weather was boisterous
at the time, and a vessel bound for Berwick or Newcastle might have
been driven away from land. There is therefore every probability that
Cromwell would try to send a communication by land also. Now the
tradition of Lammermuir maintains that he did so. The story is told
that he sent two soldiers disguised as natives of the district to push
their way through the hills and over the border. The men had got as
far as the valley of the Whiteadder, and were riding past the mouth
of one of the narrow glens, when a gust of wind, sweeping out of the
hollow, lifted up their hodden-grey cloaks and showed their military
garb beneath. They had been watched, and were now overtaken and shot.
Miss Darling told me that tradition had always pointed to some old
whin-bushes at the opening of the cleugh as the spot where they were
buried. At her instigation the ground was dug up there, and among some
mouldering bones were found a few decayed buttons with a coin of the
time of Charles the First.

Tradition is no doubt often entirely erroneous; but it ought not, I
think, to be summarily dismissed without at least critical examination.
There are doubtless instances where it might come in to corroborate
conclusions deducible from other and usually more reliable kinds of
evidence.

(4) But of all the sources of information regarding bygone mutations
of the surface of the land, undoubtedly the most important is that
supplied by the testimony of geology. Early human chronicles are
not only imperfect, but may be erroneous. The chronicle, however,
which Nature has compiled of her past vicissitudes, though it may be
fragmentary, is, at least, accurate. In interpreting it the geologist
is liable, indeed, to make mistakes; but these can be corrected by
subsequent investigation, while the natural chronicle itself remains
unaffected by them. Moreover, it embraces a vast period of time.
Historical evidence in this country is comprised within the limits of
nineteen centuries. The testimony from Celtic topographical names may
possibly go back some hundreds of years further. But the geological
record of the human period carries us enormously beyond these dates.
Hence, in so vast a lapse of time, scope has been afforded for a whole
series of important geological revolutions. On every side of us we may
see manifest proofs of these changes. The general aspect of the country
has been altered, not once only, but many times. The agencies that
brought about these changes have, in not a few instances, preserved
tolerably complete memorials of them. We are thus enabled to trace
the history of lakes and rivers, of forests and mosses: we can follow
the succession of animals that have wandered over the land, and many
of which had died out ere the days of history began: we can dimly
perceive the conditions of life amidst the earliest human population
of the country: we can recover abundant evidence of the extraordinary
vicissitudes of climate which, since these ancient times, have affected
not this land only, but the whole northern hemisphere.

The evidence from which these reconstructions of the former aspect of
the country and its inhabitants can be deduced lies easily accessible
around us. From the numerous caves in the limestone districts,
abundant remains have been disinterred of the land-animals that
were contemporary with aboriginal man, and among them relics of
human workmanship have likewise been obtained. Our bogs have yielded
skeletons of the Irish elk and other denizens of the primeval glades
and woodlands, together with the canoes and stone-implements of the
hunters of these animals. Our river-terraces reveal a long history of
climatal changes onward from the later phases of the Ice-Age, during
which the country witnessed successive migrations of northern and
southern mammals accompanied by Palaeolithic and Neolithic men. The
raised beaches and sunk forests contain relics of contemporary human
workmanship which prove that man had already become an inhabitant of
Britain before the land had settled into its present level above the
sea.

It may be of advantage to consider here, from the various sources of
information above enumerated, what appears to have been the condition
of the surface of Britain at the dawn of authentic history and what
have been the nature and origin of the changes which this surface has
undergone within historic time. When the light of human testimony first
begins to fall upon Britain at the advent of the Romans, the general
aspect of the country must have presented in many respects a contrast
to that which is now to be seen; and notably in the wide spread of
its forests, in the abundance of its bogs and fens, and (through the
northern districts) in the vast number of its lakes.

At the first coming of the Romans by far the larger part of the
country was probably covered with wood. During the centuries of Roman
occupation some of the less dense parts of the woodland were cleared.
In driving their magnificent straight highways through the country, the
Roman legionaries felled the trees for seventy yards on each side of a
road, in order to secure themselves from the arrows of a lurking foe.
So stupendous was the labour thus involved, that they gladly avoided
forests where that was possible, and sometimes even swung their roads
to right or left to keep clear of these formidable obstacles. For many
hundreds of years after the departure of the legions, vast tracts of
primeval forest continued to be impassable barriers between different
tribes. In these natural fastnesses the wolf, brown bear, and wild boar
still found a secure retreat. Even as late as the twelfth century the
woods to the north of London swarmed with wild boars and wild oxen.
Everywhere, too, the broken men of the community betook themselves to
these impenetrable retreats, where they lived by the chase, and whence
they issued for plunder and bloodshed. The forests were thus from time
immemorial a singularly important element in the topography. They have
now almost entirely disappeared, and their former sites have as yet
only been partially determined, though much may doubtless still be done
in making our knowledge of them more complete.

In connection with this subject it should be remembered that, in many
instances, the areas of wood and open land have in the course of
generations completely changed places. The wide belts of clay-soil that
sweep across the island, being specially adapted for the growth of
trees, were originally densely timbered. But the process of clearance
led to the recognition of the fact that these clay-soils were also
eminently fitted for the purposes of agriculture. Hence, by degrees,
the sites of the ancient forests were turned into corn-fields and
meadows. On the other hand, the open tracts of lighter soil, where the
earlier settlers established themselves, were gradually abandoned, and
lapsed into wastes of scrub and copsewood.

The fens and bogs of Britain played likewise a large part in the
attack and defence of the country in Roman and later times. They were
of two kinds. One series lay on the coast, especially of sheltered
inlets, and were liable to inundation by high tides. The most notable
of these was the wide tract of low, swampy land at the head of the
Wash, our Fenland--an area where, secure in their amphibious retreats,
descendants of the Celtic population preserved their independence not
only through Roman but through Saxon times, if indeed, as Mr. Freeman
conjectures, outlying settlements of them may not have lingered on till
the coming of the Normans. The other sort of fens were those formed
in the interior of the country by the gradual encroachment of marshy
vegetation over tracts previously occupied by shallow sheets of fresh
water, and over flat land. It was in these swamps that the Caledonians,
according to the exaggerated statement of Xiphiline, concealed
themselves for many days at a time, with only their heads projecting
above the mire. At a far later period the peat-bogs of the debateable
land between England and Scotland formed an important line of advance
and retreat to the freebooters of the border, who could pick their way
through sloughs that to less practised eyes and feet were impassable.

One of the distinguishing features among the topographical changes of
the last few hundred years has been the disappearance of a vast number
of these fens and bogs. In some cases they have been gradually silted
up by natural processes; but a good many of them have no doubt been
artificially drained. Their sites are still preserved in such Saxon
names as Bogside, Bogend, Mossflats; and where other human record
is gone, the black peaty soil remains to mark where they once lay.
It would not be impossible with the help of such pieces of evidence
and a study of the present contours of the ground to map out in many
districts, now well drained and cultivated, the swamps that hemmed in
the progress of our ancestors.

No one looking at the present maps of the north of England and Scotland
would be led to suspect what a large number of lakes must have been
scattered over the surface of these northern regions when the Romans
set foot in the country. Yet if he turns to old maps, such as those of
Timothy Pont, published some three hundred years ago, he will notice
many sheets of water represented there which are now much reduced in
size or entirely replaced by cultivated fields. If, farther, he scans
the topographical names of the different counties, he will be able to
detect the sites of other and sometimes still older lakes; while, if
he sets to work upon the geological evidence by actual examination
of the ground itself, he will be astonished to find how abundant at
comparatively recent times were the tarns and lakes of which little or
no human record may have survived, and often how much larger were once
the areas of lakes that still exist. Owing to some peculiar geological
operations that characterised the passage of the Ice-Age in the
northern hemisphere, the land from which the snow-fields and glaciers
retreated was left abundantly dotted over with lakes. The diminution
and disappearance of these sheets of water are mainly traceable to
the inevitable process of obliteration which sooner or later befalls
all lakes great and small. Detritus is swept into them by rain and
wind from the surrounding slopes and shores. Every brook that enters
them is engaged in filling them up. The marsh-loving vegetation which
grows along their shallow margins likewise aids in diminishing them.
Man, too, lends his help in the same task. In early times he built his
pile-dwellings in the lakes, and for many generations continued to
cast his refuse into their waters. In later days he has taken the more
rapid and effectual methods of drainage, and has turned the desiccated
bottoms into arable land.

In connection with the geological changes that have affected the
general surface of the country since the beginning of history,
reference may here be made to those which have taken place on the
coast-line. Standing as it does amid stormy seas and rapid tidal
currents, Britain has for ages suffered much from the attacks of the
ocean. More especially has the loss of land fallen along our eastern
shores. Ever since the submergence of the North Sea and the cutting
through of the Strait of Dover, the soft rocks that form our sea-board
facing the mainland of Europe have been a prey to the restless waves.
Within the last few centuries whole parishes, with their manors,
farms, hamlets, villages, and churches have been washed away; and the
fisherman now casts his nets and baits his lines where his forefathers
ploughed their fields and delved their gardens. And the destruction
still goes on. In some places a breadth of as much as five yards is
washed away in a single year. Holderness, once a wide and populous
district, is losing a strip of ground about two and a quarter yards
broad, or in all about thirty-four acres annually. Its coast-line is
computed to have receded between two and three miles since the time of
the Romans--a notable amount of change, if we would try to picture what
were the area and form of the coast-line of eastern Yorkshire at the
beginning of the historic period.

But though the general result of the action of the sea along our
eastern border has been destructive, it has not been so everywhere. In
sheltered bays and creeks some of the material, washed away from more
exposed tracts, is cast ashore again. In this way part of the mud and
sand swept from off the cliffs of Holderness is carried southward into
the Wash, and is laid down in that wide recess which it is gradually
filling up. Along the coasts of Norfolk and Suffolk, inlets which in
Roman and later times were navigable channels, and which allowed the
ships of the Danish Vikings to penetrate far into the interior of the
country, are now effaced. On the shores of Kent, also, wide tracts of
low land have been gained from the sea. Islands, between which and the
shore Roman galleys and Saxon war-boats made their way, are now, like
the Isle of Thanet, joined to the mainland. Harbours and towns, such
as Sandwich, Richborough, Winchelsea, Pevensey, and Porchester, which
once stood at the edge of the sea, are now, in some cases, three miles
inland. There appears also to have been some gain of land on parts of
the south coast of Sussex, whereby the physical geography of that
district has been considerably altered. The valleys by which the downs
are there trenched were formerly filled with tidal waters, so that the
ancient camps, perched so conspicuously on the crest of the heights,
could not communicate directly with each other except by boat. Instead
of being a connected chain of fortifications, as was once supposed,
they must have been independent strongholds, surrounded by water on
three sides, and on the north by dense forest and impassable morasses.

The subterranean forces which throughout geological time have been so
potent in the area of the British Isles, appear to have on the whole
remained nearly quiescent during the centuries of authentic history.
Volcanic energy, which played so notable a part throughout most of the
geological past of our region, has never awakened here since the remote
Tertiary ages, but has shifted its site northwards to Iceland, where
it continued its activity even during the Ice-Age and has remained
vigorous down to the present time. But two forms of underground
movement have affected Britain since man appeared here. In the first
place, there have been important changes in the relative levels of sea
and land, and in the second place, the islands have frequently been
shaken more or less perceptibly by earthquakes.

In southern Scotland, the north of England and of Ireland, the land
has been upraised some twenty feet or more. As a consequence of this
elevation a selvage of flat alluvial land has been added to a number
of the estuaries, particularly to those of the Forth, Tay and Clyde.
Canoes and other remains of human workmanship, found imbedded in the
sands and silts of this marine terrace, show that the upheaval has
taken place since some part of Neolithic time. The addition of these
strips of level ground to the margin of the land has had an important
influence on the human population of these districts, for it has
provided many hundreds of square miles of arable ground, comprising
admirable sites for dozens of villages and towns as well as for
excellent coast-roads.

On the other hand, a long tract of land, extending from Cork across the
Bristol Channel and the southern counties to the coast of Yorkshire,
has sunk fifty feet or more since the Neolithic period. The result of
this depression has been to allow the sea to ascend far up many of the
estuaries which had previously been river-valleys, and thus to create,
or at least to deepen and widen, the numerous natural harbours which
indent the south coasts of England, Wales and Ireland. Not improbably
the downward movement, by helping to lower the narrow isthmus which in
the earlier ages of the human period connected Kent with the north-west
of France, contributed not a little to the insulation of England from
the continent.

Earthquake-shocks, though generally feeble, have been of severity
enough to damage public buildings. The cathedral of St. David's in its
uneven floor and dislocated walls, still bears witness to the shock
which six hundred years ago did so much injury to the churches of the
west of England. But though a formidable catalogue has been drawn up
of the earthquakes experienced within the limits of these islands, it
is not to that kind of underground disturbance that much permanent
alteration of the surface of the country is to be attributed.

In fine, there can be no doubt that the larger features of the
landscape of Britain have mainly determined the distribution of the
several tribes of mankind out of which the present population of our
islands has grown. It is hardly less obvious that the same features
have continued during the times of history to influence the development
and progress of these tribes. The Gael who long ages ago was pushed
by the Briton into the mountain fastnesses of the north was left
there to maintain, until only a few generations ago, his primitive
habits as hunter and warrior, cattle-dealer and freebooter. While he
remained comparatively unprogressive, the Norsemen, Danes and Saxons,
who took possession of the lowlands that lay between his glens and
the sea, were able to advance in agriculture upon richer soil and
in a less inhospitable climate, and to crowd the land with their
homesteads, farms, villages, towns and seaports. So too the Welshman,
pushed in turn into his hills by successive Teutonic swarms from the
other side of the North Sea, has preserved his pristine language, and
with it much of that individuality of character which has kept him
from cordially amalgamating with the invaders. And thus while the
original Celtic people, restricted to less ample territories and less
fertile land, have to a large extent retained the holdings and habits
of their ancestors, building comparatively few towns, and engaging
in few crafts, save farming and stock-raising, the Teutonic tribes,
possessing themselves of the broad cultivable lowlands and the great
repositories of coal and iron, have thrown across the islands a network
of thoroughfares, have scattered everywhere villages and towns, have
built many great cities, have developed the industrial resources of the
land and have mainly contributed to the commercial supremacy of the
Empire.

While the leading elements of the topography have remained for many
long ages essentially the same, there have arisen since the beginnings
of history, many important minor changes in the landscape, mainly due
to human interference, whereby the progress of the population has been
more or less affected. Prominent among these changes has been the
clearing of the dense woodlands that once covered so large a proportion
of the surface. Innumerable bogs and fens have been drained and
converted into arable land; lakes have been silted up by natural causes
or have been emptied by artificial drainage. War has been waged against
the wild animals which once abounded all over the islands. The bear,
wolf and wild boar have been extirpated. Only a few of the smaller
beasts of prey have been allowed to survive in diminished numbers. The
various species of deer would long ago have been exterminated had they
not been preserved as game.

But man's influence on the landscape has not consisted wholly in
removing what he found to be obnoxious. He has introduced many forms of
vegetation among those indigenous to the country. He has thus converted
thousands of square miles of scrub, moor and woodland into gardens,
parks, meadows and corn-fields. He has replaced some parts of the
primeval forest by plantations of a different type, wherein the native
hardwood trees are mingled now with larch, silver-fir and other trees
which seem to have had no place in the original flora.

But the minor modifications of the landscape within historic time
have not been merely those due to human interference. Nature has been
ceaselessly at work in slowly, and for the most part imperceptibly,
changing the forms of the ground. The streams have dug their channels
deeper into the flanks of the hills and have spread their alluvial
soil further and wider over the valleys and lake-floors. The frosts
of winter have been splintering the crags, the springs have been
sapping the cliffs, and from time to time landslips have been launched
into the stream-channels below. The sea has cut away large slices of
land from some parts of the coast-line, while to others it has added
strips of alluvial ground and mounds of shingle. We have seen too that
underground movements have contributed to modify the landscape in some
parts of the country, certain tracts having been upraised so as to
expose broad spaces of flat ground, while others have been submerged
beneath the sea which now ascends into what were formerly open valleys.
This sinking of the land in southern England, inasmuch as it helped
to separate Britain from the continent, must be regarded as probably
the most far-reaching change that has affected the landscape of this
country since the days of Neolithic man.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The substance of this Essay formed an address to the Oxford
University Scientific Club, in 1887.

[2] This illustration of the subject is discussed in my _Geological
Essays at Home and Abroad_, p. 253.

[3] This part of the subject is more fully treated in the two following
essays.

[4] A portion of this passage has been inserted in my _Scenery of
Scotland_.

[5] This plain is one of the upraised marine platforms referred to in a
later part of this Essay.

[6] Dr. Joyce's excellent _Irish Names of Places_ is the best authority
on this subject.




II

Landscape and the Imagination[7]


The more marked features on the surface of the land have from early
times awakened the curiosity and stimulated the imagination of men.
Mountainous regions with their peaks and crests, where cloud and
tempest find a home, their rugged scarps of cliff and crag, whence
landslips sweep down into the valleys, their snows and frosts, their
floods and avalanches, their oft-repeated and too frequently disastrous
shocks of earthquake, supply the most striking illustrations of this
relation of the external world. Yet while it is from these elevated
parts of the earth's surface, where the activities of nature seem to
beat with a more rapid pulse, that the human imagination has been
more especially stimulated, even among the comparatively featureless
lowlands the influence of outer things, though less potent, may
be distinctly traced. Wherever, for instance, the monotony of a
lowland landscape is broken by an occasional oddly-shaped hill, by
a conspicuous grassy mound, by a group of prominent boulders, by a
cauldron-shaped hollow, or by a river chasm, we may expect to find
that these diversities of scenery have from time immemorial arrested
attention.

Whatever departs from ordinary usage and experience prompts, even among
the rudest people, a desire for explanation. The more striking elements
of topography accordingly aroused the curiosity of the earliest races
who came to dwell among them, and to whom, in the infancy of the world,
the forces of nature were more or less mysterious. These forces were
then looked upon as visible manifestations of the agency of superior
beings, whose conflicts or co-operation were held to account for the
changes of external nature. Thus, by a system of personification that
varied from clime to clime, primeval mankind surrounded itself with
invisible deities, to each of whom some special function in the general
government and progress of the world was assigned.

Hence the problems presented by the more impressive details of the
scenery of the earth's surface were in truth among the earliest with
which the human race began to deal. If we try to discover how they
were first approached, and how their treatment varied, not only with
peculiarities of race and national temperament, but with conditions
of climate and variations of topography, we are led backward into the
study of some of the most venerable efforts of the human imagination,
which, though now in large measure faded or vanished, may yet be
in some slight degree recovered from the oldest mythologies and
superstitions. In many of the earlier myths we may recognise primitive
attempts to account for some of the more prominent features of
landscape or of climate. And as we trace the variations of these
legends from country to country, we learn how much their changes of
dress have arisen from local peculiarities of environment.

Of the earlier interpretations of nature, some may be partially
restored from a comparison of ancient myth and superstition with the
physical characters of the regions wherein these legends took their
rise, or where, at least, they assumed the forms in which they have
been transmitted to later ages. Others have survived in place-names
which, still in common use, connect our own generation with the days of
our ancestors.

In pursuing the investigation of this subject we soon perceive that the
supernatural interpretations, and the tendency to personification which
led to them, began eventually to be supplanted by natural explanations
founded on actual observation of the outer world, and that this change
of view, commencing first with the few observant men or philosophers,
made considerable way among even the ordinary populace, long before
the decay of the mythological systems or superstitions of which these
primeval supernatural interpretations formed a characteristic part.
The growth of the naturalistic spirit was exceedingly slow, and for
many centuries was coeval with the continued vigorous life of religious
beliefs which accounted for many natural events as evidence of the
operations of supernatural beings.

Those features of the outer world which most attract attention were
the first that appealed to the observing faculty of mankind. Among
them the elements of topography obviously hold a foremost place,
including, as they do, the most frequent and impressive manifestations
of those natural agencies whereby the surface of the land is constantly
modified. It was impossible that after men had begun to observe, and
to connect effects with causes, they should refrain from referring the
resultant changes of landscape to the working of the natural processes
that were seen or inferred to produce them. They were led to trace this
connection even while their religious belief or superstition remained
hardly impaired. The conclusions thus popularly reached were sometimes
far from correct, but inasmuch as they substituted natural for
supernatural causes, they undoubtedly marked a distinct forward step in
the intellectual development of man.

From that time onward the influence of scenery on the human imagination
took a different course. The gods were dethroned, and the invisible
spirits of nature no longer found worshippers; but it was impossible
that the natural features which had prompted the primeval beliefs
should cease to exercise a potent influence on the minds of men. This
influence has varied in degree and in character from generation to
generation, as we may see by comparing its place in the literature of
successive periods. Probably at no time has it been more potent than it
is at the present day.

To discuss fully this wide subject would demand far more space than
can be given to it here. I propose, therefore, to select two portions
of it only; one from the beginning and the other from the end of
its historical development. I shall try to show first, by reference
to primitive myth and legend what were the earliest and most obvious
effects of prominent elements of topography on the imagination, and
secondly, what these effects are or should be now in the midst of
modern science and universal education.

The mythology of Ancient Greece supplies many illustrations of the
way in which the physical aspects of the land have impressed their
character on the religious beliefs and superstitions of a people. The
surface of that country is almost everywhere rugged, rising into groups
of bare, rocky hills and into chains of lofty mountains which separate
and enclose isolated plains and valleys. The climate embraces all the
softness of the Mediterranean shores, together with the year-long snows
and frosts of Olympus on the one hand, and the almost sub-tropical
heat of the lowlands of Attica on the other. The clouds and rains of
the mountains have draped the slopes with umbrageous forests, and have
spread over the plains a fertile soil which has been cultivated since
before the dawn of history. Thus, while a luxuriant vegetation clothes
the lower grounds with beauty, bare crags and crests are never far
away. The soft and the harsh of nature, the soothing and the repulsive,
are placed side by side. The indolence begotten of a teeming soil and
sunny clime is quickened by proximity to the stern mountain-world--the
home of thunder-clouds, tempests, and earthquakes. In the childhood
of mankind, the physical features of such a country could not fail
to react powerfully upon the imagination of those who dwelt among
them, calling forth visions of grace and beauty, and at the same time
imparting to these visions a variety and vigour which would hardly
have been developed among the dwellers on monotonous plains. The
natural influence of scenery and climate like those of Greece upon
the imagination of a race endowed with a large share of the poetic
faculty has never been more forcibly or gracefully expressed than by
our own Wordsworth, in a well-known passage in the fourth book of his
_Excursion_.

With the source of the early Hellenic myths we are not so much
concerned in the present inquiry as with the form in which they have
reached us. Whether they arose in Greece, or, having been brought from
some other home, received their final shape there, is of less moment
than the actual guise in which we find them in the earliest Greek
literature. There cannot, I think, be any doubt that to the striking
topography of Thessaly they are largely indebted for the dress in which
they appear in the poems of Homer and Hesiod. We may recognise among
them some of the earliest recorded efforts of the human imagination to
interpret the aspects of nature, and these aspects were unmistakably
such as presented themselves in that particular portion of the ancient
world.

The wide Thessalian plain, the largest area of lowland in Greece, lies
upon Cretaceous and Tertiary rocks, which, in the lower parts of the
region, are overlain with a level tract of alluvial soil. Round this
plain stretches a girdle of lofty and imposing mountains, composed
chiefly of hard crystalline schists and limestones. On the north the
crags and snowy crests of Olympus rise high and bare above the dense
forests that clothe their slopes. To the eastward, above the narrow
chasm of Tempe, through which the drainage of the great inland basin
escapes to the sea, the grey peak of Ossa forms the northern end of a
long chain of heights which, farther south, mount into the ridge of
Pelion. Along the southern edge of the plain another vast mountain
barrier sweeps eastward from Mount Pindus through the lofty chain of
Othrys to the sea.

No other part of Greece presents such diversities of topography and
of climate as are to be found within the region thus encircled with
mountains. The peaceful beauty and spontaneous fertility of the
plain offer an impressive contrast to the barren ruggedness of the
surrounding heights. High above the gardens, meadows, and corn-fields,
sharply-cut walls and pinnacles of white limestone mount out of the
thick woodland into the clear upper air. Nor is evidence wanting of
those catastrophes which from time to time convulse a mountain region.
At the base of the bare cliffs and down the rocky declivities lie
huge blocks of stone that have been detached by the weather from the
precipices above. And, doubtless, from time immemorial the dwellers
on these slopes have been familiar with the crash and tumult of the
landslip, and with the havoc wrought by it on forest and field. Along
the mountain-ridges, too, clouds are ever gathering, and thunderstorms
are of continual recurrence. The lightnings of Olympus are visible from
Othrys, and to the inhabitants of the intervening plain the incessant
peals and reverberations from the northern and southern ranges might
well sound like shouts of mutual defiance from the two lines of lofty
rampart, as where, in a more northern clime


     "Jura answers from her misty shroud
     Back to the joyous Alps that call to her aloud."


If to these daily or frequently returning meteorological phenomena
we add the terrors of occasional earthquakes, such as affect most
mountainous countries and are known to have convulsed different parts
of Greece within historic times, we perceive how favourable the
conditions of environment must have been for exciting the imagination
of an impressionable people. Whether, therefore, the early Hellenic
myths arose in Hellas, or came from elsewhere, they could hardly fail
in the end to betray the influence of the surroundings amid which they
were handed down from generation to generation. The snowy summits of
Olympus, rising serenely above the shifting clouds into the calm,
clear, blue heaven, naturally came to be regarded as the fit abode of
the gods who ruled the world. The association of that mountain-top with
the dwelling-place of the immortals, first suggested to the imagination
of the early settlers in Thessaly, passed outwards to the utmost
bounds of the Hellenic world. Everywhere the word Olympus came to be
synonymous with heaven itself.

In the myth of the Gods and the Titans, as handed down in early
Greek poetry, the influence of Thessalian topography is abundantly
conspicuous. The two opposite mountain ranges of Olympus and
Othrys became the respective strongholds of the opposing hosts. The
convulsions of that ten years' struggle, whether suggested or not by
the broken features of the ground and the conflicts of the elements,
assuredly took their poetic colouring from them. The riven crags piled
in confusion one above another, the rock-strewn slopes, the trees
uprooted by landslips, the thunder-peals that resound from the misty
mountain-chains, seem still to tell of that primeval belief, wherein
the Titans were pictured as striving with frantic efforts to scale
the heights of Olympus by piling Ossa on Pelion, hurling huge rocks
and trees through the darkened air, and answering the thunderbolts of
Zeus with fierce peals from the clouds of their lofty citadel. In the
magnificent description of Hesiod, beneath all the supernatural turmoil
we catch, as it were, the tumult of a wild storm among the Thessalian
hills, with such added horrors as might be suggested to the imagination
of the poet from the recollection or tradition of former earthquake or
volcanic eruption.

Long after the time of the primitive mythology, the more striking
features of the land continued to appeal to the Hellenic imagination
and to perpetuate the prowess of gods and heroes, even down to
generations of men among whom belief in these legends was already
beginning to grow dim. The narrow gorge of Tempe may be cited in
illustration of this influence. Cleft between the precipices of Olympus
and Ossa, and serving as the only outlet for the drainage of the wide
Thessalian plain, this chasm must have arrested the attention of
the earliest settlers, and certainly continued for many centuries
to be one of the most noted valleys of the Old World. The contrast
between the vast level plain through which the River Peneius and its
tributaries wander, and the narrow gorge through which the accumulated
waters issue; the apparently insurmountable barrier interposed across
the course of the stream; the singular and unexpected ravine by which
the drainage is allowed to escape to the sea; the naked, fissured
walls of white limestone on either side of the narrow pass, even now
powerfully impress the observant traveller of to-day.

These striking features could not fail to appeal to the imagination
of the old Greek. From early times it was recognised that the plain
of Thessaly had once been covered with a sheet of water, of which the
remaining portions formed two considerable lakes. Had no passage been
opened for the outflow of the drainage across the barrier of mountains
the plain would have remained submerged. The cleaving of a chasm
whereby the pent-up waters were allowed to flow down to the sea, and
thus to lay bare so wide an area of rich land for human occupation,
was looked on as the work of some benevolent power, and naturally came
to be associated with the name of Poseidon, the God of the Sea.[8] In
later times, when the deeds of gods and heroes began to be confounded
with each other, the supernatural character of the Vale of Tempe was
still acknowledged; but the opening of the cleft was in course of time
transferred to Hercules, who, by cutting a hollow across the ridge,
allowed the stagnant waters of the interior to flow off into the sea.[9]

Prominent hills and crags in other parts of Greece gave rise to
legends, or became the localised scenes of myths which had floated down
from an older time, and sometimes perhaps from another birthplace. Thus
the hill Lycabettus, that stands so picturesquely on the north-east of
Athens, suggested to the lively fancy of the early Athenians a record
of the prowess of their patron-goddess. When Athene, so the legend
ran, was founding their state and wished to strengthen the city, she
went out to Pallene, a demos lying to the north-eastward, and procured
there a great hill which she meant to place as a bulwark in front of
the Acropolis, but on her way back, hearing from a crow of the birth
of Erichthonius, she dropped the hill, which has remained on the same
spot ever since. Legends of this kind, but varying in dress with local
topography and national temperament, may be found all over the world.

To the early Greeks the West was a region of marvels. It lay on the
outermost bounds of the known world, where the sun descended beneath
the earth and where Atlas supported the vault of Heaven. By degrees as
the spirit of colonisation drew men in that direction, the occidental
marvels of the first voyagers faded away before a more accurate
knowledge of the Mediterranean shores. But the legends to which they
had given rise remained in the popular mythology, and served as
subjects for chroniclers and poets.

Thus the two singular masses of rock in which, at Gibraltar and Ceuta,
the European and African continents respectively terminate, and which
form, on each side of an intervening strait, only some seventeen miles
wide, a kind of gateway for the vast Mediterranean basin, naturally
fixed the attention of the early navigators on those distant waters,
and filled a prominent place among the travellers' tales from the
remote West. They took their part in the myths, becoming the 'pillars
of Hercules,' that were erected by this legendary explorer and
knight-errant as an eternal record of his labours and of the ultimate
limit of his wanderings. The details of the story vary. By some
narrators the hero was represented as having narrowed and shallowed
the strait, and built his pillars on the two sides to keep the huge
monsters of the outer ocean from entering the Mediterranean sea. By
others he was believed to have actually excavated the strait itself,
and by thus separating Europe and Africa, previously joined together,
to have allowed the waters of the ocean and those of the inner sea to
mingle.[10]

In a mountainous country, where the streams, swollen by sudden or
heavy rains, sweep down much detritus into the valleys and plains, the
great changes of topography thereby produced impress the imagination
and dwell in the memory of the inhabitants. In Greece, the myths that
gathered round the Achelous--the largest and most famous river in the
country--probably arose, as Strabo showed, from the varying operations
of the stream itself. The stories of the river-god assuming the form
of a bull and of a serpent, his contests with Hercules, and the loss
of his horn, are obviously only personifications of a rapid stream,
rushing impetuously from its mountainous birthplace and winding in
twisted curves across the plain; now strewing the meadows with gravel,
now curbed by the laborious construction of embankments, and now
bursting forth again to resume its old wayward course.[11] The river
still retains the character which prompted its ancient legends. It is
now called the Aspropotamo or white river, from the abundance of white
silt suspended in its water and lying on its bed. While in winter, fed
by the rains and melting snows of distant Pindus, it often fills its
channel from bank to bank, it shrinks in summer into a number of lesser
streams, which wind about in a broad gravelly channel.

In the myths that grew round other rivers of ancient Greece, we may
recognise similar early attempts to account for striking features
of local typography. When, for instance, Hercules is fabled to have
barred back the river Cephissus and to have submerged and destroyed the
country about Orchomenos in Bœotia,[12] we may doubtless recognise the
traditional record of some prehistoric inundation, perhaps an abnormal
rise of the singularly variable Lake Copais, whereby a large tract
of land was flooded; possibly even an attempt to account for the lake
itself.

But there was one physical feature which, more than any other, must
have impressed the imagination of the dwellers by the Mediterranean
shores; and that was furnished by the volcanic phenomena so
characteristic of the great depression between Europe and Africa. Among
the islands of the Ægean sea, some were continually smoking; others
retained, in their cindery cones and ashy slopes, the memorials of
subterranean fires not long extinguished. From time to time actual
eruptions broke forth, with their accompaniments of convulsion and
terror. We know from geological evidence that one of the most violent
volcanic explosions which have affected the Mediterranean basin took
place where now is the island of Santorin, after the original site was
inhabited by a civilised people.[13] A conical volcanic mountain--an
eastern Vesuvius or Etna--stood on that site, but in some prehistoric
age it was blown into the air, as happened at Krakatoa in August, 1883,
only portions of the base of the cone being left to form the present
semi-circular ring of islands. Whether this stupendous catastrophe
occurred after the Hellenic race appeared in the Ægean area has not
been determined. But the tradition of it may have lingered in the
district, down to the time when, about two hundred years B.C., a new
volcano rose from the sea in the centre of this group of islands.
Another marked eruption occurred in the year 46 B.C. Even in our own
day, this ancient vent has shown renewed activity, fresh eruptions
have taken place from the middle of the engulphed crater, and another
central volcanic cone is gradually rising there.

The Greeks, thus accustomed to volcanic phenomena among their own
islands, were prepared to accept the stories, brought to them from the
remote West, of far more colossal volcanoes, and more gigantic and
continuous eruptions. Like the accounts of other physical phenomena
imported from that distant and half mythical region, the tales of
the volcanoes were no doubt at first more or less exaggerated. The
adventurous voyagers who, sailing as far as Sicily and the Æolian
Islands, saw the noble snow-capped cone of Etna, loftier than the
mountains of Hellas, yet emitting smoke by day and a glare of fire by
night; who watched Stromboli continually in eruption; who perchance
beheld the land convulsed with earthquakes, the air darkened with
volcanic dust, the sea covered with floating cinders, and who only
with much effort were able to steer their vessels into opener water,
would bear eastward with them such tales of horror as would not fail to
confirm and increase the popular belief in the national mythology, and
might even suggest new myths or new versions of those already current.
The greater size and vigour of the volcanoes would tend to create the
impression that other characteristics of the region were on a similarly
exaggerated scale. Sicily was accordingly believed in Homeric times to
be the home of a gigantic race of shepherds--the Cyclops.

It is obvious how the legend arose of the hundred-armed giant Typhœus
or Enceladus, who was fabled to lie buried beneath the region between
Etna and the Phlegræan Fields. The belching of the volcano suggested
to the popular imagination, which so loved to personify the powers of
nature, the gasping of an imprisoned monster. The tremors so constantly
affecting the islands were his quiverings as he lay on his uneasy,
burning bed, and the earthquakes that from time to time shook the
region marked how he tried now and again to shift his position there.

As intercourse with the West made the volcanic phenomena of that region
more familiar, the mythological interpretation underwent gradual
modification. On the one hand, it was observed that eruptions from
Etna, sometimes disastrous enough when they occurred, took place at
irregular and often widely separated intervals. On the other hand, it
was noticed that among the Æolian Islands, which lay to the north,
within sight of the Sicilian volcano, subterranean rumblings and
explosions were of daily occurrence. The Cyclops of older time, being
no longer extant above ground, came to be transferred in popular fancy
to the underground regions as associates of Hephaistos or Vulcan.
The incessant commotion below the surface suggested the idea of a
subterranean workshop, where these beings were employed in forging
the thunderbolts of Jove and in making arms and implements for other
gods and heroes. Accordingly the belief gradually spread over the
ancient world that the god of fire had his abode under Sicily and the
neighbouring islands.

Further, the abundant discharges of steam and vapours, both in the
quiescent and the active phases of volcanic eruptivity, suggested that
somehow they were due to wind imprisoned within the earth, and led to
the myth which represented the god of the winds as having his home in
the same subterranean caverns.

It has often occurred to me that one phenomenon, connecting the
meteorological conditions of the atmosphere with the volcanic activity
of the Æolian Islands, which must have early attracted attention,
would not improbably react on mythological beliefs in that part of
the Mediterranean basin. Though continually in a state of eruption,
Stromboli is said to be more especially active when atmospheric
pressure is low. Its clouds of steam and discharges of stones are most
marked before or during stormy weather, and are consequently more
conspicuous in winter and spring than in summer and autumn. Since the
days of Polybius and Strabo, the fishermen of the region have regarded
the cloud-cap of that volcanic cone as a trustworthy indication of the
kind of weather to be expected.

In Roman times, this increase of subterranean excitement in the
early part of the year appears to have received a supernatural
interpretation. It was looked on as evidence that at that season Vulcan
and his Cyclops were specially busy over their furnaces, forging
the thunderbolts that the Father of Gods and men was to use during
the ensuing summer. Thus Horace, when joyously enumerating to his
friend L. Sextius the signs that winter is giving way to spring--the
disappearance of ice and hoar-frost, the coming of the balmy west wind,
the release of the cattle from their stalls and of the farmer from his
fireside, the advent of the goddess of love, and the dances of the
nymphs and graces under the bright moon--adds that now is the time


     'When fiery Vulcan lights anew
     The Cyclops' glowing forge.'[14]


Long before these fables had ceased to be tacitly accepted by the
people, they had begun to be rejected by the more thoughtful men in the
community. There slowly grew up a belief in the settled and continuous
sequence of nature.[15] In the midst of the schemes that were devised
for explaining the old myths or making them fit into the widening
experience of later ages, we may detect the dawn of the scientific
spirit. Observant men were now able to recognise that what had been
regarded by their grandfathers as evidence of supernatural agency,
might well have been produced by natural and familiar processes of
change. The early geographers afford us some interesting illustrations
of the growth of this naturalism. Thus, Herodotus, in his excellent
description of the physical geography of Thessaly, takes occasion, as
a man of his reverent spirit naturally would, to mention the popular
belief that the striking gorge of Tempe had been rent open by a
blow from the trident of Poseidon. He admits the likelihood of the
explanation, but immediately proceeds to state his opinion that the
formation of this defile was not an abnormal manifestation of divine
power, but was to be regarded as an example of the ordinary system
of the world. 'Whoever believes,' he says, 'that Poseidon causes
earthquakes and rents in the earth will recognise his handiwork in the
vale of Tempe. It certainly appeared to me to be quite evident that the
mountains had been there torn asunder by an earthquake.'[16]

Coming down some four centuries later we find that in Strabo, while
all allusion to the supernatural has disappeared, the formation of
the topography by natural causes is described with as much confidence
as if the events were vouched for by documentary evidence. 'When the
present chasm of Tempe,' he remarks, 'was opened by the shocks of an
earthquake, and Ossa was torn away from Olympus, the Peneius flowed out
through this passage to the sea, and thereby drained the interior of
the country.'[17] He speaks also of the two lakes Nessonis and Bœbeis
as remnants of the large sheet of water which had originally covered
the lowlands of Thessaly.

The myths and legends of the Teutonic races supply many illustrations
of primitive attempts to account for some of the more striking external
phenomena of nature. In comparing these interpretations with those of
the Greeks, we cannot fail to perceive the influence of the different
scenery and climate amid which they took their birth. The dwellers in
the west of Scandinavia spent their lives under the shadow of lofty,
rugged fjelds, surmounted by vast plains of snow. They were familiar
with the gleam of glaciers, the crash of ice-falls, the tumult of
avalanches. Cloud and mist enshrouded them for weeks together. Heavy
rains from the broad Atlantic swelled their torrents and waterfalls.
Out of the dark forests, the naked rock rose in endless fantastic and
suggestive shapes. The valleys were strewn with blocks of every size
detached from the cliffs above. Mounds of earth and stones, like huge
graves, mottled the lower grounds over which they had been dropped
by old glaciers and ice-sheets. It was a region difficult of access
and hard to traverse, stern and forbidding in aspect, abounding in
gigantic, fantastic, and uncouth features, while the harshness of its
topography was but little tempered by that atmospheric softness which
sometimes veils the rocky nakedness of sunnier climes.

Away from the great mountain-tracts of Norway, though the topography
was on a diminished scale, there were many features similar in kind,
and fitted to awaken like fancies in the minds of those who dwelt
among them. The hill groups that rise out of the great Germanic plain,
such as the Hartz and the detached heights of central Scotland, though
far less imposing than the Scandinavian fjelds abound nevertheless in
picturesque details. Along the sides of their cliffs, especially in the
narrow valleys by which they are traversed, crags and pinnacles of odd
and often imitative shapes rise one above another. Solitary boulders,
unlike any of the rocks around, are strewn over the hills and scattered
far across the plains. Green, grassy mounds, like gigantic earthworks,
or groups of sepulchral tumuli, stand conspicuously on the bare heathy
moors. And when to these singular natural features there is added
the strangely impressive influence of the clouds, mists, and other
meteorological conditions that mark the changeful climate of western
Europe, we are presented with such a combination of effective causes
as might well stimulate the fancy of an imaginative people, and might,
among the members of the great Teutonic family, evoke feelings and
superstitions not less characteristic than those of ancient Greece.

The grandeur and ruggedness of the scenery of these western and
northern European countries, and the frequent sombreness of the
climate are faithfully reflected in the prevalent Teutonic myths and
superstitions. Thor and his mallet found a congenial home among the
Scandinavian mountains and fjords. There, too, was the appropriate
haunt of the Frost-giants. The race of giants, with their fondness
for stones and rocks, to whom so much influence in altering the
external aspects of nature was ascribed by the Teutonic races, might
have had their ancestral abode among the crags and defiles of the
north-west, but they readily naturalised themselves among the less
rugged tracts of northern Germany and of Britain. The dwarfs, trolls,
fairies, and hill-folk who, whether or not they are to be regarded
as representatives of a diminutive human population that originally
inhabited those regions, were believed to dwell under the earth and
in caves, and who were regarded as having played a distinct though
subordinate part in changing the surface of the land, would find
appropriate haunts wherever the Teutons established themselves. The
personification of natural forces and the effects produced by the
supernatural beings so pictured to the imagination, certainly bear a
marked family likeness all over the west and north-west of Europe.

There is, moreover, one feature that distinguishes the myths and
legends of those northern lands--the grim humour which so often lights
them up. The grotesque contours of many craggy slopes where, in the
upstanding pinnacles of naked rock, an active imagination sees forms of
men and of animals in endless whimsical repetitions, may sometimes have
suggested the particular form of the ludicrous which appears in the
popular legend. But the natural instinct of humour which saw physical
features in a comical light, and threw a playful human interest over
the whole face of nature, was a distinctively Teutonic characteristic.

A few examples from the abundant collection that might be gathered must
here suffice. Some of the most singular features of the landscapes of
the north-west of Europe arise from the operations of the ice-sheets,
glaciers, and icebergs of that comparatively late geological period
to which the name of the Ice Age is given. The perched boulders which
stand poised near the verge of cliffs or scattered over the sides and
summits of hills, everywhere suggested the working of supernatural
agency. In some districts they were looked upon as missiles hurled by
giants who fought against each other. In others, they were regarded
as the work of giantesses, or 'auld wives,' as they were called in
Scotland, who to exhibit their prowess would transport masses of rock
as large as hills from one part of the country to another.

This capacity in such supernatural beings to carry huge burdens of
stone or earth has furnished an explanation of many islands and mounds
along the maritime parts of Britain and the countries bordering
the Baltic Sea. Ailsa Craig, that stands so picturesquely in the
middle of the Firth of Clyde, was the handiwork of a carline, who,
for some object which is not very clear, undertook to carry a huge
hill from Scotland to Ireland. Before she had got half-way over, her
apron-strings broke and the rock fell into the sea, whence it has
projected ever since as the well-known island. In proof of the legend a
hollow among the Carrick hills is pointed out as the place from which
the mass of rock was removed.

Along the Baltic coasts many similar tales are told. Thus the island of
Hven was dropped where it stands by the giantess Hvenild, who wished to
carry some pieces of Zealand over to the south of Sweden. Sex seems to
have counted for little in the nature or amount of work accomplished,
for witches and warlocks, giants and giantesses, were equally popular
and equally powerful. A mighty giant in the Isle of Rugen, vexed that,
as his home stood on an island, he had always to wade from it when he
wished to cross over to Pomerania, resolved to make a causeway for his
greater convenience. So, filling his apron with earth, he proceeded
to carry out his purpose, but soon the weight of his burden broke an
opening in the apron, and such a quantity of stuff fell out as to
form the nine hills of Rambin. Stopping the hole, however, he went
on until another bigger rent was torn open, from which earth enough
tumbled to the ground to make thirteen of the other little hills that
now appear in that district. But he succeeded at last in reaching
the sea with just enough of earth left in the apron to enable him to
make the promontory of Prosnitz Hook and the peninsula of Drigge.
There still remained, however, a narrow passage between Pomerania and
Rugen which he had no material left to bridge over, and so in a fit
of rage and vexation he fell dead, and his undertaking still remains
incomplete.[18] The geologist who has studied the singular forms and
distribution of the 'glacial drift' can best appreciate this and
similar attempts to account for the shapes and grouping of these still
enigmatical mounds and ridges.

The progress of Christianity extirpated the pagan gods and giants,
but failed to destroy the instinctive craving after a supernatural
origin for striking physical features. This surviving popular demand
consequently led to gradual modification of the older legends.
In Catholic countries the deeds of prowess were not infrequently
transferred to the hands of the Virgin or of saints. Thus at Saintfort,
in the Charente region, a huge stone that lies by the river Ney is said
to mark where the Virgin dropped from her apron one of four pillars
which she was carrying across. In Britain, and especially in Scotland,
the devil of the Christian faith appears to have in large measure
supplanted the warlocks and carlines of the earlier beliefs, or at
least to have worked in league with them as their chief. All over the
country 'devil's punchbowls,' 'devil's cauldrons,' 'devil's bridges'
and other names mark how his prowess has been invoked to account for
natural features which in those days were deemed to require some more
than ordinary agency for their production.

These popular efforts to explain physical phenomena which, from the
earliest days of human experience, have appealed most forcibly to
the imagination, have survived longest in the more rugged and remote
regions, partly, no doubt, because these regions have lain furthest
away from the main onward stream of human progress, but partly also
because it is there that the most impressive topographical features
exist. The natural influence of mountain-scenery upon the mind is
probably of an awe-inspiring, depressing kind. We all remember the
eloquent language in which Mr. Ruskin depicts what he calls the
'mountain gloom.' Man feels his littleness face to face with the mighty
elemental forces that have found there their dwelling-place. Even so
near our own time as the later decades of the eighteenth century men of
culture could hardly find language strong enough to paint the horrors
of that repulsive mountain-world into which they ventured with some
misgivings, and from which they escaped with undisguised satisfaction.
After we have made every allowance for the physical discomforts
inseparable from such journeys at that time, when neither practicable
roads nor decent inns had been built, it is clear that mountain-scenery
not only had no charm for intelligent and observant men, but filled
them with actual disgust. Not until the nineteenth century did these
landscapes come into vogue with ordinary sightseers. Only within the
last two or three generations have mountains begun to attract a vastly
larger annual band of appreciative pilgrims than ever crowded along
what used to be called the 'grand tour.' For this happy change we are
largely indebted to the Alpine ascents and admirable descriptions of
the illustrious De Saussure on the Continent, and to the poetry of
Scott and Wordsworth in this country.

It is interesting to inquire how, after the popular feeling has thus
been so entirely transformed, mountainous scenery now affects the
imagination of cultivated people who visit it, whether impelled by the
mere love of change or by that haunting passion which only the true
lover of mountains can feel and appreciate. Even under the entirely
changed conditions of modern travel and general education, we can
detect the working of the same innate craving for some explanation of
the more salient features of mountain-landscape that shall satisfy
the imagination. The supernatural has long been discarded in such
matters. Even the most unlearned traveller would demand that its
place must be taken by scientific observation and inference. But the
growth of a belief in the natural origin of all the features of the
earth has grown faster than the capacity of science to guide it.
Nowhere may the lasting influence of scenery on the imagination be
more strikingly recognised than in the vague tentative efforts of
the popular mind to apply what it supposes to be scientific method
to the elucidation of these more impressive elements of topography.
The crudest misconceptions have been started and implicitly accepted,
which, though supposed to be based on observation of nature, are in
reality hardly less unnatural than the legends of an older time. They
have nevertheless gained a large measure of popular acceptance, because
they meanwhile satisfy the demands of the imagination.

To the geologist whose duty it is to investigate these questions in
the calm dry light of science, there is no task more irksome than
to combat and dislodge these popular, preconceived opinions, and
to procure an honest, intelligent survey of the actual evidence of
fact upon which alone a solid judgment of the whole subject can be
based. It is not that the evidence is difficult to collect or hard to
understand. But so vividly does striking topography still appeal to the
imagination, so inveterate has the habit become of linking each sublime
result with the working of some stupendous cause, and of choosing in
this way what is supposed to be the simplest and grandest solution of a
problem, that men will hardly listen to any sober presentation of the
facts. They refuse to believe that the interpretation of the earth's
surface, like that of its planetary motion, is a physical question
which cannot be guessed at or decided _a priori_, but must be answered
by an appeal to the evidence furnished by Nature herself.

For this antagonism geologists are, no doubt, chiefly themselves to
blame. While the growth of a love of natural scenery, and especially of
that which is lofty and rugged, has been late and slow, the desire to
ascertain the origin and history of the various inequalities of surface
on which the charms of scenery so largely depend, and by careful
scrutiny to refer these inequalities to the operation of the different
natural agencies that produced them, has been later and slower still.
Men had for several generations explored the rocks that lie beneath
their feet, and had, by laborious and patient effort, deciphered the
marvellous history of organic and inorganic changes of which these
rocks are the record, before they seriously set themselves to study
the story of the present surface of the land. And thus what was one of
the earliest problems to interest mankind has been one of the latest to
engage the attention of modern science.

This slowness of development, though it has allowed much misconception
to grow up rank and luxuriant, has been attended with one compensating
advantage, inasmuch as the various branches of inquiry into which
the discussion of the problem resolves itself have made rapid
progress in recent years. We are thus in a far better position to
enter on a consideration of the subject than we were a generation
ago. And though one may still hear a man gravely expounding familiar
topographical features much as his grandfather would have done, as
if in the meanwhile no thoughtful study had led to a very different
interpretation, these popular fallacies, which manifest such vitality,
can now be combated with a far wider experience, and a much ampler
wealth of illustration from all parts of the globe.

The various elements of a landscape appear to the ordinary eye so
simple, so obviously related to each other, and often so clearly
and sharply defined, that they are not unnaturally regarded as the
effects of some one general operation that acted for their special
production; and where they include abrupt features, such as a ravine or
a precipice, they are still popularly believed to be in the main the
work of some sudden potent force, such as an earthquake or volcanic
explosion. There is a general and perfectly intelligible unwillingness
to allow that scenery which now appears so complete and connected in
all its parts was not the result of one probably sudden or violent
cause. Yet the simplest explanation is not always necessarily the
correct one. In reality, the problems presented to us by the existing
topography of the land, fascinating though they are, become daily more
complex, and demand the whole resources of geological science. They
cannot be solved by any rough-and-ready process. They involve not only
an acquaintance with the recent operations of Nature, but an extensive
research into the history of former geological periods. The surface
of every country is like a palimpsest which has been written over
again and again in different centuries. How it has come to be what it
is cannot be told without much patient effort. But every effort that
brings us better acquainted with the story of the ground beneath our
feet, and at the same time gives an added zest to our enjoyment of the
scenery at the surface, is surely worthy to be made.

These remarks lead me naturally to the concluding section of my
subject, in which I propose to inquire how far the discoveries of
science have affected the relation of scenery to the imagination. It
has often been charged against scientific men that the progress of
science is distinctly hostile to the cultivation alike of the fancy and
of the imagination, and that some of the choicest domains of literature
must necessarily grow more and more neglected as life and progress
are brought more completely under the sway of continued discovery and
invention. We hear these complaints, now in the form of a helpless and
hopeless wail, now as an angry and impotent protest. That they are made
in good faith, and are often the expression of deep regret and anxious
solicitude for the future of some parts of our literature cannot be
doubted, and in so far they deserve to be treated by scientific men
with hearty respect and sympathy. But is there really anything in
the progress of science that is inimical to the cultivation of the
imaginative faculty and the fullest blossoming of poetry? The problems
of life--truth and error, love and hope, joy and sorrow, toil and rest,
peace and war, disease and death, here and hereafter--will be with us
always. From the days of Homer they have inspired the sweet singers of
each successive generation of men, and they will continue to be the
main theme of the poets of the future. As for the outer world in which
we live, the more we learn of it the more marvellous does it appear,
and the more powerfully does it make its mute appeal to all that is
highest and best within us. And, after all, how little have we yet
learnt! How small is the sum of all our knowledge! It is still and ever
must be true that, in the presence of the Infinite, 'the greater our
circle of light, the wider the circumference of darkness that surrounds
it.' When the man of letters complains that we have dethroned the old
gods, discarded the giants and witches, and erected in their place a
system of cold and formal laws that can evoke no enthusiasm, and must
repress all poetry, has he never perceived how a true poet can pierce,
as our late Laureate could, through mere superficial technicalities
into the deeper meaning of things, and can realise and express, in
language that appeals to the soul as well as to the ear, the divine
harmony and progressive evolution which it is the aim of science to
reveal? Let me ask such a critic to ponder well the sonnet of Lowell's:


     'I grieve not that ripe knowledge takes away
     The charm that nature to my childhood wore;
     For, with that insight, cometh, day by day,
     A greater bliss than wonder was before:
     The real doth not clip the poet's wings;
     To win the secret of a weed's plain heart
     Reveals some clue to spiritual things,
     And stumbling guess becomes firm-footed art.'


It will not, I think, be hard to show that in dissipating the popular
misconceptions which have grown up around the question of the origin
of scenery, science has put in their place a series of views of
nature which appeal infinitely more to the imagination than anything
which they supplant. While in no way lessening the effect of human
association with landscape, science lifts the veil that hides the past
from us, and in every region calls up a succession of visions which, by
their contrast with what now presents itself to the eye and by their
own unlooked-for marvels, rivet our attention. Scenes long familiar are
illumined by 'a light that never was on land or sea.' We view them as
if an enchanter's wand were waving over us, and by some strange glamour
were blending past and present into one.

Let me try to illustrate these remarks by three examples culled from
the scenery of each of the three kingdoms. First, I would transport
the reader in imagination to a lonely valley in the far west of the
county of Donegal. The morning light is sparkling in diamonds from
the dewdrops that cluster on the bent and heather, and is throwing
a rainbow sheen across each web of gossamer that hangs across our
path as we climb the long rough slope in front. Around are bare bleak
moorlands, too high and infertile for cultivation, from the sides
and hollows of which the peasants dig their fuel. The signs of human
occupation grow fewer and fainter as we ascend. The barking of the
village dogs and the shouts from the school playground no longer reach
our ears. And while we thus retire from the living world of to-day, it
almost seems as if we enter into progressively closer communion with
the past. Yonder, only a few miles to the north, lies the deep hollow
of Glen Columbkill--that western seclusion where tradition records that
St. Columba, the great apostle of the Scots, in his earlier years,
loved to bury himself for meditation and prayer. Mouldering cross and
crumbling cairn, to which latter every pious pilgrim adds a stone,
keep his memory green through the centuries. It is with him and his
courageous friends and disciples, rather than with sights and sounds
of the present time, that we feel ourselves in contact here. And when,
high up on this bare mountain-side, we come upon the ruined cells which
these devoted men built with their own hands out of the rough stones of
the crest, and to which they betook themselves for quiet intercourse
with Heaven, amid the wild winds and driving rains of these western
hills, the halo of human courage and self-denial falls for us on this
solitude to heighten its loneliness and desolation.

Musing on these memories of the past, we find ourselves at last at the
top of the slope, nearly two thousand feet above the sea, and discover
that from this lofty summit, which is known as Slieve League, the
ground plunges down on the other side in a succession of precipices
into the Atlantic Ocean, which stretches from the far western horizon
up to the very base of the crags beneath our feet. We have in truth
been climbing a mountain whereof one-half has been cut away by the sea.
What a picture of decay here presents itself! We peer over the verge
of the cliffs, still wrapped in their morning shadows, and mark how
peak, ridge, and wall of flinty quartzite, glowing in tints of orange,
yellow, and red, uprear themselves from the face of the declivity,
like the muscles on the limb of some sculptured Hercules, as if the
mountain had gathered up its whole strength and knit its frame together
to defy the fiercest assaults of the elements. But look how every
crag is splintered, how every jutting buttress is rent and creviced,
how every ledge is strewn with blocks that have fallen from the naked
wall above it! If we detach one of these loosened blocks and set it in
downward motion, we may watch it plunge into the abyss, flash from crag
to crag, career down the screes of rubbish and make no pause until, if
it survive so far, it dashes into the surge below. What we can thus
carelessly do in a few moments is done deliberately every winter by
the hand of Nature. Slowly but ceaselessly this vast seawall, swept by
Atlantic storm, sapped by frost, soaked with rain, dried and beaten
by sun and wind, is being battered down under the fire of Nature's
resistless artillery.

So far the scene is one that requires no special acquaintance with
science for its appreciation. The man of literature, who may most
disparage the man of science, may well affirm that here they meet on
common ground and have equal powers of reception and enjoyment. Nor
will he be gainsaid if he claims that for the enjoyment of the distant
view he is likewise quite as well equipped as the other. His eye, too,
can range over the whole glorious panorama of sea and land, across the
wide bay to the hills of Mayo, among which the noble cone of Nephin
rises like a distant Vesuvius; southward to the terraced heights of
Sligo, with their green tablelands and gleaming cliffs, which look
away to the western ocean; eastward and northward, over the billowy
sea of hills that stretch through Donegal round again westward to the
Atlantic. What is there of note in such a landscape, he may demand,
which he, ignorant of science, misses? What added pleasure, what
brighter light, can science cast over it?

By way of reply to these queries, let me ask the reader who has thus
far accompanied me to turn from the distant view to what lies beneath
his feet on the bare, stony, wind-swept summit of Slieve League. Never
shall I forget my own astonishment and enthusiasm when, in company
with some of my colleagues of the Geological Survey, I found the
splintered slabs of stone lying there to be full of stems of fossil
trees, belonging to kinds which occur abundantly in the sandstones
below our Coal-measures. The geologist will at once appreciate the full
meaning of this discovery. It showed that, perched on the summit of
this mountain, some two thousand feet above the sea, lay a cake, only
a few acres in extent, of that division of the Carboniferous rocks
called the Millstone Grit--a formation which spreads over a large tract
of country farther to the east. Here, in the north-west of Ireland, in
the very heart of the region of the ancient crystalline schists, and
occupying the highest ground of the district, lay a little remnant,
which demonstrated that a sheet of Millstone Grit once stretched over
that remote part of the island, and may have extended much farther
westward over tracts where the Atlantic now rolls. And as the Millstone
Grit is followed by the Coal-measures, the further inference could be
legitimately drawn that the Irish coal-fields, now so restricted in
extent, once spread far and wide over the hills of Donegal, from which
they have since been gradually denuded. Truly the woes of Ireland may
be traced back to a very early time, when not even the most ardent
patriot can lay blame on the invading Saxon.

That little cake of grit on the top of Slieve League stands as a
monument of waste so prolonged and so stupendous as to be hardly
conceivable. It proves that the north-west of Ireland was buried under
a sheet of strata many hundreds of feet thick, and that, inch by inch,
this overlying mantle of solid stone has been worn away, until it has
been reduced at last to merely a few scattered patches of which that
of Slieve League is the most westerly. Not only so, but the present
system of hill and valley is thus demonstrated not to be part of the
primeval architecture of the earth, but to have come into being after
that upper envelope of Carboniferous rock had begun to be removed. What
a marvellous series of pictures is thus presented to our imagination!
Standing on that bare mountain-top, we think of the ages represented
by the quartzite of those craggy precipices below, then of the time
when the region lay beneath the waters in which the coal jungles spread
over a large part of Ireland. We try to realise how these jungles sank
foot by foot beneath the sea, how sand and silt were heaped over them,
and how, in course of ages, this submerged area was once more upraised
into land. But we fail to form any adequate conception of the lapse of
time required for the long succession of changes that followed. We only
know that, slowly and insensibly, by the fall of rain, the beating of
wind, the creeping of ice-fields, and the surging of the ocean, hollow
and glen have been carved out, hill after hill has emerged, like forms
from a block of marble under the hand of a sculptor, that ravines have
been cut out here and crags have been left there, until, at last, the
whole landscape has been wrought into its present forms.

We look once more down the face of the precipice, now lit up by the
advancing sun, and, though everywhere upon its ruined surface we mark
how--


     'Nature softening and concealing,
     Is busy with a hand of healing'--


crusting the bare rock with golden lichen, or hiding its rawness under
a cover of richly tinted weather-stains, we none the less perceive the
sure signs of constant and inevitable decay; we recognise the working
of the same forces that have sculptured the whole landscape, far as
well as near; and we feel awed in presence of this revelation of the
continuity of law and of the potency even of the unregarded operations
of nature when they have had untold ages in which to accomplish their
appointed work.

I should like now to transport the reader to a wholly different scene,
that we may consider together some of the more obvious features in the
landscapes of the south coast of England. At the western end of the
Isle of Wight, a long ridge of chalk-down, which stretches completely
across the island, runs out to sea, and terminates in the well-known
white pinnacles of the Needles. From the highest part of the ridge,
when the air is clear, the eye ranges southward over a vast expanse
of open sea. To the west and north the breadth of water is bounded by
the blue hills of Dorsetshire, the white cliffs of Swanage Bay, and
then the long low brown heights which are crowned with the spires of
Bournemouth and Christchurch. Eastward we note how the ridge on which
we stand sinks down into the hollow of Freshwater Gap, but rises again
on the farther side, and then striking inland for some miles, sweeps
round to form the heights of St. Catharine's, nearly 800 feet high,
whence it descends once more in white cliffs to the sea.

On a summer noon, when a fresh westerly breeze roughens the sea into
deepest azure, and keeps a continual murmur of plashing waves at the
foot of the cliffs, few pieces of English coast scenery offer more
attractions than this. From the verge of the short green sward of the
down, the chalk plunges in a sheer precipice of dazzling whiteness,
that contrasts well with the mingled blue and emerald-green of the sea
below. Projecting massive buttresses, that catch the full blaze of
sunlight, throw into delicate violet shadow the recesses and alcoves
into which the face of chalk has been worn. On the great ocean highway
in front, vessels of every size and rig sail past on their outward or
homeward voyage. Though our perch above the precipice is solitary,
we yet feel within sight and touch of the living world. Across the
bay we mark the smoke of distant villages and towns, and the fields
and woodlands that separate the scattered hamlets. Just below, at the
northern foot of the ridge, sheltered and concealed among its woods,
lies that home so dear to lovers of English literature, where--


     'Groves of pine on either hand,
     To break the blast of winter, stand,
     And further on, the hoary channel
     Tumbles a breaker on chalk and sand.'


Nor are memorials of the past wanting to throw over the scene the
priceless charm of old memory and tradition. The down is roughened here
and there with 'the grassy barrows of the happier dead.' The steeples
and towers of the country churches dotted over the landscape, mark
still, as they have done for centuries, the heart of each parish and
its quiet graveyard. It is a typically English scene, full of that
hallowed, historic interest, and of that subdued, unobtrusive beauty,
where the lineaments of nature are everywhere more or less concealed by
the labours of man, which constitute so chief a source of pleasure in
the landscapes of England.

Here, surely, our literary censor may claim that no room can be found
for the foot of science. What can we pretend to add to the charm of
such scenery; or what can we do, if we touch it at all, but lessen
that charm? Again, I accept the challenge, though with perhaps somewhat
more diffidence; not that I think the contribution from science is here
less available or less appropriate, but because I so fully share in
the feeling that a scene, in itself and to the ordinary eye so full of
everything that can give pleasure, needs no addition from any source.

Let me suppose that we are placed upon the extreme western verge of
the down, with the Needles in front of us. The chalk that forms these
white faces of rock is shown by science to be made up entirely of the
mouldered remains of creatures that gathered on the sea-bottom, ages
before the species of animals living at the present day came into
existence. Sponges, crinoids, corals, shells, fishes, reptiles, mingled
their remains with those of the minuter forms of life that accumulated
on the floor of that ancient ocean. And now, hardened into stone, the
ooze of that sea-bed has been upraised into land. The 'long backs of
the bushless downs,' which for many successive centuries have remained
as we see them, were originally parts of the sea-bed, and are entirely
built up of the vestiges of dead organisms.

But this is not all. Look at one of those noble faces of rock which
shoot up from the restless breakers, and take note of the parallel
lines of dark flints which, as if traced with a pencil, sweep in such
graceful curves from base to crest of the cliffs. Alike on buttress and
recess, from headland to headland, no matter how irregularly the chalk
has been sculptured, these parallel lines may be followed. A feature
so conspicuous in the architecture of the precipices could not escape
the attention of the most casual visitor, but he only vaguely marvels
at it, until geology tells him that these dark lines mark successive
floors of that ancient sea--floors that gathered one over another, as
generation after generation of marine creatures left their crumbling
remains upon the bottom. But now they are bent up and placed on end,
like books on the shelves of a library. And thus we learn that not only
has this ancient sea-bed been turned into dry land, but its layers of
hardened ooze have been tilted up vertically, and that it is the worn
ends of these upturned layers which form the long ridges of the downs.

But science further makes known to us that beyond the cliffy margin
on which we stand, there once stretched an ampler land that has
long disappeared. Far over the English Channel the chalk downs once
extended with their undulating summits, their smooth grassy slopes,
their deep cooms and quiet bournes. That vanished land ran southward,
until it ended off in a range of white precipices. The rain that fell
on its surface gathered into a river that flowed northward through
Freshwater Gap into the Solent. Strange to tell, perched on the top of
the present cliffs, to the east of Freshwater, lie fragments of the
bed of that ancient stream, consisting of gravel and silt which, as
the cliffs are undermined by the waves, tumble to the beach and mingle
with the gravel of to-day. In these ancient deposits are found teeth
of the long-extinct mammoths which browsed the herbage on slopes that
rose southward, where for many a long age the Atlantic has rolled its
restless tides and breakers.

Musing on these records of a dim forgotten past, we once more turn
to the last spurs of chalk and the isolated Needles. There, with
eye quickened to recognise what science has to reveal, we trace on
every feature of the rocky foreground, inscribed in characters that
cannot be mistaken, the story of that process of destruction which
has reduced the Isle of Wight to its present diminished proportions.
The rains, frosts, and tempests splinter the chalk above and the
waves gnaw it away below. Year by year fresh slices are cut off and
strewn in fragments over the sea-floor by the unwearying surge. The
Needles, once part of the down, are perceptibly less than they were a
generation ago. The opposite white cliffs and downs of Dorset were at
one time continuous with those of the Isle of Wight. They too, by their
shattered precipices, tunnelled caverns, and isolated stacks of rock,
tell the same tale of disintegration. And, thus, impressive though the
scenery was before, it now acquires a new interest and significance,
when every cliff and pinnacle becomes eloquent to us of a past so
strange, so remote, and yet so closely linked with our own day by a
chain of slow and unbroken causation.

And now, as a last illustration, let me conduct the reader in
imagination to the far north-west of Scotland and place him on the
craggy slopes above the upper end of Loch Maree as the sun, after a
day of autumnal storm, is descending towards the distant Hebrides
in a glory of crimson, green, and gold. Hardly anywhere within the
compass of our islands can a landscape be beheld so varied in form
and colour, so abounding in all that is noblest and fairest in our
mountain scenery. To the right rises the huge mass of Slioch, catching
on his terraced shoulders the full glow of sunset, and wreathing his
summit with folds of delicate rose-coloured cloud. To the left, above
the purple shadows that are now gathering round their base, tower the
white crags and crests of Ben Eay, rising clear and sharp against the
western sky. Down the centre, between these two giant buttresses, lies
Loch Maree--the noblest sheet of water in the Scottish Highlands--now
ablaze with the light of the sinking sun. Headland behind headland, and
islet after islet rise as bars of deep violet out of that sea of gold.
Yonder a group of pines, relics of the old Caledonian forest, stand
boldly above the rocky knolls. Around us the naked rock undulates in
endless bosses, dotted with boulders or half-buried in the deep heather
that flames out with yet richer crimson in the ruddy light filling
all the valley. Overhead, the banded cliffs of Craig Roy, draped with
waterfalls and wet with the rains of the earlier part of the day, glow
in the varying tints of sunset. We hear the scream of the eagles that
still nest in these inaccessible crags; the hoarse outcry of the heron
comes up from the lake; the whirr of the black-cock re-echoes down the
hill-side. It might seem as if we were here out of sight and hearing
of man, save that now and then the low of cattle, driven home to their
stalls, falls faintly on the ear from the distant hamlet, which is
fading into the gathering twilight of the glen.

At such a time and in such a scene the past speaks vividly to us,
if there be human associations of a bygone time linked with the
place. Here, in this remote Highland valley, we are led backward
in imagination through generations of strife and rapine, clan
warfare and private revenge, bravery and treachery, superstition and
ignorance, far away to that early time when, in the seventh century,
Maelrubha, the red priest from Ireland, preached to the savage Picts,
and first brought this region within the ken of civilised men. More
than twelve hundred years have since passed away, but the memory of
that early missionary still lives here among the solitudes which he
chose as the scene of his labours. The lake yet bears his name, and
his favourite island of retirement, embowered in holly, mountain ash,
and honeysuckle, contains his holy well, which, even to this day, is
visited for the cure of diseases, while offerings are there made to the
saint.

It is just this little touch of 'the still, sad music of humanity'
which is needed to crown the interest and dignity of our Highland
landscape. 'What more, then, can we need or desire?' our literary
critic may once more demand; 'you may go on to elaborate the details of
the scene, for every part of the picture abounds in the most exquisite
detail, beyond the power of pen or almost of pencil adequately to
pourtray. But what can science do here, except to mar what already is
perfect, or to confuse by contributing what is entirely irrelevant?'

Again I feel the force of the objection, and all the more because
to combat it as I should wish to do, would involve me in geological
details which would here be wholly out of place. Let me say, briefly
and decidedly, that after many years of experience in every variety of
landscape in this country, I know nowhere a scene which has its true
inner meaning as a source of impressiveness more strikingly revealed,
or which has its ordinary interest more vividly intensified by the
light which geological history throws upon it.

The most cursory traveller, even as he drives rapidly along this
valley, can hardly fail to observe that three distinct rocks enter
into the composition of the landscape, each differing from the others
in form, colour, and relative position, and each contributing its
own characteristic features to the scenery. First of all a series of
curiously hummocky eminences of dark grey rock mounts from the edge
of the lake up the sides of Slioch, forming a kind of rude and rugged
platform on which that mountain stands. Next comes a pile of brownish
red sandstone, which in parallel and almost horizontal bars, like so
many courses of cyclopean masonry, forms the upper and main mass of
the height. And lastly, there is the bedded white rock which, hanging
upon the flanks of the red sandstone, towers in the cliffs of Craig
Roy on the one side of the valley and builds up almost the whole of
Ben Eay on the other side. The differences and contrasts between these
three kinds of material are so marked, and have obviously played so
essential a part in producing the special peculiarities of the rocky
landscape, that even our literary censor himself could hardly, in spite
of himself, fail to note them and might venture to ask a question about
them.

To answer his question as it might best be answered would be most
briefly and vividly done by a true poet. I can only pretend to present
the mere facts, but even such a presentation in the driest and baldest
way cannot conceal their inherent marvellous interest.

Those grey bosses of rock that rise out of Loch Maree and form the
base and outworks of Slioch are portions of the very oldest known
land-surface of Europe, as incalculably more ancient than the rest
of the Highlands, as the Highlands in turn are more ancient than the
Alps or the Apennines. Their heights and hollows existed before the
red sandstones were laid down. To this day, you can walk along the
shore-line of the vanished lake or sea in which these sandstones
accumulated, and can mark how hill after hill, and valley after valley,
sank under its waters, and were buried beneath its quietly gathering
sand and shingle. That primeval land-surface, slowly settling down,
came at last to lie under several thousand feet of such sediment. Long
subsequently, after the sand, hardened into sandstone and the gravel,
consolidated into conglomerate, had been partially raised out of water,
came the time when the white rock of Ben Eay and Craig Roy gathered as
fine white sand on the sea-bottom. Some beds of this compacted sand are
filled with millions of the burrows of sea-worms that lived in it, and
higher up come bands of shale and limestone containing here and there
trilobites, shells, corals, sponges and other organisms belonging to
an age anterior to that of even the very oldest fossiliferous rocks
of most of the rest of Britain. These sheets of marine sediment point
to a period when there were no hills in north-west Scotland, for the
primeval heights still lay deeply buried, and a shoreless sea spread
far and wide over the region.

At length after a vast interval of time came an epoch of gigantic
terrestial disturbance, when north-western Europe, from the North Cape
to the south of Ireland, was convulsed; when the solid crust of the
earth was folded, crumpled, and fractured, until its shattered rocks,
crushed and kneaded together, acquired the crystalline characters which
they now display. In the course of these tremendous displacements (to
which there is no parallel in the later geological history of this
country) huge slices of the earth's crust, many hundreds of feet thick
and many miles long, were wrenched asunder and pushed bodily westwards,
sometimes for a distance of ten miles. By this means portions of
the oldest rocks of the region were torn off and planted on the top
of the youngest. The whole country, thus broken up, underwent many
subsequent mutations, and was finally left to be gradually worn down by
the various agents that have carved the surface of the land into its
present shape.

Our three groups of rock, so distinctly marked out in the landscape,
thus record three successive and early chapters in the long history by
which the topography of the Scottish Highlands has been brought into
its existing form. Knowing what is their story, we find that every crag
and scar acquires a new meaning and interest. Past and present are once
more brought into such close and vivid union that while we gaze at the
landscape as it stands now, its features seem to melt away into visions
of what it has once been. We can in imagination clothe it with its
ancient pine-forests through which the early Celtic colonists hunted
the urus, the wild boar, the wolf, the brown bear, and the reindeer.
We can fill up the valley with the stately glacier which once stretched
along its hollow and went out to sea. We can dimly conceive the passage
of the long ages of persistent decay by which mountain and glen, corry
and cliff were carved into the forms which now so delight our eye.

In a memorable and often-quoted passage, Johnson wrote, 'To abstract
the mind from all local emotion would be impossible, if it were
endeavoured, and would be foolish if it were possible. Whatever
withdraws us from the power of our senses, whatever makes the past,
the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us
in the dignity of thinking beings.'[19] If this be a just judgment,
surely we may further maintain that whatever heightens our interest
in the landscapes around us, whatever quickens the imagination by
presenting new views of what has long been familiar, whatever deepens
our reverence by teaching us to recognise the proofs of that long
orderly progress through which the land has been fashioned for our use,
undoubtedly raises us in the dignity of thinking beings, stimulates the
emotional side of our nature, and furnishes abundant material for the
exercise of the literary and artistic faculties. Science even in her
noblest inspirations, is never poetry, but she offers thoughts of man
and nature which the poet, in the alembic of his genius, may transmute
into purest poetic gold.

But we have lingered by the side of this northern lake, with its noble
curtain of mountains, and the sun meanwhile has sunk in a glory of
flame beneath the faint outline of the Hebrides; the last flush of
crimson has faded from the sky and the twilight is deepening into night
adown the valley. In leaving the scene, if I have succeeded in showing
how we have it in our own power to quicken the influence of scenery
on the imagination, we may I trust take with us the full conviction
that there is no landscape so fair which may not be endued with fresh
interest if the light of scientific discovery be allowed to fall upon
it. Bearing this light with us in our wanderings, whether at home or
abroad, we are gifted, as it were, with an added sense and an increased
power of gathering some of the purest enjoyment which the face of
Nature can yield.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] _Fortnightly Review_, April, 1893.

[8] Herodotus, vii. 129.

[9] Diod. Sic., iv. 18. See also Lucan, _Pharsalia_, vi. 345.

[10] Diod. Sic., iv. 18, who allows his readers to choose which version
of the legend they prefer.

[11] See Strabo, x. 458. Diodorus also (iv. 35), giving a similar
interpretation of the legends, tells us how Hercules hollowed out a new
bed for the Achelous, thereby reclaiming a vast tract of exceedingly
fertile land.

[12] Diod. Sic., iv. 18.

[13] Fouqué, _Santorin et ses Eruptions_, chap. iii.

[14] _Carm._ I., iv. 7.

[15] See this subject fully discussed by Grote, _History of Greece_,
vol. i.

[16] Book vii. 129, see _ante_ p. 37.

[17] Book ix. 429.

[18] See Grimm's _Deutsche Mythologie_, i. 502.

[19] _Tour in the Hebrides_, p. 346.




III

Landscape and Literature[20]


The several races of mankind are marked off from each other by certain
bodily and mental differences which, there can be no doubt, have been
largely determined by the diverse geographical conditions of the
surface of the globe. We may be disposed to put aside the first origin
of these racial differences, as a problem which may for ever remain
insoluble. Yet we cannot refuse to admit that in the disposition of
land and sea, in the form and trend of coast-lines, in the grouping of
mountains, valleys, and plains, in the disposition and flow of rivers,
in the arrangement of climates, and in the distribution of vegetation
and animals, a series of influences must be recognized which have
unquestionably played a large part in the successive stages of human
development.

Though no record of the earliest of these stages has probably survived,
some of the later steps in the progress of advancement may not be
beyond the reach of investigation. The connection, for example,
between the circumscribing topography and geology of a country, and
the mythological creed of its inhabitants offers a tempting field of
inquiry, in which much may yet be gleaned. Who can doubt that the
legends and superstitions of ancient Greece took their form and colour
in no small measure from the mingled climates, varied scenery, and
rocky structure of that mountainous land, or that the grim titanic
mythology of Scandinavia bears witness to its birth in a region of
rugged snowy uplands, under gloomy and tempestuous skies?[21]

If the primeval efforts of the human imagination were thus stimulated
by the more impressive features of the outer world, it is natural to
believe that the same external influences would continue to exert their
power during the later mental development of a people. In particular,
it seems reasonable to anticipate that such potent causes would more
or less make themselves felt in the growth of a national literature.
The songs and ballads of the plains might be expected to present some
marked diversities from those of the mountains. There may, of course,
be risks of error in generalisations of this kind, especially where the
writings of distinct races are compared with each other. But the risks
may be reduced if we confine ourselves to the consideration of a single
country and a single literature. Such at least is the task which I have
undertaken on the present occasion. I propose to discuss the leading
types of scenery that distinguish the British Isles, and to inquire how
far it may be possible to trace from each of them an influence upon
the growth of English literature as shown in our poetry.

Under the term scenery may be included those variations in the general
aspect of the land that arise from the combined effects of three main
geographical elements--topography, climate, and vegetation. Of these
three factors, we are mainly concerned with the first, but the other
two will necessarily obtrude themselves continually on our attention.

Although geological details are not essential for the inquiry before
us, nevertheless some knowledge of them will be found of service
in enabling us to recognise more clearly the essential features of
a landscape, and to discriminate the real nature and extent of the
diversities between the landscapes of different parts of the country.
The fundamental elements of the scenery depend upon the nature and
structure of the rocks that come to the surface, and the manifold
varieties of external form arise from the constant succession of
different geological formations.

The evolution of the scenery of these islands has been a long-continued
process, wherein the chief part has been played by the air, rain,
rivers, frost, and the other superficial agencies which are continually
at work in wearing down the surface of the land. Each different kind
of rock has yielded in its own fashion to the agents of destruction.
Those rocks which have offered least resistance have been worn down
into hollows and plains. Those of a more durable nature have been
left standing up as ridges, hills, or mountains. The composition of
the rocks has likewise governed the nature of the soils and the
distribution of vegetation. Chalk, for instance, forms long ridges
of grassy and bushless down. Sandy and gravelly tracts are marked by
heather and pine-trees. Volcanic rocks often rise into isolated crags
with verdant slopes below. Granite lifts itself into mountains and
rocky moorlands, with cliffs, corries and 'tors' and long trails of
naked scree.

For the purposes of the present Lecture, I will arrange the scenery of
this country in three leading types:


       I. LOWLANDS.
      II. UPLANDS.
     III. HIGHLANDS.


These types are not always separable from each other by any definite
lines of boundary. The lowlands, for example, include ranges of
hills, and here and there gradually rise into uplands, which in turn
occasionally mount into lofty, rugged ground that may well be called
highland. Moreover, each type presents a number of local varieties,
dependent on geological structure. Thus the English lowlands differ in
many respects from the Scottish, and both from the Irish.

The arrangement now proposed, though not strictly scientific, is for
the proposed discussion convenient. We shall find, I think, that
each of the three main types has had a perceptible influence on our
literature, and not only so, but that even the local variations of each
type have left their impress on our literary history. To treat the
subject as fully as it deserves to be treated would require a course
of lectures. I can only attempt to illustrate it by selecting a few
instances from our poets where the relation that I wish to establish
seems to be most readily perceptible.


I. THE LOWLANDS OF BRITAIN. If a line be drawn across England from
the mouth of the Humber through the Midlands to the Bristol Channel,
it will divide the country into two sharply contrasted portions. To
the west of it, the older, harder, and therefore more durable rocks
rise into the high grounds of Wales, the Pennine Chain, and the
Lakes. To the east of it, on the other hand, the younger, softer,
and consequently more destructible, formations occupy the whole of
the territory, giving a characteristic lowland topography to the
districts that have been longest settled and cultivated, which include
the greater portion of what is most familiar and typical in English
landscape.

The eastern Lowlands of England consist of a succession of gently
undulating ridges, separated from each other by winding vales or
plains. These features have a general trend across the country from
south-west or west to north-east or east--a direction determined by the
successive outcrops of the different formations. But the denudation
of the surface has been so great and so unequal that, despite the
continuity and parallelism of the formations, their outcrops have
been worn into endless diversities of topographical detail, producing
abundant variety among the gentle profiles of the landscapes.

As examples of the ridges, we may take the North and South Downs, and
the chain of heights that stretches from Wiltshire into Norfolk. The
intervening plains may be illustrated by the Weald of Sussex, and by
the lower basin of the Thames.

The differences between the successive geological formations of the
English lowlands never pass a restricted limit in regard to composition
and structure. Essentially soft and easily decomposable, the rocks
include no thick bands of much harder material than the rest, such as
might project in prominent features. The prevailing characteristic
of the topography is therefore unbroken placidity. Nowhere does any
ruggedness obtrude itself. No part of the ground towers abruptly above
or sinks suddenly beneath the general level. The successive ranges of
low hills have rounded summits and smooth slopes, which, even when
steep, seldom allow naked rock to appear, but conceal it everywhere
under a carpet of herbage. So gentle is the inclination of the ground,
from the watersheds to the coast, that the drainage winds in sluggish
streams that often hardly seem to flow. 'Purling brooks' are scarcely
ever to be found. Since the running waters of the country have played
no inconsiderable part in the inspiration of our poets, it is well
worthy of remark that in the east and south-east of England the streams
are, for the most part, silent. We shall see how strongly they are thus
contrasted with the brooks that traverse the lowlands of the north.

Since the rocks of these eastern and southern districts decay into
soils that are on the whole fertile, the surface, well watered by the
rains from the western ocean, is clothed with meadows, corn-fields,
and gardens, while trees have been planted along the roads and
fields, and in abundant patches of coppice and woodland. The country
thus wears a verdant park-like aspect, which at once impresses the
eye of a stranger who comes here either from the European continent
or from America. Undoubtedly cultivation has in the course of long
centuries considerably altered the primeval landscapes; the progress of
agriculture having gradually narrowed the area of the once predominant
open heaths, while the ancient forests, formerly so abundant and
extensive, have wellnigh vanished. There can be little doubt, however,
that the general enclosed and cultivated character of the landscapes
has, over much of the ground, remained nearly the same as now for
hundreds of years.

One further feature of these English lowlands should be borne in
mind. They are washed by the sea along the whole of their eastern
and southern borders. Even the most inland part of them is not more
than one hundred miles from the coast. Their long lines of ridge
and down stretch to the very margin of the land, where they plunge
in picturesque cliffs to the sea-level, as in the headlands of
Flamborough, Dover, and Beachy. Moreover the coast-line is indented
by numerous bays, creeks, and inlets, which, as they allow the sea
to penetrate far into the land, furnish many admirable natural
harbours. There can be no doubt that this feature in our topography
has powerfully fostered that love of the sea which has always been a
national characteristic, and has contributed to the development of that
maritime power which has led to the establishment of our world-wide
empire.[22] To the same cause may be traced that appreciation of the
poetry of the sea so noticeable in our literature.

We may now inquire how far the placid scenery of these eastern lowlands
may have had an influence on the literary progress of the nation. It
is of course chiefly among the poets that traces of such an influence
may be expected to be discoverable. Not until comparatively late times
did prose-writers deal with scenery, save as a mere background for the
human incidents which they had to describe. It is impossible, within
the prescribed limits of a single lecture, to follow the gradual
development of an appreciation of landscape among the writers who have
lived on these English lowlands. The simple child-like delight in
Nature, so characteristic of Chaucer, and the influence of cultivated
scenery, so conspicuous in him, are readily traceable among his
successors. Shakespeare throughout his plays presents us with not a few
reminiscences of his youth among the Warwickshire woodlands. In Milton
we see how the placid rural quiet of the Colne valley inspired the two
finest lyrics in the English tongue. For a century after Milton's time,
poetry in this country ceased to have any living hold on outer nature,
but became with each generation more polished and artificial. When at
last a reaction set in, the impulse that led to the most momentous
revolution that has marked the history of English poetry came in
large measure from the writings of three poets, each of whom drew his
inspiration from lowland scenery. As illustrations therefore of the
part played by this scenery in our literature, I will cite Cowper,
Thomson, and Burns.

The retreat in the valley of the Ouse, to which Cowper escaped from the
noise and distractions of city-life, was eminently fitted by its quiet
seclusion to soothe his spirit, and to fill his eye and his imagination
with images of rural peacefulness and gentle beauty. If the choice of
such a home was of infinite service to the poet, it was hardly less
momentous in the progress of English literature.

The scenery of that valley, around Olney and Weston, is thoroughly
characteristic of the southern lowlands. The ground lies on limestones
and clays, belonging to the Oolitic series, which, though they have
been greatly denuded, have yielded in a general equable manner to the
progress of decay. They possess no such differences of structure as
to allow one part of them to project in crag or scar above the rest.
They have been worn down into a gently undulating plateau or plain,
covered with corn-fields and pastures, and dotted with occasional woods
and 'spinnies,' or patches of trees. Farms and villages diversify the
landscape, while to the north lies the forest-like expanse of Yardley
Chase. Through this champaign the River Ouse has cut for itself a
winding valley, the bottom of which, quite flat and from a few hundred
yards to upwards of a mile in breadth, lies rather more than a hundred
feet below the general level of the country. Along the flat alluvial
plain, the stream, sluggishly flowing among rushes and sedges, curves
in circuitous bends, often dividing so as to enclose insular patches of
meadow, which it entirely overspreads in times of flood. The slopes
rise softly from the river-plain, now projecting, now retreating, as
the valley winds from side to side. A gentle ascent brings us from the
banks of the Ouse up to the highest part of the ground in the vicinity,
and places before our eyes a wide sweep of rich agricultural country,
with peeps of village spires and gleams of the winding river.

Such were the simple elements of Cowper's landscape. They have no
special attraction that is not shared by hundreds of other similar
scenes in the Oolitic tracts of England. To the cursory visitor
they may even seem tame and commonplace. And yet for us, apart from
any mere beauty they may possess, they have been for ever glorified
and consecrated by the imagination of the poet. We see in them the
natural features which soothed his sorrow and gladdened his heart,
and which became the sources of an inspiration that breathed fresh
life into the poetry of England. The lapse of time has left the scene
essentially unchanged. We may take the same walks that Cowper loved,
and see the same prospects that charmed his eyes and filled his verse.
In so following his steps, we note the accuracy and felicity of his
descriptions, and appreciate more vividly the poetic genius which, out
of such simple materials, could work such a permanent change in the
attitude of his countrymen towards nature. As an illustration of his
treatment of landscape let me cite the well-known passage descriptive
of the walk between Olney and Weston--


     'How oft upon yon eminence our pace
     Has slackened to a pause, and we have borne
     The ruffling wind, scarce conscious that it blew,
     While admiration, feeding at the eye,
     And still unsated, dwelt upon the scene.
     Thence with what pleasure have we just discerned
     The distant plough slow-moving, and beside
     His labouring team, that swerved not from the track,
     The sturdy swain diminished to a boy!
     Here Ouse, slow-winding through a level plain
     Of spacious meads with cattle sprinkled o'er,
     Conducts the eye along his sinuous course
     Delighted. There, fast rooted in their bank,
     Stand, never overlooked, our favourite elms,
     That screen the huntsman's solitary hut;
     While far beyond, and overthwart the stream,
     That, as with molten glass, inlays the vale,
     The sloping land recedes into the clouds;
     Displaying, on its varied side, the grace
     Of hedge-row beauties numberless, square tower,
     Tall spire, from which the sound of cheerful bells
     Just undulates upon the listening ear,
     Groves, heaths, and smoking villages remote.'[23]


No scene could have been more thoroughly congenial to such a
temperament as that of Cowper. He never wearied of the sights and
sounds of that peaceful landscape. He watched its changes from hour to
hour, from day to day, and from season to season. Every change awakened
new joy in his breast, and gave fresh inspiration to his verse. And so
year after year he lived in closest communion with nature. Well might
he say that


     'Scenes must be beautiful which, daily viewed
     Please daily, and whose novelty survives
     Long knowledge and the scrutiny of years.'[24]


Cowper's poetic vision was like his landscape, limited, though within
its range it was searching and accurate. His timid nature shrank from
what was rugged and wild. He found his consolation in


         'Nature in her cultivated trim
     And dressed to his taste.'[25]


But no one before him had revealed to men the infinite variety and
beauty and charm to be seen by the contemplative eye even in these
everyday surroundings. The calm of evening--


     'With matron step slow moving, while the Night
     Treads on her sweeping train,'[26]


or the river shining in the moonlight beneath the 'wearisome but
needful length' of Olney bridge, or the creep of autumn over wood and
field and weedy fallow, or the advent of winter and the shrouding of
the valley under snow, or the coming of spring, when--


                     'The primrose ere her time
     Peeps through the moss that clothes the hawthorn root,'[27]


--every mood of nature in this sequestered vale is painted with a
vividness and skill that evoke our admiration, and with a sympathy and
grace which win our heart. That quiet valley has thus become classic
ground, for as long as English poetry is read, the affections of men
will be drawn to the home of Cowper by the banks of the Ouse.

The other two lowland writers whom I have selected were contemporaries
of Cowper, though Thomson died when Cowper was only seventeen years
old. In dealing with their influence, we turn to the Scottish lowlands
where they both were born, and from which came their poetic impulse.

A traveller, familiar with the low grounds of England, when he first
enters the northern lowlands is at once impressed by their much more
limited extent. He finds them to occupy comparatively restricted spaces
between uplands and highlands, their largest expanse lying in the broad
depression between the southern border of the Highland mountains and
the great tract of high pastoral land in the southern counties. Another
considerable area of them intervenes between these southern uplands
and the flanks of the Cheviot Hills. A further contrast to the English
type is to be seen in the broken character of the surface. There are
no extensive level flats like those of the English midlands, nor any
continuous bands of gentle ridge like those of the English downs. The
ground is separated into detached districts by ranges of hills, which
sometimes even become sufficiently high and broad to deserve the name
of uplands. A third characteristic arises from the great diversity of
geological structure, and especially the intercalation of abundant
volcanic rocks among the other formations. As a consequence of this
intermingling of hard and durable materials with others more easily
abraded, the topography is diversified by endless crags and hills
rising picturesquely out of the surrounding lower country, and often
crowned with ancient castles or ruined peels.

Such a disposition of the elements of the landscape is accompanied
with a much greater diversity in the mantle of vegetation than is
seen among the English lowlands. The surrounding uplands and hills,
for the most part bare of trees, are clothed with pasture, save where
they support a covering of heathy herbage or dark peat-moss. The lower
grounds have in large measure been brought under cultivation, but still
retain tracts of moorland, haunted by lapwing and curlew. Though the
ancient natural wood has mostly disappeared, hard-wood trees are now
abundant, while sombre plantations of fir give a northern character to
the landscapes.

But perhaps the feature in these Scottish lowlands which more
particularly deserves notice here, is the contrast to be found between
their streams and those of south-eastern England. Owing to the uneven
forms and steeper slopes of the ground, the drainage runs off rapidly
to the sea. The brooks are full of motion, as they tumble over
waterfalls, plunge through rocky ravines, and sweep round the boulders
that cumber their channels. They furnish, moreover, countless dells and
dingles where the native copsewoods find their surest shelter. There
the gorse and the sloe come earliest into bloom, and the wild flowers
linger longest. There too the birds make their chief home. These strips
of wild nature, winding through cultivated field or bare moor, from the
hills to the sea, offer in summer scenes of perfect repose. But they
furnish too, from time to time, pictures of tumult and uproar, when
rain-clouds have burst upon the uplands, and the streams come down in
heavy flood, pouring through the glens with a din that can be heard
from far.

Brooks and rivers have always had a fascination for poets. Their
banks supply secluded spots for reverie and communion with nature.
Under their shade and shelter, bird and blossom and flower are
guarded from the blasts around, while the sparkle and murmur of their
waters give a sense of life and companionship even in the depths of
solitude. Constant familiarity with such a type of stream as that of
the Scottish lowlands can hardly fail to strike the imagination in a
different way from that which has attended the slow-creeping and silent
brooks of the south-east of England. The Scottish poets, even in the
earlier centuries, show traces of the influence of their more rugged
surroundings; but not till the eighteenth century did this influence
manifest itself in such a manner as to affect the general flow of
English literature.

Of the two Scottish lowland poets whom we have now to notice, James
Thomson was considerably the earlier. He was born in Roxburghshire in
1700, within hearing of the ripple of the Tweed, within sight of the
Cheviot and Lammermuir Hills, and in a region famous in Border ballad
and song. To the east the uplands of the Cheviot Hills rise as a blue
ridge, high enough to come often within the clouds, to catch the first
snows of autumn, and to keep them unmelted in northern rifts until the
spring. From these long, bare undulating uplands a number of streams
descend northwards into the Tweed, each having its own dale, with its
own ridge of moors on either hand, and its meadows and cornfields along
the bottom. The slope of the ground gives these descending waters such
an impetus as sends them dashing over rocky channels, here and there
cutting a scaur or ravine, murmuring over gravelly bottoms, winding
through flat haughs, and finally finding their way into the Tweed. The
watercourses are thus in themselves full of variety and life, and their
charms are enhanced by the alternation of meadow and field, coppice,
ferny brake and woodland, through which they wander. Nor are occasional
bolder features wanting to enliven these quiet valleys. Here and there
knobs of volcanic material rise along the crests of the ridges into
prominent hills, which are conspicuous landmarks all over the Border
country. Since Thomson's day the plough has no doubt crept further up
the hill sides; more wood has been planted and more ground has been
enclosed. But there is still plenty of bare moor and peat-moss, and
the pastoral character of the district yet remains. The traditions of
Border warfare have grown fainter, but the ruined peel-towers still
stand as picturesque relics of the old wild times. The climate, too,
has not changed. The winter storms still send down the rivers in full
flood, and bury the vales in deep snow; the spring whitens the meadows
and hedgerows with flower and blossom, and the short summer gives way
to an early autumn.

Such was the scenery that inspired the 'sweet poet of the year,'
as Burns called him. Thomson came to London in 1725, when he was
twenty-five years of age, and the following year he published his
_Winter_. The poem, though written at Barnet, took its inspiration
from the Border. The verse was turgid, full of latinisms, and sadly
lacking in the simplicity and directness which the subject required.
Nevertheless these defects could not conceal the genuine poetic
gift of the writer, and the poem immediately became popular, for
notwithstanding its artificial style, it took the reader at once into
the sanctuaries of nature, from which the poetry of the previous
hundred years had been exiled. It awakened a general interest in
features of landscape never before described so fully or so well in
English verse. It painted changes of the sky--tempest, rain-clouds and
snow-storms, and it brought the gloom of a northern winter vividly
before the imagination of dwellers in a more southerly clime.

Thomson told the world how in his youth,


           'Nursed by careless solitude he lived
     And sang of nature with unceasing joy,'[28]


and how, with 'nature's volume broad displayed,' it was his sole
delight to read therein, happy if it might be his good fortune,


           'Catching inspiration thence
     Some easy passage, raptured, to translate.'[29]


He had been used in his early years to muse


     'On rocks and hills and towers and wandering streams,'[30]


and these now became the subjects of his song. Thomson, like his
greater successor Burns, had from earliest boyhood been familiar with
the burns and waters of his northern home. When he came to England
he found but little entertainment in the landscapes around London,
and longed for 'the living stream, the airy mountain, and the hanging
rock.' He portrays with evident delight the changeful aspect of his
native watercourses in the various seasons of the year. He knew well
the 'deep morass' and 'shaking wilderness,' where many of them 'rise
high among the hills,' and whence they assumed their 'mossy-tinctured'
hue. He traces them as they 'roll o'er their rocky channel' until they
at last lose themselves in 'the ample river' Tweed.[31] He describes
them as they appear at sheep-washing time, and dwells on their delights
for boys as bathing-places. But it is their wilder moods that live most
vividly in his memory, when


                            'From the hills
     O'er rocks and woods, in broad brown cataracts,
     A thousand snow-fed torrents shoot at once.'[32]


It is worthy of remark, however, that even though nature is his theme,
the poet writes rather as an interested spectator than as an earnest
votary. He reveals no passion for the landscapes he depicts. He never
appears as if himself a portion of the scene, alive with sympathy
in all the varying moods of nature. His verse has no flashes of
inspiration, such as contact with storm and spate drew from Burns. It
was already, however, a great achievement that Thomson broke through
the conventionalities of the time, and led his countrymen once more to
the green fields, the moors, and the woodlands.

In the successive poems which when placed together made the _Seasons_,
published in 1730, Thomson continued to draw on his recollections
of the Scottish Border for the descriptions of landscape that form
so fundamental a part of his theme. It is interesting to note that
even after he had been five years in the south of England, and must
have seen in that time much variety of weather and many different
watercourses, it is still from the north that he draws his sketches.
When, for instance, he tells how in autumn,


     'Red from the hills, innumerable streams
     Tumultuous roar,'[33]


the colour of his torrents betrays their Scottish origin. He was
thinking of the spates in his native streams which sweep across tracts
of Old Red Sandstone, and come down almost brick-red in hue. There
are no red rocks, and therefore no red brooks in Middlesex and the
surrounding districts.

But before the completion of the _Seasons_ the influence of English
lowland scenery had begun to impress itself on Thomson's imagination.
The softer and ampler landscape of fruitful plains, with its richer
agriculture and fuller population, its farms, villages, and country
houses, filled his mind with a new pleasure. Some trace of this
widened experience may be seen in the additions successively made to
the earlier poems, such as the picture of Hagley Park introduced into
the poem on _Spring_. But it was in his last effusion, _The Castle of
Indolence_, that this English influence gained entire sway, and the
Scottish memories faded into the background. Here we find ourselves
amid the typical landscapes of the south of England--landscapes,
however, so transfused by poetic genius as to acquire an individuality
of their own. We are led into 'a lowly dale fast by a river's side';
we wander through 'sleep-soothing groves and quiet lawns between';
we see 'glittering streamlets' in a sunny glade'; we skirt a 'sable,
silent, solemn forest'; and pass a 'wood of blackening pines,' which
runs up the hills on either side, and see the famous castle 'close
hid amid embowering trees,' that make a kind of chequered day and
night. The landscape, we are told, 'inspires perfect ease'--a quality
which must now have become indispensable to the 'bard, more fat than
bard beseems.' Thomson, with his adoption of English scenery, had
also polished his style and rid himself of much of his turgidity and
latinism. He had changed his theme, too, and had chosen one more in
consonance with the prevailing vogue. But to the end he had an eye for
the charms of the free open face of nature. For the share he took in
bringing back into our literature the recognition of these charms, he
will ever hold an honourable place in the history of letters.

It was from another and somewhat dissimilar part of the Scottish
lowlands that a far more powerful impulse than that of Thomson was
given by the genius of Burns to the progress of the literary revolution
of the eighteenth century. The landscapes of Ayrshire, where Burns was
born and spent most of his life, though akin in their main aspects
to those of Roxburghshire, present nevertheless certain well-marked
differences in topography which were not without their influence on the
muse that inspired _Tam o' Shanter_ and _Halloween_.

The lowlands familiar to Burns throughout most of his life form a wide
and undulating plain, surrounded on three sides by ranges of upland,
and on the fourth by the open Firth of Clyde. The heights along the
southern side belong to the long and broad chain of uplands which
stretches from Portpatrick to Saint Abb's Head. Rising sometimes to
more than 2,500 feet above the sea, they stretch as a wide pastoral
country, much of which is still covered with 'muirs and mosses many.'
These high grounds catch the clouds and mists from the Atlantic, and
receive such a copious rainfall as to feed many large streams which
cross the lowlands to the sea. The number and size of these streams
form a notable feature in the scenery, and the different geological
formations through which they flow have contributed to give much
variety to their channels. Here they may be seen flowing in a narrow
glen, there opening into a wider strath, or creeping sullenly in a
narrow chasm between precipitous walls of naked stone, or dashing
merrily over rock and boulder beneath overarching trees, or sweeping in
wide curves through open meadows or dense woods, and finally carrying
their burden of mossy water into the blue firth.

These streams, with their endless changes of aspect, their variations
from season to season, their play of sunshine and shadow, their wild
flowers and their birds, had a strong hold on the affections of Robert
Burns. His best inspiration came to him from them. As he tells us
himself:


     'The Muse, na Poet ever fand her,
     Till by himsel he learn'd to wander
     Adown some trottin' burn's meander,
           An' no think lang;
     O sweet to stray, an' pensive ponder
           A heart-felt sang.'[34]


In the poem from which these lines are quoted, after alluding to the
poetic fame of other streams, while those of his own county remained
unsung, the poet declares his resolve to atone for this neglect:


     'We'll gar our streams and burnies shine
             Up wi' the best.
     We'll sing auld Coila's plains an' fells,
     Her moors red-brown wi' heather-bells,
     Her banks an' braes, her dens an' dells.'


Amply did he fulfil his promise. There is not a river, hardly even
a tributary, within his reach, that has not been made famous in his
lyrics. In the first bloom of opening manhood it was the Ayr and the
Doon that gave him inspiration, and when broken in health and spirits,
and with an early grave opening before him, it was by the banks of the
Nith that his last poetic impulse arose.

In his relation to Nature there was this great difference between
Burns and his literary contemporaries and immediate predecessors,
that whereas even the best of them wrote rather as pleased spectators
of the country, with all its infinite variety of form and colour, of
life and sound, of calm and storm, he sang as one into whose very
inmost heart the power of these things had entered. For the first
time in English literature the burning ardour of a passionate soul
went out in tumultuous joy towards Nature. The hills and woods, the
streams and dells were to Burns not merely enjoyable scenes to be
visited and described. They became part of his very being. In their
changeful aspects he found the counterpart of his own variable moods;
they ministered to his joys, they soothed his sorrows. They yielded
him a companionship that never palled, a sympathy that never failed.
They kindled his poetic ardour, and became themselves the subjects of
his song. He loved them with all the overpowering intensity of his
affectionate nature, and his feelings found vent in an exuberance of
appreciation which had never before been heard in verse.

Among the natural objects which exerted this potent sway over the
poetry of Burns, the streams of Ayrshire and Nithsdale ever held a
foremost place. Their banks were his favourite haunt for reverie. They
were familiar to him under every change of sky and season, from firth
to fell. Each feature in their seaward course was noted by his quick
eye, and treasured in his loving memory. Their union of ruggedness and
verdure, of sombre woods and open haughs, of dark cliff and bright
meadow, of brawling current and stealthy flow, furnished that variety
which captivated his fancy, and found such fitting transposition
to his verse. His descriptions and allusions, however, are never
laboured and prominent; they are dashed off with the careless ease of
a master-artist, whose main theme is the portrayal of human feeling.
Even when the banks and braes have been the immediate source of his
inspiration, Burns quickly passes from them into the world of emotion
to which he makes them subservient.

So numerous and descriptive are his allusions to them that a luminous
account of the characteristics of the Carrick brooks and rivers might
easily be compiled from Burns' poems. At one moment we find him
appealing to them for sympathy in his grief:


     'Ye hazelly shaws and briery dens,
     Ye burnies, wimplin' down your glens
                 Wi' toddlin' din,
     Or foaming, strang, wi' hasty stens,
                 Frae linn to linn.'[35]


The same appeal forms the burden of his song on the _Banks and braes o'
bonnie Doon_. He leads us where


     'In gowany glens the burnie strays,
     Or trots by hazelly shaws and braes,
                 Wi' hawthorns gray.'[36]


He pictures the stream after a rain-storm, when


     'Tumbling brown, the burn comes down
     And roars frae bank to brae;'[37]


or when the breath of the Atlantic has swept over the wintry hills and
the


     'Burns wi' snawy wreeths up-choked
                 Wild-eddying swirl,
     Or through the mining outlet bocked
                 Down-headlong hurl.'[38]


But nowhere does his delight in these features of his native landscape
find more exuberant expression than in his _Halloween_, when he
interrupts his narrative of Leezie's misadventure to give a graphic
picture of one of his brooks in the calm moonlight of an autumn evening.


     'Whyles owre a linn the burnie plays,
       As thro' the glen it wimpl't;
     Whyles round a rocky scaur it strays
       Whyles in a wiel it dimpl't;
     'Whyles glitter'd to the nightly rays,
       Wi' bickerin', dancin' dazzle;
     Whyles cookit underneath the braes,
       Below the spreading hazel
               Unseen that night.'


Born near the river Ayr, and having spent his boyhood and youth in
its valley, Burns had ever a special affection for that stream, along
whose banks he had composed some of his finest poems. When his enforced
emigration to America was settled, and his trunk on its way to the
ship, he wrote a parting song in the burden of which the banks of Ayr
are made to stand for his native country as a whole:


     'The bursting tears my heart declare,
     Farewell, the bonnie banks of Ayr.'[39]


When the respite came, and he found himself famous and in Edinburgh,
the Address which he wrote to the Scottish capital contrasted his
reception there with what had gone before, and again his heart was by
his beloved river:


     'From marking wildly-scattered flowers,
       As on the banks of Ayr I stray'd,
     And singing, lone, the ling'ring hours,
       I shelter in thy honour'd shade.'


And lastly, when the shadows were beginning to gather around him at
Ellisland, his thoughts would go back to the same scene. In one of his
latest and most pathetic songs we find once more a reminiscence of his
associations with the river of his youth:


     'Ayr gurgling kiss'd his pebbled shore
       O'erhung with wild woods, thick'ning green;
     The fragrant birch, and hawthorn hoar,
       Twin'd am'rous round the raptur'd scene.

     The flowers sprang wanton to be prest,
       The birds sang love on every spray,
     Till too, too soon, the glowing west,
       Proclaim'd the speed of winged day.'[40]


When Burns moved from Ayrshire to Nithsdale, he found at his new
home another valley and another river that could minister to his
inspiration. The Nith took the place of the Ayr. But it could not
wholly fill that place, for its landscape is less ample, the hills
come closer down upon the valley, while the river, in its lower
course, curves from side to side in a wide alluvial plain, without the
variety that marks the lower part of the Ayr. We seem to recognise the
influence of these differences in the allusions in the songs.

The landscapes of Burns are marked by some curious limitations. Though
he was born within sight of the picturesque mountain group of Arran, it
does not come within his poetic outlook.[41] Though the 'craggy ocean
pyramid' of the Clyde rose so stupendously from the firth in front of
him, he makes no use of it further than to tell how 'Meg was deaf as
Ailsa Craig.' Its distant grandeur does not seem to have struck his
imagination. Indeed, if we examine his treatment of scenery, we may
observe that it is the nearer detail that appeals to him. His pictures
are exquisite foregrounds with seldom any distinct distance. But
perhaps more remarkable still is the small place which the sea takes in
the poetry of Burns. We must bear in mind that he was born and spent
his boyhood within sight and hearing of the open Firth of Clyde. The
dash of the breakers along the sandy beach behind his father's 'clay
biggin' must have been one of the most familiar sounds to his young
ears. Yet the allusions to the sea in his poems betray little trace of
this association. They are in large measure introduced to mark the wide
distance between separated friends.

It must be remembered, however, that his life, after he began to
write, was passed inland, where the wide firth could only be seen from
the rising ground at a distance of several miles. Yet Burns has left
testimony that his imagination had not been insensible to the life and
movement of the ocean. One of the most effective touches in his picture
of the night scene in the _Brigs of Ayr_ is given in the reference to
the neighbouring sea--


     'The tide-swollen Firth, wi' sullen-sounding roar,
     Through the still night dashed hoarse along the shore';


and when his native Muse gives him her benediction she tells how she
had watched his passionate love of Nature:


     'I saw thee seek the sounding shore,
     Delighted with the dashing roar;
     Or when the North his fleecy store
               Drove thro' the sky;
     I saw grim Nature's visage hoar
               Strike thy young eye.'[42]


II. The UPLANDS of the British Isles consist of undulating plains or
plateaux which lie from 1000 to more than 2000 feet above the sea.
Seen from a distance, they look like ranges of hill or mountain, but
without that variety of peak and crest which a true mountain outline
would present. Though they may rise steeply out of the lower grounds,
we have only to climb to their summit to find ourselves at the edge of
a wide rolling platform, which may stretch for leagues without ever
rising into any sharp prominence, or departing from the same monotony
of moorland. Yet if we attempt to cross this seemingly continuous
tableland, we find our progress barred by many valleys which, deep sunk
beneath the general level, divide the plateau into separate blocks or
ridges.

The surface of these uplands is for the most part treeless and even
bushless. Where not covered with peat-moss, it is clothed with bent
or with heather, kept short and green by periodical burning in the
springtime. Herds of cattle and flocks of sheep wander over the
pastures, but, save the stone fences, there is little other visible
trace of human occupation. It is in the little hollows that lead down
into the main valleys, and in these valleys themselves, that trees
make their appearance, first in scattered saplings of birch, alder
or mountain-ash, and then in thicker copsewoods or in artificial
plantations of fir and larch. In these sheltered depressions, the farms
and villages of the region have been planted, and cultivation has
been slowly pushed upward on the slopes of the fells. Thus the larger
part of the area of the uplands is uninhabited, the population being
restricted to the more or less sheltered 'hopes,' hollows, dales, and
valleys.

This type of scenery presents many local varieties, according to the
geological structure of the ground. Where the rocks have been but
little disturbed, the sides of the valleys display a succession of
parallel bars of stone with intervening grassy slopes, such as may be
seen among the moors of the East Riding, or in the dales of the Pennine
Chain. Where, on the other hand, the rocks have been much compressed
and pushed over each other by powerful movements of the terrestrial
crust, their erosion has given rise to no regular topography, but they
decay into rounded forms covered with heath and herbage, or breaking
here and there into rocky scarps, as in Wales and southern Scotland.

Of the British uplands, the only district that claims notice here in
connection with our literature is that of the wide Border country
of England and Scotland. It stretches through the moorlands of
Northumberland and Cumberland into the range of the Cheviots on the
one hand, and on the other into the great tract of high ground, which
extends through the Lammermuir and other groups of fells from the
North Sea to the Solway Firth. For many centuries this region has been
pre-eminently pastoral. The natural forest, which in old times clothed
much of its surface, has almost wholly disappeared before modern
agriculture, and the plough has in successive generations crept higher
up the slopes from the meadows of the dales. But there can be little
doubt that though roads and railways have done much to open up these
solitudes, the natural features remain essentially unchanged.

It was among these uplands that the Border ballads had their birth. We
may therefore pause for a few moments to inquire what trace may still
be discernible of the influence of the landscape upon the tales of war
and love, of feud and raid and rescue, which have made that Border-land
famous in our literature.

At the outset it is desirable to realise the all-important character of
the valleys in the human history of the uplands. From time immemorial,
these strips of more sheltered and cultivable ground, lying much below
the general level of the moorlands, have been to a large extent cut
off from each other by high tracts of fell and peat-moss. Each of them
took its name from the stream which, rising far up among the moors, and
gathering tributary rivulets from glens on either side, winds down the
strip of haugh along the valley-bottom. For generations past the people
have looked on their native stream with an affectionate regard.[43] It
has been the bond of union that has linked the natives of each dale in
one family or brotherhood. The valley itself may vary its scenery as
it passes across different parts of the upland, here narrowing into
a glen, there widening into a strath; its slopes may change their
aspect, now clothed in bent or purple heather, now waving with bracken
or birken copsewood, now striped with fields of tillage, but the clear
river that dashes merrily onward through these diversities of scene
unites them all into one continuous dale.

The isolation imposed on the separate communities by this topography
of the ground inured them to habits of self-dependence. It gave them
a coherence that served them in good stead for attack or defence in
the old days of Border forays. Each stream not only gave its name to
the whole valley which it traversed, but to the human population that
dwelt by its banks. It was called a 'Water,' such as Leader Water,
Allan Water, Jed Water, and many more, and this word 'water' came to
be synonymous with the able-bodied inhabitants of the dale. When, for
instance, old Buccleuch gave his orders for the ride to rescue Jamie
Telfer's cattle, carried off by English thieves, he bade his men


     'Gar warn the water, braid and wide,
     Gar warn it sune and hastilie.'


The marauding propensities of one of these communities would sometimes
be condensed into the name of their valley, as where Dick o' the Cow
complains that


     'Liddesdale's been i' my house last night,
     And they hae taen my three kye frae me.'


The ballads are so full of human incident as to leave little room even
for a background of landscape, but some of the features of the scenery
are here and there graphically indicated by a line or even a word. 'The
bent sae brown' of the higher ground gives place to 'heathery hill and
birken shaw,' with here and there a 'bush of broom' or 'buss o' ling'
where the dun deer couches in the glade. We are led to where


           'The hills are high on ilka side
     An' the bought i' the lirk o' the hill.'


We are made to see that the 'morning sun is on the dew,' to feel 'the
cauler breeze frae off the fells,' and to note here and there 'the
gryming of a new-fa'n snaw.' When the king led his army through Caddon
ford, in pursuit of the outlaw Murray, and came in sight of Ettrick
forest, the ballad tells how


     'They saw the darke Forest them before,
     They thought it awsome for to see.'


But perhaps the natural feature most frequently alluded to in the tales
of foray is the flooding of the rivers. In those days bridges were
few throughout the Border, and thus a heavy downfall of rain might
completely sever all communication between the two sides of a dale. To
plunge into these swollen torrents was sometimes the only escape from
pursuit, and required fully as much courage and nerve as to stay and
face the approaching foe. In the famous ride to Carlisle for the rescue
of Kinmont Willie, the party found when they came to the Eden that


     'The water was great and meikle of spate.'


But they dashed into it, losing neither man nor horse, but encountering
still worse weather on the English side--


     'The wind began fu' loud to blaw;
     But 'twas wind and weet and fire and sleet
     When they came beneath the castle wa'.'


On their return with their rescued comrade to the river, they saw that
it 'flowed frae bank to brim,' but nothing daunted, they plunged into
the flood and safely swam across. Their pursuers, however, gave up the
chase at sight of the rushing torrent:


     'All sore astonish'd stood Lord Scroope
       He stood as still as rock of stane;
     He scarcely dared to trew his eyes,
       When through the water they had gane.
     "He is either himsell a devil frae hell,
       Or else his mother a witch maun be;
     I wadna hae ridden that wan water
       For a' the gowd in Christentie."'


But even in the midst of the rough warfare of these olden days, there
was often a thread of tender affection and romance woven by the
ballad-singers into their tales. The vale of the river Yarrow has been
more specially consecrated by these tragic songs, and the 'dowie howms
o' Yarrow' have come to be identified with all that is most pathetic
in the minstrelsy of the Border. From the time of the early ballads
a succession of minor poets had sung of this vale, until the pathos
of its history was fully revealed to the whole world by Scott and
Wordsworth.

It may be readily granted that the fascination of Yarrow has mainly
sprung from the recollection of the human incidents which have been
transacted there, and which have been enshrined in so much touching
verse. But these tragic associations will not, I think, of themselves
wholly account for this fascination, nor for the sad tone of the
poetry. There seems to me to be a source of peculiarly impressive power
in the scenery of the valley itself, and that to this source not a
little of the glamour of Yarrow is to be attributed. Nowhere throughout
the whole range of the uplands are their characteristic aspects more
perfectly displayed. Down the centre of the dale runs the strip of
level green haugh, through which the stream meanders from side to side
across banks of shingle, with a murmuring cadence that is borne down on
the wind like a low plaintive wail. On either hand, the smooth green
slopes rise into the rounded summits of the fells, mottled here with
sheets of bracken and there with folds of heather. The declivities are
indented by little side-valleys, each leading a clear rivulet between
grassy banks to the main stream. Nowhere do any rugged features mar
the gentle undulations of the ground. The outer world seems to lie far
beyond the high hills that enclose and shelter the quiet valley. There
is a deep silence over the scene, broken now and then by the melancholy
scream of the curlew or the mournful note of the plover. The mind,
amid such surroundings, easily glides from the present into reverie
amidst the past. The ruined peel seems to whisper tales of 'old unhappy
far-off things and battles long ago.' The greener grass around some
mouldering stones points to hamlets long since forsaken and forgotten.
The scattered birks and alders recall the 'fair forest' that once
clothed the valley with 'many a seemly tree,' and when in these tracts,
now sacred only to sheep, there were


     'Hart and hynd, and dae and rae,
     And of a' wild beasts great plentie.'


There is a natural expectation in the mind that scenery which has made
for itself so notable a place in the history of English poetry should
present, when first seen, some special charm of attractive beauty. And
doubtless many have shared the disappointment so well expressed by
Wordsworth and by Washington Irving, who nevertheless had the advantage
of being shown over the Border country by its great minstrel himself.
But with the instinct of a true poet, Wordsworth soon recovered from
his first surprise, and divined the inner spirit of the landscape.
Nowhere has that spirit been more felicitously expressed than in his
second poem on Yarrow. Contrasting his first anticipation with what he
found to be the reality, he addressed the vale:


     'Thou, that didst appear so fair
     To fond imagination,
     Dost rival in the light of day
     Her delicate creation:
     Meek loveliness is round thee spread,
     A softness still and holy;
     The grace of forest charms decayed
     And pastoral melancholy.'


On the influence of the upland scenery of southern Scotland upon the
genius of Scott I must not enter. He spent his boyhood within sight of
these hills, he made them his chief home throughout life, and when,
shattered in health and fortunes, he returned from Italy, it was among
these hills, and in hearing of the murmur of the Tweed, that he wished
to die. No one can read the 'Lay of the Last Minstrel,' or 'Marmion,'
without coming under the spell of the Border scenery. Among the
descriptive sketches of landscape in the Waverley Novels, none are more
lovingly and graphically painted than those where Scott drew from the
vivid recollections of his journeys among the dales and moors of the
Southern Uplands.


III. For the purposes of our present inquiry, I would class together
as HIGHLANDS all the higher, more rugged, and mountainous ground,
which differs on the whole from the uplands, not only in its greater
elevation, but in the more irregular rocky forms of its surface,
the narrower crests of its ridges, and the more peaked shapes of
its summits. The geological structure of these tracts of country is
generally so complicated that it gives rise to much greater variety of
outline than is to be found in either of the other types of scenery.
Each kind of rock yields to the weather in its own characteristic way,
and as the rainfall is heavier and the slopes are steeper there than
elsewhere, the influence of the weather upon the topography is more
especially prominent.

In the northern parts of Wales where a group of ancient volcanic rocks
has been laid bare by the stupendous denudation of the surface, a
small tract of truly highland scenery has been carved out in Cader
Idris, Arenig, Snowdon, and the surrounding heights in Caernarvonshire
and Merionethshire. Another isolated area of volcanic hills forms
the picturesque district of the Lakes. But it is in Scotland that
this type is displayed on the largest scale and in the most varied
diversity. The Scottish Highlands are built up of the most ancient
rocks of the British Islands, and possess a geological structure of
extraordinary complexity. They include a vast variety of materials
which, rising to the highest elevations in the country, and exposed to
the severest climate, have impressed their individual characters upon
the landscapes. Thus, in the north-west, where the simplest grouping
of rocks is to be seen, masses of horizontal dark-red sandstone have
been carved into the huge pyramids that form so singular a feature
in the scenery of Ross and Sutherland (p. 71). In the central and
south-western counties, gleaming white cones show where the quartzites
rise to the surface. In the eastern Grampians, high craggy moors,
encircled with stupendous corries and precipices, mark the sites of
the bosses of granite. Among the Western Isles, dark splintered crests
and pinnacles point out the position of the gabbros. Perhaps the most
rugged ground is to be seen among the mica-schists, which combine a
wonderful array of pointed peak and notched ridge, with tumultuous
masses of craggy declivity.

In the eastern Grampians, the mountains include broad tracts of
undulating moorland, which, though lying along the summits of the
chain, are level enough to be capable of conversion into racecourses.
These hills are separated from the sea by a tract of lowland, and lie
thus entirely inland. On the west side of the Highlands, however,
the ground between the straths and glens mounts upward into narrow
ridges, not infrequently sharpened into knife-edged crests, while the
whole aspect of the landscape is rugged, rocky, and bare. Land and sea
appear there to be inextricably intermingled. Islands, peninsulas, and
promontories are penetrated or surrounded by sounds and sea-lochs, in
such a curious way that even in what might be thought to be the very
heart of the country, the tides of the Atlantic are found to ebb and
flow into remote and solitary glens. The mountains plunge abruptly into
the salt water, and for the most part only along the valley-bottoms are
little strips of level land to be seen.

As a consequence of this intricate interlacing of land and sea, the
warm, damp breezes from the Atlantic furnish abundance of mist, cloud,
and rain to the western Highlands. Thus to the wildness of rugged
mountains and stormy firths, there is added a marvellous range of
atmospheric effect. Nowhere in Britain can such an union be beheld of
picturesque mountain-form and of clear and vivid colour. Nowhere is the
grandeur of a winter storm more impressive than when a south-westerly
gale drives the breakers against the headlands, howls up the glens, and
fills every gully with a foaming torrent.

The scenery of the western Highlands of Scotland was first brought
prominently before the world by the publication in the year 1760 of
what purported to be _Fragments of Ancient Poetry, collected in the
Highlands_. The success of this volume encouraged the translator, James
Macpherson, to prepare a much larger collection which he combined
into an epic poem and published in 1762, under the name of _Fingall_.
A second epic, _Temora_, appeared during the following year. Keen
discussion arose as to the authenticity of these poems. They were by
one group of writers upheld as a priceless contribution to literature,
recovered by the skill and labour of one man from the lips of the
peasantry, and from faded manuscripts that handed down the traditions
of a long vanished past. By another class of disputants they were
branded as impudent forgeries palmed off upon the credulity of the
world by Macpherson himself.

Into this unhappy and still unsettled controversy I have no intention
of entering. For my present purpose it is not necessary to decide
whether the so-called poems of Ossian were genuine ancient Celtic
productions or were entirely fabricated after the middle of last
century, though I think we may safely steer a middle course between the
extreme views that have been put forward on either side. Few persons
now believe that Macpherson's _Epics_ ever existed as such among the
Highlanders. But, on the other hand, it is generally admitted that he
really did find a number of Ossianic fragments and that he strung these
together no doubt with copious connecting material of his own. How
much was genuine and old, and how much spurious and modern, has never
yet been satisfactorily determined. But in estimating the influence
of Macpherson's _Ossian_ on literature, we have no need to consider
the age of the poems. None of these were known to the world at large
until 1760, and we have therefore only to concern ourselves with their
history from that year onwards.

Those who have engaged in the controversy have almost wholly entered
it from the literary or antiquarian side. I prefer to approach it from
the side of the scenery and topography of the West Highlands, and
to inquire how far the Ossianic landscape was a true representation
of nature, whether there was anything in it new to our literature,
and whether it exerted any lasting effect on the attitude of society
towards the type of scenery which it depicted.

Macpherson had previously published some English verse of little merit
and which attracted no notice. But the appearance of his Ossianic
translations at once made him famous. The _Poems of Ossian_ not only
became popular in this country, but were translated into the more
important languages of the Continent.

In studying the landscape of Macpherson's _Ossian_ we soon learn that
it belongs unmistakably to Western Argyleshire. Its union of mountain,
glen, and sea removes it at once from the interior to the coast. Even
if it had been more or less inaccurately drawn, its prominence and
consistency all through the poems would have been remarkable in the
productions of a lad of four-and-twenty, who had spent his youth in the
inland region of Badenoch, where the scenery is of another kind. But
when we discover that the endless allusions to topographical features
are faithful delineations, which give the very spirit and essence
of the scenery, we feel sure that whether they were written in the
eighteenth century or in the third, they display a poetic genius of no
mean order.

The grandeur and gloom of the Highland mountains, the spectral mists
that sweep round the crags, the roar of the torrents, the gleam of
sunlight on moor and lake, the wail of the breeze among the cairns
of the dead, the unspeakable sadness that seems to brood over the
landscape whether the sky be clear or clouded--these features of West
Highland scenery were first revealed by Macpherson to the modern
world. This revelation quickened the change of feeling, already begun,
in regard to the prevailing horror of mountain scenery. It brought
before men's eyes some of the fascination of the mountain-world, more
especially in regard to the atmospheric effects that play so large
a part in its landscape. It showed the titanic forces of storm and
tempest in full activity. And yet there ran through all the poems a
vein of infinite melancholy. The pathos of life manifested itself
everywhere, now in the tenderness of unavailing devotion, now in the
courage of hopeless despair.

_Ossian_ fascinated some of the greatest men of the time. These Celtic
poems, in the words of Matthew Arnold, passed 'like a flood of lava
through Europe.' In the deliberate judgement of this acute critic,
they revealed 'the very soul of the Celtic genius, and have the proud
distinction of having brought this soul of the Celtic genius into
contact with the genius of the nations of modern Europe, and enriched
all our poetry by it.'[44] There can at least be no doubt that they
gave a new and powerful impulse to the appreciation of the wilder
aspects of nature, and did much to prepare the way for that love of
mountain-scenery which has been one of the characteristic developments
of the nineteenth century. It is not that in Ossian Highland landscape
was deliberately described, but it formed a continually visible and
changing background. The prevalent character of the whole range of
scenery in the region, and the general impression made by it on the
eye and mind, were so vividly conveyed that no one familiar with the
country can fail to recognise how faithfully the innermost soul of the
West Highlands is rendered.

Never before or since have the endless changes of sky and atmosphere
been more powerfully portrayed. In the tempestuous climate of the west
of Scotland these changes succeed each other with a rapidity and energy
such as the dweller on the southern lowlands can hardly realise. They
are faithfully, if somewhat monotonously, reflected in _Ossian_. All
through the poems the air seems ever astir around us. Sometimes it is
only a gently-breathing zephyr which


           'Chases round and round
     The hoary beard of thistle old,
     Dark-moving over grassy mounds.'[45]


We mark the graves of dead heroes by


     'Their long grass waving in the wind,'


and we move onwards 'in the robe of the misty glen' past


           'Branches and brown tufts of grass
     Which tremble and whistle in the breeze.'


But when the full Atlantic gale sweeps over the land, and the
rain-clouds rush in swift procession across the half-hidden hills, the
moaning and shrieking of the storm come like sounds from another world.
We seem to hear the tread, and almost to see the forms, of the ghosts
of the Ossianic heroes,


     'Chasing spectre-boars of mist
     On wings of great winds on the cairn.
     When bursts the cloud in Cona of the glens,
     A thousand spirits wildly shriek
     On the waste wind that sweeps around the cairn.'


Nor is the turmoil of the tempest on the sea less vividly depicted. We
are shown the


     'Waves surging onward in mist,
     When their crests are seen in foam
     Over smoke and haze widespread.'


In the midst of the gloom we descry a shore-stack against which the
ocean


     'Dashes the force of billows cold;
     White spray is high around its throat,
     And cairns resound on the heathery steep.'


With these pictures of tumult on land and sea, there come glimpses of
those cherished interludes of bright sunshine, when the western hills
and firths are seen at their loveliest. But whether radiant or gloomy
the landscape is in unison with the human emotion described--


     'Pleasing the tale of the time which has gone;
     Soothing as noiseless dew of morning mild,
     On the brake and knoll of roes,
     When slowly rises the sun
     On the silent flank of hoary Bens--
     The loch, unruffled, far away,
     Calm and blue on the floor of the glens.'[46]


As a final sample of the Ossianic landscape, with its kaleidoscopic play
of atmospheric effect, answering to the changes of human feeling, let
me cite some lines from _Fingal_:--


     'Morna, most lovely among women,
     Why by thyself in the circle of stones,
     In hollow of the rock on the hill alone?
     Rivers are sounding around thee;
     The aged tree is moaning in the wind;
     Turmoil is on yonder loch;
     Clouds darken round the tops of Cairns [mountains];
     Thyself art like snow on the hill--
     Thy waving hair like mist of Cromla,
     Curling upward on the Ben,
     'Neath gleaming of the sun from the west;
     Thy soft bosom like the white rock
     On bank of Brano of white streams.'[47]


Though Macpherson roused the interest of the world in the rugged
scenery and boisterous climates of the west, it was some time before
any other writer followed his lead among the highlands of this country.
It is singular to reflect that though the mountain-world, more than
any other part of the land, appeals to the imagination, by revealing
all that is most impressive in form and colour, and all that is most
vigorous in the elemental warfare of nature, it was the last part of
the terrestrial surface to meet with due appreciation. Little more than
a century has passed since men began to visit the Scottish Highlands
for the pleasure of admiring their scenery. Previous to the suppression
of the Jacobite rising, that mountainous region was regarded as the
abode of a half-savage race, into whose wilds few lowlanders would
venture without the most urgent reasons. Even after military roads
had been made across it, the accommodation for travellers was still
generally of the most wretched kind. Those who had occasion to traverse
it gave such an account of their experiences as one would hardly now
expect to receive from the heart of Africa.[48] The poet Gray during
his visit to Scotland in the year 1765, made a brief excursion into the
Perthshire Highlands, and, in spite of the discomforts of travel at
that time, came away with a vivid impression of the grandeur and beauty
of the scenery. But the only record that remains of this impression is
to be found in a few sentences in his letters.[49]

Eight years after Gray's visit, Samuel Johnson in 1773 made his more
adventurous journey to the Hebrides. When we consider what were the
discomforts, and sometimes the actual dangers which he had to undergo,
we cannot but admire the quiet courage with which he endured them,
and the reticence with which he refers to them in his narrative. But
Johnson could see no charm in the Highland mountains. In his poem on
London he had asked many years before:


     'For who would leave, unbrib'd, Hibernia's land,
     Or change the rocks of Scotland for the Strand?'


Yet when at last he set foot in Scotland, he showed no disposition to
prefer its rocks to his haunts in London. Travelling through some of
the finest scenery in Western Inverness-shire, this is the language he
uses regarding it: 'The hills exhibit very little variety; being almost
wholly covered with dark heath, and even that seems to be checked in
its growth. What is not heath is nakedness, a little diversified by
now and then a stream rushing down the steep. An eye accustomed to
flowery pastures and waving harvests is astonished and repelled by this
wide extent of hopeless sterility. The appearance is that of matter
incapable of form or usefulness, dismissed by nature from her care and
disinherited of her favours, left in its original elemental state, or
quickened only by one sullen power of useless vegetation.'[50]

While such was the attitude of the man of letters in this country,
influences were at work on the Continent which powerfully affected
the relations of literature to the whole realm of outer nature, and
more especially to mountain-scenery. Rousseau's descriptions, followed
by the more detailed and scientific narrative of De Saussure, drew
the attention of society to the fascinations of Switzerland and the
Alps. But these influences had hardly had time to exert much sway in
their application to the scenery of our own country when the genius of
Scott suddenly brought the features of the Scottish Highlands into the
most popular literature of his day. In his youth the future poet and
novelist had paid some visits to the glens and lakes of Perthshire,
where he found many a primitive custom still remaining, which has
since vanished before roads, railways, and tourists. In the year 1810
his _Lady of the Lake_ appeared. Thenceforward the stream of summer
visitors set in, which has poured in an ever-increasing flood into
the Highlands of Scotland. The general interest thus awakened in the
glens and mountains of the north was still further intensified by the
advent of the _Lord of the Isles_, and of _Waverley_, _Rob Roy_, and
the other novels that depict scenes in the Highlands. Certainly no man
ever did so much as Walter Scott to make the natural features of his
native country familiar to the whole world. The literary charm which
he threw over the hills and glens of Perthshire kindled a wide-spread
enthusiasm for the more rugged aspects of nature, and gave a powerful
stimulus to the slowly-growing appreciation of the beauty and grandeur
of mountain-scenery.

Nevertheless it must be admitted that Scott's highland landscapes,
though more prominent and detailed than those in his descriptions of
the lowlands and uplands, were also more laboured and less spontaneous.
His pictures are no doubt faithful and graphic, and each of them
leaves on the mind a clear impression of the scene depicted. But their
effect is produced rather by a multiplicity of touches than by a few
masterstrokes of poetic insight and graphic delineation. Moreover they
are all in one tone of colour, and lack that changeful diversity so
characteristic of mountains. They are chiefly fine-weather portraits,
as if the poet loved only summer sunshine among the hills, and had
either never seen or cared not to portray their gloom, cloud, and
storm. We are bound of course to remember that, after all, he was
only an occasional visitor to the Highlands. He had not been born
among them, and never lived long enough in their solitudes to become
intimately versed in all their alternations of mood under changes of
sky and season. He writes of them as an admiring and even enthusiastic
spectator, but not as one into whose very soul the power of the
mountains had entered. He never warms among them into that fervent glow
of affectionate appreciation which kindles within him in sight of the
landscapes of his native Border.

One other mountainous district in Britain--that of the English
Lakes--claims our attention for its influence on the progress of the
national literature. Of all the isolated tracts of higher ground in
these islands, that of the Lake District is the most eminently highland
in character. It is divisible into two entirely distinct portions
by a line drawn in a north-easterly direction from Duddon Sands to
Shap Fells. South of that line the hills are comparatively low and
featureless, though they enclose the largest of the lakes. They are
there built up of ancient sedimentary strata, like those that form so
much of the similar scenery in the uplands of Wales and the South of
Scotland. But to the north of the line, most of the rocks are of a
different nature, and have given rise to a totally distinct character
of landscape. They consist of various volcanic materials which in early
Palaeozoic time were piled up around submarine vents, and accumulated
over the sea-floor to a thickness of many thousand feet. They were
subsequently buried under the sediments that lie to the south, but, in
after ages uplifted into land, their now diversified topography has
been carved out of them by the meteoric agents of denudation. Thus pike
and fell, crag and scar, mere and dale, owe their several forms to
the varied degrees of resistance to the general waste offered by the
ancient lavas and ashes. The upheaval of the district seems to have
produced a dome-shaped elevation, culminating in a summit that lay
somewhere between Helvellyn and Grasmere. At least from that centre
the several dales diverge, like the ribs from the top of a half-opened
umbrella.

The mountainous tract of the Lakes, though it measures only some
thirty-two miles from west to east by twenty-three from north to south,
rises to heights of more than 3,000 feet, and as it springs almost
directly from the margin of the Irish Sea, it loses none of the full
effect of its elevation. Its fells present a thoroughly highland type
of scenery, and have much of the dignity of far loftier mountains.
Their sky-line often displays notched crests and rocky peaks, while
their craggy sides have been carved into dark cliff-girt recesses,
often filled with tarns, and into precipitous scars, which send long
trails of purple scree down the grassy slopes.

Moreover, a mild climate and copious rainfall have tempered this
natural asperity of surface by spreading over the lower parts of the
fells and the bottoms of the dales a greener mantle than is to be seen
among the mountains further north. Though the naked rock abundantly
shows itself, it has been so widely draped with herbage and woodland as
to combine the luxuriance of the lowlands with the near neighbourhood
of bare cliff and craggy scar.

Such was the scenery amidst which William Wordsworth was born and
spent most of his long life. Thence he drew the inspiration which did
so much to quicken the English poetry of the nineteenth century, and
which has given to his dales and hills so cherished a place in our
literature. The scenes familiar to him from infancy were loved by him
to the end with an ardent and grateful affection which he never wearied
of publishing to the world. No mountain-landscapes had ever before
been drawn so fully, so accurately, and in such felicitous language.
Every lineament of his hills and dales is depicted as luminously and
faithfully in his verse as it is reflected on the placid surface of
his beloved meres, but suffused by him with an ethereal glow of human
sympathy. He drew from his mountain-landscape everything that


     'Can give an inward help, can purify
     And elevate, and harmonize and soothe.'


It brought to him 'authentic tidings of invisible things'; and filled
him with


                           'The sense
     Of majesty and beauty and repose,
     A blended holiness of earth and sky.'


For his obligations to that native scenery he found continual
expression.


                   'Ye mountains and ye lakes,
     And sounding cataracts, ye mists and winds
     That dwell among the hills where I was born,
     If in my youth I have been pure in heart,
     If, mingling with the world, I am content
     With my own modest pleasures, and have lived
     With God and Nature communing, removed
     From little enmities and low desires--
     The gift is yours.'


Not only did his observant eye catch each variety of form, each passing
tint of colour on his hills and valleys, he felt, as no poet before
his time had done, the might and majesty of the forces by which, in
the mountain-world, we are shown how the surface of the world is
continually modified.


                 'To him was given
     Full many a glimpse of Nature's processes
     Upon the exalted hills.'


The thought of these glimpses led to one of the noblest outbursts in the
whole range of his poetry, where he gives way to the exuberance of his
delight in feeling himself, to use Byron's expression, 'a portion of
the tempest'--


     'To roam at large among unpeopled glens
     And mountainous retirements, only trod
     By devious footsteps; regions consecrate
     To oldest time; and reckless of the storm,
                       ... while the mists
     Flying, and rainy vapours, call out shapes
     And phantoms from the crags and solid earth,
                       ... and while the streams
     Descending from the region of the clouds,
     And starting from the hollows of the earth,
     More multitudinous every moment, rend
     Their way before them--what a joy to roam
     An equal among mightiest energies!'


In this passage Wordsworth seems to have had what he would have called
'a foretaste, a dim earnest' of that marvellous enlargement of the
charm and interest of scenery due to the progress of modern science.
When he speaks of 'regions consecrate to oldest time,' he has a vague
feeling that somehow his glens and mountains belonged to a hoary
antiquity, such as could be claimed by none of the verdant plains
around. Had he written half a century later he would have enjoyed a
clearer perception of the vastness of that antiquity and of the long
succession of events with which it was crowded.[51]

It is curious to remember that three of the poets whom I have singled
out as illustrations of the influence of our lowland, upland, and
highland scenery upon our literature have held up the geologist to
ridicule. Cowper put that votary of science into the pillory among
the irreligious crowd, about whose ears the poet loved to 'crack the
satiric thong.'[52] Wordsworth treated the geological enthusiast with
withering scorn.[53] Scott, with characteristic good humour, only poked
fun at him.[54] It was reserved for a poet of our own day to look below
the technical jargon of the schools, and to descry something of this
wealth of new interest which the landscape derives from a knowledge of
the history of its several parts. But Tennyson only entered a little
way into this enlarged conception of nature. There remains a boundless
field for some future poetic seer, who letting his vision pierce into
the past, will set before the eyes of men the inner meaning of mountain
and glen.

And thus, while we recognise the potent influence which the scenery
of the country has exerted on the progress of our literature, we can
look forward to a fresh extension of this influence as the outcome of
geological investigation. Already the result of this widening of the
outlook has made itself felt alike in prose and verse. The terrestrial
revolutions of which each hill and dale is a witness; the contrasts
presented between the present aspect and past history of every crag
and peak; the slow, silent sculpturing that has carved out all this
marvellous array of mountain-forms--appeal vividly to the imagination,
and furnish themes that well deserve poetic treatment. That they will
be seized upon by some Wordsworth of the future, I cannot doubt. The
bond between landscape and literature will thus be drawn closer than
ever. Men will be taught that beneath and behind all the outward
beauty of our lowlands, our uplands, and our highlands there lies an
inner history which, when revealed, will give to that beauty a fuller
significance and an added charm.

FOOTNOTES:

[20] _Types of Scenery and Their Influence on Literature_, the Romanes
Lecture, delivered in the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, June 1, 1898.

[21] See the preceding essay for a fuller discussion of this part of
the subject.

[22] See p. 24.

[23] _The Task_, bk. i. 154-176.

[24] _Ibid._, i. 177.

[25] _The Task_, iii. 357.

[26] _Ibid._, iv. 246.

[27] _Ibid._, vi. 112.

[28] _Winter_, 8.

[29] _Summer_, 192.

[30] _Ibid._, 89.

[31] _Autumn_, 476.

[32] _Spring_, 381, 400, 402; _Summer_, 13.

[33] _Autumn_, 337.

[34] _To William Simpson_, stanza 15.

[35] _Elegy on Captain Matthew Henderson._

[36] _Poem on Pastoral Poetry._

[37] _Winter, a Dirge._

[38] _A Winter Night._

[39] _The gloomy night is gathering fast._

[40] _To Mary in Heaven._

[41] This was remarked by Wordsworth in the prefatory note to his lines
on Mossgiel.

[42] _The Vision._

[43] Scott was familiar with this natural trait. '"That's the Forth,"
said the Bailie, with an air of reverence, which I have observed the
Scotch usually pay to their distinguished rivers. The Clyde, the
Tweed, the Forth, the Spey, are usually named by those who dwell on
their banks with a sort of respect and pride, and I have known duels
occasioned by any word of disparagement.'--_Rob Roy_, vol. ii., chap.
xi.

[44] Arnold, _On the Study of Celtic Literature_, 1867, p. 152.

[45] The quotations here given are from Dr. Clerk's translation of
Macpherson's Gaelic version of the Poems. The question has been much
disputed whether his English or Gaelic is the original. There can
be no doubt that, on the whole, the Gaelic shows greater vividness
and accuracy in the description of landscape than the more vague and
bombastic English of Macpherson. Dr. Clerk, who has given a literal
rendering of the Gaelic line for line, remarks: 'I believe that a
careful analysis would resolve very much of Ossian's most weird imagery
into idealised representations of the ever-varying and truly wonderful
aspects of cloud and mist, of sea and mountain, which may be seen by
every observant eye in the Highlands, and it is no fancy to say that
the perusal of these poems, as we have them, may be well illustrated
by travelling a range of the Highland mountains.'--_Poems of Ossian_,
Dissertation, vol. i. p. lxv.

[46] _Fingal_, iii. 3.

[47] _Fingal_, i. 211.

[48] In Burt's _Letters_, which give so graphic a picture of the
condition of the Highlands of Scotland between the two risings of 1715
and 1745, the general impression made at that time on the mind of an
intelligent stranger by the scenery of the region may be gathered from
the following quotations: 'I shall soon conclude this description of
the outward appearance of the mountains, which I am already tired of,
as a disagreeable subject.... There is not much variety, but gloomy
spaces, different rocks, heath, and high and low, ... the whole of
a dismal gloomy brown drawing upon a dirty purple; and most of all
disagreeable when the heath is in bloom. But of all the views, I think
the most horrid is, to look at the hills from east to west, or _vice
versa_; for then the eye penetrates far among them, and sees more
particularly their stupendous bulk, frightful irregularity, and horrid
gloom, made yet more sombrous by the shades and faint reflections they
communicate one to another.'--_Letters from a Gentleman in the North of
Scotland to his Friend in London._ Fifth edit., vol. i. p. 285.

[49] In writing to Mason he says: 'I am returned from Scotland charmed
with my expedition: it is of the Highlands I speak; the Lowlands
are worth seeing once, but the mountains are ecstatic, and ought
to be visited in pilgrimage once a year. None but those monstrous
creatures of God know how to join so much beauty with so much
horror. A fig for your poets, painters, gardeners, and clergymen,
that have not been among them, their imagination can be made up of
nothing but bowling-greens, flowering shrubs, horse-ponds, Fleet
ditches, shell-grottoes, and Chinese rails. Then I had so beautiful
an autumn; Italy could hardly produce a nobler scene, and this so
sweetly contrasted with that perfection of nastiness and total want of
accommodation, that Scotland only can supply.'--Gray's _Works_, edit.
E. Gosse, vol. iii. p. 223.

[50] _Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland_, 1775, p. 84.

[51] Sedgwick did his best to enlighten the poet by his famous _Four
Letters on the Geology of the Lake District_; but these came too late.
They were published at Kendal in 1846, and Wordsworth died in 1850.

[52]
                           Some drill and bore
     The solid earth, and from the strata there
     Extract a register, by which we learn,
     That He who made it, and revealed its date
     To Moses, was mistaken in its age.

--_The Task_, bk. iii. 150.

[53]

                     You may trace him oft
     By scars which his activity has left
     Beside our roads and pathways, though, thank Heaven,
     This covert nook reports not of his hand--
     He who with pocket-hammer smites the edge
     Of luckless rock or prominent stone, disguised
     In weather-stains or crusted o'er by Nature
     With her first growths, detaching by the stroke
     A chip or splinter--to resolve his doubts:
     And, with that ready answer satisfied,
     The substance classes by some barbarous name,
     And hurries on; or from the fragments picks
     His specimen, if but haply interveined
     With sparkling mineral, or should crystal cube
     Lurk in its cells--and thinks himself enriched,
     Wealthier, and doubtless wiser, than before!

_The Excursion_, bk. iii.

[54] _St. Ronan's Well_, chap. ii. The passage is quoted postea p. 166.




IV

The Origin of the Scenery of the British Islands[55]


The insular position of these islands, which we are apt to regard as
an essential and aboriginal feature, is merely accidental, and has
not always been maintained. The intimate relation of Britain with
the Continent is well shown by the Admiralty charts. If the west of
Europe were elevated 200 feet--that is, the height of the London
Monument--the Straits of Dover, half of the North Sea, and a large part
of the English Channel would be turned into dry land. If the elevation
extended to 600 feet--that is, merely the united heights of St. Paul's
and the Monument--the whole of the North Sea, the Baltic, and the
English Channel would become land. There would likewise be added to
the European area a belt of territory from 100 to 150 miles broad,
stretching to the west of Ireland and Scotland.

With an uprise of 600 feet a vast plain would unite Britain to
Denmark, Holland, and Belgium, and would present two platforms,[56] of
which the more southerly would stretch from what are now the Straits of
Dover northward to the northern edge of the Dogger Bank, where a steep
declivity, doubtless a prolongation of the Jurassic and Cretaceous
escarpments of Yorkshire, descends to the northern or lower platform.
This submarine escarpment is trenched towards the west by a magnificent
valley through which the united waters of the Rhine and Thames would
flow, between the Dogger Bank and the Yorkshire cliffs. Another gap
further east would allow the combined Elbe and Weser to escape into the
northern plain. Possibly all these rivers would unite on that plain,
but, in any case, they would fall into a noble fjord which would then
be revealed following the trend of the southern coast line of Norway.
Altogether an area more than thrice that of Britain would be added to
Europe. By a total rise of 1800 feet, Britain would be united to the
Faroe Islands and Iceland; while the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans would
be separated.


GEOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF BRITAIN.

From its position on the oceanic border of a continent, Britain has
been exposed to a great variety of geological change. In such a
position marine erosion and deposit are most active. A slight upheaval
or depression, which would have no sensible effect in the interior
of a continent, makes all the difference between land and water on
the coast-line. Moreover, there appears to be a tendency to special
disturbance along the edge of an ocean. America affords the most
marked proofs of this tendency, but in the structure of Scandinavia and
its prolongation into Scotland and Ireland there appear to be traces of
similar ancient ridging up of the oceanic border of Europe.

There is a remarkable convergence of geological formations in
Britain, each carrying with it its characteristic scenery. The rugged
crystalline rocks of Norway reappear in the Scottish Highlands; the
fertile chalk, with its smooth downs and gentle escarpment, stretches
across to us from the north of France; the great plain of North
Germany, strewn with the debris of the northern hills, extends into our
eastern lowlands; even the volcanic plateaux of Iceland and Faroe are
prolonged into the Inner Hebrides and the north of Ireland.

The present surface of Britain is the result of a long, complicated
process in which underground movements, though sometimes potent,
have only operated occasionally, while superficial erosion has been
continuous, so long as any land has remained above the sea. The order
of appearance of the existing features is not necessarily that of the
chronological sequence of the rocks. The oldest formations have all
been buried under later accumulations, and their re-emergence at the
surface has only been brought about after enormous denudation. In its
general growth, Britain like the rest of Europe has, on the whole,
increased from the north by successive additions along its southern
border. Some early upheavals ridged up the Palæozoic rocks into folds
running north-north-east and south-south-west, as may yet be seen in
Scotland, in the Lake Country, and in Wales. By a later series of
plications the younger Palæozoic rocks were thrown into north-and-south
and east-and-west ridges, the latter of which still powerfully affect
the topography in southern Ireland, and thence through South Wales and
Belgium. An east-and-west direction was followed by the more important
subsequent European disturbances, such as those that upheaved the
Pyrenees, Jura, and Alps.[57] Some of the latest movements that have
powerfully affected the development of our scenery were those that
gave the Secondary rocks their general tilt to south-east. It is very
doubtful if any part of the existing topography can be satisfactorily
traced back beyond Middle or Older Tertiary time.[58] The amount of
erosion of some of the hardest rocks of the country since that date has
been prodigious, as may be seen in the fragmentary condition of the
volcanic plateaux of the Inner Hebrides.


GENERAL TOPOGRAPHY.

The main topographical features of Britain may be arranged as
mountains, tablelands, valleys, and plains. All our Mountains are the
result of erosion on areas of land successively upheaved above the sea.
In the development of their forms, the general outlines have been
mainly determined by erosion, independent of geological structure;
while the details have been chiefly guided by structure, but partially
also by the rate and kind of erosion. Ruggedness, for example, has
resulted primarily from structure, but has been aggravated by greater
activity of erosion. The mountainous west, with a greater rainfall and
steeper slopes, is more rugged than the mountainous east.

The Tablelands of Britain are of two orders--1, those of Deposit, which
may be either (_a_) of sedimentary rocks, horizontal or nearly so, as
in the Millstone Grit and Jurassic plateaux of Yorkshire, or (_b_) of
volcanic rocks, as in the wide plateaux of Antrim, Mull, and Skye; 2,
those of Erosion, where, as the result of long-continued degradation,
a series of plicated rocks has been cut down into a more or less
uniformly level surface, as in South Wales. By the elevation of such
a surface into a high plateau, erosion becomes more active, and the
plateau is eventually trenched into a system of ridges and isolated
hills, as has happened in the Highlands.

The Valleys of Britain are the result of erosion either (_a_) guided by
geological structure, as in what are called longitudinal valleys, that
is, valleys which run along the strike or outcrop of formations, as
the Great Glen and Glen Spey in Scotland and the valleys of the Trent
and Avon in England; or (_b_) independent of geological structure, as
in the transverse valleys which embrace the great majority of British
examples.

Our Plains are due to prolonged erosion, as in the Weald; to the
deposit, of _detritus_, as in river-terraces and alluvial plains; to
the action of the sea, as in raised beaches; and to ice, as in the
drift-covered lowlands.

The existing Watershed of Britain is profoundly significant, affording
a kind of epitome of the geological revolutions, through which the
surface of the country has passed. It lies nearer the west than the
east coast. The western slope being thus the steeper, as well as the
more rainy, erosion must be greater on that side, and consequently
the watershed must be slowly moving eastward. Probably the oldest
part of the watershed is to be found in the Highlands, where its
trend from north-north-east to south-south-west was determined by the
older Palæozoic upheaval. Its continuity has been interrupted by the
dislocation of the Great Glen. After quitting the Highlands it wanders
across the Scottish Lowlands and Southern Uplands, with no regard to
the dominant geological structure of these districts, as if, when its
course was originally determined, they had been buried under so vast
a mass of superincumbent rock that their structure did not affect the
surface. Running down the Pennine Chain, the watershed traverses a
region of enormous erosion, yet from its general coincidence with the
line of the axis of elevation, we may perhaps infer that the anticline
of the Pennine Chain has never been lost under an overlying sheet of
later undisturbed rocks. The remarkable change in the character of the
watershed south of the Pennine Chain carries us back to the time when
the great plain of the Secondary rocks of England was upraised with a
gentle inclination to east and south-east. The softer strata between
the harder escarpment-forming members of the Jurassic series and the
Palæozoic rocks of the Pennine Chain were worn away, and two rivers
carrying of the drainage of the southern end of that chain flowed
in opposite directions, the Avon turning south-west and the Trent
northwards. By degrees these streams moved away across the broadening
plain of softer strata, as the escarpments emerged and retreated. At
the same time, streams collected the drainage from the uprising slope
of Secondary rocks and flowed south-eastward. Successive lines of
escarpment have since been developed, and many minor watersheds have
arisen, while the early watershed has undergone much modification,
these various changes pointing to the continuous operation of running
water.


THE MOUNTAINS AND TABLELANDS.

A true mountain-chain is the result of plication of the earth's crust,
and its external form, in spite of sometimes enormous denudation,
bears a relation to the contours produced by the original uplift.
Tried by this standard, hardly any of the heights of Britain deserve
the name of mountains. With some notable exceptions in the south of
Ireland, they are due not to local but to general upheavals, and their
outlines have little or no connection with those due to underground
movement, but have been carved out of upheaved areas of unknown form
by the various forces of erosion. In the course of their denudation,
the nature of their component rocks has materially influenced the
elaboration of their contours, each well-marked type of rock having its
own characteristic variety of mountain forms.

The relative antiquity of our mountains must be decided not necessarily
by the geological age of their component materials, but by the date of
their upheaval or of their exposure by denudation. In many cases they
can be shown to be the result of more than one uplift. The Malvern
Hills, for example, which from their dignity of outline better deserve
the name of mountains than many higher eminences, bear internal
evidence of having been upheaved during at least four widely separated
geological periods, the earliest movement dating from before the time
of the Upper Cambrian, the latest coming down to some epoch later
probably than the Jurassic period.

The oldest mountain fragments in Britain are those of the Archæan
rocks, and of these the largest portions occur in the north-west of
Scotland.[59] Most of our mountains, however, belong to upheavals
dating from Palæozoic time, though the actual exposure and shaping of
them into their present forms must be referred to a far later period.
Two leading epochs of movement in Palæozoic time can be recognised.
Of these the older, dating from before the Lower Old Red Sandstone
and part at least of the Upper Silurian period, was distinguished by
the plication of the rocks in a dominant north-east and south-west
direction, and the effects of these movements can be traced in the
trend of the Lower Silurian ridges and hollows to the present day.

In Wales two types of mountain-form exist--the Snowdon type, and that
of the Breconshire Beacons. In the former, the greater prominence
of the high grounds arises primarily from the existence of masses
of volcanic rocks, which from their superior durability have been
better able to withstand the progress of degradation. In the latter
the heights are merely the remaining fragments of a once continuous
tableland of Old Red Sandstone.

The Lake District presents a remarkable radiation of valleys from a
central mass of high ground. It might be supposed that these valleys
have been determined by some radiating system of fractures in the
rocks; but an examination of the area shows them to be singularly
independent of geological structure. So much do they disregard the
strike, alternations, and dislocations of the rocks among which
they lie that the conclusion is forced upon us that they have been
determined by some cause independent of that structure, and before
the rocks now visible were exposed at or could affect the surface.
This could only have happened by the spread of a deep cover of later
rocks over the site of the Lake mountains. The former presence of
such a cover, which is demanded for the explanation of the valleys,
can be inferred from other evidence. The Carboniferous Limestone on
the flanks of the Lake District is so thick that it must have spread
nearly or entirely over the site of the mountains. But it was overlain
by the Millstone Grit and Coal-measures, so that the whole area was
probably buried under several thousand feet of Carboniferous strata
which stretched continuously across what is now the north of England.
At the time of the formation of the anticlinal fold of the Pennine
Chain, the site of the Lake District appears to have been upraised
as a dome-shaped eminence, the summit of which lay over the tract
now occupied by the heights from Scafell to Helvellyn. The earliest
rain that fell upon this eminence would gather into divergent streams
from the central watershed. In the course of ages, after possibly
repeated uplifts, these streams have cut down into the underlying
core of old Palæozoic rocks, retaining on the whole their original
trend. Meanwhile the whole of the overlying mantle of later formations
has been stripped from the dome, and is now found only along the
borders of the mountains. The older rocks, partly faulted down and
yielding to erosion, each in its own way, have gradually assumed that
picturesqueness of detail for which the area is so deservedly famous.

The Scottish Highlands likewise received their initial plications
during older Palæozoic time, their component rocks having been thrown
into sharp folds trending in a general north-east and south-west
direction.[60] But there is reason to believe that they were
subsequently in large measure buried under Old Red Sandstone, and
possibly under later accumulations. No positive evidence exists as to
the condition of this region during the vast interval between the Old
Red Sandstone and the older Secondary rocks. We can hardly believe
it to have remained as land during all that time, otherwise, the
denudation, vast as it is, would probably have been still greater. Not
improbably the region had become stationary at a base-level of erosion
beneath the sea; that is, it lay too low to be effectively abraded
by breaker-action, and too high to become the site of any important
geological formation. The present ridges and valleys of the Highlands
are entirely the work of erosion. When they began to be traced, the
area probably presented the aspect of a wide undulating tableland.
Since that early time the valleys have sunk deeper and deeper into
the framework of the land, the ridges have grown narrower, and the
mountains have arisen, not by upheaval from below, but by the carving
away of the rest of the block of which they formed a part. In this
evolution, geological structure has played an important part in guiding
the erosive tools. The composition of the rock-masses has likewise been
effective in determining the individuality of the mountain-forms.

The mountains of Ireland are distributed in scattered groups round the
great central plain, and belong to at least three geological periods.
The oldest groups probably took their rise at the time of the older
Palæozoic upheaval, those of the north-west being a continuation of the
Scottish Highlands, and those of the south-east being a prolongation of
those of Wales. Later in date as regards the underground movements that
determined their site, are the mountainous ridges of Kerry and Cork.
These are local uplifts which, though on a small scale, are by far
the best examples in Britain of true mountain-structure. The Old Red
Sandstone and Carboniferous rocks have there been thrown into broad
arches and troughs which run in a general east and west direction. In
some cases, as in the Knockmealdown Mountain, the arch is composed
entirely of Old Red Sandstone flanked with Carboniferous strata. But in
most instances an underlying core of Silurian rocks has been exposed
along the centre of the arch. As not only the Carboniferous Limestone,
but the rest of the Carboniferous system covered the south of Ireland
and participated in this plication, the amount of denudation from
these ridges has been enormous. On the Galty range, for example, it
can hardly have been less but may have been more than 12,000 feet.
The third and latest group of Irish mountains is that of Mourne and
Carlingford, which may with some probability be referred to older
Tertiary time when the similar granitic and porphyritic masses in Mull
and Skye were erupted.

The Tablelands of Britain strictly include the mountains, which are in
general only prominences carved out of tablelands. There are still,
indeed, large areas in which the plateau character is well shown. Of
these the most extensive and in many respects the most interesting is
the present tableland or plain of Central Ireland. As now exposed,
this region lies upon an undulating eroded surface of Carboniferous
Limestone. But it was formerly covered by at least 3,000 or 4,000 feet
more of Carboniferous strata, as can be shown by the fragments that
remain.[61] The present system of drainage across the centre of Ireland
took its origin long before the ancient tableland had been reduced to
its present level, and before some of the ridges, now prominent, had
been exposed to the light.

The Moors and Wolds of Yorkshire present us with a fragment of a
tableland composed of nearly horizontal Jurassic and Cretaceous rocks.
The Lammermuir Hills and Southern Uplands of Scotland extend as a broad
tableland which has been formed on a deeply eroded surface of Lower and
Upper Silurian rocks.

The Scottish Highlands may also be looked upon as the relics of an
ancient tableland cut out of highly crumpled and plicated schists.
Among the eastern Grampians large fragments of the plateau exist at
heights of more than 3,000 feet, forming wide undulating plains that
terminate here and there at the edge of precipices. In the Western
Highlands, the erosion having been more profound, the ridges are
narrower, the valleys deeper, and isolated peaks more numerous (p.
112). It is the fate of a tableland to be eventually cut down by
running water into a system of valleys which are widened and deepened,
until the blocks of ground between are sharpened into ridges and
trenched into separate prominences. The Highlands present us with far
advanced stages of this process.

In the youngest of British tablelands--that of the volcanic region
of Antrim and the Inner Hebrides--we meet with some of the earlier
parts of the change. That interesting tract of our islands reveals a
succession of basaltic sheets which appear to have spread over the
wide valley between the Outer Hebrides and the mainland, and to have
reached southwards beyond Lough Neagh. Its original condition must have
resembled that of the lava-fields of Idaho and Oregon--a sea-like
expanse of black basalt stretching up to the base of the mountains.
What may have been the total thickness of basalt cannot be told; but
the fragment remaining in Ben More, Mull, is more than 3,000 feet
thick. So vast has been the erosion since older Tertiary time that the
volcanic plateau has been trenched in every direction by deep glens
and arms of the sea, and has been reduced to detached islands. It is
strange to reflect that all this revolution in the topography has
been effected since the soft clays and sands of the London Basin were
deposited.


THE VALLEYS.

The intimate relation of a system of valleys to a system of drainage
lines, first clearly enunciated by Hutton and Playfair, has received
ample illustrations from all parts of the world.[62] But the notion is
not yet extinct that, in some way or other, valleys have been as much,
if not more, determined by subterranean lines of dislocation than by
superficial erosion. Some favourite dogmas die hard, and though this
dogma of fracture has been demolished over and over again, it every
now and then reappears, dressed up anew as a fresh contribution to
scientific progress. We have only to compare the surface of a much
dislocated region with its underground structure, where that has been
revealed by mining operations, as in our coal fields, to see that
valleys comparatively seldom, and then only as it were by accident,
run along lines of dislocation, but that they everywhere cut across
them, and that faults rarely make a feature at the surface, except
indirectly by bringing hard and soft rocks against each other.

In Britain, as in other countries, there is a remarkable absence
of coincidence between the main drainage system and the geological
structure of the region. We may infer from this fact either that the
general surface, before the establishment of the present drainage
system, had been reduced to a base-level of denudation above or under
the sea, the original inequalities of configuration having been
planed off irrespective of structure; or at least, that the present
visible rocks were buried under a mass of later unconformable and
approximately level strata, on the unequally upraised surface of which
the present drainage system began to be traced. Where the existing
watershed coincides generally with the crest of an anticline, its
position has obviously been fixed by the form of the ground produced by
the plication, though occasionally an anticline may have been deeply
buried below later rocks, the subsequent folding of which along the
same line would renew the watershed along its previous trend. Where
drainage lines coincide with structure, they are probably, with few
exceptions, of secondary origin; that is, they have been developed
during the gradual denudation of the country. Since the existing
watershed and main drainage-lines of Britain are so independent of
structure, and have been determined chiefly by the configuration of the
surface when once more brought up within the influence of erosion, it
may be possible to restore in some degree the general distribution of
topography when they were begun.

One of the most curious aspects of the denudation of Britain is its
extraordinary inequality. In one region the framework of the land
has been cut down into the very Archæan core, while in the immediate
vicinity there may be many thousands of feet of younger strata which
have not been removed. This inequality must result from difference in
total amount of upheaval above the base-line of denudation, combined
with difference in the length of exposure to denudation. As a rule
the highest and oldest tracts will be most deeply eroded. Much of the
denudation of Britain appears to have been effected in the interval
between the close of the Carboniferous and end of the Triassic
period.[63] This was a remarkable terrestrial interval, during part
of which the climate was so arid that salt lakes were formed over
the centre of England. Yet the denudation ultimately accomplished
was enormous, thousands of feet of Carboniferous rock being entirely
removed from certain areas, such as the site of the present Bristol
Channel. An interesting analogy to this condition of things is
presented by the Great Basin and adjoining tracts of Western America,
where at the present time marked aridity and extensive salt-lakes are
accompanied by great erosion.

The deeply-eroded post-Carboniferous land of Britain was eventually
screened from further degradation, either by being reduced through
denudation to a base-level or by being protected by submergence. It
was to a large extent covered with Secondary rocks, though the covering
of these may have been but thin over what are now the higher grounds.
The present terrestrial areas emerged at some period later than the
Chalk.[64] In England there were three chief tracts of land--Wales, the
Pennine Chain, and the Lake District. The eastern half of the country,
covered with Secondary rocks, was probably the last portion to be
uplifted above the sea; hence the watersheds and drainage lines in that
tract may be regarded as the youngest of all.

The history of some of the valleys of the country tells the story of
the denudation. The Thames is one of the youngest rivers, dating from
the time when the Tertiary sea-bed was raised into land. Originally its
source probably lay to the west of the existing Jurassic escarpment
of the Cotswold Hills, and it flowed eastward before the Chalk
escarpment had emerged. By degrees the Chalk downs have appeared, and
the escarpment has retreated many miles eastward. The river, however,
having fixed its course in the Chalk, has cut its way down into it, and
now seems as if it had broken a path for itself across the escarpment.
As all the escarpments are creeping eastward, the length and drainage
area of the Thames are necessarily slowly diminishing.

The Severn presents a much more complex course; but its windings across
the most varied geological structure are to be explained by its having
found a channel on the rising floor of Secondary rocks between the base
of the Welsh hills and the nascent Jurassic escarpments. The Wye and
Usk afford remarkable examples of the trenching of a tableland. The Tay
and Nith are more intricate in their history. The Shannon began to flow
over the central Irish plain when it was covered with several thousand
feet of strata now removed. In deepening its channel it has cut down
into the range of hills north of Limerick, and has actually sawn it
into two.[65]


THE LAKES.[66]

The Lakes of Britain present us with some of the most interesting
problems in our topography. It is obvious that the existence of
abundant lakes in the more northern and more rocky parts of the
country points to the operation of some cause which, in producing
them, acted independently of and even in some measure antagonistically
to the present system of superficial erosion. It is likewise evident
that as the lakes are everywhere being rapidly filled up by the
daily action of wind, vegetation, rain, and streamlets, they must be
of geologically recent origin, and that the lake-forming process,
whatever it was, must have attained a remarkable maximum of activity
at a comparatively recent geological epoch. Hardly any satisfactory
trace is to be found of lakes older than the present series. How
then have our lakes arisen? Several processes have been concerned in
their formation. Some have resulted from the solution of rock-salt or
of calcareous rocks and a consequent depression of the surface. The
'meres' of Cheshire, and many tarns or pools in limestone districts,
are examples of this mode of origin. Others are a consequence of the
irregular deposit of superficial accumulations. Thus, landslips have
occasionally intercepted the drainage and formed lakes. Storm-beaches,
thrown up by the waves along the sea-margin, have now and then ponded
back the waters of an inland valley or recess. The various glacial
deposits--boulder-clays, sands, gravels, and moraines--have been
thrown down so confusedly on the surface that vast numbers of hollows
have thereby been left which, on the exposure of the land to rain, at
once became lakes. This has undoubtedly been the origin of a large
proportion of the lakes in the lowlands of the north of England,
Scotland, and Ireland, though they are rapidly being converted by
natural causes into bogs and meadow-land. Underground movements may
have originated certain of our lakes, or at least may have fixed the
direction in which they have otherwise been produced.[67]

A large number of British lakes lie in basins of hard rock, and have
been formed by the erosion and removal of the solid materials that
once filled their sites. The only agent known to us by which such
erosion could be effected is land-ice. It is a significant fact that
our rock-basin lakes occur in districts which can be demonstrated to
have been intensely glaciated. The Ice-Age was a recent geological
episode, and this so far confirms the conclusion already enforced,
that the cause which produced the lakes must have been in operation
recently, and has now ceased. We must bear in mind, however, that it is
probably not necessary to suppose that land-ice excavated our deepest
lake-basins out of solid rock. A terrestrial surface of crystalline
rock, long exposed to the atmosphere, or covered with vegetation and
humus, may be so deeply corroded as, for two or three hundred feet
downward, to be converted into mere loose detritus, through which the
harder undecomposed veins and ribs still run. Such is the case in
Brazil, and such may have been also the case in some glaciated regions
before the glaciers settled down upon them. This superficial corrosion,
as shown by Pumpelly, may have been very unequal, so that when the
decomposed material was removed, numerous hollows would be revealed.
The ice may thus have had much of its work already done for it, and
would be mainly employed in clearing out the corroded debris, though
likewise finally deepening, widening, and smoothing the basins in the
solid rock.


THE HILLS AND ESCARPMENTS.

The Hills and Hill-groups of Britain have all emerged during the
gradual denudation of the country, and owe their prominence to the
greater durability of their materials as compared with those of the
surrounding lower grounds. They thus represent various stages in the
general lowering of the surface. In many cases they consist of local
masses of hard rock. Such is the structure of the prominent knobs of
Pembrokeshire and of Central Scotland, where masses of eruptive rock,
formerly deeply buried under superincumbent formations, have been laid
bare by denudation. In connection with such eruptive bosses, attention
should be given to the 'dykes' so plentiful in the north of England and
Ireland, and over most of Scotland. In numerous instances, the dykes
run along the crests of hills, and also cross wide and deep valleys.
Had the present topography existed at the time of their protrusion,
the molten basalt would have flowed down the hill-slopes and filled up
the valleys. As this never occurs, and as there is good evidence that
a vast number of the dykes are not of higher antiquity than the older
Tertiary periods, we may conclude that the present configuration of the
country has, on the whole, been developed since older Tertiary time--a
deduction in harmony with that already announced from other independent
evidence.

Escarpments are the prominent outcrops of flat or gently inclined
strata, exposed by denudation. They may be regarded as the steep edges
of hills in retreat. The British islands abound in admirable examples
of all ages from early Palæozoic rocks down to Tertiary deposits,
and of every stage of development, from an almost unbroken line of
cliff to scattered groups of islet-like fragments. The retreat of
our escarpments can be well studied along the edge of the Jurassic
belt from Dorsetshire to the headlands of Yorkshire, likewise in the
course of the edge of the Chalk across the island. Not less suggestive
are some of the escarpments of more ancient rocks, such as those of
the older Palæozoic limestones, the Old Red Sandstone of Wales, the
Carboniferous Limestone and Millstone Grit of Yorkshire, and the Coal
Measures of the Irish plain. Our volcanic escarpments are likewise
full of interest, as displayed in those of the Lower Old Red Sandstone
along both sides of the Tay, in those of the Carboniferous system in
Stirlingshire, Ayrshire, Bute, and Roxburghshire, and in those of the
Tertiary series in Antrim and the Inner Hebrides.


THE PLAINS.

The Plains of Britain, like those elsewhere, must be regarded as
local base-levels of denudation, that is, areas where, on the whole,
denudation has ceased, or at least has become much less than deposit.
Probably in all cases the areas they occupy have been levelled by
denudation. Usually a greater or less depth of detrital material has
been spread over them, and it is the more or less level surface of
these superficial accumulations that generally forms the plain. But
in some instances, such as the flats of the Weald Clay and the Chalk
of Salisbury Plain, there is hardly any such cover of detritus, the
denuded surface of underlying rock forming the actual floor on which
the vegetable soil rests.

Our plains, if classed according to the circumstances of their origin,
may be conveniently regarded as (1) river plains--strips of meadow-land
bordering the streams, and not infrequently rising in a succession
of terraces to a considerable height above the present level of the
water; (2) lake plains--tracts of arable ground occupying the sites of
former lakes, and of which the number is ever on the increase, owing
to the filling-up of the basins with sediment; (3) plains consisting
of portions of upraised sea-floors--partly eroded rock-platforms, but
mostly flat selvages of alluvial ground, formed of littoral materials
deposited when the land lay below its present level: in the northern
estuaries these raised beaches spread out as broad carse-lands, such as
those of the Tay, Forth, and Clyde; (4) glacial drift plains--tracts
over which the clays, sands, and gravels spread out during the Ice-Age
form the existing surface; (5) plains of subaërial denudation which
have been levelled by rain and other atmospheric agents, especially
upon tracts of rock of fairly uniform resistance, such as the soft
clays and sands of the Secondary and Tertiary formations; (6) submarine
plains--the present floor of the North Sea and of the Irish Sea, which
must be regarded as essentially part of the terrestrial area of Europe.

When plains remain stationary at low levels, they may continue for
an indefinite period with no material change of surface. But, should
they be upraised, the elevation, by increasing the slope of the
streams, augments their erosive power, and enables them once more to
deepen their channels. Hence, plains like that of the New Forest,
which have been trenched by the water-courses that traverse them, may
with probability be assigned to a time when the land stood at a lower
level than it occupies at present. In this connection the successive
river-terraces of the country deserve attention. They may be due not
to the mere unaided work of the rivers, but to the cooperation of
successive uplifts. It would be an interesting inquiry to correlate
the various river-terraces throughout the country, for the purpose of
discovering whether they throw any light on the conditions under which
the most recent uprise of the country took place. That the elevation
proceeded intermittently, with long pauses between the movements,
is shown by the succession of raised beaches. It may be possible to
establish a somewhat similar proof among our river-terraces.

The submarine plains are by far the most extensive within the British
area. The tendency of tidal scour and deposit must modify the form
of the bottom. In the case of the North Sea, for example, this great
basin of water is obviously being slowly filled up by the deposit of
sediment over its floor. A vast amount of mud and silt is borne into
it by the rivers of western continental Europe, and of the eastern
coast of Britain; while at the same time the waves are cutting away
the land on both sides of this sea and swallowing up the waste. We
have only to contrast the colour of the Atlantic on the west of Ireland
or of Scotland with that of the North Sea, to be assured of the wide
diffusion of fine mud in the water of the latter. There is practically
no outlet for the detritus that is thus poured into the basin of the
North Sea. From the north a vast body of tidal water enters between
Scotland and Norway, and travelling southward, aided by the strong
northerly winds, sweeps the detritus in the same direction. On the
other hand, another narrower and shallower tidal stream enters from
the Strait of Dover, and, aided by the south-west winds, drives the
sediment northward. Yet, making every allowance for the banks and
shoals which this accumulating deposit has already formed, we can
still, without much difficulty, recognise the broader features of
the old land-surface that now lies submerged beneath the North Sea.
As already mentioned (p. 131), it presents two plains or platforms,
of which the southern has an average level of perhaps a little more
than 100 feet below the surface of the water. This upper plain ends
northward in a shelving bank, probably the prolongation of the
Jurassic escarpment of Yorkshire, and is succeeded by the far wider
northern plain, which lies from 100 to 150 feet lower, and gradually
slopes northward until it is trenched by the great south Scandinavian
submerged fjord. The drainage-lines of the united Rhine, Thames, etc.,
on the one side, and the Elbe, Weser, etc., on the other can still
be partially traced on that sea-floor. The site of the Irish Sea was
probably once a terrestrial plain dotted with lakes. This land-surface
appears to have been submerged before the whole of the present fauna
and flora had reached Ireland.


THE COAST-LINE.

Some of the most characteristic and charming scenery of the British
Islands is to be found along their varied seaboard. Coast scenery
appears to depend for its distinctive features upon (1) the form of the
ground at the time when by emergence or submergence the present level
was established; (2) the composition and structure of the shore-rocks;
(3) the direction of the prevalent winds, and the relative potency of
subaërial and marine denudation.

The British coast-line presents three distinct phases: in many places
it is retreating; in others it is advancing; while in a few it may be
regarded as practically stationary. As examples of retreat, the shores
of a large part of the east of England may be cited. In Holderness,
for instance, a strip of land more than a mile broad has been carried
away during the last eight centuries. Even since the Ordnance Survey
maps were published in 1851, more than 500 feet have in some places
been removed, the rate of demolition being here and there as much as
five yards in a year. The advance of the coast takes place chiefly
in sheltered bays, or behind or in front of projecting headlands and
piers, and is due in large measure to the deposit of material which
has been removed by the sea from adjoining shores. The amount of land
thus added does not compensate for the quantity carried away, so that
the total result is a perceptible annual loss. The best examples of
a stationary coast-line, where there is no appreciable erosion by
the waves and little visible accumulation of detritus, are to be
found among the land-locked fjords or sea-inlets of the west coast of
Scotland. In these sheltered recesses the smooth striated rocks of
the Ice-Age slip under the sea, with their characteristic glaciated
surfaces still so fresh that it is hard to believe that a long lapse of
ages has passed away since the glaciers left them.

The remarkable contrast between the scenery of the eastern and western
coast-line of the British Islands arises partly from the preponderance
of harder rocks on the west side, but probably in large measure upon
the greater extent of the submergence of the western seaboard, whereby
the sea has been allowed to penetrate far inland by fjords which were
formerly glens and open straths.

The details of coast-scenery vary with the rock in which they are
developed. Nowhere can the effects of each leading type of rock upon
landscape be more instructively studied than along the sea-margin. As
distinct types of coast-scenery, reference may be made to sea-cliffs
and rocky shores of granite, gneiss, basalt, massive sandstone and
flagstone, limestone, alternations of sandstone shale or other strata,
and boulder-clay, and to the forms assumed by detrital accumulations
such as sand-dunes, shingle-banks, and flats of sand or mud.

The concluding portion of the last lecture was devoted to an indication
of the connection between the scenery of a country and the history
and temperament of the people. This subject was considered from four
points of view, the influence of landscape and geological structure
being traced in the distribution of races, in national history, in
industrial and commercial progress, and in national temperament and
literature.[68]

FOOTNOTES:

[55] An abstract of five lectures given at the Royal Institution in
January, February, and March, 1884. _Nature_, vol. xxix. pp. 325, 347,
396, 419, 442. The notes here inserted are now added for the first time.

[56] See postea p. 154.

[57] To these east-and-west foldings of the terrestrial crust we owe
the plication of our Cretaceous and older Tertiary strata which have
given us the ranges of the North and South Downs. They were accompanied
by powerful horizontal thrusts of portions of the crust. The successive
plications of the terrestrial crust in the European area have since
been discussed by Prof. Suess in his _Antlitz der Erde_.

[58] See note on p. 146.

[59] A pre-Cambrian group of mountains has been exposed by denudation
in the west of Ross-shire. See p. 72.

[60] Since these lectures were given the remarkably complex structure
of the North-West Highlands has been made known. It has been
ascertained that gigantic horizontal displacements of rock have
occurred in that region, and that similar 'thrusts' have more or less
affected the rest of the Highlands.

[61] A striking instance of one of these fragments is to be seen on the
summit of Slieve League in Donegal. See p. 61.

[62] See pp. 161, 193.

[63] Other periods of prolonged denudation might be mentioned. Thus in
pre-Cambrian times the Lewisian Gneiss was stupendously eroded before
the deposition of the Torridon Sandstone, which in turn was enormously
worn down before the Cambrian sediments were spread unconformably
over it. The deposition of the Old Red Sandstone was preceded and
accompanied by a vast degradation of the pre-existing rocks.

[64] That the Secondary formations once extended far beyond the limits
within which they are now confined has been impressively demonstrated
by the discovery of large masses of Rhaetic, Liassic, and Cretaceous
strata in a great volcanic vent of Tertiary age in the Isle of Arran
(see Messrs. Peach, Gunn, and Newton, _Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc._,
lvii., 1901). It may consequently be inferred that the present drainage
system and topographical features of much, if not most, of the country
have been established since the time of the Chalk (see the 'Geology of
Eastern Fife' in _Memoirs of the Geological Survey_, 1902, p. 281).
The stupendous erosion of the Tertiary lava-plateaux of the west of
Scotland and the north of Ireland shows, in the most impressive way,
how greatly the topography has been carved out since older Tertiary
time.

[65] I have shown that some of the wildest glens of the Highlands
and the deepest dales of the southern Uplands of Scotland have been
hollowed out since early Tertiary time by the various streams that
still flow in them. _Scenery of Scotland_, 3rd ed., pp. 162, 339, 361.

[66] The Scottish Lakes have in recent years been made the subject of
detailed study by Sir John Murray and Mr. F. Pullar. The results of
their investigations have appeared in the _Geographical Journal_.

[67] Lough Neagh has been produced by subsidence, probably since the
Glacial Period. See _Ancient Volcanoes of Great Britain_, vol. ii. p.
448.

[68] Some of these subjects were subsequently more fully treated in the
three foregoing essays of the present volume.




V

The Centenary of Hutton's 'Theory of the Earth'[69]


In its beneficent progress through these islands the British
Association for the Advancement of Science now for the fourth time
receives a welcome in this ancient capital. Once again, under the
shadow of these antique towers, crowded memories of a romantic past
fill our thoughts. The stormy annals of Scotland seem to move in
procession before our eyes as we walk these streets, whose names and
traditions have been made familiar to the civilised world by the
genius of literature. At every turn, too, we are reminded, by the
monuments which a grateful city has erected, that for many generations
the pursuits which we are now assembled to foster have had here their
congenial home. Literature, philosophy, science, have each in turn been
guided by the influence of the great masters who have lived here, and
whose renown is the brightest gem in the chaplet around the brow of
this 'Queen of the North.'

Lingering for a moment over these local associations, we shall find
a peculiar appropriateness in the time of this renewed visit of the
Association to Edinburgh. A hundred years ago a remarkable group
of men was discussing here the great problem of the history of the
earth. James Hutton, after many years of travel and reflection, had
communicated to the Royal Society of this city, in the year 1785, the
first outlines of his famous _Theory of the Earth_. Among those with
whom he took counsel in the elaboration of his doctrines were Black,
the illustrious discoverer of 'fixed air' and 'latent heat'; Clerk,
the sagacious inventor of the system of breaking the enemy's line in
naval tactics; Hall, whose fertile ingenuity devised the first system
of experiments in illustration of the structure and origin of rocks;
and Playfair, through whose sympathetic enthusiasm and literary skill
Hutton's views came ultimately to be understood and appreciated by the
world at large. With these friends, so well able to comprehend and
criticise his efforts to pierce the veil that shrouded the history
of this globe, he paced the streets amid which we are now gathered
together; with them he sought the crags and ravines around us, wherein
Nature has laid open so many impressive records of her past; with
them he sallied forth on those memorable expeditions to distant parts
of Scotland, whence he returned laden with treasures from a field of
observation which, though now so familiar, was then almost untrodden.
The centenary of Hutton's _Theory of the Earth_ is an event in the
annals of science which seems most fittingly celebrated by a meeting
of the British Association in Edinburgh.

In choosing from among the many subjects which might properly engage
your attention on the present occasion, I have thought that it would
not be inappropriate nor uninteresting to consider the more salient
features of that 'Theory,' and to mark how much in certain departments
of inquiry has sprung from the fruitful teaching of its author and his
associates.


It was a fundamental doctrine of Hutton and his school that this globe
has not always worn the aspect which it bears at present; that, on the
contrary, proofs may everywhere be culled that the land which we now
see has been formed out of the wreck of an older land. Among these
proofs, the most obvious are supplied by some of the more familiar
kinds of rock, which teach us that, though they are now portions of
the dry land, they were originally sheets of gravel, sand, and mud,
which had been worn from the face of long-vanished continents, and
after being spread out over the floor of the sea were consolidated
into compact stone, and were finally broken up and raised once more
to form part of the dry land. This cycle of change involved two great
systems of natural processes. On the one hand, men were taught that
by the action of running water the materials of the solid land are in
a state of continual decay and transport to the ocean. On the other
hand, the ocean-floor is liable from time to time to be upheaved by
some stupendous internal force akin to that which gives rise to the
volcano and the earthquake. Hutton further perceived that not only had
the consolidated sediments been disrupted and elevated, but that masses
of molten rock had been thrust upward among them, and had cooled and
crystallised in large bodies of granite and other eruptive materials,
which form so prominent a feature on the earth's surface.

As a further special characteristic, this philosophical system sought,
in the changes now in progress on the earth's surface, an explanation
of those which occurred in older times. Its founder refused to invent
causes or modes of operation, for those with which he was familiar
seemed to him adequate to solve the problems with which he attempted
to deal. Nowhere was the profoundness of his insight more astonishing
than in the clear, definite way in which he proclaimed and reiterated
his doctrine, that every part of the surface of the continents, from
mountain-top to seashore, is continually undergoing decay, and is thus
slowly travelling to the sea. He saw that no sooner will the sea-floor
be elevated into new land than it must necessarily become a prey to
this universal and unceasing degradation. He perceived that, as the
transport of disintegrated material is carried on chiefly by running
water, rivers must slowly dig out for themselves the channels in which
they flow, and thus that a system of valleys, radiating from the
water-parting of a country, must necessarily result from the descent
of the streams from the mountain crests to the sea. He discerned that
this ceaseless and widespread decay would eventually lead to the entire
demolition of the dry land, but he contended that from time to time
this catastrophe is prevented by the operation of the underground
forces, whereby new continents are upheaved from the bed of the ocean.
And thus in his system a due proportion is maintained between land and
water, and the condition of the earth as a habitable globe is preserved.

A theory of the earth so simple in outline, so bold in conception,
so full of suggestion, and resting on so broad a base of observation
and reflection, ought, we might think, to have commanded at once the
attention of men of science, even if it did not immediately awaken the
interest of the outside world; but, as Playfair sorrowfully admitted,
it attracted notice only very slowly, and several years elapsed before
anyone showed himself publicly concerned about it, either as an enemy
or a friend. Some of its earliest critics assailed it for what they
asserted to be its irreligious tendency--an accusation which Hutton
repudiated with much warmth. The sneer levelled by Cowper a few years
earlier at all inquiries into the history of the universe was perfectly
natural and intelligible from that poet's point of view (p. 128).
There was then a widespread belief that this world came into existence
some six thousand years ago, and that any attempt greatly to increase
that antiquity was meant as a blow to the authority of Holy Writ. So
far, however, from aiming at the overthrow of orthodox beliefs, Hutton
evidently regarded his 'Theory' as an important contribution in aid of
natural religion. He dwelt with unfeigned pleasure on the multitude of
proofs which he was able to accumulate of an orderly design in the
operations of nature, decay and renovation being so nicely balanced
as to maintain the habitable condition of the planet. But as he
refused to admit the predominance of violent action in terrestrial
changes, and on the contrary contended for the efficacy of the quiet,
continuous processes which we can even now see at work around us, he
was constrained to require an unlimited duration of past time for the
production of those revolutions of which he perceived such clear and
abundant proofs in the crust of the earth. The general public, however,
failed to comprehend that the doctrine of the high antiquity of the
globe was not inconsistent with the comparatively recent appearance of
man--a distinction which seems so obvious now.

Hutton died in 1797, beloved and regretted by the circle of friends
who had learnt to appreciate his estimable character and to admire his
genius, but with little recognition from the world at large. Men knew
not then that a great master had passed away from their midst, who had
laid broad and deep the foundations of a new science; that his name
would become a household word in after generations, and that pilgrims
would come from distant lands to visit the scenes from which he drew
his inspiration.

Many years might have elapsed before Hutton's teaching met with wide
acceptance, had its recognition depended solely on the writings of
the philosopher himself. For, despite his firm grasp of general
principles and his mastery of the minutest details, he had acquired a
literary style which, it must be admitted, was singularly unattractive.
Fortunately for his fame, as well as for the cause of science, his
devoted friend and disciple, Playfair, at once set himself to draw
up an exposition of Hutton's views. After five years of labour on
this task there appeared the classic _Illustrations of the Huttonian
Theory_, a work which for luminous treatment and graceful diction
stands still without a rival in English geological literature. Though
professing merely to set forth his friend's doctrines, Playfair's
treatise was in many respects an original contribution to science of
the highest value. It placed for the first time in the clearest light
the whole philosophy of Hutton regarding the history of the earth, and
enforced it with a wealth of reasoning and copiousness of illustration
which obtained for it a wide appreciation. From long converse with
Hutton, and from profound reflection himself, Playfair gained such a
comprehension of the whole subject that, discarding the non-essential
parts of his master's teaching, he was able to give so lucid and
accurate an exposition of the general scheme of Nature's operations
on the surface of the globe, that with only slight corrections and
expansions his treatise may serve as a text-book to-day. In some
respects, indeed, his volume was long in advance of its time. Only, for
example, within the lifetime of the present generation has the truth of
his teaching in regard to the origin of valleys been generally admitted.

Various causes contributed to retard the progress of the Huttonian
doctrines. Especially potent was the influence of the teaching of
Werner, who, though he perceived that a definite order of sequence
could be recognised among the materials of the earth's crust, had
formed singularly narrow conceptions of the great processes whereby
that crust has been built up. His enthusiasm, however, fired his
disciples with the zeal of proselytes, and they spread themselves
over Europe to preach everywhere the artificial system which they had
learnt in Saxony. By a curious fate Edinburgh became one of the great
headquarters of Wernerism. The friends and followers of Hutton found
themselves attacked in their own city by zealots who, proud of superior
mineralogical acquirements, turned their most cherished ideas upside
down and assailed them in the uncouth jargon of Freiberg. Inasmuch
as subterranean heat had been invoked by Hutton as a force largely
instrumental in consolidating and upheaving the ancient sediments that
now form so great a part of the dry land, his followers were nicknamed
Plutonists. On the other hand, as the agency of water was almost alone
admitted by Werner, who believed the rocks of the earth's crust to have
been chiefly chemical precipitates from a primeval universal ocean,
those who adopted his views received the equally descriptive name of
Neptunists. The battle of these two contending schools raged fiercely
here for some years, and though mainly from the youth, zeal, and energy
of Jameson, and the influence which his position as Professor in the
University gave him, the Wernerian doctrines continued to hold their
place, they were eventually abandoned even by Jameson himself, and the
debt due to the memory of Hutton and Playfair was tardily acknowledged.

The pursuits and the quarrels of philosophers have from early times
been a favourite subject of merriment to the outside world. Such a
feud as that between the Plutonists and Neptunists would be sure to
furnish abundant matter for the gratification of this propensity.
Turning over the pages of Kay's _Portraits_, where so much that was
distinctive of Edinburgh society a hundred years ago is embalmed,
we find Hutton's personal peculiarities and pursuits touched off in
good-humoured caricature. In one plate he stands with arms folded and
hammer in hand, meditating on the face of a cliff, from which rocky
prominences in shape of human faces, perhaps grotesque likenesses
of his scientific opponents, grin at him. In another engraving he
sits in conclave with his friend Black, possibly arranging for that
famous banquet of garden-snails which the two worthies had persuaded
themselves to look upon as a strangely neglected form of human food.
More than a generation later, when the Huttonists and Wernerists were
at the height of their antagonism, the humorous side of the controversy
did not escape the notice of the author of _Waverley_, who, you will
remember, when he makes Meg Dods recount the various kinds of wise folk
brought by Lady Penelope Pennfeather from Edinburgh to St. Ronan's
Well, does not forget to include those who 'rin uphill and down dale,
knapping the chucky-stanes to pieces wi' hammers, like sae mony
road-makers run daft, to see how the warld was made.'

Among the names of the friends and followers of Hutton there is one
which on this occasion deserves to be held in especial honour, that
of Sir James Hall, of Dunglass. Having accompanied Hutton in some of
his excursions, and having discussed with him the problems presented
by the rocks of Scotland, Hall was familiar with the views of his
master, and was able to supply him with fresh illustrations of them
from different parts of the country. Gifted with remarkable originality
and ingenuity, he soon perceived that some of the questions involved
in the theory of the earth could probably be solved by direct physical
experiment. Hutton, however, mistrusted any attempt 'to judge of the
great operations of Nature by merely kindling a fire and looking into
the bottom of a little crucible.' Out of deference to this prejudice,
Hall delayed to carry out his intention during Hutton's lifetime. But
afterwards he instituted a remarkable series of researches which are
memorable in the history of science as the first methodical endeavour
to test the value of geological speculation by an appeal to actual
experiment. The Neptunists, in ridiculing the Huttonian doctrine that
basalt and similar rocks had once been molten, asserted that, had such
been their origin, these masses would now be found in the condition of
glass or slag. Hall, however, triumphantly vindicated his friend's view
by proving that basalt could be fused and thereafter by slow cooling
could be made to resume a stony texture. Again, Hutton had asserted
that under the vast pressures which must be effective deep within the
earth's crust, chemical reactions must be powerfully influenced, and
that under such conditions even limestone may conceivably be melted
without losing its carbonic acid. Various specious arguments had been
adduced against this proposition, but by an ingeniously devised series
of experiments Hall succeeded in converting limestone under great
pressure into a kind of marble, and even in fusing it, and found that
it then acted vigorously on other rocks. These admirable researches,
which laid the foundations of experimental geology, constitute not the
least memorable of the services rendered by the Huttonian school to the
progress of science.

Clear as was the insight and sagacious the inferences of these great
masters in regard to the history of the globe, their vision was
necessarily limited by the comparatively narrow range of ascertained
fact which up to their time had been established. They taught men to
recognise that the present world is built of the ruins of an earlier
one, and they explained with admirable perspicacity the operation
of the processes whereby the degradation and renovation of land
are brought about. But they never dreamed that a long and orderly
series of such successive destructions and renewals had taken place,
and had left their records in the crust of the earth. They never
imagined that from these records it would be possible to establish a
determinate chronology that could be read everywhere, and applied to
the elucidation of the remotest quarter of the globe. It was by the
memorable observations and generalisations of William Smith that this
vast extension of our knowledge of the past history of the earth became
possible. While the Scottish philosophers were building up their theory
here, Smith was quietly ascertaining by extended journeys that the
stratified rocks of the west of England occur in a definite sequence,
and that each well-marked group of them can be discriminated from the
others and identified across the country by means of its enclosed
organic remains. It is nearly a hundred years since he made known
his views, so that by a curious coincidence we may fitly celebrate
on this occasion the centenary of William Smith as well as that of
James Hutton. No single discovery has ever had a more momentous and
far-reaching influence on the progress of a science than that law of
organic succession which Smith established. At first it served merely
to determine the order of the stratified rocks of England. But it soon
proved to possess a world-wide value, for it was found to furnish the
key to the structure of the whole stratified crust of the earth. It
showed that within that crust lie the chronicles of a long history
of plant and animal life upon this planet, it supplied the means
of arranging the materials for this history in true chronological
sequence, and it thus opened out a magnificent vista through a vast
series of ages, each marked by its own distinctive types of organic
life, which, in proportion to their antiquity, departed more and more
from the aspect of the living world.

Thus a hundred years ago, by the brilliant theory of Hutton and the
fruitful generalisation of Smith, the study of the earth received in
our country the impetus which has given birth to the modern science of
geology.

To review the marvellous progress which this science has made during
the first century of its existence would require not one but many hours
for adequate treatment. The march of discovery has advanced along a
multitude of different paths, and the domains of Nature which have
been included within the growing territories of human knowledge have
been many and ample. Nevertheless, there are certain departments of
investigation to which we may profitably restrict our attention on the
present occasion, and wherein we may see how the leading principles
that were proclaimed in this city a hundred years ago have germinated
and borne fruit all over the world.

From the earliest times the natural features of the earth's surface
have arrested the attention of mankind. The rugged mountain, the cleft
ravine, the scarped cliff, the solitary boulder, have stimulated
curiosity and prompted many a speculation as to their origin. The
shells embedded by millions in the solid rocks of hills far removed
from the sea have still further pressed home these 'obstinate
questionings.' But for many long centuries the advance of inquiry
into such matters was arrested by the paramount influence of orthodox
theology. It was not merely that the Church opposed itself to the
simple and obvious interpretation of these natural phenomena. So
implicit had faith become in the accepted views of the earth's age
and of the history of creation, that even laymen of intelligence
and learning set themselves, unbidden and in perfect good faith, to
explain away the difficulties which Nature so persistently raised up,
and to reconcile her teachings with those of the theologians. In the
various theories thus originating, the amount of knowledge of natural
law usually stood in inverse ratio to the share played in them by an
uncontrolled imagination. The speculations, for example, of Burnet,
Whiston, Whitehurst, and others in this country, cannot be read now
without a smile. In no sense were they scientific researches; they can
only be looked upon as exercitations of learned ignorance. Springing
mainly out of a laudable desire to promote what was believed to be the
cause of true religion, they helped to retard inquiry, and exercised in
that respect a baneful influence on intellectual progress.

It is the special glory of the Edinburgh school of geology to have cast
aside all this fanciful trifling. Hutton boldly proclaimed that it was
no part of his philosophy to account for the beginning of things. His
concern lay only with the evidence furnished by the earth itself as
to its origin. With the intuition of true genius he early perceived
that the only solid basis from which to explore what has taken place
in bygone time is a knowledge of what is taking place to-day. He thus
founded his system upon a careful study of the processes whereby
geological changes are now brought about. He felt assured that
Nature must be consistent and uniform in her working, and that only
in proportion as her operations at the present time are watched and
understood will the ancient history of the earth become intelligible.
Thus, in his hands, the investigation of the Present became the key to
the interpretation of the Past. The establishment of this great truth
was the first step towards the inauguration of a true science of the
earth. The doctrine of the uniformity of causation in Nature became the
fruitful principle on which the structure of modern geology could be
built up.

Fresh life was now breathed into the study of the earth. A new spirit
seemed to animate the advance along every pathway of inquiry. Facts
that had long been familiar came to possess a wider and deeper meaning
when their connection with each other was recognised as parts of one
great harmonious system of continuous change. In no department of
Nature, for example, was this broader vision more remarkably displayed
than in that wherein the circulation of water between land and sea
plays the most conspicuous part. From the earliest times men had
watched the coming of clouds, the fall of rain, the flow of rivers,
and had recognised that on this nicely adjusted machinery the beauty
and fertility of the land depend. But they now learnt that this beauty
and fertility involve a continual decay of the terrestrial surface;
that the soil is a measure of this decay, and would cease to afford us
maintenance were it not continually removed and renewed; that through
the ceaseless transport of soil by rivers to the sea the face of the
land is slowly lowered in level and carved into mountain and valley,
and that the materials thus borne outwards to the floor of the ocean
are not lost, but accumulate there to form rocks, which in the end will
be upraised into new lands. Decay and renovation, in well-balanced
proportions, were thus shown to be the system on which the existence of
the earth as a habitable globe had been established. It was impossible
to conceive that the economy of the planet could be maintained on any
other basis. Without the circulation of water the life of plants and
animals would be impossible, and with that circulation the decay of the
surface of the land and the renovation of its disintegrated materials
are necessarily involved.

As it is now, so must it have been in past time. Hutton and Playfair
pointed to the stratified rocks of the earth's crust as demonstrations
that the same processes which are at work to-day have been in operation
from a remote antiquity. By thus placing their theory on a basis of
actual observation, and providing in the study of existing operations
a guide to the interpretation of those in past times, they rescued
the investigation of the history of the earth from the speculations
of theologians and cosmologists, and established a place for it among
the recognised inductive sciences. To the guiding influence of their
philosophical system the prodigious strides made by modern geology are
in large measure to be attributed. And here in their own city, after
the lapse of a hundred years, let us offer to their memory the grateful
homage of all who have profited by their labours.

But while we recognise with admiration the far-reaching influence
of the doctrine of uniformity of causation in the investigation of
the history of the earth, we must upon reflection admit that the
doctrine has been pushed to an extreme perhaps not contemplated by
its original founders. To take the existing conditions of Nature as a
platform of actual knowledge from which to start in an inquiry into
former conditions was logical and prudent. Obviously, however, human
experience, in the few centuries during which attention has been turned
to such subjects, has been too brief to warrant any dogmatic assumption
that the various natural processes must have been carried on in the
past with the same energy and at the same rate as they are carried on
now. Variations in energy might have been legitimately conceded as
possible, though not to be allowed without reasonable proof in their
favour. It was right to refuse to admit the operation of speculative
causes of change when the phenomena were capable of natural and
adequate explanation by reference to causes that can be watched and
investigated. But it was an error to take for granted that no other
kind of process or influence, nor any variation in the rate of activity
save those of which man has had actual cognisance, has played a part
in the terrestrial economy. The uniformitarian writers laid themselves
open to the charge of maintaining a kind of perpetual motion in the
machinery of Nature. They could find in the records of the earth's
history no evidence of a beginning, no prospect of an end. They saw
that many successive renovations and destructions had been effected on
the earth's surface, and that this long line of vicissitudes formed a
series of which the earliest were lost in antiquity, while the latest
were still in progress towards an apparently illimitable future.

The discoveries of William Smith, had they been adequately
understood, would have been seen to offer a corrective to this
rigidly uniformitarian conception, for they revealed that the crust
of the earth contains the long record of an unmistakable order of
progression in organic types. They proved that plants and animals
have varied widely in successive periods of the earth's history, the
present condition of organic life being only the latest phase of a
long preceding series, each stage of which recedes further from the
existing aspect of things as we trace it backward into the past.
And though no relic had yet been found, or indeed was ever likely to
be found, of the first living things that appeared upon the earth's
surface, the manifest simplification of types in the older formations
pointed irresistibly to some beginning from which the long procession
had taken its start. If then it could thus be demonstrated that there
had been upon the globe an orderly march of living forms, from the
lowliest grades in early times to man himself to-day, and thus that in
one department of her domain, extending through the greater portion of
the records of the earth's history, Nature had not been uniform but
had followed a vast and noble plan of evolution, surely it might have
been expected that those who discovered and made known this plan would
seek to ascertain whether some analogous physical progression from a
definite beginning might not be discernible in the framework of the
globe itself.

But the early masters of the science laboured under two great
disadvantages. In the first place, they found the oldest records of the
earth's history so broken up and defaced as to be no longer legible.
And in the second place, they lived under the spell of that strong
reaction against speculation which followed the bitter controversy
between the Neptunists and Plutonists in the earlier decades of the
century. They considered themselves bound to search for facts, not
to build up theories; and as in the crust of the earth they could
find no facts which threw any light upon the primeval constitution
and subsequent development of our planet, they shut their ears to
any theoretical interpretations that might be offered from other
departments of science. It was enough for them to maintain, as
Hutton had done, that in the visible structure of the earth itself
no trace can be found of the beginning of things, and that the
oldest terrestrial records reveal no physical conditions essentially
different from those in which we still live. They doubtless listened
with interest to the speculations of Kant, Laplace, and Herschel, on
the probable evolution of nebulæ, suns, and planets, but it was with
the languid interest attaching to ideas that lay outside of their own
domain of research. They recognised no practical connection between
such speculations and the data furnished by the earth itself as to its
own history and progress.

This curious lethargy with respect to theory, on the part of men
who were popularly regarded as among the most speculative followers
of science, would probably not have been speedily dispelled by any
discovery made within their own field of observation. Even now, after
many years of the most diligent research, the first chapters of our
planet's history remain undiscovered or undecipherable. On the great
terrestrial palimpsest the earliest inscriptions seem to have been
hopelessly effaced by those of later ages. But the question of the
primeval condition and subsequent history of the planet might be
considered from the side of astronomy and physics. And it was by
investigations of this nature that the geological torpor was eventually
dissipated. To our illustrious former President, Lord Kelvin, who
occupied this chair when the Association last met in Edinburgh, is
mainly due the rousing of attention to this subject. By the most
convincing arguments he showed how impossible it was to believe in the
extreme doctrine of uniformitarianism. And though, owing to uncertainty
in regard to some of the data, wide limits of time were postulated by
him, he insisted that within these limits the whole evolution of the
earth and its inhabitants must have been comprised. While, therefore,
the geological doctrine that the present order of Nature must be our
guide to the interpretation of the past remained as true and fruitful
as ever, it had now to be widened by the reception of evidence
furnished by a study of the earth as a planetary body. The secular
loss of heat, which demonstrably takes place both from the earth and
the sun, made it quite certain that the present could not have been
the original condition of the system. This diminution of temperature
with all its consequences is not a mere matter of speculation, but
a physical fact of the present time as much as any of the familiar
physical agencies that affect the surface of the globe. It points with
unmistakable directness to that beginning of things of which Hutton and
his followers could find no sign.

Another modification or enlargement of the uniformitarian doctrine
was brought about by continued investigation of the terrestrial crust
and consequent increase of knowledge respecting the history of the
earth. Though Hutton and Playfair believed in periodical catastrophes,
and indeed required these to recur in order to renew and preserve the
habitable condition of our planet, their successors gradually came to
view with repugnance any appeal to abnormal, and especially to violent
manifestations of terrestrial vigour, and even persuaded themselves
that such slow and comparatively feeble action as is now witnessed by
man could alone be recognised in the evidence from which geological
history must be compiled. Well do I remember in my own boyhood what
a cardinal article of faith this prepossession had become. We were
taught by our great and honoured master, Lyell, to believe implicitly
in gentle and uniform operations, extended over indefinite periods of
time, though possibly some, with the zeal of partisans, carried this
belief to an extreme which Lyell himself did not approve. The most
stupendous marks of terrestrial disturbance, such as the structure of
great mountain chains, were deemed to be more satisfactorily accounted
for by slow movements prolonged through indefinite ages than by any
sudden convulsion.

What the more extreme members of the uniformitarian school failed to
perceive was the absence of all evidence that terrestrial catastrophes
even on a colossal scale might not be a part of the present economy
of this globe. Such occurrences might never seriously affect the
whole earth at one time, and might return at such wide intervals that
no example of them has yet been chronicled by man. But that they
have occurred again and again, and even within comparatively recent
geological times, hardly admits of serious doubt. How far at different
epochs and in various degrees they may have included the operation of
cosmical influences lying wholly outside the planet, and how far they
have resulted from movements within the body of the planet itself, must
remain for further inquiry. Yet the admission that they have played
a part in geological history may be freely made without impairing
the real value of the Huttonian doctrine, that in the interpretation
of this history our main guide must be a knowledge of the existing
processes of terrestrial change.

As the most recent and best known of these great transformations, the
Ice-Age stands out conspicuously before us. If any one sixty years ago
had ventured to affirm that, at no very distant era in the past, the
snows and glaciers of the Arctic regions stretched southwards to the
Bristol Channel and the basin of the Thames, he would have been treated
as a mere visionary theorist. Many of the facts to which he would have
appealed in support of his statement were already well known, but they
had received various other interpretations. By some observers, notably
by Hutton's friend, Sir James Hall, they were believed to indicate
violent debacles of water that swept over the face of the land. By
others they were attributed to the strong tides and currents of the
sea when the land stood at a lower level. The uniformitarian school of
Lyell had no difficulty in elevating or depressing land to any required
extent. Indeed, when we consider how averse these philosophers were to
admit any kind or degree of natural operation other than those of which
there was some human experience, we may well wonder at the boldness
with which, on sometimes the slenderest evidence, they made land and
sea change places, on the one hand submerging mountain-ranges, and on
the other placing great barriers of land where a deep ocean rolls.
They took such liberties with geography because only well-established
processes of change were invoked in the operations. Knowing that
during the passage of an earthquake a territory bordering the sea may
be upraised or sunk a few feet, they drew the sweeping inference that
any amount of upheaval or depression of any part of the earth's surface
might be claimed in explanation of geological problems. The progress of
inquiry, started here by Agassiz, while it has somewhat curtailed this
geographical license, has now made known in great detail the strange
story of the Ice-Age.

There cannot be any doubt that after man had become a denizen of the
earth, a great physical change came over the northern hemisphere.
The climate, which had previously been so mild that evergreen trees
flourished within ten or twelve degrees of the north pole, now became
so severe that vast sheets of snow and ice covered the north of Europe
and crept southward beyond the south coast of Ireland, almost as far
as the southern shores of England, and across the Baltic into France
and Germany. This Arctic transformation was not an episode that
lasted merely a few seasons, and left the land to resume thereafter
its ancient aspect. With various successive fluctuations it must have
endured for many thousands of years. When it began to disappear it
probably faded away as slowly and imperceptibly as it had advanced,
and when it finally vanished it left Europe and North America
profoundly changed in the character alike of their scenery and of their
inhabitants. The rugged, rocky contours of earlier times were ground
smooth and polished by the march of the ice across them, while the
lower grounds were buried under wide and thick sheets of clay, gravel,
and sand, left behind by the melting ice. The varied and abundant
flora which had spread so far within the Arctic circle was driven away
into more southern and less ungenial climes. But most memorable of all
was the extirpation of the prominent large animals which, before the
advent of the ice, had roamed over Europe. The lions, hyaenas, wild
horses, hippopotami and other creatures either became entirely extinct
or were driven into the Mediterranean basin and into Africa. In their
place came northern forms--the reindeer, glutton, musk ox, woolly
rhinoceros, and mammoth.

Such a marvellous transformation in climate, in scenery, in vegetation,
and in inhabitants, within what was after all but a brief portion of
geological time, though it may have involved no sudden or violent
convulsion, is surely entitled to rank as a catastrophe in the history
of the globe. It was possibly brought about mainly if not entirely by
the operation of forces external to the earth. No similar calamity
having befallen the continents within the time during which man
has been recording his experience, the Ice-Age might be cited as a
contradiction to the doctrine of uniformity. And yet it manifestly
arrived as part of the established order of Nature. Whether or not
we grant that other ice-ages preceded the last great one, we must
admit that the conditions under which it arose, so far as we know
them, might conceivably have occurred before and may occur again. The
various agencies called into play by the extensive refrigeration of the
northern hemisphere were not different from those with which we are
familiar. Snow fell and glaciers crept as they do to-day. Ice scored
and polished rocks exactly as it still does among the Alps and in
Norway. There was nothing abnormal in the phenomena save the scale on
which they were manifested. And thus, taking a broad view of the whole
subject, although we cannot yet explain the origin of the catastrophe,
we see in its progress the operation of natural processes which we know
to be integral parts of the machinery whereby the surface of the earth
is still continually transformed.

Among the debts which science owes to the Huttonian school, not
the least memorable is the promulgation of the first well-founded
conceptions of the high antiquity of the globe. Some six thousand
years had previously been usually believed to comprise the whole life
of the planet, and indeed of the entire universe. When the curtain
was then first raised that had veiled the history of the earth, and
men, looking beyond the brief span within which they had supposed
that history to have been transacted, beheld the records of a long
vista of ages stretching far away into a dim illimitable past, the
prospect vividly impressed their imagination. Astronomy had made known
the immeasurable fields of space; the new science of geology seemed
now to reveal boundless distances of time. The more the terrestrial
chronicles were studied the farther could the eye range into an
antiquity so vast as to defy all attempts to measure or define it. The
progress of research continually furnished additional evidence of the
enormous duration of the ages that preceded the coming of man, while,
as knowledge increased, periods that were thought to have followed
each other consecutively were found to have been separated by prolonged
intervals of time. Thus the idea arose and gained universal acceptance
that, just as no boundary could be set to the astronomer in his free
range through space, so the whole of bygone eternity lay open to the
requirements of the geologist. Playfair, re-echoing and expanding
Hutton's language, had declared that neither among the records of the
earth nor in the planetary motions can any trace be discovered of the
beginning or of the end of the present order of things; that no symptom
of infancy or of old age has been allowed to appear on the face of
Nature, nor any sign by which either the past or the future duration of
the universe can be estimated; and that although the Creator may put
an end, as He no doubt gave a beginning, to the present system, such a
catastrophe will not be brought about by any of the laws now existing,
and is not indicated by anything which we perceive. This doctrine was
naturally espoused with warmth by the extreme uniformitarian school,
which required an unlimited duration of time for the accomplishment
of such slow and quiet cycles of change as they conceived to be alone
recognisable in the records of the earth's past history.

It was Lord Kelvin who, in the writings to which I have already
referred, first called attention to the fundamentally erroneous nature
of these conceptions. He pointed out that from the high internal
temperature of our globe, increasing inwards as it does, and from
the rate of loss of its heat, a limit may be fixed to the planet's
antiquity. He showed that so far from there being no sign of a
beginning, and no prospect of an end to the present economy, every
lineament of the solar system bears witness to a gradual dissipation
of energy from some definite starting-point. No very precise data were
then, or indeed are now, available for computing the interval which
has elapsed since that remote commencement, but he estimated that the
surface of the globe could not have consolidated less than twenty
millions of years ago, for the rate of increase of temperature inwards
would in that case have been higher than it actually is; nor more than
400 millions of years ago, for then there would have been no sensible
increase at all. He was inclined, when first dealing with the subject,
to believe that from a review of all the evidence then available, some
such period as 100 millions of years would embrace the whole geological
history of the globe.

It is not a pleasant experience to discover that a fortune which one
has unconcernedly believed to be ample has somehow taken to itself
wings and disappeared. When the geologist was suddenly awakened by
the energetic warning of the physicist, who assured him that he had
enormously overdrawn his account with past time, it was but natural
under the circumstances that he should think the accountant to be
mistaken, who thus returned to him dishonoured the large drafts he had
made on eternity. He saw how wide were the limits of time deducible
from physical considerations, how vague the data from which they had
been calculated. And though he could not help admitting that a limit
must be fixed beyond which his chronology could not be extended, he
consoled himself with the reflection that after all a hundred millions
of years was a tolerably ample period of time, and might possibly have
been quite sufficient for the transaction of all the prolonged sequence
of events recorded in the crust of the earth. He was therefore disposed
to acquiesce in the limitation thus imposed upon geological history.

But physical inquiry continued to be pushed forward with regard to the
early history and the antiquity of the earth. Further consideration
of the influence of tidal friction in retarding the earth's rotation,
and of the sun's rate of cooling, led to sweeping reductions of the
time allowable for the evolution of the planet. The geologist found
himself in the plight of Lear when his bodyguard of one hundred knights
was cut down. 'What need you five-and-twenty, ten, or five?' demands
the inexorable physicist, as he remorselessly strikes slice after
slice from his allowance of geological time. Lord Kelvin is willing, I
believe, to grant us some twenty millions of years, but Professor Tait
would have us content with less than ten millions.

In scientific as in other mundane questions there may often be two
sides, and the truth may ultimately be found not to lie wholly with
either. I frankly confess that the demands of the early geologists
for an unlimited series of ages were extravagant, and even, for their
own purposes, unnecessary, and that the physicist did good service
in reducing them. It may also be freely admitted that the latest
conclusions, from physical considerations of the extent of geological
time, require that the interpretation given to the record of the rocks
should be rigorously revised, with the view of ascertaining how far
that interpretation may be capable of modification or amendment. But we
must also remember that the geological record constitutes a voluminous
body of evidence regarding the earth's history which cannot be ignored,
and must be explained in accordance with ascertained natural laws. If
the conclusions derived from the most careful study of this record
cannot be reconciled with those drawn from physical considerations, it
is surely not too much to ask that the latter should be also revised.
It was well said by Huxley that the mathematical mill is an admirable
piece of machinery, but that the value of what it yields depends upon
the quality of what is put into it. That there must be some flaw in the
physical argument I can, for my own part, hardly doubt, though I do not
pretend to be able to say where it is to be found. Some assumption, it
seems to me, has been made, or some consideration has been left out
of sight, which will eventually be seen to vitiate the conclusions,
and which when duly taken into account will allow time enough for any
reasonable interpretation of the geological record.

In problems of this nature, where geological data capable of numerical
statement are so needful, it is hardly possible to obtain trustworthy
computations of time. We can only measure the rate of changes in
progress now, and infer from these changes the length of time required
for the completion of results achieved by the same processes in the
past. There is fortunately one great cycle of movement which admits of
careful investigation, and which has been made to furnish valuable
materials for estimates of this kind. The universal degradation of
the land, so notable a characteristic of the earth's surface, has
been regarded as an extremely slow process. Though it goes on without
ceasing, yet from century to century it seems to leave hardly any
perceptible trace on the landscapes of a country. Mountains and plains,
hills and valleys, appear to wear the same familiar aspect which is
indicated in the oldest pages of history. This obvious slowness in one
of the most important departments of geological activity, doubtless
contributed in large measure to form and foster a vague belief in the
vastness of the antiquity required for the evolution of the earth.

But, as geologists eventually came to perceive, the rate of degradation
of the land is capable of actual measurement. The amount of material
worn away from the surface of any drainage-basin and carried in
the form of mud, sand, or gravel, by the main river into the sea,
represents the extent to which that surface has been lowered by waste
in any given period of time. But denudation and deposition must be
equivalent to each other. As much material must be laid down in
sedimentary accumulations as has been mechanically removed, so that in
measuring the annual bulk of sediment borne into the sea by a river, we
obtain a clue not only to the rate of denudation of the land, but also
to the rate at which the deposition of new sedimentary formations takes
place.

As might be expected, the activities involved in the lowering of the
surface of the land are not everywhere equally energetic. They are
naturally more vigorous where the rainfall is heavy, where the daily
range of temperature is large, and where frosts are severe. Hence
they are obviously much more effective in mountainous regions than on
plains; and their results must constantly vary, not only in different
basins of drainage, but even, and sometimes widely, within the same
basin. Actual measurement of the proportion of sediment in river water
shows that while in some cases the lowering of the surface of the land
may be as much as 1/730 of a foot in a year, in others it falls as low
as 1/6800. In other words, the rate of deposition of new sedimentary
formations, over an area of seafloor equivalent to that which has
yielded the sediment, may vary from one foot in 730 years to one foot
in 6800 years.

If now we take these results and apply them as measures of the length
of time required for the deposition of the various sedimentary
masses that form the outer part of the earth's crust, we obtain some
indication of the duration of geological history. On a reasonable
computation these stratified masses, where most fully developed, attain
a united thickness of not less than 100,000 feet. If they were all laid
down at the most rapid recorded rate of denudation, they would require
a period of seventy-three millions of years for their completion. If
they were laid down at the slowest rate they would demand a period of
not less than 680 millions.

But it may be argued that all kinds of terrestrial energy are growing
feeble, that the most active denudation now in progress is much less
vigorous than that of bygone ages, and hence that the stratified part
of the earth's crust may have been put together in a much briefer
space of time than modern events might lead us to suppose. Such
arguments are easily adduced and look sufficiently specious, but no
confirmation of them can be gathered from the rocks. On the contrary,
no one can thoughtfully study the various systems of stratified
formations without being impressed by the fulness of their evidence
that, on the whole, the accumulation of sediment has been extremely
slow. Again and again we encounter groups of strata composed of thin
paper-like laminæ of the finest silt, which evidently settled down
quietly and at intervals on the sea bottom. We find successive layers
covered with ripple-marks and sun-cracks, and we recognise in them
memorials of ancient shores where sand and mud tranquilly gathered as
they do in sheltered estuaries at the present day. We can see no proof
whatever, nor even any evidence which suggests, that on the whole the
rate of waste and sedimentation was more rapid during Mesozoic and
Palæozoic time than it is to-day. Had there been any marked difference
in this rate from ancient to modern times, it would be incredible that
no clear proof of it should have been recorded in the crust of the
earth.

But in actual fact the testimony in favour of the slow accumulation and
high antiquity of the geological record is much stronger than might be
inferred from the mere thickness of the stratified formations. These
sedimentary deposits have not been laid down in one unbroken sequence,
but have had their continuity interrupted again and again by upheaval
and depression. So fragmentary are they in some regions, that we can
easily demonstrate the length of time represented there by still
existing sedimentary strata to be vastly less than the time indicated
by some of the gaps in the series.

There is yet a further and impressive body of evidence furnished by the
successive races of plants and animals which have lived upon the earth
and have left their remains sealed up within its rocky crust. No one
now believes in the exploded doctrine that successive creations and
universal destructions of organic life are chronicled in the stratified
rocks. It is everywhere admitted that, from the remotest times up to
the present day, there has been an onward march of development, type
succeeding type in one long continuous progression. As to the rate
of this evolution precise data are wanting. There is, however, the
important negative argument furnished by the absence of evidence of
recognisable specific variations of organic forms since man began to
observe and record. We know that within human experience a few species
have become extinct, but there is no conclusive proof that a single new
species has come into existence, nor are appreciable variations readily
apparent in forms that live in a wild state. The seeds and plants found
with Egyptian mummies, and the flowers and fruits depicted on Egyptian
tombs, are easily identified with the vegetation of modern Egypt. The
embalmed bodies of animals found in that country show no sensible
divergence from the structure or proportions of the same animals at the
present day. The human races of Northern Africa and Western Asia were
already as distinct when portrayed by the ancient Egyptian artists as
they are now, and they do not seem to have undergone any perceptible
change since then. Thus a lapse of four or five thousand years has not
been accompanied by any recognisable variation in such forms of plant
and animal life as can be tendered in evidence. Absence of sensible
change in these instances is, of course, no proof that considerable
alteration may not have been accomplished in other forms more exposed
to vicissitudes of climate and other external influences. But it
furnishes at least a presumption in favour of the extremely tardy
progress of organic variation.

If, however, we extend our vision beyond the narrow range of human
history, and look at the remains of the plants and animals preserved in
those younger formations which, though recent when regarded as parts of
the whole geological record, must be many thousands of years older than
the very oldest of human monuments, we encounter the most impressive
proofs of the persistence of specific forms. Shells which lived in
our seas before the coming of the Ice-Age present the very same
peculiarities of form, structure, and ornament which their descendants
still possess. The lapse of so enormous an interval of time has not
sufficed seriously to modify them. So too with the plants and the
higher animals which still survive. Some forms have become extinct, but
few or none which remain display any transitional gradations into new
species. We must admit that such transitions have occurred, that indeed
they have been in progress ever since organised existence began upon
our planet, and are doubtless taking place now. But we cannot detect
them on the way, and we feel constrained to believe that their march
must be excessively slow.

There is no reason to think that the rate of organic evolution has ever
seriously varied; at least no proof has been adduced of such variation.
Taken in connection with the testimony of the sedimentary rocks, the
inferences deducible from fossils entirely bear out the opinion that
the building up of the stratified crust of the earth has been extremely
gradual. If the many thousands of years which have elapsed since
the Ice-Age have produced no appreciable modification of surviving
plants and animals, how vast a period must have been required for that
marvellous scheme of organic development which is chronicled in the
rocks!

After careful reflection on the subject, I affirm that the geological
record furnishes a mass of evidence which no arguments drawn from other
departments of Nature can explain away, and which, it seems to me,
cannot be satisfactorily interpreted save with an allowance of time
much beyond the narrow limits which recent physical speculation would
concede.[70]

I have reserved for final consideration a branch of the history of the
earth which, while it has become, within the lifetime of the present
generation, one of the most interesting and fascinating departments
of geological inquiry, owed its first impulse to the far-seeing
intellects of Hutton and Playfair. With the penetration of genius these
illustrious teachers perceived that if the broad masses of land and the
great chains of mountains owe their origin to stupendous movements
which from time to time have convulsed the earth, their details of
contour must be mainly due to the eroding power of running water. They
recognised that as the surface of the land is continually worn down, it
is essentially by a process of sculpture that the physiognomy of every
country has been developed, valleys being hollowed out and hills left
standing, and that these inequalities in topographical detail are only
varying and local accidents in the progress of the one great process of
the degradation of the land.

From the broad and guiding outlines of theory thus sketched we have
now advanced amid ever-widening multiplicity of detail into a fuller
and nobler conception of the origin of scenery. The law of evolution
is written as legibly on the landscapes of the earth as on any other
page of the Book of Nature. Not only do we recognise that the existing
topography of the continents, instead of being primeval in origin, has
gradually been developed after many precedent mutations, but we are
enabled to trace these earlier revolutions in the structure of every
hill and glen. Each mountain-chain is thus found to be a memorial of
successive stages in geographical evolution. Within certain limits,
land and sea have changed places again and again. Volcanoes have broken
out and have become extinct in many countries long before the advent of
man. Whole tribes of plants and animals have meanwhile come and gone,
and in leaving their remains behind them as monuments at once of the
slow development of organic types, and of the prolonged vicissitudes of
the terrestrial surface, have furnished materials for a chronological
arrangement of the earth's topographical features. Nor is it only
from the organisms of former epochs that broad generalisations may be
drawn regarding revolutions in geography. The living plants and animals
of to-day have been discovered to be eloquent of ancient geographical
features that have long since vanished. In their distribution they tell
us that climates have changed, that islands have been disjoined from
continents, that oceans once united have been divided from each other,
or once separate have now been joined; that some tracts of land have
disappeared, while others for prolonged periods of time have remained
in isolation. The present and the past are thus linked together not
merely by dead matter, but by the world of living things, into one vast
system of continuous progression.

In this marvellous increase of knowledge regarding the transformations
of the earth's surface, one of the most impressive features, to my
mind, is the power now given to us of perceiving the many striking
contrasts between the present and former aspects of topography and
scenery. We seem to be endowed with a new sense. What is seen by the
bodily eye--mountain, valley, or plain--serves but as a veil, beyond
which, as we raise it, visions of long-lost lands and seas rise before
us in a far-retreating vista. Pictures of the most diverse and opposite
character are beheld, as it were, through each other, their lineaments
subtly interwoven and even their most vivid contrasts subdued into one
blended harmony. Like the poet, 'we see, but not by sight alone'; and
the 'ray of fancy' which, as a sunbeam, lightened up his landscape, is
for us broadened and brightened by that play of the imagination which
science can so vividly excite and prolong.

Admirable illustrations of this modern interpretation of scenery are
supplied by the district wherein we are now assembled. On every side of
us rise the most convincing proofs of the reality and potency of that
ceaseless sculpture by which the elements of landscape have been carved
into their present shapes. Turn where we may, our eyes rest on hills,
that project above the lowland, not because they have been upheaved
into these positions, but because their stubborn materials have enabled
them better to withstand the degradation which has worn down the softer
strata into the plains around them. Inch by inch the surface of the
land has been lowered, and each hard rock successively laid bare has
communicated its own characteristics of form and colour to the scenery.

If, standing on the Castle Rock, the central and oldest site in
Edinburgh, we allow the bodily eye to wander over the fair landscape,
and the mental vision to range through the long vista of earlier
landscapes which science here reveals to us, what a strange series of
pictures passes before our gaze! The busy streets of to-day seem to
fade away into the mingled copsewood and forest of prehistoric time.
Lakes that have long since vanished gleam through the woodlands, and
a rude canoe pushing from the shore startles the red deer that had
come to drink. While we look, the picture changes to a polar scene,
with bushes of stunted Arctic willow and birch, among which herds of
reindeer browse and the huge mammoth makes his home. Thick sheets of
snow are draped all over the hills around, and far to the north-west
the distant gleam of glaciers and snow-fields marks the line of the
Highland mountains. As we muse on this strange contrast to the living
world of to-day, the scene appears to grow more Arctic in aspect,
until every hill is buried under one vast sheet of ice, 2,000 feet or
more in thickness, which fills up the whole midland valley of Scotland
and creeps slowly eastward into the basin of the North Sea. Here the
curtain drops upon our moving pageant, for in the geological record of
this part of the country an enormous gap occurs before the coming of
the Ice-Age.

When once more the spectacle resumes its movement the scene is found to
have utterly changed. The familiar hills and valleys of the Lothians
have disappeared. Dense jungles of a strange vegetation--tall reeds,
club-mosses, and tree-ferns--spread over the steaming swamps that
stretch for leagues in all directions. Broad lagoons and open seas are
dotted with little volcanic cones which throw out their streams of lava
and showers of ashes. Beyond these, dimmer in outline and older in
date, we descry a wide lake or inland sea, covering the whole midland
valley and marked with long lines of active volcanoes, some of them
several thousand feet in height. And still further and fainter over
the same region, we may catch a glimpse of that still earlier expanse
of sea which in Silurian times overspread most of Britain. But beyond
this scene our vision fails. We have reached the limit across which no
geological evidence exists to lead the imagination into the primeval
darkness beyond.

Such in briefest outline is the succession of mental pictures which
modern science enables us to frame out of the landscapes around
Edinburgh. They may be taken as illustrations of what may be drawn, and
sometimes with even greater fulness and vividness, from any district
in these islands. But I cite them especially because of their local
interest in connection with the present meeting of the Association,
and because the rocks that yield them gave inspiration to those
great masters whose claims on our recollection, not least for their
explanation of the origin of scenery, I have tried to recount this
evening. But I am further impelled to dwell on these scenes from an
overmastering personal feeling to which I trust I may be permitted to
give expression. It was these green hills and grey crags that gave me
in boyhood the impulse that has furnished the work and joy of my life.
To them, amid changes of scene and surroundings, my heart ever fondly
turns, and here I desire gratefully to acknowledge that it is to their
influence that I am indebted for any claim I may possess to stand in
the proud position in which your choice has placed me.

FOOTNOTES:

[69] The Address of the President of the British Association for the
Advancement of Science at the Meeting held in Edinburgh, 1892.

[70] The problem of Geological Time was made the subject of a later
address. See _postea_, p. 198.




VI

Geological Time[71]


Among the many questions of great theoretical importance which have
engaged the attention of geologists, none has in late years awakened
more interest or aroused livelier controversy than that which deals
with Time as an element in geological history. The various schools
which have successively arisen--Cataclysmal, Uniformitarian, and
Evolutionist--have had each its own views as to the duration of their
chronology, as well as to the operations of terrestrial energy. But
though holding different opinions, they did not make these differences
matter of special controversy among themselves. About thirty years ago,
however, they were startled by a bold irruption into their camp from
the side of physics. They were then called on to reform their ways,
which were declared to be flatly opposed to the teachings of natural
philosophy. Since that period the discussion then started regarding
the age of the Earth and the value of geological time has continued
with varying animation. Evidence of the most multifarious kind has been
brought forward, and arguments of widely different degrees of validity
have been pressed into service both by geologists and palæontologists
on one side, and by physicists on the other. For the last year or
two there has been a pause in the controversy, though no general
agreement has been arrived at in regard to the matters in dispute.
The present interval of comparative quietude seems favourable for a
dispassionate review of the debate. I propose, therefore, to take, as
perhaps a not inappropriate subject on which to address geologists
upon a somewhat international occasion like this present meeting of
the British Association at Dover, the question of Geological Time. In
offering a brief history of the discussion, I gladly avail myself of
the opportunity of enforcing one of the lessons which the controversy
has impressed upon my own mind, and to point a moral which, as it seems
to me, we geologists may take home to ourselves from a consideration
of the whole question. There is, I think, a practical outcome which
may be made to issue from the dispute in a combination of sympathy and
co-operation among geologists all over the world. A lasting service
will be rendered to our science if by well-concerted effort we can
place geological dynamics and geological chronology on a broader and
firmer basis of actual experiment and measurement than has yet been
laid.

To understand aright the origin and progress of the dispute regarding
the value of time in geological speculation, we must take note of
the attitude maintained towards this subject by some of the early
fathers of the science. Among these pioneers none has left his mark
more deeply graven on the foundations of modern geology than James
Hutton. To him, more than to any other writer of his day, do we owe
the doctrine of the high antiquity of our globe. No one before him had
ever seen so clearly the abundant and impressive proofs of this remote
antiquity recorded in the rocks of the earth's crust. In these rocks
he traced the operation of the same slow and quiet processes which he
observed to be at work at present in gradually transforming the face of
the existing continents. When he stood face to face with the proofs of
decay among the mountains, there seems to have arisen uppermost in his
mind the thought of the immense succession of ages which these proofs
revealed to him. His observant eye enabled him to see 'the operations
of the surface wasting the solid body of the globe, and to read the
unmeasurable course of time that must have flowed during those amazing
operations, which the vulgar do not see, and which the learned seem
to see without wonder.'[72] In contemplating the stupendous results
achieved by such apparently feeble forces, Hutton felt that one great
objection he had to contend with in the reception of his theory, even
by the scientific men of his day, lay in the inability or unwillingness
of the human mind to admit such large demands as he made on the past.
'What more can we require?' he asks in summing up his conclusions;
and he answers the question in these memorable words: 'What more can
we require? Nothing but time. It is not any part of the process that
will be disputed; but after allowing all the parts, the whole will be
denied; and for what?--only because we are not disposed to allow that
quantity of time which the ablution of so much wasted mountain might
require.'[73]

Far as Hutton could follow the succession of events registered in the
rocky crust of the globe, he found himself baffled by the closing
in around him of that dark abysm of time into which neither eye nor
imagination seemed able to penetrate. He well knew that, behind and
beyond the ages recorded in the oldest of the primitive rocks, there
must have stretched a vast earlier time, of which no record met
his view. He did not attempt to speculate beyond the limits of his
evidence. 'I do not pretend,' he said, 'to describe the beginning of
things; I take things such as I find them at present, and from these I
reason with regard to that which must have been.'[74] In vain did he
look, even among the oldest formations, for any sign of the infancy
of the planet. He could only detect a repeated series of similar
revolutions, the oldest of which was assuredly not the first in the
terrestrial history, and he concluded, as 'the result of this physical
inquiry, that we find no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an
end.'[75]

This conclusion from strictly geological evidence has been impugned
from the side of physics, and, as further developed by Playfair,
has been declared to be contradicted by the principles of natural
philosophy. But if it be considered on the basis of the evidence on
which it was originally propounded, it was absolutely true in Hutton's
time and remains true to-day. That able reasoner never claimed that the
earth has existed from all eternity, or that it will go on existing for
ever. He admitted that it must have had a beginning, but he had been
unable to find any vestige of that beginning in the structure of the
planet itself. And notwithstanding all the multiplied researches of
the century that has passed since the immortal _Theory of the Earth_
was published, no relic of the first condition of our earth has been
found. We have speculated much, indeed, on the subject, and our friends
the physicists have speculated still more. Some of the speculations
do not seem to me more philosophical than many of those of the older
cosmogonists. As far as reliable evidence can be drawn from the rocks
of the globe itself, we do not seem to be nearer the discovery of the
beginning than Hutton was. The most ancient rocks that can be reached
are demonstrably not the first-formed of all. They were preceded by
others which we know must have existed, though no vestige of them may
be accessible.

It may be further asserted that, while it was Hutton who first
impressed upon modern geology the conviction that for the adequate
comprehension of the past history of the earth vast periods of time
must be admitted to have elapsed, our debt of obligation to him is
increased by the genius with which he linked the passage of these
vast periods with the present economy of nature. He first realised
the influence of time as a factor in geological dynamics, and first
taught the efficacy of the quiet and unobtrusive forces of nature.
His predecessors and contemporaries were never tired of invoking the
more vigorous manifestations of terrestrial energy. They saw in the
composition of the land and in the structure of mountains and valleys
memorials of numberless convulsions and cataclysms. In Hutton's
philosophy, however, 'it is the little causes, long continued, which
are considered as bringing about the greatest changes of the earth.'[76]

And yet, unlike many of those who derived their inspiration from
his teaching, but pushed his tenets to extremes which he doubtless
never anticipated, he did not look upon time as a kind of scientific
fetich, the invocation of which would endow with efficacy even the
most trifling phenomena. As if he had foreseen the use that might be
made of his doctrine, he uttered this remarkable warning: 'With regard
to the effect of time, though the continuance of time may do much in
those operations which are extremely slow, where no change, to our
observation, had appeared to take place, yet, where it is not in the
nature of things to produce the change in question, the unlimited
course of time would be no more effectual than the moment by which we
measure events in our observations.'[77]

We thus see that in the philosophy of Hutton, out of which so much
of modern geology has been developed, the vastness of the antiquity
of the globe was deduced from the structure of the terrestrial crust
and the slow rate of action of the forces by which the surface of the
crust is observed to be modified. But no attempt was made by him to
measure that antiquity by any of the chronological standards of human
contrivance. He was content to realise for himself and to impress upon
others that the history of the earth could not be understood, save by
the admission that it occupied prolonged though indeterminate ages in
its accomplishment. And assuredly no part of his teaching has been more
amply sustained by the subsequent progress of research.

Playfair, from whose admirable _Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory_
most geologists have derived all that they know directly of that
theory, went a little further than his friend and master in dealing
with the age of the earth. Not restricting himself, as Hutton did, to
the testimony of the rocks, which showed neither vestige of a beginning
nor prospect of an end, he called in the evidence of the cosmos outside
the limits of our planet, and declared that in the firmament also no
mark could be discovered of the commencement or termination of the
present order, no symptom of infancy or old age, nor any sign by which
the future or past duration of the universe might be estimated.[78]
He thus advanced beyond the strictly geological basis of reasoning,
and committed himself to statements which, like some made also by
Hutton, seem to have been suggested by certain deductions of the French
mathematicians of his day regarding the stability of the planetary
motions. His statements have been disproved by modern physics; distinct
evidence, both from the earth and the cosmos, has been brought
forward of progress from a beginning which can be conceived, through
successive stages to an end which can be foreseen. But the disproof
leaves Hutton's doctrine about the vastness of geological time exactly
where it was. Surely it was no abuse of language to speak of periods as
being vast, which can only be expressed in millions of years.

It is easy to understand how the Uniformitarian school, which sprang
from the teaching of Hutton and Playfair, came to believe that the
whole of eternity was at the disposal of geologists. In popular
estimation, as the ancient science of astronomy was that of infinite
distance, so the modern study of geology was the science of infinite
time. It must be frankly conceded that geologists, believing themselves
unfettered by any limits to their chronology, made ample use of
their imagined liberty. Many of them, following the lead of Lyell,
to whose writings in other respects modern geology owes so deep a
debt of gratitude, became utterly reckless in their demands for time,
demands which even the requirements of their own science, if they
had adequately realised them, did not warrant. The older geologists
had not attempted to express their vast periods in terms of years.
The indefiniteness of their language fitly denoted the absence of
any ascertainable limits to the successive ages with which they had
to deal. And until some evidence should be discovered whereby these
limits might be fixed and measured by human standards, no reproach
could justly be brought against the geological terminology. It was far
more philosophical to be content, in the meanwhile, with indeterminate
expressions, than from data of the weakest or most speculative kind
to attempt to measure geological periods by a chronology of years or
centuries.

In the year 1862 a wholly new light was thrown on the question of the
age of our globe and the duration of geological time by the remarkable
paper on the Secular Cooling of the Earth communicated by Lord Kelvin
(then Sir William Thomson) to the Royal Society of Edinburgh.[79] In
this memoir he first developed his now well-known argument from the
observed rate of increase of temperature downwards from the surface
of the land. He astonished geologists by announcing to them that some
definite limits to the age of our planet might be ascertained, and by
declaring his belief that this age must be more than 20 millions, but
less than 400 millions of years.

Nearly four years later he emphasised his dissent from what he
considered to be the current geological opinions of the day by
repeating the same argument in a more pointedly antagonistic form in a
paper of only a few sentences, entitled, 'The Doctrine of Uniformity in
Geology briefly refuted.'[80]

Again, after a further lapse of about two years, when, as President
of the Geological Society of Glasgow, it became his duty to give an
address, he returned to the same topic and arraigned more boldly and
explicitly than ever the geology of the time. He then declared that
'a great reform in geological speculation seems now to have become
necessary,' and he went so far as to affirm that 'it is quite certain
that a great mistake has been made--that British popular geology
at the present time is in direct opposition to the principles of
natural philosophy.'[81] In pressing once more the original argument
derived from the downward increase of terrestrial temperature, he
now reinforced it by two further arguments, the one based on the
retardation of the earth's angular velocity by tidal friction, the
other on the limitation of the age of the sun.

These three lines of attack remain still those along which the assault
from physics is delivered against the strongholds of geology. Lord
Kelvin has repeatedly returned to the charge since 1868, his latest
contribution to the controversy having been pronounced two years
ago.[82] While his physical arguments remain the same, the limits of
time which he deduces from them have been successively diminished. The
original maximum of 400 millions of years has now been restricted by
him to not much more than 20 millions, while Professor Tait grudgingly
allows something less than 10 millions.[83]

Soon after the appearance of Lord Kelvin's indictment of modern
geology in 1868, the defence of the science was taken up by Huxley,
who happened at the time to be President of the Geological Society
of London. In his own inimitably brilliant way, half seriously, half
playfully, this doughty combatant, with evident relish, tossed the
physical arguments to and fro in the eyes of his geological brethren,
as a barrister may flourish his brief before a sympathetic jury. He
was willing to admit that 'the rapidity of rotation of the earth _may_
be diminishing, that the sun _may_ be waxing dim, or that the earth
itself _may_ be cooling.' But he went on to add his suspicion that
'most of us are Gallios, who care for none of these things, being
of opinion that, true or fictitious, they have made no practical
difference to the earth, during the period of which a record is
preserved in stratified deposits.'[84]

For the indifference which their advocate thus professed on their
behalf most geologists believed that they had ample justification.
The limits within which the physicist would circumscribe the earth's
history were so vague yet so vast, that whether the time allowed were
400 millions or 100 millions of years did not seem to them greatly to
matter. After all, it was not the time that chiefly interested them,
but the grand succession of events which the time had witnessed. That
succession had been established on observations so abundant and so
precise that it could withstand attack from any quarter, and it had
taken as firm and lasting a place among the solid achievements of
science as could be claimed for any physical speculations whatsoever.
Whether the time required for the transaction of this marvellous
earth-history was some millions of years more or some millions of years
less did not seem to the geologists to be a question on which their
science stood in antagonism with the principles of natural philosophy,
but one which the natural philosophers might be left to settle at their
own good pleasure.

For myself, I may be permitted here to say that I have never shared
this feeling of indifference and unconcern. As far back as the year
1868, only a month after Lord Kelvin's first presentation of his
threefold argument in favour of limiting the age of the earth, I gave
in my adhesion to the propriety of restricting the geological demands
for time. I then showed that even the phenomena of denudation, which,
from the time of Hutton downwards, had been most constantly and
confidently appealed to in support of the inconceivably vast antiquity
of our globe, might be accounted for, at the present rate of action,
within such a period as 100 millions of years.[85] To my mind it
has always seemed that whatever tends to give more precision to the
chronology of the geologist, and helps him to a clearer conception
of the antiquity with which he has to deal, ought to be welcomed by
him as a valuable assistance in his inquiries. And I feel sure that
this view of the matter has now become general among those engaged
in geological research. Frank recognition is made of the influence
which Lord Kelvin's persistent attacks have had upon our science.
Geologists have been led by his criticisms to revise their chronology.
They gratefully acknowledge that to him they owe the introduction of
important new lines of investigation, which link the solution of the
problems of geology with those of physics. They realise how much he has
done to dissipate the former vague conceptions as to the duration of
geological history, and even when they emphatically dissent from the
greatly restricted bounds within which he would now limit that history,
and when they declare their inability to perceive that any further
reform of their speculations in this subject is needful, or that their
science has placed herself in opposition to the principles of physics,
they none the less pay their sincere homage to one who has thrown over
geology, as over so many other departments of natural knowledge, the
clear light of a penetrating and original genius.

When Lord Kelvin first developed his strictures on modern geology he
expressed his opposition in the most uncompromising language. In the
short paper to which reference has already been made he announced,
without hesitation or palliation, that he 'briefly refuted' the
doctrine of Uniformitarianism which had been espoused and illustrated
by Lyell and a long list of the ablest geologists of the day. The
severity of his judgment of British geology was not more marked than
was his unqualified reliance on his own methods and results. This
confident assurance of a distinguished physicist, together with a
formidable array of mathematical formulæ, produced its effect on
some geologists and palæontologists who were not Gallios. Thus, even
after Huxley's brilliant defence, Darwin could not conceal the deep
impression which Lord Kelvin's arguments had made on his mind. In one
letter he wrote that the proposed limitation of geological time was
one of his 'sorest troubles.' In another, he pronounced the physicist
himself to be 'an odious spectre.'[86]

The same self-confidence of assertion on the part of some, at least,
of the disputants on the physical side has continued all through the
controversy. Yet when we examine the three great physical arguments in
themselves, we find them to rest on assumptions which, though certified
as 'probable' or 'very sure,' are nevertheless admittedly assumptions.
The conclusions to which these assumptions lead must depend for their
validity on the degree of approximation to the truth in the premises
which are postulated.

Now it is interesting to observe that neither the assumptions nor
the conclusions drawn from them have commanded universal assent even
among physicists themselves. If they were as self-evident as they have
been claimed to be, they should at least receive the loyal support of
all those whose function it is to pursue and extend the applications
of physics. It will be remembered, however, that thirteen years ago
Professor George Darwin, who has so often shown his inherited sympathy
in geological investigation, devoted his presidential address before
the Mathematical Section of this Association to a review of the three
famous physical arguments respecting the age of the earth. He summed
up his judgment of them in the following words: 'In considering these
three arguments I have adduced some reasons against the validity of
the first [tidal friction]; and have endeavoured to show that there
are elements of uncertainty surrounding the second [secular cooling of
the earth]; nevertheless they undoubtedly constitute a contribution of
the first importance to physical geology. Whilst, then, we may protest
against the precision with which Professor Tait seeks to deduce
results from them, we are fully justified in following Sir William
Thomson, who says that "the existing state of things on the earth,
life on the earth--all geological history showing continuity of life,
must be limited within some such period of past time as 100,000,000
years."'[87]

More recently Professor Perry has entered the lists, from the physical
side, to challenge the validity of the conclusions so confidently put
forward in limitation of the age of the earth. He has boldly impugned
each of the three physical arguments. That which is based on tidal
retardation, following Mr. Maxwell Close and Professor Darwin, he
dismisses as fallacious. In regard to the argument from the secular
cooling of the earth, he contends that it is perfectly allowable to
assume a much higher conductivity for the interior of the globe, and
that this assumption would vastly increase our estimate of the age of
the planet. As to the conclusions drawn from the history of the sun, he
maintains that, on the one hand, the sun may have been repeatedly fed
by infalling meteorites, and that on the other hand, the earth, during
former ages, may have had its heat retained by a dense atmospheric
envelope. He thinks that 'almost anything is possible as to the present
internal state of the earth,' and he concludes in these words: 'To sum
up, we can find no published record of any lower maximum age of life
on the earth, as calculated by physicists, than 400 millions of years.
From the three physical arguments, Lord Kelvin's higher limits are
1,000, 400, and 500 million years. I have shown that we have reasons
for believing that the age, from all these, may be very considerably
underestimated. It is to be observed that if we exclude everything
but the arguments from mere physics, the _probable_ age of life on
the earth is much less than any of the above estimates; but if the
palæontologists have good reasons for demanding much greater times, I
see nothing from the physicist's point of view which denies them four
times the greatest of these estimates.'[88]

This remarkable admission from a recognised authority on the physical
side re-echoes and emphasises the warning pronounced by Professor
Darwin in the address already quoted--'at present our knowledge of
a definite limit to geological time has so little precision that we
should do wrong to summarily reject any theories which appear to demand
longer periods of time than those which now appear allowable.'[89]

This 'wrong,' which Professor Darwin so seriously deprecated, has
been committed not once, but again and again, in the history of this
discussion. Lord Kelvin has never taken any notice of the strong body
of evidence adduced by geologists and palæontologists in favour of a
much longer antiquity than he is now disposed to allow for the age of
the earth. His own three physical arguments have been successively
re-stated, with such corrections and modifications as he has found
to be necessary, and no doubt further alterations are in store for
them.[90] He has cut off slice after slice from the allowance of time
which at first he was prepared to grant for the evolution of geological
history, his latest pronouncement being that 'it was more than twenty
and less than forty million years, and probably much nearer twenty
than forty.'[91] But in none of his papers is there an admission that
geology and palæontology, though they have again and again raised their
voices in protest, have anything to say in the matter that is worthy of
consideration.

It is difficult satisfactorily to carry on a discussion in which your
opponent entirely ignores your arguments, while you have given the
fullest attention to his. In the present instance, geologists have
most carefully listened to all that has been brought forward from the
physical side. Impressed by the force of the physical reasoning, they
no longer believe that they can make any demands they may please on
past time. They have been willing to accept Lord Kelvin's original
estimate of 100 millions of years as the period within which the
history of life upon the planet must be comprised; while some of them
have even sought in various ways to reduce that sum nearer to his
lower limit. Yet there is undoubtedly a prevalent misgiving, whether
in thus seeking to reconcile their requirements with the demands of
the physicist they are not tying themselves down within limits of time
which on any theory of evolution would have been insufficient for the
development of the animal and vegetable kingdoms.

It is unnecessary to recapitulate before this Section of the British
Association, even in briefest outline, the reasoning of geologists and
palæontologists which leads them to conclude that the history recorded
in the crust of the earth must have required for its transaction a much
vaster period of time than that to which the physicists would restrict
it.[92] Let me merely remark that the reasoning is essentially based on
observations of the present rate of geological and biological changes
upon the earth's surface. It is not, of course, maintained that this
rate has never varied in the past. But it is the only rate with which
we are familiar, which we can watch and in some degree measure, and
which, therefore, we can take as a guide towards the comprehension and
interpretation of the past history of our planet.

It may be, and has often been, said that the present scale of
geological and biological processes cannot be accepted as a reliable
measure for the past. Starting from the postulate, which no one will
dispute, that the total sum of terrestrial energy was once greater
than it is now and has been steadily declining, the physicists have
boldly asserted that all kinds of geological action must have been
more vigorous and rapid during bygone ages than they are to-day;
that volcanoes were more gigantic, earthquakes more frequent and
destructive, mountain-upthrows more stupendous, tides and waves more
powerful, and commotions of the atmosphere more violent, with more
ruinous tempests and heavier rainfall. Assertions of this kind are
temptingly plausible and are easily made. But it is not enough that
they should be made; they ought to be supported by some kind of
evidence to show that they are founded on actual fact and not on mere
theoretical possibility. Such evidence, if it existed, could surely
be produced. The chronicle of the earth's history, from a very early
period down to the present time, has been legibly written within the
sedimentary formations of the terrestrial crust. Let the appeal be made
to that register. Does it lend any support to the affirmation that
the geological processes are now feebler and slower than they used to
be? If it does, the physicists, we might suppose, would gladly bring
forward its evidence as irrefragable confirmation of the soundness of
their contention. But the geologists have found no such confirmation.
On the contrary, they have been unable to discover any indication that
the rate of geological causation has ever, on the whole, greatly varied
during the time which has elapsed since the deposition of the oldest
stratified rocks. They do not assert that there has been no variation,
that there have been no periods of greater activity, both hypogene and
epigene. But they maintain that the demonstration of the existence of
such periods has yet to be made. They most confidently affirm that
whatever may have happened in the earliest ages, throughout the whole
vast succession of sedimentary strata nothing has yet been detected
which necessarily demands that more violent and rapid action which the
physicists suppose to have been the order of nature during the past.

So far as the potent effects of prolonged denudation permit us to
judge, the latest mountain-upheavals were at least as stupendous as any
of older date whereof the basal relics can yet be detected. They seem,
indeed, to have been still more gigantic than these. It may be doubted,
for example, whether among the vestiges that remain of Mesozoic or
Palæozoic mountain-chains, any instance can be found so colossal as
those of Tertiary times, such as the Alps. No volcanic eruptions of the
older geological periods can compare in extent or volume with those
of Tertiary and recent date. The plication and dislocation of the
terrestrial crust are proportionately as conspicuously displayed among
the younger as among the older formations, though the latter, from
their greater antiquity, have suffered during a longer time from the
renewed disturbances of successive periods.

As regards evidence of greater violence in the surrounding envelopes
of atmosphere and ocean, we seek for it in vain among the stratified
rocks. One of the very oldest formations in Europe, the Torridon
Sandstone of North-West Scotland, presents us with a picture of
long-continued sedimentation, such as may be seen in progress now round
the shores of many a mountain-girdled lake. In that venerable deposit,
the enclosed pebbles are not mere angular blocks and chips, swept by
a sudden flood or destructive tide from off the surface of the land,
and huddled together in confused heaps over the floor of the sea. They
have been rounded and polished by the quiet operation of running water,
as stones are rounded and polished now in the channels of brooks or on
the shores of lake and sea. They have been laid gently down above each
other, layer over layer, with fine sand sifted in between them, and
this deposition has taken place along shores which, though the waters
that washed them have long since disappeared, can still be followed
for mile after mile across the mountains and glens of the North-West
Highlands. So tranquil were these waters that their gentle currents
and oscillations sufficed to ripple the sandy floor, to arrange the
sediment in laminæ of current-bedding, and to separate the grains of
sand according to their relative densities. We may even now trace
the results of these operations in thin darker layers and streaks of
magnetic iron, zircon, and other heavy minerals, which have been sorted
out from the lighter quartz-grains, as layers of iron-sand may be seen
sifted together by the tide along the upper margins of many of our
sandy beaches at the present day.

In the same ancient formation there occur also various intercalations
of fine muddy sediment, so regular in their thin alternations, and so
like those of younger formations, that we cannot but hope and expect
that they may eventually yield remains of organisms which, if found,
would be the earliest traces of life in Europe.

It is thus abundantly manifest that even in the most ancient of the
sedimentary registers of the earth's history, not only is there no
evidence of colossal floods, tides and denudation, but there is
incontrovertible proof of continuous orderly deposition, such as
may be witnessed to-day in any quarter of the globe. The same tale,
with endless additional details, is told all through the stratified
formations, down to those which are in the course of accumulation at
the present day.

Not less important than the stratigraphical is the palæontological
evidence in favour of the general quietude of the geological processes
in the past. The conclusions drawn from the nature and arrangement of
the sediments are corroborated and much extended by the structure and
manner of entombment of the enclosed organic remains. From the time
of the very earliest fossiliferous formations there is nothing to
show that either plants or animals have had to contend with physical
conditions of environment different, on the whole, from those in which
their successors now live. The oldest trees, so far as regards their
outer form and internal structure, betoken an atmosphere neither
more tempestuous nor obviously more impure than that of to-day. The
earliest corals, sponges, crustaceans, mollusks, and arachnids were
not more stoutly constructed than those of later times, and they are
found grouped together among the rocks as they lived and died, with no
apparent indication that any violent commotion of the elements tried
their strength when living or swept away their remains when dead.

But, undoubtedly, most impressive of all the palæontological data is
the testimony borne by the grand succession of organic remains among
the stratified rocks as to the vast duration of time required for their
evolution. Professor Poulton has treated this branch of the subject
with great fulness and ability (p. 216). We do not know the present
average rates of organic variation, but all the available evidence goes
to indicate their extreme slowness. They may conceivably have been
more rapid in the past, or they may have been liable to fluctuations
according to vicissitudes of environment.[93] But those who assert
that the rate of biological evolution ever differed materially from
what it may now be inferred to be, ought surely to bring forward
something more than mere assertion in their support. In the meantime,
the most philosophical course is undoubtedly followed by those
biologists who in this matter rest their belief on their own experience
among recent and fossil organisms.

So cogent do these geological and palæontological arguments appear, to
those at least who have taken the trouble to master them, that they
are worthy of being employed, not in defence merely, but in attack.
It seems to me that they may be used with effect in assailing the
stronghold of speculation and assumption in which our physical friends
have ensconced themselves and from which, with their feet, as they
believe, planted well within the interior of the globe and their heads
in the heart of the sun, they view with complete unconcern the efforts
made by those who endeavour to gather the truth from the surface and
crust of the earth. That portion of the records of terrestrial history
which lies open to our investigation has been diligently studied in all
parts of the world. A vast body of facts has been gathered together
from this extended and combined research. The chronicle registered in
the earth's crust, though not complete, is legible and consistent.
From the latest to the earliest of its chapters the story is capable of
clear and harmonious interpretation by a comparison of its pages with
the present condition of things. We know infinitely more of the history
of this earth than we do of the history of the sun. Are we then to be
told that this knowledge so patiently accumulated from innumerable
observations and so laboriously co-ordinated and classified, is to be
held of none account in comparison with the conclusions of physical
science in regard to the history of the central luminary of our
system? These conclusions are founded on assumptions which may or may
not correspond with the truth. They have already undergone revision,
and they may be still further modified as our slender knowledge of
the sun, and of the details of its history, is increased by future
investigation. In the meantime, we decline to accept them as a final
pronouncement of science on the subject. We place over against them
the evidence of geology and palæontology, and affirm that unless the
deductions we draw from that evidence can be disproved, we are entitled
to maintain them as entirely borne out by the testimony of the rocks.

Until, therefore, it can be shown that geologists and palæontologists
have misinterpreted their records, they are surely well within their
logical rights in claiming as much time for the history of this earth
as the vast body of evidence accumulated by them demands. So far as I
have been able to form an opinion, one hundred millions of years would
suffice for that portion of the history which is registered in the
stratified rocks of the crust. But if the palæontologists find such a
period too narrow for their requirements, I can see no reason on the
geological side why they should not be at liberty to enlarge it as far
as they may find to be needful for the evolution of organised existence
on the globe. As I have already remarked, it is not the length of
time which interests us so much as the determination of the relative
chronology of the events which were transacted within that time. As to
the general succession of these events, there can be no dispute. We
have traced its stages from the bottom of the oldest rocks up to the
surface of the present continents and the floor of the present seas.
We know that these stages have followed each other in orderly advance,
and that geological time, whatever limits may be assigned to it, has
sufficed for the passage of the long stately procession.

We may, therefore, well leave the dispute about the age of the earth
to the decision of the future. In so doing, however, I should be
glad if we could carry away from it something of greater service to
science than the consciousness of having striven our best in a barren
controversy, wherein concession has all to be on one side and the
selection of arguments entirely on the other. During these years of
prolonged debate I have often been painfully conscious that in this
subject, as in so many others throughout the geological domain, the
want of accurate numerical data is a serious hindrance to the progress
of our science. Heartily do I acknowledge that much has been done in
the way of measurement and experiment for the purpose of providing a
foundation for estimates and deductions. But infinitely more remains to
be accomplished. The field of investigation is almost boundless, for
there is hardly a department of geological dynamics over which it does
not extend. The range of experimental geology must be widely enlarged,
until every process susceptible of illustration or measurement by
artificial means has been investigated. Field-observation needs to be
supplemented where possible by instrumental determination, so as to be
made more precise and accurate, and more capable of furnishing reliable
numerical statistics for practical as well as theoretical deductions.

The subject is too vast for adequate treatment here. But let me
illustrate my meaning by selecting a few instances where the adoption
of these more rigid methods of inquiry might powerfully assist us
in dealing with the rates of geological processes and the value
of geological time. Take, for example, the wide range of lines of
investigation embraced under the head of Denudation. So voluminous a
series of observations has been made in this subject, and so ample is
the literature devoted to it, that no department of geology, it might
be thought, has been more abundantly and successfully explored. Yet
if we look through the pile of memoirs, articles and books, we cannot
but be struck with the predominant vagueness of their statements,
and with the general absence of such numerical data determined by
accurate, systematic, and prolonged measurement as would alone furnish
a satisfactory basis for computations of the rate at which denudation
takes place. Some instrumental observations of the greatest value have
indeed been made, but, for the most part, observations of this kind
have been too meagre and desultory.

A little consideration will show that in all branches of the
investigation of denudation opportunities present themselves on every
side of testing, by accurate instrumental observation and measurement,
the rate at which some of the most universal processes in the
geological mechanism of our globe are carried on.

It has long been a commonplace of geology that the amount of the
material removed in suspension and solution by Rivers furnishes a clue
to the rate of denudation of the regions drained by the rivers. But
how unequal in value, and generally how insufficient in precision, are
the observations on this topic! A few rivers have been more or less
systematically examined, some widely varying results have been obtained
from the observations, and while enough has been gained to show the
interest and importance of the method of research, no adequate supply
of materials has been gathered for the purposes of wide, accurate
deduction and generalisation. What we need is a carefully organised
series of observations carried out on a uniform plan, over a sufficient
number of years, not for one river only, but for all the important
rivers of a country, and indeed for all the greater rivers of each
continent. We ought to know as accurately as possible the extent of
the drainage-area of each river, the relations of river-discharge
to rainfall and to other meteorological as well as topographical
conditions; the variation in the proportions of mechanical and chemical
impurities in the river-water according to geological formations, form
of the ground, season of the year and climate. The whole geological
_régime_ of each river should be thoroughly studied. The admirable
report of Messrs. Humphreys and Abbot on the 'Physics and Hydraulics
of the Mississippi,' published in 1861, might well serve as a model for
imitation, though these observers necessarily occupied themselves with
some questions which are not specially geological, and did not enter
into others on which, as geologists, we should now gladly have further
information.

Again, the action of Glaciers has still less been subjected to
prolonged and systematic observation. The few data already obtained
are so vague that we may be said to be still entirely ignorant of the
rate at which glaciers are wearing down their channels and contributing
to the denudation of the land. The whole of this inquiry is eminently
suitable for combined research. Each stream or glacier, or each
well-marked section of one, might become the special inquiry of a
single observer, who would soon develop a paternal interest in his
valley and vie with his colleagues of other valleys in the fulness and
accuracy of his records.

Nor is our information respecting the operations of the Sea much more
precise. Even in an island like Great Britain, where the waves and
tides effect so much change within the space of a human life-time, the
estimates of the rate of advance or retreat of the shore-line are based
for the most part on no accurate determinations. It is satisfactory to
be able to announce that the Council of this Association has formed a
Committee for the purpose of obtaining full and precise information
regarding alterations of our coasts, and that, with the sanction of the
Lords of the Admiralty, the co-operation of the Coast-guard throughout
the three kingdoms has been secured. We may therefore hope to be
eventually in possession of trustworthy statistics on this interesting
subject.[94]

The Denudation of the Surface of the Land by the combined agency of the
subaërial forces of decay is a problem which has been much studied,
but in regard to whose varying rates of advance not much has been
definitely ascertained. The meteorological conditions under which it
takes place differ materially according to latitude and climate, and
doubtless its progress is equally variable. An obvious and useful
source of information in regard to atmospheric denudation is to be
found in the decay of the material of buildings of which the time
of erection is known, and in dated tombstones. Twenty years ago I
called attention to the rate at which marble gives way in such a moist
climate as ours, and cited the effects of subaërial waste as these can
be measured on the monuments of our graveyards and cemeteries.[95] I
would urge upon town-geologists, and those in the country who have no
opportunities of venturing far afield, that they may do good service by
careful scrutiny of ancient buildings and monuments. In the churchyards
they will find much to occupy and interest them, not, however, like
Old Mortality, in repairing the tombstones, but in tracing the ravages
of the weather upon them, and in obtaining definite measures of the
rate of their decay.

The conditions under which subaërial disintegration is effected in arid
climates, and the rate of its advance, are still less known, seeing
that most of our information is derived from the chance observations
of passing travellers. Yet this branch of the subject is not without
importance in relation to the denudation not only of the existing
terrestrial surface but of the lands of former periods, for there is
evidence of more than one arid epoch in geological history. Here,
again, a diligent examination of ancient buildings and monuments
might afford some, at least, of the required data. In such a country
as Egypt, for instance, it might eventually be possible to determine
from a large series of observations what has been the average rate of
surface-disintegration of the various kinds of stone employed in human
constructions that have been freely exposed to the air for several
thousand years.

Closely linked with the question of denudation is that of the
Deposition of the material worn away from the surface of the land. The
total amount of sediment laid down must equal the amount of material
abstracted, save in so far as the soluble portions of that material are
retained in solution in the sea. But we have still much to learn as to
the conditions, and especially as to the rate, of sedimentation. Nor
does there appear to be much hope of any considerable increase to our
knowledge until the subject is taken up in earnest as one demanding and
justifying a prolonged series of well-planned and carefully executed
observations. We have yet to discover the different rates of deposit,
under the varying conditions in which it is carried on in lakes,
estuaries, and the sea. What, for instance, would be a fair average for
the rate at which the lakes of each country of Europe are now being
silted up? If this rate were ascertained, and if the amount of material
already deposited in these basins were determined, we should be in
possession of data for estimating not only the probable time when the
lakes will disappear, but also the approximate date at which they came
into existence.

But it is not merely in regard to epigene changes that further more
extended and concerted observation is needed. Even among Subterranean
movements there are some which might be watched and recorded with far
more care and continuity than have ever been attempted. The researches
of Professor George Darwin and others have shown how constant are the
tremors, minute but measureable, to which the crust of the earth is
subject.[96] Do any of these phenomena indicate displacement of the
crust, and, if so, what in the lapse of a century is their cumulative
effect on the surface of the land?

More momentous in their consequences are the disturbances which
traverse mountain-chains and find their most violent expression in
shocks of Earthquake. The effects of such shocks have been studied
and recorded in many parts of the world, but their causes are only
partially understood. Are the disturbances due to a continuation of the
same operation which at first gave birth to the mountains? Should they
be regarded as symptoms of growth or of collapse? Are they accompanied
with even the slightest amount of elevation or depression? We cannot
tell. But these questions are probably susceptible of some more or less
definite answer. It might be possible, for instance, to determine with
extreme precision the heights above a given datum of various fixed
points along such a chain as the Alps, and by a series of minutely
accurate measurements to detect any upward or downward deviation from
these heights. It is quite conceivable that throughout the whole
historical period some deviation of this kind has been going on, though
so slowly, or by such slight increments at each period of renewal, as
to escape ordinary observation. We might thus learn whether, after
an Alpine earthquake, an appreciable difference of level is anywhere
discoverable, whether the Alps as a great mountain-chain are still
growing or are now subsiding, and we might be able to ascertain the
rate of the movement. Although changes of this nature may have been
too slight during human experience to be ordinarily appreciable, their
very insignificance seems to me to supply a strong reason why they
should be sought for and carefully measured. They would not tell us,
indeed, whether a mountain-chain was called into being in one gigantic
convulsion, or was raised at wide intervals by successive uplifts, or
was slowly elevated by one prolonged and continuous movement. But they
might furnish us with suggestive information as to the rate at which
upheaval or depression of the terrestrial crust is now going on.

The vexed questions of the origin of Raised Beaches and Sunk Forests
might in like manner be elucidated by well-devised measurements. It
is astonishing upon what loose and unreliable evidence the elevation
or depression of coast-lines has often been asserted. On shores
where proofs of a recent change of level are observable it would not
be difficult to establish by accurate observation whether any such
movements are taking place now, and, if they are, to determine their
rate. The old attempts of this kind along the coasts of Scandinavia
might be resumed with far more precision and on a much more extended
scale. Methods of instrumental research have been vastly improved since
the days of Celsius and Linnæus. Mere eye-observations would not supply
sufficiently accurate results. When the datum-line has been determined
with rigorous accuracy, the minutest changes of level, such as would
be wholly inappreciable to the senses, might be detected and recorded.
If such a system of watch were maintained along coasts where there is
reason to believe that some change in the relative level of sea and
land is taking place, it would be possible to follow the progress of
the movement and to determine its rate.

But I must not dwell longer on examples of the advantages which geology
would gain from a far more general and systematic adoption of methods
of experiment and measurement in elucidation of the problems of the
science. I have referred to a few of those which have a more special
bearing on the question of geological time, but it is obvious that the
same methods might be extended into almost every branch of geological
dynamics. While we gladly and gratefully recognise the large amount of
admirable work that has already been done by the adoption of these
practical methods, from the time of Hall, the founder of experimental
geology, down to our own day, we cannot but feel that our very
appreciation of the gain which the science has thus derived increases
the desire to see the practice still further multiplied and extended. I
am confident that it is in this direction more than in any other that
the next great advances of geology are to be anticipated.

While much may be done by individual students, it is less to
their single efforts than to the combined investigations of many
fellow-workers that I look most hopefully for the accumulation of data
towards the determination of the present rate of geological changes. I
would, therefore, commend this subject to the geologists of this and
other countries as one in which individual, national, and international
co-operation might well be enlisted. We already possess an institution
which seems well adapted to undertake and control an enterprise of the
kind suggested. The International Geological Congress, which brings
together our associates from all parts of the globe, would confer
a lasting benefit on the science if it could organise a system of
combined observation in any single one of the departments of inquiry
which I have indicated or in any other which might be selected. We
need not at first be too ambitious. The simplest, easiest, and least
costly series of observations might be chosen for a beginning. The
work might be distributed among the different countries represented
in the Congress. Each nation would be entirely free in its selection
of subjects for investigation, and would have the stimulus of
co-operation with other nations in its work. The Congress will hold its
triennial gathering next year in Paris, and if such an organisation of
research as I have suggested could then be inaugurated a great impetus
would thereby be given to geological research, and France, again become
the birthplace of another scientific movement, would acquire a fresh
claim to the admiration and gratitude of geologists in every part of
the globe.[97]

FOOTNOTES:

[71] Presidential Address to the Geological Section of the British
Association for the Advancement of Science at the Dover Meeting 1899.

[72] _Theory of the Earth_, vol. i. p. 108.

[73] _Op. cit._, vol. i. p. 173, _note_.

[74] _Op. cit._, vol. ii. p. 329.

[75] _Op. cit._, vol. i. p. 200.

[76] _Theory of the Earth_, vol. ii. p. 205.

[77] _Op. cit._, vol. i. p. 44.

[78] _Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory_, § 118.

[79] _Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin._, vol. xxiii. (1862).

[80] _Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin._, vol. v. p. 512 (Dec. 18, 1865).

[81] _Trans. Geol. Soc. Glasgow_, vol. iii. (February, 1868), pp. 1, 16.

[82] 'The Age of the Earth,' being the Annual Address to the Victoria
Institute, June 2, 1897. _Phil. Mag._, January, 1899, p. 66.

[83] _Recent Advances in Physical Science_, p. 174.

[84] Presidential Address. _Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc._, 1869.

[85] _Trans. Geol. Soc. Glasgow_, vol. iii. (March 26, 1868), p. 189.
Sir W. Thomson acknowledged my adhesion in his reply to Huxley's
criticism. _Op. cit._, p. 221.

[86] Darwin's _Life and Letters_, vol. iii. pp. 115, 146.

[87] _Rep. Brit. Assoc._, 1886, p. 517.

[88] _Nature_, vol. li. p. 585, April 18, 1895.

[89] _Rep. Brit. Assoc._, 1886, p. 518.

[90] October 1904. Since this Address was given the subject of
radio-activity has assumed high importance in reference to questions
connected with the evolution of the cosmos. Thus Prof. George Darwin,
in view of the newly discovered properties of radium, has stated that
he sees 'no reason for doubting the possibility of augmenting the
estimates of solar heat, as derived from the theory of gravitation,
by some such factor as ten or twenty' (_Nature_, 24th Sept., 1903).
The same opinion is shared by Prof. Joly, who points out that the
establishment of the observed gradient of temperature from the
earth's surface inward 'may have been deferred indefinitely during
the exhaustion of stores of radium and similar bodies at greater or
shallower depths' (_Nature_, 1st Oct., 1903). More recently Prof.
Rutherford, who has taken so leading a part in the discussion of
radio-activity, has made the following statement: 'I think we may
conclude that the present rate of loss of heat of the earth might have
continued unchanged for long periods of time in consequence of the
supply of heat from radio-active matter in the earth. It thus seems
probable that the earth may have remained for very long intervals of
time at a temperature not very different from that observed to-day,
and that in consequence the time during which the earth has been at a
temperature capable of supporting the presence of animal and vegetable
life may be very much longer than the estimate made by Lord Kelvin
from other data' (_Radio-activity_, Cambridge, 1904, p. 346). Thus two
of the three physical arguments are impugned on new grounds, and the
forecast of Prof. Darwin is shown to have been reasonable when in 1886
he said: 'Although speculations as to the future course of science
are usually of little avail, yet it seems as likely that meteorology
and geology will pass the word of command to cosmical physics as the
converse.'

[91] _The Age of the Earth_, Presidential Address to the Victoria
Institute for 1897, p. 10; also in _Phil. Mag._, January 1899.

[92] The geological arguments are briefly given in my Presidential
Address to the British Association at the Edinburgh Meeting of 1892
(_ante_ p. 182). The biological arguments were well stated, and in some
detail, by Professor Poulton in his Address to the Zoological Section
of the Association at the Liverpool Meeting of 1896.

[93] See an interesting and suggestive paper by Professor Le Conte on
'Critical Periods in the History of the Earth,' _Bull. Dept. Geology,
University of California_, vol. i. (1895), p. 313; also one by
Professor Chamberlin on 'The Ulterior Basis of Time-divisions and the
Classification of Geological History,' _Journal of Geology_, vol. vi.
(1898), p. 449.

[94] The first Report of this Committee was submitted to the Southport
meeting of the Association in 1903. But the question is one of such
importance in view of the rapidity with which some parts of our coast
are in course of demolition that it deserves to be taken up as a
national investigation. The country at large should contribute to the
expense of applying the best means for arresting the waste of its
shores. At present the contest has to be carried on by the riparian
proprietors, who are often quite unable adequately to cope with it.
_October_, 1904.

[95] _Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin._, vol. x. (1879-80) p. 518.

[96] _Report Brit. Assoc._, 1882, p. 95.

[97] The hope here expressed has so far been realised by the
appointment of a Committee of the Geological Congress at Paris in
1900 and the renewal and extension of this Committee at the following
Meeting held in Vienna in 1903. The subjects of Earthquakes, Movements
of elevation or depression in mountain chains and measurements of
the value of Gravity were especially proposed for investigation. The
recommendations of the Committee were approved by the International
Association of Academies in London in the summer of 1904 and steps were
then taken in the direction of international co-operation in each of
the subjects suggested. _Note added_, October, 1904.




VII

The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin[98]


By the universal consent of mankind, the name of Charles Darwin was
placed, even during his lifetime, among those of the few great leaders
who stand forth for all time as the creative spirits that have founded
and legislated for the realm of Science. It is too soon to estimate
with precision the full value and effect of his work. The din of
controversy that rose around him has hardly yet died down, and the
influence of the doctrines he propounded is extending into so many
remote departments of human inquiry, that a generation or two may
require to pass away before his true place in the history of thought
can be definitely fixed. But the judgment of his contemporaries as to
his proud pre-eminence is not likely ever to be called in question. He
is enrolled among the _Dii Majorum Gentium_, and there he will remain
to the end of the ages. When he was laid beside the illustrious dead
in Westminster Abbey, there arose far and wide a lamentation as of
personal bereavement. Thousands of mourners who knew only his writings,
and judged of the gentleness and courtesy of his nature from these
and from such hearsay reports as passed outwards from the privacy of
his country home, grieved as for the loss of a dear friend. It is
remarkable that probably no scientific man of his day was personally
less familiar to the mass of his fellow-countrymen. He seemed to shun
all the usual modes of contact with them. His weak health, domestic
habits, and absorbing work kept him in the seclusion of his own
quiet household. In later years his face was seldom to be seen at
the meetings of scientific societies, or at those gatherings where
the discoveries of science are expounded to more popular audiences.
He shrank from public controversy, although no man was ever more
vigorously attacked and more completely misrepresented. Nevertheless,
when he died, the affectionate regret that followed him to the grave
came not alone from his own personal friends, but from thousands of
sympathetic mourners in all parts of the world, who had never known or
seen him. Men had ample material for judging of his work, and in the
end had given their judgment with general acclaim. Of the man himself,
however, they could know but little, yet enough of his character
shone forth in his work to indicate its tenderness and goodness. Men
instinctively felt him to be in every way one of the great ones of
the earth, whose removal from the living world leaves mankind poorer
in moral worth as well as in intellect. So widespread has been this
conviction, that the story of his life has been eagerly longed for.
It might contain no eventful incidents, but it would reveal the man
as he was, and show the method of his working and the secret of his
greatness.

At last, five years and a half after his death, the long expected
Memoir has made its appearance. The task of preparing it was undertaken
by his son, Mr. Francis Darwin, who, having for the last eight years
of his father's life acted as his assistant, was specially qualified
to put the world in possession of a true picture of the inner life
of the great naturalist. Most biographies are too long, but, in the
present case, the three goodly volumes will be found to contain not
a page too much. The narrative is absorbingly interesting from first
to last. The editor, with excellent judgment, allows Darwin himself,
as far as possible, to tell his own story in a series of delightful
letters, which bring us into the very presence of the earnest student
and enthusiastic explorer of Nature.

Charles Darwin came of a family which from the beginning of the
sixteenth century had been settled on the northern borders of
Lincolnshire. Several of his ancestors had been men of literary taste
and scientific culture, the most noted of them being his grandfather,
Erasmus Darwin, the poet and philosopher. His father was a medical man
in large practice at Shrewsbury, and his mother, a daughter of Josiah
Wedgewood of Etruria. Some interesting reminiscences are given of the
father, who must have been a man of uncommon strength of character. He
left a large fortune, and thus provided for the career which his son
was destined to fulfil. Of his own early life and later years, Darwin
has left a slight but most interesting sketch in an autobiographical
fragment, written late in life for his children, and without any idea
of its ever being published. From this outline we learn that he was
born at Shrewsbury on the 12th of February, 1809. Shortly before his
mother's death, in 1817, he was sent, when eight years old, to a
day-school in his native town. But even in the period of childhood
he had chosen the favourite occupation of his life; 'my taste for
natural history,' he says, 'and more especially for collecting, was
well developed. I tried to make out the names of plants, and collected
all sorts of things--shells, seals, franks, coins and minerals. The
passion for collecting which leads a man to be a systematic naturalist,
a virtuoso, or a miser, was very strong in me, and was clearly innate,
as none of my sisters or brother ever had this taste.' According to
his own account, he was 'in many ways a naughty boy.' But there must
have been so much fun and kind-heartedness in his transgressions, that
neither parents nor teachers could have been very seriously offended
by his pranks. What, for instance, could be said to a boy who would
gravely pretend to a schoolfellow that he could produce variously
tinted flowers by watering them with coloured fluids, or who gathered
a quantity of fruit from his father's trees, hid it in the shrubbery,
and then ran off to announce his discovery of a robbery; or who, after
beating a puppy, felt such remorse that the memory of the act lay
heavy on his conscience and remained with him to old age? In 1818 he
was placed under Dr. Butler in Shrewsbury School, where he continued
to stay for seven years until 1825, when he was sixteen years old. He
confesses that the classical training at that seminary was useless to
him, and that the school as a means of education was, so far as he was
concerned, simply a blank. Verse-making, and learning by heart so many
lines of Latin or Greek, seem to have been the occupations of school
that specially dwelt in his memory, the sole pleasure he could recall
being the reading of some of Horace's Odes. He describes, however,
the intense satisfaction with which he followed the clear geometrical
proofs of Euclid, and the pleasure he took in sitting for hours in an
old window of the school reading Shakespeare. He made acquaintance,
too, with the poems of Thomson, Byron and Scott, but confesses that in
later life, to his great regret, he lost all pleasure from poetry of
any kind, even from Shakespeare.

The first book that excited in him a wish to travel was a copy of the
_Wonders of the World_ in the possession of a schoolfellow, which
he read with some critical discrimination, for he used to dispute
with other boys about the veracity of its statements. Nothing in the
school-life could daunt his ardour in the pursuit of natural history.
He continued to be a collector, and began to show himself an attentive
observer of insects and birds. White's _Selborne_, which has started
so many naturalists on their career, stimulated his zeal, and he
became so fond of birds as to wonder in his mind why every gentleman
did not become an ornithologist. Nor were his interests confined to
the biological departments of Nature. With his brother, who had made
a laboratory in the garden tool-house, he worked hard at chemistry,
and learned for the first time the meaning of experimental research.
These extra-scholastic pursuits, which he declares to have been the
best part of his education at school, came somehow to be talked of by
his companions, who consequently nicknamed him 'Gas'; and Dr. Butler,
when he heard of them, rebuked the young philosopher, for 'wasting
time on such useless subjects,' and called him a 'poco curante.' It
was evident to his father that further attendance at Shrewsbury School
would not advance young Darwin's education, and he was accordingly sent
in 1825, when he was a little over sixteen years old, to join his elder
brother, who was attending the medical classes of the University of
Edinburgh. It was intended that he should begin the study of medicine,
and qualify himself for that profession; but he had already discovered
that a sufficient competence would eventually come to him to enable him
to live in some comfort and independence. So he went to the lectures
with no very strong determination to get from them as much good as
if he knew that his living was to depend on his success. He found
them 'intolerably dull,' and records in maturer years his deliberate
conviction that 'there are no advantages, and many disadvantages, in
lectures compared with reading.' That he did not conquer his repugnance
to the study of anatomy in particular is remarkable, when we consider
how strong already was his love of biology, and how wholly it dominated
his later life. Tenderness of nature seems to have had much to do with
his repugnance. He could not bear the sight of suffering; the cases in
the clinical wards in the Infirmary distressed him, and after bringing
himself to attend for the first time the operating theatre, he rushed
away before the operations were completed and never went back. But he
afterwards came to regard as one of the greatest evils of his life
that he had not been urged to conquer his disgust and make himself
practically familiar with the details of human anatomy. It is curious,
too, to learn with what aversion he regarded the instructions of the
Professor of Natural History in the University. Jameson could certainly
kindle, or at least stimulate, enthusiasm in some young souls, as the
brilliant band of naturalists trained under him in Edward Forbes' time
sufficiently proved. But to others he undoubtedly was, what Darwin
describes him, 'incredibly dull.' If the professorial teaching was
defective, however, the loss seems to have been in good measure made
up by the companionship of fellow-students of kindred tastes, with
whom the future naturalist explored the neighbourhood of Edinburgh.
Collecting animals from the tidal pools of the estuary of the Forth,
and accompanying the Newhaven fishermen in their dredging voyages for
oysters, he found plenty of material for study, and employed himself in
dissecting as well as he could. In the course of these observations he
made his first recorded discovery, which was 'that the so-called ova of
_Flustra_ had the power of independent movement by means of cilia, and
were, in fact, larvae.' As a part of his love of Nature and out-of-door
employments, he became an ardent sportsman, rose even long before day,
in order to reach the ground betimes, and went to bed with his shooting
boots placed open close beside him, that not a moment might be lost in
getting into them.

When two sessions had been passed at Edinburgh and no great zeal
appeared for the medical profession, Darwin's father proposed to him
that he should become a clergyman, for it was out of the question that
the young student should be allowed to turn into an idle sporting
man, as he bade fair to do. After some time given to reflection on
this momentous change in his career, Darwin, who 'did not then in the
least doubt the strict and literal truth of every word in the Bible,'
agreed to the proposal. Many years afterwards, when he had risen to
fame, and his photograph was the subject of public discussion at a
German psychological society, he was declared by one of the speakers
to have 'the bump of reverence developed enough for ten priests.' So
that in one respect, as he says of himself, he was well fitted to be
a clergyman. In another and more serious qualification, however, he
found himself lamentably and almost incredibly deficient. If his two
years at Edinburgh had not added much to his stock of professional
knowledge, they seem to have driven out of his head what slender share
of classical learning he had imbibed at Shrewsbury. He had actually
forgotten some of the Greek letters, and had to begin again, therefore,
at the very beginning. But after a few months of preliminary training
he found himself able to proceed to Cambridge in the early part of the
year 1828, when he was now nearly nineteen years of age. So far as
concerned academical studies, the three years at the University were,
in his own opinion, as much wasted time as his residence at Edinburgh
or his life at school had been. He attempted mathematics, which he
found repugnant. In classics he did as little as he could; but in the
end he took his B.A. degree, and got the tenth place on the list of
those who did not go in for honours. The disgust for geology with which
the Wernerian doctrines at Edinburgh had inspired him, prevented him
from becoming a pupil of Sedgwick. It is curious to speculate on what
might have been his ultimate bent had he then come under the spell of
that eloquent, enthusiastic, and most lovable man. Not improbably he
would have become an ardent geologist, dedicating more exclusively to
that science the genius and industry which he devoted to biology and to
natural history as a whole.

Some of the incidents of his Cambridge life which he records are full
of interest in their bearing on his future career. Foremost among them
stands the friendship which he formed with Professor Henslow, whose
lectures on botany he attended. He joined in the class excursions,
and found them delightful. But still more profitable to him were the
long and almost daily walks which he enjoyed with his teacher during
the latter half of his time at Cambridge. Henslow's wide range of
acquirement, his modesty, unselfishness, courtesy, gentleness and
piety, fascinated Darwin and exerted on him an influence which, more
than anything else, tended to shape his whole future life. The love
of travel, which had been kindled by his boyish reading, now took a
deeper hold of him as he read Humboldt's _Personal Narrative_, and
Herschel's _Introduction to the Study of Natural Philosophy_. He
determined to visit Teneriffe, and even went so far as to inquire about
ships. But his desire was soon to be gratified in a far other and more
comprehensive voyage. At the close of his college life he was fortunate
enough, through Henslow's good offices, to accompany Sedgwick in a
geological excursion in North Wales. There can be little doubt that
this short trip sufficed to efface the dislike of geology which he
had conceived at Edinburgh, and to show him how much it was in his
own power to increase the sum of geological knowledge. To use his own
phrase, he began to 'work like a tiger' at geology.

But he now had reached the main turning-point of his career. On
returning home from his ramble with Sedgwick he found a letter from
Henslow, telling him that Captain Fitz-Roy, who was about to start on
the memorable voyage of the _Beagle_, was willing to give up part of
his own cabin to any competent young man who would volunteer to go with
him without pay as a naturalist. The post was offered to Darwin, and
after some natural objections on the part of his father, who thought
that such a wild scheme would be disreputable to his character as a
future clergyman, was accepted. His intention of becoming a clergyman,
and his father's wish that he should do so, were never formally given
up; but from this time onward they dropped out of sight. The _Beagle_
weighed anchor from Plymouth on the 27th of December, 1831, and
returned on the 2nd of October, 1836.

Of the voyage in the _Beagle_ and its scientific fruits Darwin himself
has left ample record in his _Journal of Researches_, and in the
various memoirs on special branches of research which he afterwards
published. The editor of the Biography has wisely refrained from
repeating the story of this important part of his father's life.
But he has given a new charm to it by printing a few of the letters
written during the voyage, which help us to realise still more vividly
the life and work of the naturalist in his circumnavigation of the
world. We can picture him in his little cabin, working diligently at
the structure of marine creatures, but driven every now and then to
lie down as a relief from sea-sickness, which worried him during the
voyage and which was thought by some to have permanently injured his
health. We see him littering the deck with his specimens, and thereby
raising the indignation of the prim first lieutenant, who declared he
would like to turn the naturalist and his mess 'out of the place,' but
who, in spite of this want of sympathy, was recognised by Darwin as a
'glorious fellow.' We watch him in the tropical forests and in the calm
glories of the tropical nights with the young officers listening to
his exposition of the wonders of Nature around them. And, above all,
we mark his exuberant enthusiasm in the new aspects of the world that
came before him, his gentleness, unfailing good-nature and courtesy,
that endeared him alike to every officer and sailor in the ship. The
officers playfully dubbed him their 'dear old philosopher,' and the men
called him 'our flycatcher.'

For one who was to take a foremost place among the naturalists of
all time--that is, in the true old sense of the word naturalist, men
with sympathies and insight for every department of Nature, and not
mere specialists working laboriously in their own limited field of
research--there could hardly have been chosen a more instructive and
stimulating journey than that which was provided for Darwin by the
voyage of the _Beagle_. The route lay by the Cape de Verd Islands
across the Atlantic to the coast of Brazil, southward to the Strait
of Magellan, and up the western side of the South American continent
as far as Callao. It then struck westward across the Pacific Ocean by
the Galapagos archipelago, Taheiti, New Zealand, Sydney and Tasmania,
turning round into the Indian Ocean by way of Keeling Islands and
the Mauritius to the Cape of Good Hope, and then by St. Helena and
Ascension Island to the coast of Brazil, where the chronometrical
measurement of the world, which was the ostensible object of the
_Beagle's_ circumnavigation, was to be completed, and so once more
across the Atlantic homewards. Almost every aspect of Nature was
encountered in such a journey. The luxuriant forests of the tropics,
the glaciers and snowfields of Tierra del Fuego, the arid wastes of
Patagonia, the green and fertile Pampas, the volcanic and coral islets
of mid-ocean, the lofty Cordillera of a great continent, arose one by
one before the eager gaze of the young observer. Each scene widened
his experience of the outer aspects of the world, quickened his powers
of observation, deepened his sympathy with Nature as a whole, and
likewise supplied him with abundant materials for future study in the
life-work which he had now definitely set before himself. We must think
of him during those five momentous years as patiently accumulating the
facts and shaping in his mind the problems which were to furnish the
occupation of all his after life.

During the voyage he had written long letters to his friends
descriptive of what he had seen and done. He likewise forwarded
considerable collections of specimens gathered by him at various
places. His scientific activity was therefore well known at home to his
acquaintances, and even to a wider circle, for some of his letters to
Henslow were privately printed and circulated among the members of the
Cambridge Philosophical Society. It would have been difficult for any
even of his most intimate friends to offer a plausible conjecture as to
the line of inquiry in natural science that he would ultimately select
as the one along which he more particularly desired to advance. An
onlooker might have naturally believed that the ardent young observer
would choose geology, and end by becoming one of the foremost leaders
in that department of science. In his _Journal of Researches_, and
in the letters from the _Beagle_ now published, it is remarkable how
much he shows the fascination that geology exercised upon him. He had
thoroughly thrown off the incubus of Wernerianism. From Lyell's book
and Sedgwick's personal influence he had discovered how absorbingly
interesting is the history of the earth. Writing to his friend, W. D.
Fox, from Lima, in the summer of 1835, he expresses his pleasure in
hearing that his correspondent had some intention of studying geology;
which, he says, offers 'so much larger a field of thought than the
other branches of natural history'; and, moreover, 'is a capital
science to begin, as it requires nothing but a little reading, thinking
and hammering.' While the whole of his _Journal_ shows on every page
how keen were his powers of observation, and how constantly he was on
the watch for new facts in many fields of natural knowledge, it is to
the geological problems that he returns most frequently and fully. And
never before in the history of science had these problems been attacked
by an actual observer over so vast a space of the earth's surface,
with more acuteness and patience, or discussed with such breadth of
view. There is something almost ludicrous in the contrast between his
method of treatment of volcanic phenomena and that of his professor at
Edinburgh only six short years before. But though geological questions,
being the most obvious and approachable, took up so large a share of
his time and attention, he was already pondering on some of the great
biological mysteries the unveiling of which in later years was to be
his main occupation, and to form the basis on which his renown as an
investigator was chiefly to rest.

On his return to England, in October 1836, Darwin at once took his
place among the acknowledged men of science of his country. For a time
his health continued to be such as to allow him to get through a large
amount of work. The next two years, which in his own opinion were the
most active of his life, were spent, partly at Cambridge and partly
in London, in the preparation of his _Journal of Researches_, of the
zoological and geological results of the voyage, and of various papers
for the Geological and Zoological Societies. So keen was his geological
zeal that, almost against his better judgment, he was prevailed upon to
undertake the duties of honorary secretary of the Geological Society,
an office which he continued to hold for three years. And at each
period of enforced holiday, for his health had already begun to give
way, he occupied himself with geological work in the field. In the
Midlands he watched the operations of earth-worms, and began those
inquiries which formed the subject of his last research, and of the
volume on _Vegetable Mould_ which he published not long before his
death. In the Highlands he studied the famous Parallel Roads of Glen
Roy; and his work there, though in after years he acknowledged it to be
'a great failure,' he felt at the time to have been 'one of the most
difficult and instructive tasks' he had ever undertaken.

In the beginning of 1839 Darwin married his cousin, daughter of Josiah
Wedgwood, and grand-daughter of the founder of the Etruria Works, and
took a house in London. But the entries of ill-health in his diary
grow more frequent. For a time he and his wife went into society, and
took their share of the scientific life and work of the metropolis.
But he was compelled gradually to withdraw from this kind of existence
which suited neither of them, and eventually they determined to live
in the country. Accordingly, he purchased a house and grounds at Down
in a sequestered part of Kent, some twenty miles from London, and
moved thither in the autumn of 1842. In that quiet home he passed the
remaining forty years of his life. It was there that his children were
born and grew up around him, that he carried on the researches and
worked out the generalisations that have changed the whole realm of
science, that he received his friends and the strangers who came from
every country to see him; and it was there that, after a long and
laborious life, full of ardour and work to the last, he died at the age
of seventy-three, on the 19th of April, 1882.

The story of his life at Down is almost wholly coincident with the
history of the development of his views on evolution, and the growth
and appearance of the successive volumes which he gave to the world.
For the first four years his geological tastes continued in the
ascendant. During that interval there appeared three remarkable works,
his volume on _Coral Islands_, that on _Volcanic Islands_, and his
_Geological Observations on South America_. Of these treatises that on
coral reefs excited the wonder and admiration of geologists for the
simplicity and grandeur of its theoretical explanations. Before it was
written, the prevalent view of the origin of these insular masses of
coral was that which regarded each of them as built on the summit of
a volcano, the circular shape of an atoll or ring of coral being held
to mark the outline of the submerged crater on which it rested. But
Darwin, in showing the untenableness of this explanation, pointed out
how easily the rings of coral might have arisen from the upward growth
of the reef-building corals round an island slowly sinking into the
sea. He was thus led to look upon the vast regions of ocean dotted with
coral islands as areas of gradual subsidence, and he could adduce every
stage in the process of growth, from the shore-reef just beginning, as
it were, to form round the island, to the completed atoll, where the
last vestige of the encircled land had disappeared under the central
lagoon. More recent researches by other observers have, in the opinion
of some writers, proved that the widespread submergence demanded by
Darwin's theory is not required to account for the present form and
distribution of coral islands. But his work will ever remain a classic
in the history of geology.

After working up the geological results of the long voyage in the
_Beagle_, he set himself with great determination to more purely
zoological details. While visiting the coast of Chili, he had found a
curious new cirripede, to understand the structure of which he had to
examine and dissect many of the common forms. The memoir, which was
originally designed to describe only his new type, gradually expanded
into an elaborate monograph on the Cirrepedes (barnacles) as a Whole
group. For eight years he continued this self-imposed task, getting
at last so weary of it as to feel at times as if the labour had been
in some sense wasted which he had spent over it, and this suspicion
seems to have remained with him in maturer years. But when at last
the two bulky volumes, of more than one thousand pages of text, with
forty detailed plates, made their appearance, they were hailed as an
admirable contribution to the knowledge of a comparatively little known
department of the animal kingdom. In the interests of science, perhaps,
their chief value is to be recognised not so much in their own high
merit as in the practical training which their preparation gave the
author in anatomical detail and classification. He spoke of it himself
afterwards as a valuable discipline, and Professor Huxley truly affirms
that the influence of this discipline was visible in everything which
he afterwards wrote.

It was after Darwin had got rid of his herculean labours over the
'Cirripede book' that he began to settle down seriously to the great
work of his life--the investigation of the origin of the species of
plants and animals. One of the three volumes of the Biography is
entirely devoted to tracing the growth of his views on this subject,
and the preparation and reception of the great work on the _Origin of
Species_. In no part of his task has the editor shown greater tact
and skill than in this. From the earliest jottings, which show that
the idea had taken hold of Darwin's mind, we are led onwards through
successive journals, letters, and published works, marking as we go
how steadily the idea was pursued, and how it shaped itself more and
more definitely in his mind. It is impossible to condense this story
within the limits of a Review article, and the condensation, even if
possible, would spoil the story, which must be left as told in the
author's own words. Briefly, it may be stated here that he seems to
have been first led to ponder over the question of the transmutation
of species by facts that had come under his notice during the South
American part of the voyage in the _Beagle_--such as the discovery of
the fossil remains of huge animals akin to, but yet very distinct from,
the living armadillos of the same regions; the manner in which closely
allied animals were found to replace one another, as he followed them
over the continent; and the remarkable character of the flora and
fauna of the Galapagos archipelago. 'It was evident,' he says, 'that
such facts as these, as well as many others, could only be explained
on the supposition that species gradually become modified; and the
subject haunted me.' His first note-book for the accumulation of facts
bearing on the question was opened in July 1837, and from that date
he continued to gather them 'on a wholesale scale, more especially
with respect to domesticated productions, by printed inquiries, by
conversation with skilful breeders and gardeners, and by extensive
reading.' He soon perceived that selection was the secret of success
in the artificial production of the useful varieties of plants and
animals. But how this principle, so fertile in results when employed by
man, could be applied in explanation of Nature's operations, remained
a mystery to him until in October 1838, when, happening to read for
amusement Malthus' book _On the Principle of Population_, he found
at last a theory with which to work. With this guiding principle he
instituted a laborious investigation on the breeding of pigeons, and
experiments on the flotation of eggs, the vitality of seeds, and other
questions, the solution of which seemed desirable as his researches
advanced. He says himself that, to avoid prejudice in favour of his own
views, he refrained for some time from writing even the briefest sketch
of the theory he had formed, and that it was not until June, 1842, that
he allowed himself the satisfaction of writing a very brief pencil
abstract in thirty-five pages, which two years afterwards he enlarged
to 230 pages, and had fairly copied out. This precious manuscript was
the germ of the _Origin of Species_.

With characteristic caution, however, he kept his essay in his desk,
and with equally characteristic ardour, industry and patience went on
with the laborious task of accumulating evidence. His friends were of
course well aware of the nature of his research, and of the remarkable
views to which he had been led regarding the history of species. And
as these views could hardly fail in the end to become generally known,
it was desirable that the first publication of them should be made by
himself. This having been urged upon him by Lyell, he began early in
the year 1856 to write out his views in detail on a scale three or four
times as large as that on which the _Origin of Species_ afterwards
appeared. This work he continued steadily for two years, when it was
interrupted (June 1858) by the arrival of a remarkable manuscript
essay by Mr. A. R. Wallace, who, working in the Malay archipelago, had
arrived at conclusions identical with those of Darwin himself. Darwin's
generous impulse was to send this essay for publication irrespective of
any claim of his own to priority: but his friends, Lyell and Sir Joseph
Hooker, persuaded him to allow extracts from his early sketch of 1844,
and part of a letter written to Professor Asa Gray in 1857, to be read,
together with Mr. Wallace's contribution, before the Linnean Society,
and to be printed in the Society's _Journal_. He now set to work upon
that epitome of his observations and deductions which appeared in
November 1859, as the immortal _Origin of Species_.

Those who are old enough to remember the publication of this work,
cannot but marvel at the change which, since that day, not yet thirty
years ago, has come alike upon the non-scientific and the scientific
part of the community in their estimation of it. Professor Huxley has
furnished to the Biography a graphic chapter on the reception of the
book, and in his vigorous and witty style recalls the furious and
fatuous objections that were urged against it. A much longer chapter
will be required to describe the change which the advent of the _Origin
of Species_ has wrought in every department of science, and not of
science only, but of philosophy. The principle of evolution, so early
broached and so long discredited, has now at last been proclaimed and
accepted as the guiding idea in the investigation of Nature.

One of the most marvellous aspects of Darwin's work was the way in
which he seemed always to throw a new light upon every department of
inquiry into which the course of his researches led him to look. The
specialists who, in their own narrow domains, had been toiling for
years, patiently gathering facts and timidly drawing inferences from
them, were astonished to find that one who, to their eyes, was a kind
of outsider, could point out to them the plain meaning of things which,
though entirely familiar to them, they had never adequately understood.
The central idea of the _Origin of Species_ is an example of this
in the biological sciences. The chapter on the imperfection of the
geological record is another in the domain of geology.

After the publication of the _Origin_, Darwin gave to the world during
a succession of years a series of volumes, in which some of his
observations and conclusions were worked out in fuller detail. His
books on the fertilisation of orchids, on the movements and habits
of climbing plants, on the variation of animals and plants under
domestication, on the effects of cross and self-fertilisation in
the vegetable kingdom, on the different forms of flowers in plants
of the same species, were mainly based on his own quiet work in the
greenhouse and garden at Down. His volumes on the descent of man, and
on the expression of the emotions in man and animals, completed his
contributions to the biological argument. His last volume, published
the year before his death, treated of the formation of vegetable mould,
and the habits of earth-worms, and the preparation of it enabled him to
renew some of the observations which had interested him in his younger
days, and to revive some of the geological enthusiasm which so marked
the earlier years of his life.

Such, in briefest outline, was the work accomplished by Charles
Darwin. The admirable biography prepared by his son enables us to
follow its progress from the beginning to the close. But higher even
than the intellect which achieved the work was the moral character
which shone through it all. As far as it is possible for words to
convey what Darwin was to those who did not personally know him, this
has been done in the _Life_. His son has written a touching chapter,
entitled, 'Reminiscences of my Father's Everyday Life,' in which the
man as he lived and worked is vividly pictured. From that sketch,
and from Darwin's own letters, the reader may conceive how noble was
the character of the great naturalist. His industry and patience,
in spite of the daily physical suffering that marked the last forty
years of his life; his utter unselfishness and tender consideration
for others; his lifelong modesty that led him to see the worst of his
own work and the best of that of other men; his scrupulous honour
and unbending veracity; his intense desire to be accurate even in the
smallest particulars, and the trouble he took to secure such accuracy;
his sympathy with the struggles of younger men, and his readiness to
help them; his eagerness for the establishment of truth by whomsoever
discovered; his interest up to the very last in the advancement of
science; his playful humour; his unfailing courtesy and gratitude for
even the smallest acts of kindness--these elements of a lofty moral
nature stand out conspicuously in the Biography. No one can rise from
the perusal of these volumes without the conviction that, by making
known to the world at large what Darwin was as a man, as well as a
great original investigator, they place him on a still loftier pinnacle
of greatness than that to which the voice of his contemporaries had
already raised him.

FOOTNOTE:

[98] _Contemporary Review_, Dec., 1887.




VIII

Hugh Miller: His Work and Influence[99]


Among the picturesque figures that walked the streets of Edinburgh in
the middle of last century, one that often caught the notice of the
passer-by was that of a man of good height and broad shoulders, clad in
a suit of rough tweed, with a shepherd's plaid across his chest and a
stout stick in his hand. His shock of sandy-coloured hair escaped from
under a soft felt-hat; his blue eyes, either fixed on the ground or
gazing dreamily ahead, seemed to take no heed of their surroundings.
His rugged features wore an expression of earnest gravity, softening
sometimes into a smile and often suffused with a look of wistful
sadness, while the firmly compressed lips betokened strength and
determination of character. The springy elastic step with which he
moved swiftly along the crowded pavement was that of the mountaineer
rather than of the native of a populous city. A stranger would pause to
look after him and to wonder what manner of man this could be. If such
a visitor ventured to question one of the passing townsmen, he would
be told promptly and with no little pride 'That is Hugh Miller.' No
further description or explanation would be deemed necessary, for the
name had not only grown to be a household word in Edinburgh and over
the whole of Scotland, but had now become familiar wherever the English
language was spoken, even to the furthest western wilds of Canada and
the United States.

A hundred years have passed since this notable man was born, and nearly
half that interval has elapsed since he was laid in the grave. The hand
of time, that resistlessly winnows the wheat from the chaff of human
achievement, has been quietly shaping what will remain as the permanent
sum of his work and influence. The temporary and transitory events in
his career have already, in large measure, receded into the background.
The minor contests in which, from his official position, he was so
often forced to engage are mostly forgotten; the greater battles that
he fought and won are remembered rather for their broad and brilliant
results than for the crowded incidents that gave them such vivid
interest at the time. His contemporaries who still survive him--every
year a sadly diminishing number--can look back across the half century
and mark how the active and strenuous nature whose memory they so
fondly cherish, now


     'Orbs into the perfect star
     We saw not when we moved therein.'


A juster estimate can doubtless be formed to-day of what we owe to him
than was possible in his life-time. That the debt is great admits of
no dispute, and that it is acknowledged to be due could hardly be more
fittingly shown than by the wide-spread desire which has brought us
here to-day from so many distant places in order to raise in the town
of his birth, which he has made a place of pilgrimage to many a lover
of English literature, a visible memorial of him in an institution of
which he would himself have heartily approved.

In order adequately to realise the nature and extent of the work
achieved by Hugh Miller during his too brief career, we should
clearly picture to ourselves the peculiar conditions in which he grew
up. Happily he has himself, in one of the most charming pieces of
autobiography in the language, told the story of his youth and early
manhood. Descended from both a Highland and a Lowland ancestry, he
combined in his nature the vivid imagination and poetic impulse of the
Celt with the more staid and logical temperament of the Teuton. He was
born amidst an English-speaking community, but at a distance of only
a few miles from the fringe of the mountainous region within which
men use the Gaelic tongue. He knew some survivors of Culloden, and
had heard his own grandfather tell how, when a stripling, he watched,
from the hills above Cromarty, the smoke wreaths of the battle as they
drifted along the ridge on the further side of the Moray Firth. From
infancy he was personally familiar with the people of the hills and
their traditions, as well as with the ways of the hardy fisher-folk
and farmers of the plains. The hereditary predispositions of his mind
were in this way fostered by contact with the two races from which they
sprang.

Happy in the possession of this racial blending, he was still
more fortunate in the place of his birth. He used to remark with
satisfaction that both Sir Roderick Murchison and he had been born
on the Old Red Sandstone of the Black Isle; but while the career of
the author of the _Silurian System_ owed practically nothing to his
birth-place, which he left while still an infant, Miller's life from
beginning to end bore the impress of the surroundings amid which he
was born and educated. It would hardly be possible to choose in this
country a place of which the varied features are more admirably fitted
to stimulate the observing faculties, to foster a love of nature,
and to appeal to the poetic imagination than the winding shores, the
scarped cliffs, the tangled woods, the wild boulder-strewn moors and
distant sweep of blue mountains around Cromarty. And how often and
lovingly are these scenes portrayed by him under every varying phase of
weather and season! They had stamped themselves into his very soul and
had become an integral part of his being.


                     'The sounding cataract
     Haunted him like a passion; the tall rock,
     The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
     Their colours and their forms were then to him
     An appetite, a feeling, and a love.'


But while Nature was his first and best teacher, he has told us
in grateful words how much he owed to two uncles--hard-working,
sagacious, and observant men, by whom his young eyes were trained
to discriminate flower and tree, bird and insect, together with the
teeming organisms of the shore, and whose high moral worth he, even as
a boy, could appreciate. Having learnt to read while still of tender
years, he developed an insatiable thirst for books. What he acquired
in this way for himself seems to have been at least as useful as the
training gained during the rather desultory years spent by him at
the town grammar-school. He was an intelligent but wayward boy, as
much ahead of his schoolmates in general information as in all madcap
adventures among the crags and woods. When the time arrived at which
he had to choose his calling in life, he selected an occupation that
would still enable him to spend his days in the open air and gratify
his overmastering propensity for natural history pursuits. Much to
the chagrin of his family he determined to be a stone-mason, and at
the age of 17 was apprenticed to that trade. For some fifteen years
he continued to work in quarries and in the erection of buildings
in various districts of the north country, and even extended his
experience for a short time into Midlothian. Deeply interesting and
instructive is the record he has left of these years of mechanical
toil. But amidst all the hardships and temptations of the life, the
purity and strength of his character bore him nobly through. His keen
love of nature and his intense enjoyment of books were a never-failing
solace. He continued to gain access to, and even by degrees to possess,
a considerable body of the best literature in our language, reading
some of his favourite authors over twice in a year. He thus laid up a
store of information and allusion which his retentive memory enabled
him eventually to turn to excellent advantage.

While still at school he had gained some notice for the verses which
he wrote. In the intervals of his subsequent labours with mallet and
chisel, he continued to amuse himself in giving metrical expression
to his feelings and reflections, grave or gay. Conscious of his
power, though hardly yet aware in what direction it could best be
used, he resolved to collect and publish his verses. At the age of
seven-and-twenty he accordingly gave to the world a little volume with
the title _Poems written in the leisure hours of a Journeyman Mason_.
Not without some misgiving, however, did he make this first literary
venture. Even before the voices of the 'chorus of indolent reviewers'
could travel up from the south country, with their sententious
judgments of the merits and defects of this new peasant-poet, he set
himself to prepare some contributions in prose which might perchance
afford a better measure of his quality. Some years before that time
he had been out all night with the herring fleet, and he now sent
to the _Inverness Courier_ some letters descriptive of what he had
then seen. These made so favourable an impression that they were soon
afterwards reprinted separately. They marked the advent of a writer
gifted with no ordinary powers of narration and with the command of a
pure, nervous, and masculine style. The reception which these letters
met with from men in whose judgment and taste he had confidence formed
a turning point in his career. He now realised that his true strength
lay not in the writing of verses, but in descriptive prose. Some years,
however, still passed before he found the class of subjects on which
his pen could most effectively be exercised. In the meantime he began
to record the legends and traditions of his native district. Most of
these had been familiar to him from childhood, when he heard them
from the lips of old grey-headed men and women, but they were dying
out of remembrance as the older generations passed away. Part of his
leisure for several years was given to this pleasant task, until there
grew up under his hand a bulky volume of manuscript. This time he was
in no hurry to publish; the book did not make its appearance until
1835, as his charming _Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland_.
In this work some of the most striking passages were to be found, not
so much in the tales themselves which were narrated, as in the local
colouring and graphic setting that were given to them. The writer
displayed a singularly vivid power in the delineation of scenery,
and his allusions to the geology of the district, then almost wholly
unknown, attracted attention, since they showed that besides his keen
eye for the picturesque above ground, he knew something of the marvels
that lay beneath. He was feeling his way to what ultimately became his
most cherished and most useful task. He had realised that his main
object should be to know what was not generally known, 'to stand as an
interpreter between nature and the public,' and to perform the service
of narrating as pleasingly as he could, the facts which he culled in
walks not previously trodden, and of describing, as graphically as
might be, the inferences which he drew from them.

Ever after his first day's experience as an apprenticed mason in a
stone-quarry, of which he has left more than one impressive account,
he was led to interest himself in the diversified characters of the
rocks of the district. Even as a boy he had been familiar with the
more obvious varieties of stone to be met with in a tract of country
wherein the sedimentary formations of the Lowlands and the crystalline
masses of the Highlands have been thrown side by side. But he had
been attracted to them rather on account of their singular shapes
or brilliant colours, than from any regard to what might have been
their different modes of origin. Now, however, he had discovered
that these rocks are really monuments, wherein are recorded portions
of the past history of the earth, and he was full of hope that by
patient study he might yet be able to decipher them. The supply of
elementary treatises and text-books of science, in the present day
so abundant, had hardly at that time begun to come into existence.
Geology, indeed, had but recently attained a recognised position as
a distinct branch of science. And even had the young stone-mason
been able to possess himself of the whole of the scanty geological
literature of the time, it included no book that would have solved for
him the problems that daily confronted him as he pursued his labours
in the quarry, or rambled in leisure hours along the shore. The best
treatise which could have fallen into his hands and which would have
been full of enlightenment and suggestion for him--Playfair's immortal
_Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory_--had appeared seventeen years
before; but we have no evidence that it came in his way. He had
laboriously to work out his problems for himself.

Innumerable as are the subjects for geological enquiry offered by the
district of Cromarty, it was fortunate for Hugh Miller, and not less so
for the cause of science, that chance placed him face to face in the
most practical way with the Old Red Sandstone, and that he was, as it
were, compelled to attempt to understand its history. While the lessons
taught by the strata of the quarry had greatly impressed him, the
abundant and well-preserved fossils among the Lias shales of the Eathie
shore, which at spare moments he visited, had deepened that impression.
It was while endeavouring to find these shales nearer home, on the
western side of the Southern Sutor, that he stumbled upon the clays
which contain the fish-bearing nodules of the Old Red Sandstone. This
happy discovery, which was made in the autumn of 1830, the year after
the publication of his _Poems_, marks an eventful epoch in his life, as
well as an important date in the history of geological investigation.

At that time comparatively little was known of the Old Red Sandstone.
Its very existence as a distinct geological system was disputed on
the Continent, where no equivalent for it had been recognised. It was
alleged to be a mere local and accidental accumulation, which could
hardly be considered as of much historical importance, seeing that no
representative of it had been found beyond the British Islands. Yet
within the limits of these islands it was certainly known to bulk in
no inconsiderable dimensions, covering many hundreds of square miles,
and attaining a thickness of more than 10,000 feet. It had been clearly
shown by William Smith, the Father of English Geology, to occupy a
definite position beneath the Mountain Limestone, and above the ancient
'greywacke' which lay at the base of all the sedimentary series, and
he had indicated its range over England and Wales on his map published
as far back as 1815. In Scotland, too, its existence and importance as
a mere mass of rock in the general framework of the country had long
been recognised. Ami Boué had published in 1820 an excellent account of
its igneous rocks, but without any allusion to the organic wonders for
which it was yet to become famous. The extraordinary abundance of its
fossil fishes, where it spreads over Caithness, had been made known to
the world by Murchison in 1826, and in more detail the following year
when Sedgwick and he read their conjoint paper on the conglomerates and
other formations of the north of Scotland. But it may be doubted if any
of these publications had found their way to Cromarty when Miller was
gathering his first harvest of ichthyolites in the little bay within
half-a-mile of the town. He had passed over that beach many hundreds of
times in his boyhood without a suspicion of the treasures wrapped up
in the grey concretions that lay tossing in the tideway. On breaking
these stones, hoping to meet with a repetition of the Liassic organisms
with which he had grown familiar at Eathie, he found a group of forms
wholly different. At each interval of leisure he would repair to the
spot, and, digging out the nodules from their matrix of clay, would
patiently split them open and arrange them along the higher part of the
beach, according to what seemed to be the natural affinities of the
fossils enclosed within them. Scouring the parish for fresh exposures
of the nodule-bearing clay, he was soon rewarded by the discovery of
some six or eight additional deposits charged with the same remains.
There was a strange fascination in this pursuit. He had, as it were,
discovered a new world. No human eye had ever before beheld these
strange types of creation. Though he was well acquainted with the
marine life of the adjacent sea, he had never seen any creature that in
the least resembled them, or served to throw light on their structure.

With no chart or landmark to guide him into this new domain of nature,
he continued for years quietly to collect and compare. The first
imperfect knowledge which he was able to acquire regarding the few
modern representatives of the creatures disinterred by him at Cromarty
was derived in 1836 from a perusal of the well-known memoir by Hibbert
on the limestone of Burdiehouse. Next year, however, he made the
acquaintance of Dr. Malcolmson, who eventually carried some of his
specimens to London and the Continent, and was the means of bringing
him into correspondence with Murchison and Agassiz. Hugh Miller was
thus at last placed in direct communication with the world of science
and into relation with the men who were most thoroughly versed in the
subjects that had so long engrossed his thoughts, and most capable of
helping him to clear away the difficulties that beset his progress.

Meanwhile an important change had taken place in his condition of
life. During the year 1834, after having worked for fifteen years in
his calling of stone-mason, he was offered the accountantship of the
Commercial Bank agency to be opened at Cromarty. This offer, which came
to him unasked and unexpected, was a gratifying mark of the esteem
and confidence with which his character was regarded. He accepted
it, not without some diffidence as to his competence for the duties
required. It would, however, retain him in his native town, enable him
to marry the accomplished girl to whom he had for years been attached,
and afford him opportunity to prosecute the researches in the Old
Red Sandstone of which he had now come to realise the importance.
It likewise provided him with leisure to prepare contributions to
different periodicals, which, though of no great consequence to his
reputation, were of service in adding to an income narrow enough for
the support of a wife and family. These writings had this further
advantage, that they gave him a readier command of the pen, and
accustomed him to deal with lighter as well as graver subjects of
discussion, thus furnishing a useful training for what was ultimately
to be the main business of his later life.

At this time ecclesiastical questions occupied public attention in
Scotland to the exclusion of almost everything else. The Church was
entering on that stormy period which culminated in the great Disruption
of 1843. Hugh Miller, who was at once an earnest Christian and a
devoted son of the Church, watched the march of events with the deepest
sympathy. As a thoroughly 'Establishment man' he had taken but slender
interest in the previous Voluntary controversy, but the larger and more
vital conflict now in progress filled him with concern. It was his firm
conviction that the country contained 'no other institution half so
valuable as the Church, or in which the people had so large a stake.'
The anxiety with which the situation impressed him affected his sleep,
and he would ask himself, 'Can I do nothing for my Church in her hour
of peril?' The answer which he found was to write his famous _Letter
from one of the Scotch people to Lord Brougham_. This pamphlet was soon
after followed by another entitled, _The Whiggism of the Old School,
as exemplified in the past history and present position of the Church
of Scotland_. These writings, so cogent in argument and so vigorous
in style, had a wide circulation, and undoubtedly exercised much
influence on the progress of the ecclesiastical controversy throughout
the country. The leaders of the non-intrusion party, with whose cause
he showed such keen and helpful sympathy, soon after the appearance of
the first pamphlet invited Miller to confer with them in Edinburgh, and
offered him the editorship of their projected newspaper, the _Witness_.
With some misgiving as to his competence to meet all the various
demands of a journal that was to appear twice a week, he accepted the
proposal. Thus, after his five years' experience as a bank-accountant,
he became at the beginning of 1840, when he was thirty-seven years
of age, the editor of an important newspaper, and he retained that
position until his death.

Up to this time the name of Hugh Miller was but little known beyond
his native district. His political pamphlets first gave it a wide
reputation, and thenceforth his conduct of a journal that represented
the interests of one of the great parties into which his country
was divided kept him constantly before the eyes of the public. The
_Witness_ rapidly attained a large circulation. It appealed not merely
to the churchmen whose views it advocated, but to a wide class of
readers, who, apart from ecclesiastical polemics, could appreciate its
high tone, its sturdy independence, its honesty and candour, and the
unusual literary excellence of its leading articles. It not only upheld
but raised the standard of journalism in Scotland. As a great moral
force it exercised a healthy influence on the community. There cannot
be any doubt that the powerful advocacy of the _Witness_ was one of the
main agencies in sustaining the energies of the non-intrusion party and
in consolidating the position of the young Free Church. It is my own
deep conviction that the debt which that Church owes to Hugh Miller has
never yet been adequately acknowledged.

Before he had been many months in the editorial chair he began to
publish in the columns of his paper the first of that brilliant
succession of geological articles which attracted the attention of men
of science, as well as of the general public, and which continued to be
a characteristic feature of the _Witness_ up to the end of his life.
The first articles, describing his discoveries in the Old Red Sandstone
of Cromarty, created not a little sensation among the geologists who
had gathered in the year 1840 at the memorable meeting of the British
Association in Glasgow. It was there that Agassiz, who had come fresh
from the study of Swiss glaciers to the Scottish Highlands, announced
that he had found clear evidence that the mountains of this country
had once also nourished their glaciers and snow-fields. It was then,
too, that the same illustrious naturalist gave the first account of
the fossils found by Hugh Miller at Cromarty, one of which he named
after its discoverer. In that gathering of eminent men, Murchison
declared that the articles which had been appearing in the _Witness_
were 'written in a style so beautiful and poetical as to throw plain
geologists like himself into the shade.' Buckland, famous for his own
eloquent pages in the Bridgewater Treatise, expressed his unbounded
astonishment and admiration, affirming that 'he would give his left
hand to possess such powers of description.' The articles were next
year collected and expanded into his _Old Red Sandstone, or New Walks
in an Old Field_--the first and, in some respects, the freshest and
most delightful of all his scientific volumes.

In subsequent years there appeared in the same columns his _Cruise of
the Betsy_--a series of papers written among the Western Isles, and
full of the poetry and geological charm of that marvellous region;
his _Rambles of a Geologist_, in which he included the results of his
wanderings over Scotland between 1840 and 1848, and other essays, the
more important of which were collected with pious care by his widow,
and published in a succession of volumes after his death. His _First
Impressions of England and its People_ appeared in 1846, and greatly
increased the reputation of its writer as an observant traveller,
an able critic, and an accomplished writer, possessing a wide and
sympathetic acquaintance with English literature. The _Footprints of
the Creator_, which followed in 1847, was of a less popular character.
Its detailed account of the structure of some of the fishes of the Old
Red Sandstone is, however, of lasting value, though its controversy
with the _Vestiges of Creation_ has now little more than an historical
interest. The _Schools and Schoolmasters_, after running as usual
through the pages of the newspaper, was issued as a separate volume
in 1852, and was everywhere hailed as one of the most delightful and
instructive of all his works. The _Testimony of the Rocks_, with the
final proofs of which he was engaged on the last day of his life,
was issued a few months after he had been laid to rest beside his
friend Chalmers. Altogether of his collected writings, including those
that appeared in his lifetime, a series of twelve volumes has been
published, but many hundreds of articles of less permanent interest,
yet each marked by the distinctive charm of its writer, remain buried
in the files of the _Witness_.

If, from his writings alone, we judge of the extent and value of
the work achieved by Hugh Miller, we can have little hesitation in
believing that it is mainly his contributions to the literature of
science that will hand his name down to future generations. Like so
many other men who have attained distinction in the same field, he from
the beginning to the end made geology his recreation, in the midst of
other paramount pre-occupations. It furnished him with solace from
the toils of the quarry and the building yard, it supplied him with a
healthful relief from the labours of the bank, and when in later years
he escaped each autumn for a few weeks of much needed leisure from the
cares and responsibilities of the Editor's desk, it led him to ramble
at will all over his native country, and brought him into acquaintance
with every type of its rocks and its landscapes.

Unquestionably the most original part of his scientific work, that
wherein he added most to the sum of acquired knowledge, is to be
found in his reconstruction of the extinct types of fishes which he
discovered in the Old Red Sandstone. The merit of these labours can
hardly be properly appreciated unless it be borne in mind that he came
to the study of the subject with no preliminary biological training,
save what he could pick up for himself from an examination of such
denizens of the waters of the neighbouring firths as he could meet
with. But after prolonged search he could find in these northern seas
no living creatures, the structure of which afforded him any clue to
that of the fossil fishes of Cromarty. Some men had concluded that the
organisms were ancient turtles, others that they were crustaceans,
or even aquatic beetles. He had the sagacity, however, to surmise
that they were probably all fishes, and he enjoyed the satisfaction
afterwards of learning that Agassiz pronounced even the most bizarre
amongst them to belong to that great division of the animal kingdom.
He was guided by his own intuitive conception of what must have been
the plan on which these long vanished types of organic structure had
been fashioned. Huxley, who twenty years afterwards had occasion to
subject the Old Red Sandstone fishes to critical study, and who brought
to the inquiry all the resources of modern biology, has left on record
the impression made on his mind by a minute revision of Hugh Miller's
work. 'The more I study the fishes of the "Old Red,"' he remarks, 'the
more am I struck with the patience and sagacity manifested in Hugh
Miller's researches, and by the natural insight which in his case seems
to have supplied the place of special anatomical knowledge.' He refers
to the 'excellent restoration of _Osteolepis_,' in which even some of
the minute peculiarities had not escaped notice, and he declares that
Hugh Miller had made known almost the whole organisation of _Dipterus_,
and had thus anticipated the most important part of Professor Pander's
labours in the same field, the distinguished Russian palæontologist not
having been aware that the work had already been done in Scotland.

But it is not, in my opinion, by the extent or value of his original
contributions to geology that the importance of Hugh Miller's
scientific labours and writings should be measured. Other men, who have
left no conspicuous mark on their time, have surpassed him in these
respects. What we more especially owe to him is the awakening of a
wide-spread interest in the methods and results of scientific inquiry.
More than any other author of his day, he taught men to recognise that
beneath the technicalities and jargon of the schools, that are too
apt to conceal the meaning of the facts and inferences which they
express, there lie the most vital truths in regard to the world in
which we live. He clothed the dry bones of science with living flesh
and blood. He made the aspects of past ages to stand out picturesquely
before us, as his vivid imagination conceived that they must once
have been. He awakened an enthusiasm for geological questions, such
as had never before existed, and this wave of popular appreciation
which he set in motion has never since ceased to pulsate throughout
the English-speaking peoples of the world. His genial ardour and
irresistible eloquence swept away the last remnants of the barrier
of orthodox prejudice against geology in this country. The present
generation can hardly realise the former strength of that bigotry,
or appreciate the merit of the service rendered in the breaking of
it down. The well-known satirical criticism of the poet Cowper[100]
expressed a prevalent feeling among the orthodox of his day, and this
feeling was still far from extinct when Miller began to write. I can
recall manifestations of it even within my own experience. No one,
however, could doubt his absolute orthodoxy, and when the cause of the
science was so vigorously espoused by him, the voices of the objectors
were finally silenced. There was another class of cavillers who looked
on geology as a mere collecting of minerals, a kind of laborious
trifling concealed under a cover of uncouth technical terms. Their view
was well expressed by Wordsworth when he singled out for contemptuous
scorn the enthusiast who carried a pocket hammer with which he chipped
off splinters of the rocks, and left raw scars as marks of his
progress.[101]

But a champion had now arisen who, as far as might be, discarding
technicalities, made even the dullest reader feel that the geologist is
the historian of the earth, that he deals with a series of chronicles
as real and as decipherable as those that record human events, and that
they can be made not only intelligible but attractive, as the subjects
of simple and eloquent prose.

The absence of technical detail, which makes one of the charms of
Hugh Miller's books to the non-scientific reader, may be regarded as
a defect by the strict and formal geologist. Like every other branch
of natural science, geology rests on a basis of observation, which
frequently depends for its value upon the minuteness and accuracy of
its details. To collect these details is often a laborious task, which
is seldom undertaken save by those to whose department of the science
they specially belong. A palæontologist cannot be expected to devote
his time to the study of the microscopic characters of minerals and
rocks. He leaves that research to the petrographer, who, on the other
hand, will not readily embark on an investigation of the minute anatomy
of fossil plants or animals. This specialisation, which has always to
some extent existed, necessarily becomes more pronounced as science
advances. The days are far past for Admirable Crichtons, and it is no
longer possible for any one man to be equally versed in every branch of
even a single department of natural knowledge.

Hugh Miller's researches among the Old Red Sandstone fishes showed
him to be above all a naturalist and palæontologist, capable of
expending any needful amount of patient labour in working out the
minutest details of organic structure. In other fields of geological
inquiry, while he was far from undervaluing the importance of detail,
he avoided the recapitulation of it in his writings. It interested
him, indeed, only in so far as it enabled him to reach some broad
conclusion or to fill in the canvas of some striking picture of bygone
aspects of the earth's surface. Hence he did not apply himself to the
minute investigation of problems of geological structure, and when he
undertook any inquiry in that direction he was apt to start rather from
the palæontological than the physical side. Thus the work of his last
years along the shores of the Firth of Forth, wherein he sought to
accumulate proofs of the comparatively recent upheaval of the land, was
mainly based on the position of shells with reference to their present
habitat in the adjacent seas. As a youth enthusiastically geological,
I was privileged to enjoy his friendship, sometimes accompanying him
on an excursion, and always spending an evening with him after one of
his autumn journeys, that we might exchange the results of our several
peregrinations. Only a few weeks before his death, on the last of those
memorable evenings, he had his trophy of shells spread on the table,
which enabled him to prove that at no very distant date Scotland was
cut in two by a sea-strait that connected the Firths of Forth and
Clyde. He had found marine shells at Bucklyvie, on the flat ground
about midway between the two estuaries. Finding me not quite clear as
to the precise geographical position of his shell-bed, he burst out
triumphantly with the lines placed by Scott at the head of the chapter
in _Rob Roy_, which tells of the journey of Bailie Nicol Jarvie and
Osbaldistone into the Highlands:


        'Baron of Bucklyvie
         May the foul fiend drive ye,
         And a' to pieces rive ye,
         For building sic a toun,
     Where there's neither horse meat, nor man's meat, nor a chair to
       sit doun.'


I remember, too, that on that occasion I had brought with me the
detailed map of Arthur's Seat at Edinburgh, of which I had just
completed the geological survey, and I explained to him in some detail
what I had found to be the structure of the hill. Having grasped the
main succession of the rocks, he with characteristic rapidity passed
from the particulars which I had given him to the events of which they
were the record, and turning to his daughter, who was sitting near, he
exclaimed to her, 'There, Harriet, is material for such an essay as has
been prescribed to you at school.' Then in a few graphic sentences he
drew a picture of what seemed to him to have been the history of the
old volcano.

While various causes no doubt contributed in this country to the
remarkable and rapid increase in the general appreciation of the
interest of geological investigation, I feel assured that one of
the chief of them has been Hugh Miller's imaginative grasp of the
subject, and his eloquent advocacy. The personal experience of a
single individual can count for little in an estimate of this kind; but
for what it may be worth, I gladly avail myself of this opportunity
to state mine. It was Hugh Miller's _Old Red Sandstone_ that first
revealed to me the ancient history that might lie concealed in the
hills around me, and the meanings that might be hidden in the commonest
stones beneath my feet. I had been interested in such objects, as boys
are apt to be who spend much of their time in the open country. But it
was that book which set me on the path of intelligent inquiry. And this
experience must doubtless have been shared by many thousands of his
readers, who never saw his living face and who never became geologists.

I have alluded to the excellence of his literary style--a
characteristic which unfortunately is only too rare among writers
in science. There can be little doubt that this feature of his work
will constitute one of its claims to perpetual recognition. His early
and wide acquaintance with our literature enabled him to intersperse
through his pages many an apposite quotation and felicitous allusion.
He had set before himself as models the best prose writers of the
previous century, and the influence of Goldsmith upon him is especially
notable. He thus acquired the command of pure, idiomatic and forcible
language, wherein to clothe the arguments which he wished to enforce,
to describe the landscapes which had imprinted themselves like
photographs on his memory, and to present restorations of ancient lands
and seas which his poetic temperament and powerful imagination called
up before his eyes. Moreover, he had a keen sense of humour, which
would show itself from time to time, even in the midst of a scientific
discussion. He could not bear dulness in others, and strove to avoid
it himself. Where his subject might have been apt to grow wearisome,
he contrived to lighten it with unexpected flashes of pleasantry or
with some pertinent words from a favourite author. This felicitous
style seemed so spontaneous, and yet it was in reality the result of
the most scrupulous attention. Even in his newspaper articles on the
multifarious topics of the passing day, he continued to maintain the
same high standard of composition. He has left as his literary monument
a series of works that may serve as models of English writing.

In estimating a man's influence on the world we look not only at his
work but on his character, often the more important and valuable of
the two. Judged from this side, Hugh Miller's claims to our regard and
admiration are not less strong for what he was than for what he did.
Pious and pure-minded, full of generous sympathies, and alive to all
that was noblest and best in human life, he was endowed with a manly
independence of nature which kept his head erect in every changing
phase of his career, and won for him the respect of all, gentle and
simple, who came in contact with him. Though naturally robust, his
occupation as a mason had left behind some seeds of disease. He was
at different times attacked with inflammation of the lungs and other
disorders of enfeebled health. His strong sense of duty, however, kept
him at his post when prudence earnestly counselled rest. At last the
strain became too great, and brought a noble and well-spent life to a
sudden and tragic end.

It is to me a valued privilege to take part to-day in the centenary
celebration of such a man. The years slip away, and I am probably the
only geologist now alive who knew Hugh Miller well. He was my earliest
scientific friend. Some boyish articles I had written in an Edinburgh
newspaper on a geological excursion to the Isle of Arran had gained
me his acquaintance, and ever thereafter I enjoyed his friendship and
profited by his encouragement. To his helpful intervention I owed my
introduction to Murchison, and thence my entry into the Geological
Survey. His death was one of the great bereavements of my youth. It is
therefore with heartfelt gratification that here, in his native town,
so early familiar to me from his graphic descriptions, I find myself
permitted on this public occasion gratefully to express my life-long
indebtedness to him for his noble example, for the stimulus of his
writings, and for the personal kindness which I received at his hands.

FOOTNOTES:

[99] An Address given at the Centenary Celebration of his Birth held in
Cromarty on 22nd August, 1902.

[100] See _ante_, p. 128.

[101] The passage has been cited on p. 128.




IX

Science in Education[102]


When the history of Education during the nineteenth century comes to
be written, one of its most striking features will be presented by the
rise and growth of Science in the general educational arrangements of
every civilised country. At the beginning of the century our schools
and colleges were still following, with comparatively little change,
the methods and subjects of tuition that had been in use from the
time of the Middle Ages. But the extraordinary development of the
physical and natural sciences, which has done so much to alter the
ordinary conditions of life, has powerfully affected also our system
of public instruction. The medieval circle of studies has been widely
recognised not to supply all the mental training needed in the ampler
range of modern requirement. Science has, step by step, gained a
footing in the strongholds of the older learning. Not without vehement
struggle, however, has she been able to intrench herself there. Even
now, although her ultimate victory is assured, the warfare is by no
means at an end. The jealousy of the older régime and the strenuous,
if sometimes blatant, belligerency of the reformers have not yet
been pacified; and, from time to time, within our public schools and
universities, there may still be heard the growls of opposition and
the shouts of conflict. But these sounds are growing fainter. Even
the most conservative don hardly ventures nowadays openly to denounce
science and all her works. Grudgingly, it may be, but yet perforce,
he has to admit the teaching of modern science to a place among the
subjects which the university embraces, and in which it grants degrees.
In our public schools a 'modern side' has been introduced, and even on
the classical side an increasing share of the curriculum is devoted to
oral and practical teaching in science. New colleges have been founded
in the more important centres of population, for the purpose, more
particularly, of enabling the community to obtain a thorough education
in modern science.

The mainspring of this remarkable educational revolution has,
doubtless, been the earnest conviction that the older learning was
no longer adequate in the changed and changing conditions of our
time; that vast new fields of knowledge, opened up by the increased
study of nature, ought to be included in any scheme of instruction
intended to fit men for the struggle of modern life, and that in this
newer knowledge much might be found to minister to the highest ends
of education. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that utilitarian
considerations have not been wholly absent from the minds of the
reformers. Science has many and far-reaching practical applications.
It has called into existence many new trades and professions, and has
greatly modified many of those of older date. In a thousand varied
ways it has come into the ordinary affairs of every-day life. Its
cultivation has brought innumerable material benefits; its neglect
would obviously entail many serious industrial disadvantages, and
could not fail to leave us behind in the commercial progress of the
nations of the globe. So much have these considerations pressed upon
the attention of the public in recent years that, besides all the other
educational machinery to which I have referred, technical schools have
been established in many towns for the purpose of teaching the theory
as well as the practice of various arts and industries, and making
artisans understand the nature of the processes with which their trades
are concerned.

That this educational transformation, which has been advancing during
the century, has resulted in great benefit to the community at large
can hardly be denied. Besides the obvious material gains, there has
been a widening of the whole range and methods of our teaching; the old
subjects are better, because more scientifically, taught, and the new
subjects enlist the attention and sympathy of large classes of pupils
whom the earlier studies only languidly interested. Nevertheless, it is
incumbent on those who have advocated and carried out this change to
ask themselves whether it has brought with it no drawbacks. They may be
sure that no such extensive reform could possibly be introduced without
defects appearing in it somewhere. And it is well to look these
defects in the face, and, as far as may be possible, remove them. In
considering how I might best discharge the duty with which I have been
honoured of addressing the students of Mason College this evening, I
have thought that it might not be inappropriate if, as a representative
of science, I were to venture to point out some of the drawbacks as
well as the advantages of the position which science has attained in
our educational system.

At the outset no impartial onlooker can fail to notice that the natural
reaction against the dominance of the older learning has tended to
induce an undervaluing of the benefits which that learning afforded and
can still bestow. In this College, indeed, and in other institutions
more specially designed for instruction in science, provision has also
been made for the teaching of Latin, Greek, and the more important
modern languages and literatures. But in such institutions, these
subjects usually hold only a subordinate place. It can hardly be denied
that generally throughout the country, even although the literary side
of education still maintains its pre-eminence in our public schools
and universities, it is losing ground, and that every year it occupies
less of the attention of students of science. The range of studies
which the science examinations demand is always widening, while the
academic period within which these studies must be crowded undergoes
no extension. Those students, therefore, who, whether from necessity
or choice, have taken their college education in science, naturally
experience no little difficulty in finding time for the absolutely
essential subjects required for their degrees. Well may they declare
that it is hopeless for them to attempt to engage in anything more, and
especially in anything that will not tell directly on their places in
the final class-lists. With the best will in the world, and with even,
sometimes, a bent for literary pursuits, they may believe themselves
compelled to devote their whole time and energies to the multifarious
exactions of their science curriculum.

Such a result of our latest reformation in education may be
unavoidable, but it is surely matter for regret. A training in science
and scientific methods, admirable as it is in so many ways, fails to
supply those humanising influences which the older learning can so well
impart. For the moral stimulus that comes from an association with
all that is noblest and best in the literatures of the past, for the
culture and taste that spring from prolonged contact with the highest
models of literary expression, for the widening of our sympathies
and the vivifying of our imagination by the study of history and
philosophy, the teaching of science has no proper equivalents.

Men who have completed their formal education with little or no help
from the older learning may be pardoned should they be apt to despise
such help and to believe that they can very well dispense with it in
the race of life. My first earnest advice to the science students of
this College is, not to entertain this belief and to refuse to act on
it. Be assured that, in your future career whatever it may be, you will
find in literature a source of solace and refreshment, of strength
and encouragement, such as no department of science can give you.
There will come times, even to the most enthusiastic among you, when
scientific work, in spite of its absorbing interest, grows to be a
weariness. At such times as these you will appreciate the value of the
literary culture you may have received at school or college. Cherish
the literary tastes you have acquired, and devote yourself sedulously
to the further cultivation of them during such intervals of leisure as
you may be able to secure.

Over and above the pleasure which communion with the best books will
bring with it, two reasons of a more utilitarian kind may be given to
science students why they should seek this communion. Men who have been
too exclusively trained in science, or are too much absorbed in its
pursuit, are not always the most agreeable members of society. They are
apt to be somewhat angular and professional, contributing little that
is interesting to general conversation, save when they get a chance
of introducing their own science and its doings. Perhaps the greatest
bore I ever met was a man of science, whose mind and training were so
wholly mathematical and physical that he seemed unable to look at the
simplest subject save in its physical relations, about which he would
discourse till he had long exhausted the patience of the auditor whom
he detained. There is no more efficacious remedy for this tendency to
what is popularly known as 'shop' than the breadth and culture of mind
that spring from wide reading in ancient and modern literature.

The other reason for the advice I offer you is one of which you will
hardly, perhaps, appreciate the full force in the present stage of
your career. One result of the comparative neglect of the literary side
of education by many men of science is conspicuously seen in their
literary style. It is true that in our time we have had some eminent
scientific workers, who have also been masters of nervous and eloquent
English. But it is not less true that the literature of science is
burdened with a vast mass of slipshod, ungrammatical and clumsy
writing, wherein sometimes even the meaning of the authors is left in
doubt. Let me press upon you the obvious duty of not increasing this
unwieldy burden. Study the best masters of style, and when once you
have made up your minds what you want to say, try to express it in the
simplest, clearest, and most graceful language you can find.

Remember that, while education is the drawing out and cultivation of
all the powers of the mind, no system has yet been devised that will by
itself develop with equal success every one of these powers. The system
under which we have been trained may have done as much for us as it
can do. Each of us is thereafter left to supplement its deficiencies
by self-culture. And in the ordinary science-instruction of the time
one of the most obvious of these inevitable deficiencies is the undue
limitation or neglect of the literary side of education.

But in the science-instruction itself there are dangers regarding
which we cannot be too watchful. In this College and in all the
other well-organised scientific institutions of the country, the
principles of science are taught orally and experimentally. Every
branch of knowledge is expounded in its bearings on other branches.
Its theory is held up as the first great aim of instruction, and its
practical applications are made subsequent and subordinate. Divisions
of science are taught here which may have few practical applications,
but which are necessary for a comprehensive survey of the whole circle
of scientific truth. Now, you may possibly have heard, and in the
midst of a busy industrial community you are not unlikely to hear,
remarks made in criticism of this system or method of tuition. The
importance of scientific training will be frankly acknowledged and
even insisted upon, but you will sometimes hear this admission coupled
with the proviso that the science must be of a practical kind; must,
in short, be just such and no other, as will fit young men to turn it
to practical use in the manufactures or industries to which they may
be summoned. The critics who make this limitation boast that they are
practical men, and that in their opinion theory is useless or worse for
the main purposes for which they would encourage and support a great
scientific school.

Now I am quite sure that those science students who have passed even
a single session in Mason College can see for themselves the utter
fallacy of such statements and the injury that would be done to the
practical usefulness of this institution, and to the general progress
of the industrial applications of science, if such short-sighted views
were ever carried into effect. There can be no thorough, adequate, and
effective training in science unless it be based on a comprehensive
study of facts and principles, altogether apart from any economic uses
to which they may be put. Science must be pursued for her own sake, in
the first instance, and without reference to any pecuniary benefits she
may be able to confer. We never can tell when the most theoretical part
of pure science may be capable of being turned to the most important
practical uses. Who could have surmised, for instance, that in the
early tentative experiments of Volta, Galvani, and others last century
lay the germ of the modern world-grasping electric telegraph? Or when
Wedgwood, at the beginning of this century, copied paintings by the
agency of light upon nitrate of silver, who could have foretold that he
was laying the foundations of the marvellous art of photography.

There can be no more pernicious doctrine than that which would
measure the commercial value of science by its immediate practical
usefulness, and would restrict its place in education to those only
of its sub-divisions which may be of service to the industries of the
present time. Such a curtailed method of instruction is not education
in the true sense of the term. It is only a kind of cramming for a
specific purpose, and the knowledge which it imparts, being one-sided
and imperfect, is of little value beyond its own limited range. I by
no means wish to undervalue the importance of technical instruction.
By all means let our artisans know as much as can be taught them
regarding the nature and laws of the scientific processes in which
they are engaged. But it is not by mere technical instruction that
we shall maintain and extend the industrial and commercial greatness
of the country. If we are not only to hold our own, but to widen
the boundaries of applied science, to perfect our manufactures, and
to bring new departments of Nature into the service of man, it is by
broad, thorough, untrammelled scientific research that our success must
be achieved.

When, therefore, you are asked to explain of what practical use are
some of the branches of science in which you have been trained, do not
lose patience with your questioner, nor answer him as you think such a
Philistine deserves to be answered. Give him a few illustrations of the
thousands of ways in which science, that might have been stigmatised
by him as merely abstract and theoretical, has yet been made to
minister to the practical needs of humanity. Above all, urge him to
attend some of the classes of Mason College, where he will learn, in
the most effectual manner, the intimate connection between theory and
practice. If he chance to be wealthy, the experiment may possibly open
his eyes to the more urgent needs of the institution and induce him to
contribute liberally towards their satisfaction.

Among the advantages and privileges of your life at college there
is one, the full significance and value of which you will better
appreciate in later years. You have here an opportunity of acquiring a
wide general view of the whole range of scientific thought and method.
If you proceed to a science degree you are required to lay a broad
foundation of acquaintance with the physical and biological sciences.
You are thus brought into contact with the subjects of each great
department of natural knowledge, and you learn enough regarding them
to enable you to understand their scope and to sympathise with the
workers who are engaged upon them. But when your academical career is
ended, no such chance of wide general training is ever likely to be
yours again. You will be dragged into the whirl of life, where you
will probably find little time or opportunity to travel much beyond
the sphere of employment to which you may have been called. Make the
most, therefore, of the advantages which in this respect you meet with
here. Try to ensure that your acquaintance with each branch of science
embraced in your circle of studies shall be as full and accurate as
lies in your power to make it. Even in departments outside the bounds
of your own tastes and ultimate requirements, do not neglect the
means provided for your gaining some knowledge of them. I urge this
duty, not because its diligent discharge will obviously tell in your
examinations, but because it will give you that scientific culture
which while enabling you to appreciate and enjoy the successive
advances of other sciences than that which you may select for special
cultivation, will at the same time increase your general usefulness and
aid you in your own researches.

The days of Admirable Crichtons are long since past. So rapid and
general is the onward march of science that not only can no man keep
pace with it in every direction, but it has become almost hopelessly
impossible to remain abreast of the progress in each of the several
sub-divisions of even a single science. We are entering more and more
upon the age of specialists. It grows increasingly difficult for the
specialists, even in kindred sciences, to remain in touch with each
other. When you find yourselves fairly launched into the vortex of
life you will look back with infinite satisfaction to the time when you
were enabled to lay a broad and solid platform of general acquirement
within the walls of this College.

Perhaps the most remarkable defect in the older or literary methods
of education was the neglect of the faculty of observation. For the
training of the other mental faculties ample provision was made, but
for this, one of the most important of the whole, no care was taken.
If a boy was naturally observant, he was left to cultivate the use of
his eyes as he best might; if he was not observant, nothing was done
to improve him in this respect, unless it were, here and there, by
the influence of such an intelligent teacher as is described in Mrs.
Barbauld's famous story of _Eyes and No Eyes_. Even when science began
to be introduced into our schools, it was still taught in the old or
literary fashion. Lectures and lessons were given by masters who got
up their information from books, but had no practical knowledge of the
subjects they taught. Class-books were written by men equally destitute
of a personal acquaintance with any department of science. The lessons
were learnt by rote, and not infrequently afforded opportunities
rather for frolic than for instruction. Happily this state of things,
though not quite extinct, is rapidly passing away. Practical tuition
is everywhere coming into use, while the old-fashioned cut-and-dry
lesson-book is giving way to the laboratory, the field-excursion, and
the school-museum.

It is mainly through the eyes that we gain our knowledge and
appreciation of the world in which we live. But we are not all equally
endowed with the gift of intelligent vision. On the contrary, in no
respect, perhaps, do we differ more from each other than in our powers
of observation. Obviously, a man who has a quick eye to note what
passes around him must, in the ordinary affairs of life, stand at a
considerable advantage over another man who moves unobservantly on
his course. We cannot create an observing faculty any more than we
can create a memory, but we may do much to develop both. This is a
feature in education of much more practical and national importance
than might be supposed. I suspect that it lies closer than might
be imagined to the success of our commercial relations abroad. Our
prevalent system of instruction has for generations past done nothing
to cultivate the habit of observation, and has thus undoubtedly left us
at a disadvantage in comparison with nations that have adopted methods
of tuition wherein the observing faculty is regularly trained. With
our world-wide commerce we have gone on supplying to foreign countries
the same manufactured goods for which our fathers found markets in all
quarters of the globe. Our traders, however, now find themselves in
competition with traders from other nations who have been trained to
better use of their powers of observation, and who, taking careful note
of the gradually changing tastes and requirements of the races which
they visit, have been quick to report these changes and to take means
for meeting them. Thus, in our own centres of trade we find ourselves
in danger of being displaced by rivals with sharper eyes and greater
powers of adaptation.

It is the special function of science to cultivate this faculty of
observation. Here in Mason College, from the very beginning of your
scientific studies you have been taught to use your eyes, to watch the
phenomena that appear and disappear around you, to note the sequence
and relation of these phenomena, and thus, as it were, to enter beneath
the surface into the very soul of things. You cannot, however, have
failed to remark among your fellow-students great inequalities in their
powers of observation, and great differences in the development of
these powers under the very same system of instruction. And you may
have noticed that, speaking generally, those class-mates who have shown
the best observing faculty have taken a foremost place among their
fellows. It is not a question of mere brain-power. A man may possess
a colossal intellect, while his faculty of observation may be of the
feeblest kind. One of the greatest mathematicians of this century who,
full of honours, recently passed away from us, had so little cognisance
of his surroundings, that many ludicrous stories are told of his
child-like mistakes as to place and time.

The continued development of the faculty of prompt and accurate
observation is a task on which you cannot bestow too much attention.
Your education here must already have taught you its value. In your
future career the use you make of this faculty may determine your
success or your failure. But not only have your studies in this College
trained your observing powers, they have at the same time greatly
widened the range of your mental vision by the variety of objects which
you have been compelled to look at and examine. The same methods which
have been so full of benefit to you here can be continued by you in
after life. And be assured that in maintaining them in active use you
will take the most effective means for securing success in the careers
you may choose to follow.

But above and beyond the prospect of any material success there is a
higher motive which will doubtless impel you. The education of your
observing faculty has been carried on during your introduction to new
realms of knowledge. The whole domain of Nature has been spread out
before you. You have been taught to observe thousands of objects and
processes of which, common though they may be, you had previously
taken no note. Henceforth, wherever you may go, you cannot wander with
ignorant or unobservant eyes. Land and sea and sky, bird and beast
and flower, now awaken in you a new interest, for you have learned
lessons from them that have profoundly impressed you, and you have
discovered meanings in them of which you had never dreamed. You have
been permitted to pass within the veil of nature, and to perceive some
of the inner mechanism of this world.

Thus, your training in science has not only taught you to use your
eyes, but to use them intelligently, and in such a way as to see much
more in the world around you than is visible to the uninstructed man.
This widened perception might be illustrated from any department of
natural science. Let me take, by way of example, the relation of the
student of science towards the features and charms of landscape. It
may be said that no training is needed to comprehend these beauties;
that the man in the street, the holiday-maker from town, is just as
competent as the man of science to appreciate them, and get quite as
much pleasure out of them. We need not stop to discuss the relative
amounts of enjoyment which different orders of spectators may derive
from scenery; but obviously the student of science has one great
advantage in this matter. Not only can he enjoy to the full all the
outward charms which appeal to the ordinary eye, but he sees in the
features of the landscape new charms and interests which the ordinary
untrained eye cannot see. Your accomplished Professor of Geology has
taught you the significance of the outer lineaments of the land. While
under his guidance you have traced with delight the varied features of
the lovely landscapes of the Midlands, your eyes have been trained to
mark their connection with each other, and their respective places in
the ordered symmetry of the whole scene. You perceive why there is here
a height and there a hollow; you note what has given the ridges and
vales their dominant forms and directions; you detect the causes that
have spread out a meadow in one place and raised up a hill in another.

Above and beyond all questions as to the connection and origin of its
several parts, the landscape appeals vividly to your imagination.
You know that it has not always worn the aspect which it presents
to-day. You have observed in these ridges proofs that the sea once
covered their site. You have seen the remains of long extinct shells,
fishes, and reptiles that have been disinterred from the mud and silt
left behind by the vanished waters. You have found evidence that not
once only, but again and again, after vast lapses of time and many
successive revolutions, the land has sunk beneath the ocean and has
once more emerged. You have been shown traces of underground commotion,
and you can point to places where, over central England, volcanoes were
once active. You have learnt that the various elements of the landscape
have thus been gradually put together during successive ages, and that
the slow processes, whereby the characteristic forms of the ground have
been carved out, are still in progress under your eye.

While, therefore, you are keenly alive to the present beauty of the
scene, it speaks to you at every turn of the past. Each feature recalls
some incident in the strange primeval history that has been transacted
here. The succession of contrasts between what is now and what has been
fills you with wonder and delight. You feel as if a new sense had been
given to you, and that with its aid your appreciation of scenery has
been enlarged and deepened to a marvellous degree.

And so too is it with your relation to all the other departments of
Nature. The movements of the clouds, the fall of rain, the flow of
brook and river, the changes of the seasons, the succession of calm and
storm, do not pass before your eyes now as they once did. While they
minister to the joy of life, they speak to you of that all-embracing
system of process and law that governs the world. The wayside flower
is no longer to your eyes merely a thing of beauty. You have found it
to be that and far more--an exquisite organism in which the several
parts are admirably designed to promote the growth of the plant and to
perpetuate the life of the species. Every insect and bird is now to you
an embodiment of the mystery of life. The forces of Nature, once so
dark and so dreaded, are now seen by you to be intelligible, orderly
and capable of adaptation to the purposes of man. In the physical and
chemical laboratories you have been brought into personal contact with
these forces, and have learnt to direct their operations, as you have
watched the manifold effects of energy upon the infinite varieties of
matter.

When you have completed your course of study and leave this College,
crowned, I hope, with academic distinction, there will be your future
career in life to choose and follow. A small number among you may,
perhaps, be so circumstanced as to be able to devote yourselves
entirely to original scientific research, selecting such branches
of inquiry as may have specially interested you here, and giving up
your whole time and energy to investigation. A much larger number
will, no doubt, enter professions where a scientific training can be
turned to practical account, and you may become engineers, chemists,
or medical men. But in the struggle for existence, which every year
grows keener amongst us, these professions are more and more crowded,
so that a large proportion of your ranks may not succeed in finding
places there, and may in the end be pushed into walks in life where
there may be little or no opportunity for making much practical use of
the knowledge in science which you have gained here. To those who may
ultimately be thus situated it will always be of advantage to have had
the mental training given in this Institution, and it will probably be
your own fault if, even under unfavourable conditions, you do not find,
from time to time, chances of turning your scientific acquirements to
account. Your indebtedness to your professors demands that you shall
make the effort, and, for the credit of the College, you are bound to
do your best.

Among the mental habits which your education in science has helped
to foster, there are a few which I would specially commend to your
attention as worthy of your most sedulous care all through life.

In the first place I would put Accuracy. You have learnt in the
laboratory how absolutely essential this condition is for scientific
investigation. We are all supposed to make the ascertainment of the
truth our chief aim, but we do not all take the same trouble to attain
it. Accuracy involves labour, and every man is not gifted with an
infinite capacity for taking pains. Inexactness of observation is sure
sooner or later to be detected, and to be visited on the head of the
man who commits it. If his observations are incorrect, the conclusions
he has drawn from them may be vitiated. Thus all the toil he has
endured in a research may be rendered of no avail, and the reputation
he might have gained is not only lost but replaced by discredit. It
is quite true that absolute accuracy is often unattainable; you can
only approach it. But the greater the exertion you make to reach it,
the greater will be the success of your investigations. The effort
after accuracy will be transferred from your scientific work to your
every-day life and become a habit of mind, advantageous both to
yourselves and to society at large.

In the next place, I would set Thoroughness, which is closely akin
to accuracy. Again, your training here has shown you how needful
it is in scientific research to adopt thorough and exhaustive
methods of procedure. The conditions to be taken into account are so
numerous and complex, the possible combinations so manifold, before
a satisfactory conclusion can be reached. A laborious collection of
facts must be made. Each supposed fact must be sifted out and weighed.
The evidence must be gone over again and yet again, each link in its
chain being scrupulously tested. The deduction to which the evidence
may seem to point must be closely and impartially scrutinised, every
other conceivable explanation of the facts being frankly and fully
considered. Obviously the man whose education has inured him to the
cultivation of a mental habit of this kind is admirably equipped for
success in any walk in life which he may be called upon to enter.
The accuracy and thoroughness which you have learnt to appreciate
and practise at College must never be dropped in later years. Carry
them with you as watchwords, and make them characteristic of all your
undertakings.

In the third place, we may take Breadth. At the outset of your
scientific education you were doubtless profoundly impressed by the
multiplicity of detail which met your eye in every department of
natural knowledge. When you entered upon the study of one of these
departments, you felt, perhaps, almost overpowered and bewildered
by the vast mass of facts with which you had to make acquaintance.
And yet as your training advanced, you gradually came to see that
the infinite variety of phenomena could all be marshalled, according
to definite laws, into groups and series. You were led to look
beyond the details to the great principles that underlie them and
bind them into a harmonious and organic whole. With the help of a
guiding system of classification, you were able to see the connection
between the separate facts, to arrange them according to their
mutual relations, and thus to ascend to the great general laws under
which the material world has been constructed. With all attainable
thoroughness in the mastery of detail, you have been taught to combine
a breadth of treatment which enables you to find and keep a leading
clue even through the midst of what might seem a tangled web of
confusion. There are some men who cannot see the wood for the trees,
and who consequently can never attain great success in scientific
investigation. Let it be your aim to master fully the details of the
tree, and yet to maintain such a breadth of vision as will enable you
to embrace the whole forest within your ken. I need not enlarge on the
practical value of this mental habit in every-day life, nor point out
the excellent manner in which a scientific education tends to develop
it.

In the fourth place, I would inculcate the habit of wide Reading
in scientific literature. Although the progress of science is now
too rapid for any man to keep pace with the advance of all its
departments, you should try to hold yourselves in touch with at least
the main results arrived at in other branches than your own; while,
in that branch itself, it should be your constant aim to watch every
onward step that is taken by others, and not to fall behind the van.
This task you will find to be no light one. Even were it confined to a
survey of the march of science in your own country, it would be arduous
enough to engage much of your time. But science belongs to no country,
and continues its onward advance all over the globe. If you would
keep yourselves informed regarding this progress in other countries,
as you are bound to do if you would not willingly be left behind, you
will need to follow the scientific literature of those countries.
You must be able to read at least French and German. You will find
in these languages a vast amount of scientific work relating to your
own department, and to this accumulated pile of published material
the journals of every month continue to add. In many ways it is a
misfortune that the literature of science increases so fast; but we
must take the evil with the good. Practice will eventually enable you
to form a shrewd judgment as to which authors or papers you may skip
without serious danger of losing any valuable fact or useful suggestion.

In the fifth place, let me plead for the virtue of Patience. In a
scientific career we encounter two dangers, for the avoidance of
which patience is our best support and guide. When life is young and
enthusiasm is boundless; when from the details which we may have
laboriously gathered together we seem to catch sight of some new fact
or principle, some addition of more or less importance to the sum
of human knowledge, there may come upon us the eager desire to make
our discovery known. We may long to be allowed to add our own little
stone to the growing temple of science. We may think of the pride with
which we should see our names enrolled among those of the illustrious
builders by whom this temple has been slowly reared since the infancy
of mankind. So we commit our observations to writing, and send them for
publication. Eventually we obtain the deep gratification of appearing
in print among well-known authors in science. Far be it from me to
condemn this natural desire for publicity. But, as your experience
grows, you will probably come to agree with me that if the desire
were more frequently and energetically curbed, scientific literature
would gain much thereby. There is amongst us far too much hurry in
publication. We are so afraid lest our observations or deductions
should be forestalled--so anxious not to lose our claim to priority,
that we rush before the world, often with a half-finished performance,
which must be corrected, supplemented, or cancelled by some later
communication. It is this feverish haste which is largely answerable
for the mass of jejune, ill-digested, and erroneous matter that cumbers
the pages of modern scientific journals. Here it is that you specially
need patience. Before you venture to publish anything, take the utmost
pains to satisfy yourselves that it is true, that it is new, and that
it is worth putting into print. And be assured that this reticence,
while it is a kindness to the literature of science, will most
certainly bring with it its own reward to yourselves. It will increase
your confidence, and make your ultimate contributions more exact in
their facts as well as more accurate and convincing in their argument.

The other danger to which I referred as demanding patience is of
an opposite kind. As we advance in our career, and the facts of
our investigations accumulate around us, there will come times of
depression when we seem lost in a labyrinth of detail out of which
no path appears to be discoverable. We have, perhaps, groped our way
through this maze, following now one clue, now another, that seemed
to promise some outlet to the light. But the darkness has only closed
around us the deeper, and we feel inclined to abandon the research
as one in which success is, for us at least, unattainable. When this
blankness of despair shall come upon you, take courage under it, by
remembering that a patient study of any department of nature is never
labour thrown away. Every accurate observation you have made, every
new fact you have established, is a gain to science. You may not for a
time see the meaning of these observations, nor the connection of these
facts. But their meaning and connection are sure in the end to be made
out. You have gone through the labour necessary for the ascertainment
of truth, and if you patiently and watchfully bide your time, the
discovery of the truth itself may reward your endurance and your toil.

It is by failures as well as by successes that the true ideal of the
man of science is reached. The task allotted to him in life is one
of the noblest that can be undertaken. It is his to penetrate into
the secrets of Nature, to push back the circumference of darkness
that surrounds us, to disclose ever more and more of the limitless
beauty, harmonious order and imperious law that extend throughout the
universe. And while he thus enlarges our knowledge, he shows us also
how Nature may be made to minister in an ever-augmenting multiplicity
of ways to the service of humanity. It is to him and his conquests that
the material progress of our race is mainly due. If he were content
merely to look back over the realms which he has subdued, he might well
indulge in jubilant feelings, for his peaceful victories have done more
for the enlightenment and progress of mankind than were ever achieved
by the triumphs of war. But his eye is turned rather to the future than
to the past. In front of him rises the wall of darkness that shrouds
from him the still unknown. What he has painfully accomplished seems to
him but little in comparison with the infinite possibilities that lie
beyond. And so he presses onward, not self-satisfied and exultant, but
rather humbled and reverential, yet full of hope and courage for the
work of further conquest that lies before him.

Such is the task in which you may be called to share. When you
have entered upon it and have learnt something of its trials and
responsibilities, as well as of its joys and rewards, you will look
back with gratitude to the training you received within the walls
of this College. You will feel even more keenly than you do now how
much you owe to the patient kindness and educational skill of your
teachers and to the healthy stimulus of contact and competition with
your class-fellows. Most heartily do I wish you success in your several
careers. Following up the paths which have been opened for you here,
may it be yours to enlarge still further the circle of light which
science has gained, and to wrest from Nature new aids for the service
of mankind.

FOOTNOTE:

[102] An address to the students of Mason University College,
Birmingham, at the opening of the session, on Tuesday, 4th October,
1898.




X

The Roman Campagna[103]


Among the capitals of Europe Rome has long had the unique distinction
of standing in the midst of a wide solitude. Other cities in their
outward growth have incorporated village after village and hamlet after
hamlet. As their streets and squares merge insensibly into a succession
of villas and gardens, cottages and hedgerows, followed by the farms
and fields of the open country, so the noise and stir of causeway and
pavement gradually give way to the quieter sounds of rural life. But
with the Eternal City this normal arrangement does not hold good. For
sixteen centuries she has kept herself within her ancient walls which
still surround her with their picturesque continuity of rampart and
tower. Inside these barriers we still encounter, by day and by night,
the 'fumum et opes, strepitumque Romæ.' But outside the gates we find
ourselves on a lonely prairie that sweeps in endless grassy, almost
treeless, undulations up to the base of the, distant hills. The main
roads, indeed, that radiate from the city, are bordered on either side,
for the first mile or two, with a strip of suburban _osterie_, booths
and shops, varied here and there, perhaps, by a villa and its grounds.
But these fringes of habitation are too narrow and short, and cling too
closely to their respective arteries of traffic, seriously to affect
the solitariness which broods over the intervening landscape up to the
very foot of the walls.

This surrounding district, known as the Roman Campagna, possesses
a singular fascination, which has been often and enthusiastically
described. The endless and exquisite variety of form and colour
presented by the plain and its boundary of distant mountains, together
with the changing effects of weather and season on such a groundwork,
would of themselves furnish ample subjects for admiration. But the
influence of this natural beauty is vastly enhanced by the strange and
solemn loneliness of a scene which living man seems to have almost
utterly forsaken, leaving behind him only memories of a storied past
which are awakened at every turn by roofless walls of long-abandoned
farm-buildings, mouldering ruins of medieval towers, fragments of
imperial aqueducts, decayed substructures of ancient villas and the
grass-grown sites of ancient cities whose names are forever linked
with the early struggles of Rome. European travel offers few more
instructive experiences than may be gained by wandering at will over
that rolling sward, carpeted with spring-flowers, but silent save for
the song of the larks overhead and the rustle of the breeze among the
weeds below; when the mountainous wall of the Sabine chain from Soracte
round to the Alban Hills gleams under the soft Italian sky with the
iridescence of an opal, and when the imagination, attuned to the human
associations of the landscape, recalls with eager interest, some of
the incidents in the marvellous succession of historical events that
have been transacted here. If, besides being keenly alive to all the
ordinary sources of attraction, the visitor can look below the surface,
he may gain a vast increase to his interest in the ground by finding
there intelligible memorials of prehistoric scenes, and learning from
them by what slow steps the platform was framed on which Rome rose
and flourished and fell. He will thus discover that, as befitted the
city which was to rule the world, its birthplace was fashioned by
the co-operation of the grandest forces in Nature; that, on the one
hand, subterranean upheaval and stupendous volcanic activity combined
to build up the plain and hills of the Campagna, and that on the
other, the universal and ceaseless working of the subaërial agencies
has carved it into that varied topography which is typified in the
isolation of the Seven Hills of Rome and of the many crags and ridges
that served as sites for the towns of Latium and Etruria.

Seen from the crest of the Vatican ridge, the Roman Campagna stretches
as a plain from the base of the steep front of the Apennines to the
coast of the Mediterranean--a distance of some thirty English miles.
To the north it is bounded by the ridge of Soracte and the nearer
heights of Bracciano and Tolfa. To the south it runs up to the base
of the Alban Hills and sweeps between them and the sea onwards till
it merges into the flat and pestilential Maremma. Even from such a
commanding point of view, however, this apparent plain can be seen to
be far from having an even surface. Not only does it slope upward
and inland from the coast, until, where it abuts against the foot of
the hills, it has reached heights of 600 or 800 feet, but when looked
at more closely it presents a somewhat diversified topography. Though
the heights and hollows never vary much from the general average
level, they include not only smooth, grassy ridges but also low cliffs
that run along the declivities, rising sometimes into craggy scarps;
likewise narrow gullies and ravines with steep walls, as well as wide,
open, smooth-sided valleys. The surface is for the most part clothed
with pasture; yet the brown and yellow rock that forms most of the
plain protrudes in many places, not only where it has been laid bare by
natural causes, but where it has been artificially cut away or scooped
into subterranean recesses.

Such a varied form of ground was eminently favourable for human
settlement. The earliest races could find or make rock-shelters almost
anywhere. The fertility of the soil afforded to their successors good
pasturage and fields for tillage, while the hillocks, girt round with
cliffs, and the flat-topped ridges, shelving precipitously to lower
ground, offered excellent sites for fortification and defence. Owing
to the porous nature of the ground, much of the rain sinks at once
beneath the surface, instead of flowing off in brooks. Hence many of
the valleys are usually dry, unless in wet seasons. But water can
be obtained all over the district by sinking wells, and that this
source of supply has been in use from a remote period and to an almost
incredible extent, has been strikingly shown by the recent excavations
beneath the pavements of the Roman Forum. It would be difficult to
find anywhere a form of ground which shows better the influence of
geological structure upon the early fortunes of a people.

With some portion of what has been written by Italian and other
observers on this district, I have made myself acquainted, and
having had the advantage of tracing on the ground the records of the
successive stages through which the Campagna has come to be what it is,
I propose in the following pages to give an outline of this prehistoric
chronicle. I should like to attempt to present to the reader such a
picture of the whole sequence of events as has vividly impressed itself
on my own mind, avoiding, as far as may be practicable, technicalities
and details. Three distinct successive phases can be recognised in this
sequence. First came a time when the waves of the Mediterranean broke
against the base of the steep front of the Apennines, and when all the
low grounds around Rome, and for leagues to the north and south, lay
sunk many fathoms deep. Next followed the chief period in the building
up of the Campagna. A host of volcanoes rose along the sea-floor on the
west side of Central Italy, when ashes, dust and stones were thrown
out in such quantity and for so prolonged a time as to strew over the
sea-bottom a mass of material several hundred feet thick. Partly from
this accumulation and partly by an upheaval of the whole region of
Italy, the sea-bottom with its volcanic cones was raised up as a strip
of low land bordering the high grounds of the interior, and a few huge
volcanoes were subsequently piled up to a height of several thousand
feet. Lastly succeeded the epoch in which the volcanic platform, no
longer increased by fresh eruptions, was carved by subaërial agencies
into the topography which it presents to-day. Each of these three
phases has had its history legibly graven in the rocky framework of the
Campagna, and some of its memorials may be recognised even within the
walls of Rome.

I. The records of the first period lie beneath the Seven Hills on the
left bank of the Tiber, but rise high above the plain on the right
bank, where they form the chain of heights that culminates in Monte
Mario, 455 feet above the level of the Mediterranean. These records,
forming the series known to geologists by the name of Pliocene, consist
of a lower bluish-grey clay and an upper group of yellow sands and
gravels, the whole being probably a good deal more than 450 feet thick.
The clay (Plaisancian) has been found to extend, with a remarkable
persistence of aspect and contents, from the north to the south of
Italy. It has yielded several hundred species of mollusks and other
organisms, which show it to be a thoroughly marine silt, deposited on
the bottom of a sea of some little depth.

At the time of the deposition of this clay the mountainous backbone of
the country had already undergone the greater part of that prolonged
series of terrestrial disturbances whereby solid sheets of limestone
were folded, crushed, ruptured and driven together into a series of
parallel ridges, having a general trend from northwest to southeast,
and forming the nucleus of what is now the chain of the Apennines.
At the epoch when our story begins, however, this chain was still
incomplete, and probably a good deal lower, as well as narrower, than
subsequent upheaval has made it. Instead of forming, as it now does,
the lofty axis of a broad peninsula, it then consisted of a series of
parallel islands and islets, separated from each other by long and
often narrow sounds or channels. In general appearance it must have
resembled parts of the coast of Dalmatia on the opposite side of the
Adriatic. Many of the more prominent mountains of the region stood then
entirely surrounded by the sea. The Sabine Hills, for example, rose as
an island, while Soracte formed another island farther west. A long
strait ran northwards by Rocca Sinibalda and Rieti to Terni; another of
narrower width stretched towards Perugia and formed then the estuary
of the Tiber. All the Roman Campagna, together with the low grounds
on both sides of the Apennines, was at that time submerged under the
sea. The great band of volcanic heights and cones that extends from
Aquapendente to the Bay of Naples had not yet come into existence, but
over their site the waters of the Mediterranean lay many fathoms deep.

The climate of Europe had for ages been of so genial a character that
sub-tropical types of life had long flourished both in the sea and on
the land of this quarter of the globe. But in the period of geological
history with which we are now concerned, a remarkable diminution of
temperature was in progress all over the Northern hemisphere. As
the warmth grew less, the distribution of plants and animals came
to be seriously affected. Many southern forms were extirpated from
districts which they had long inhabited, while in their place came
migrations of northern species. This modification made itself felt
both on terrestrial and marine life. Thus in the Atlantic Ocean a
number of northern shells, which had pushed their way southward even
as far as the coasts of the Spanish peninsula, were able to enter
the Mediterranean when a connection was opened between that inland
sea and the main ocean outside. It is interesting to note that among
the shells introduced into the Mediterranean basin at this time were
_Astarte borealis_, _Buccinum groenlandicum_, _Cyprina islandica_,
_Panopaea norvegica_ and others whose appellations sufficiently
indicate the latitudes where they now find their chief home. On the
land, too, such quadrupeds as the reindeer and the now extinct mammoth
wandered from the plains of Lapland and Russia to the shores of Italy.
Eventually when the refrigeration gave way to the return of more
genial conditions, the northern invaders died out. They have no living
descendants now in the south of Europe.

The grey clay which forms the lower division of the Roman Pliocene
series is best seen on the right side of the Tiber where it forms the
lower half of the ridge of the Vatican and Monte Mario, and where
for more than five-and-twenty centuries it has supplied material
for making the bricks of which ancient and modern Rome has been so
largely constructed. The same clay has been found at lower levels on
the opposite side of the river. On the flanks of the Pincian Hill,
at the Piazza di Spagna, it was exposed about twelve years ago in
some excavations connected with the adjustment of the aqueduct of
the Aqua Vergine. Only a few feet below the crowded pavements of that
busy thoroughfare lies the old sea-bottom with its abundant relics of
marine life. In borings for water which have been made around Rome the
same deposit has been ascertained to extend below the later volcanic
formations of the Campagna. Thus at the Appia Antica fort, near the
tomb of Cecilia Metella, the clay was entered at a depth of about 300
feet from the surface or eighty feet below the level of the sea. As
the upper limit of the clay at Monte Mario lies about 200 feet above
sea level and the distance from that outcrop to the fort in question
is about six miles, it might be inferred that there is here evidence
of a southeasterly dip of the deposit amounting to forty-six feet in
a mile. But before any inference of this kind can be accepted, some
considerations should be taken into account, of the highest interest
and importance in relation to the early history both of the Campagna
and of the Apennine chain.

Before dealing with these questions, however, let us complete the
examination of the marine deposits of Monte Mario. In the valuable
section disclosed on the slopes of that hill, the grey clay is seen
to become sandy towards the top and to include seams of sand which
rapidly increase in thickness, until, with their included layers of
gravel, they form nearly the whole of the upper part of the ridge.
These yellow sands, generally distinguished by the name of 'Astian,'
have been traced, like the clay below them, along nearly the whole
length of the Italian peninsula. The striking contrast which, in the
nature of their material, they present to the clay, plainly points to
a great alteration of the geography of the coasts at the time when
they were deposited. The sea must have become rapidly shallower. Not
improbably one of the uplifts now took place, whereby the land has been
raised at intervals to its present height. The steepness of the descent
of the mountains into the sea might not lead at once to much gain of
land along the western coast; but instead of the grey mud that had
previously accumulated in the deeper water, coarser sediment, brought
down by numerous torrents from the hills, now spread out over the
sea-bottom. Such a transition from the finest silt to gravel and sand
could not fail to affect the distribution of the animals living along
the coast-line. Accordingly, on comparing the fossils in the sands with
those of the clay, we see that while some of the shells, especially
the larger and more massive kinds, continued to flourish in abundance;
others, which found their most congenial haunts in tranquil waters,
were driven further out to sea.

As the Pliocene deposits so well displayed at Rome are known to
preserve throughout Italy the same twofold character, with the same
types of sediment and of organic remains, the observer who tries to
follow their development in the Campagna is soon puzzled by the way
in which they there suddenly disappear and allow their place to be
taken by later deposits of volcanic origin, which are known by the
general designation of Tuff. The most astonishing example of this
local peculiarity is to be found at the Monte Verde, south of the
Janiculan ridge. The clays and sands which rise in horizontal layers
almost to the top of Monte Mario are there entirely cut out, and the
tuff, which lies as a mere thin capping on the crest of that hill,
suddenly descends across the truncated edges of the Pliocene strata to
the alluvial plain of the Tiber. On the opposite side of the river, the
upper sands have been almost entirely removed and the tuff is found
lying almost immediately on the lower clay. It is clear that there
must have been an extensive, though no doubt local, erosion of these
marine strata, before the main body of the tuff was laid down. By what
agency this erosion was effected is not quite clear. Not improbably a
gap occurs here in the record, representing an interval of considerable
duration of which no chronicle has survived.

Passing over this hiatus, we still encounter marine deposits, but these
are of volcanic origin, and leave us meanwhile to speculate in the dark
as to whether the denudation was the work of the sea or of terrestrial
waters. Owing to the thick covering of tuff which has overspread the
Campagna and concealed all that lies below, it has become difficult
to obtain adequate data for the discussion of this question, which
is of considerable interest in the history of the Campagna. The most
reliable evidence would be supplied by a series of borings across the
district in different directions. Such a series may perhaps hereafter
be undertaken for the purpose of obtaining water for the farms and
homesteads, which sanguine patriots foresee taking in the future the
place of the present solitude, and in that event, the geologists of
Rome will no doubt be on the watch for all the information that can be
gathered from this source as to the nature of the rocks underneath, and
their relations to each other.

In the meantime, much might be done in this attractive department of
local geology by a far more detailed study than has yet been attempted
of the surroundings of the Campagna. In particular the recognisable
stratigraphical horizons among the Pliocene strata should be definitely
traced and mapped in detail, where they emerge from under the volcanic
tuff. It would then be possible to measure the amount of erosion in
various places, and to determine how far the spread of the volcanic
sheet across older formations is due to actual unconformability and how
far to simple overlap. At the same time, the precise height could be
ascertained of the upper limit of the Pliocene deposits, and data would
probably be obtained for determining not only the minimum amount of the
uplift of the land since the Pliocene period, but also how far and in
what directions there may have been any warping of the peninsula in the
course of the elevation. We know from the observations of De Angelis
that the Plaisancian clays, which at Monte Mario do not rise more than
200 feet above the surface of the Mediterranean, reach a height of
as much as 1,050 metres (3,445 feet) in the upper part of the valley
of the Arno, near Subiaco, only about thirty miles east from Rome,
or an upheaval of as much as 108 feet in a mile. It remains still to
discover how far this amount may fall short of the total extent of the
post-Pliocene uplift of the Apennine chain.

Not improbably the deep and extensive erosion of the Pliocene
formations before the deposition of the volcanic tuffs, and their
elevation above sea-level were related phenomena, connected with the
outbreak of the remarkable volcanic episode in the geological history
of Central Italy, which has so profoundly modified the scenery of
the country. In the yellow sands and gravels of Monte Mario no trace
of volcanic detritus has been detected. Their sediments, containing
pebbles of Rhaetic, Jurassic and Cretaceous rocks can hardly have
come from any other source than the Apennine chain. But before their
deposition had quite come to an end the Volcanic period was ushered in
which forms the second stage of the history of the region.

II. We have now to deal with the records of one of the most interesting
phases in the evolution of the framework of Italy--the period that
witnessed the birth, development and extinction of a series of
volcanoes which, starting on the sea-bottom in front of the western
coast, gradually built up a tract of plains in some places thirty to
forty miles broad and altogether perhaps as much as 200 miles long,
finally crowned with majestic cones several thousand feet high. The
chronicles of this episode being tolerably complete in the Roman
Campagna, they enable us to follow the course of events with great
clearness from the beginning to the end.

Nowhere in the district around Rome have the earliest indications
of the oncoming of this volcanic period, the first mutterings, as
it were, of the subterranean convulsions, been more instructively
preserved than in the line of quarries that have been opened along the
edge of the alluvial plain of the Tiber at the Torretta di Quinto, near
the Ponte Molle, about two miles north from the city. The section of
strata there exposed, which has long been known and often described,
is at present undergoing rapid changes from the extensive excavations
required to procure materials for the embankment of the river in its
course through Rome. Nowhere, too, is the geologist more seductively
wooed from the pursuit of his researches by the fascination of crowded
historic associations. From the slopes above the quarries, he sees the
Tiber catching the shadows of the Pons Milvius, where Maxentius met his
doom. Below him rise the roofs of the _Osterie_, which on feast days
repeat the noise and merriment that made the place notorious in the
days of the Empire. Opposite him, a green hill marks the long-deserted
site of Antemnæ, beneath which the Tiber winds as a silver band through
its meadows far up past other old towns that have long since mouldered
into dust. Looking across the green and purple expanse of the Campagna,
dotted with its ruined towers, he sees the whole sweep of the blue
rampart of the Sabine Hills--almost the only feature of the landscape
that has remained the same. If from these memories of the past he turns
to the long line of quarries, he is perchance rudely awakened to the
strenuous present by gangs of workmen, digging, blasting, wheeling; by
the rattle of laden wagons, and by an occasional explosion of gunpowder
or dynamite. Passing through this busy scene, he soon perceives that
the ancient bank against which the Tiber chafed when it was spreading
out its high alluvial plain, has been quarried backward, and as the
ground slopes upward from the plain, the cliff thus artificially cut
open must be continually changing its face and becoming higher. At
present there has been laid open an excellent section of strata forming
part of the upper or sandy group of Monte Mario. These succeed each
other in horizontal bands so diverse in form and colour as to give the
cliff a markedly banded aspect.

At the southern end of this section some layers of coarse gravel may
be seen cemented into a solid calcareous conglomerate full of large
and well-preserved marine shells. A little further over comes a band
of travertine--a compact variety of limestone which is one of the
characteristic and economically important stones of the Campagna,
for where of good quality, it makes an admirable firm cream-coloured
building-stone, which has been largely used from the early times of
Roman history. To its durability the preservation of so many noble
monuments of Republican and Imperial architecture is due. I may remark
in passing that this material can now be seen in actual course of
deposition from solution in the neighbourhood of Rome. The cold waters
of the Anio have formed thick masses of it at the Tivoli Falls, and
the warm springs of Bagni deposit it on the plain below. At the latter
place its accumulation must have been going on for a vast period of
time, seeing that it now covers a tract of the low ground to the north
of the Anio, measuring about six miles from east to west and four miles
from north to south. Here the quarries of ancient Rome were opened,
and the modern city still draws its supplies from the same area. A
smaller tract of similar stone has been worked for building material
at Cisterna di Roma, about twenty-eight miles to the southeast of the
city. A thin band of travertine, possibly a continuation of that at
the Torretta di Quinto, forms a conspicuous cliff along the east side
of the Via Flaminia, between Ponte Molle and the Porto del Popolo, and
other detached masses of it make their appearance at various places
further south.

These various outcrops of travertine, as I shall have occasion to
show, have had an important influence in the excavation of the valley
of the Tiber and the isolation of the hills of Rome. The material was
probably deposited chiefly by hot springs containing abundant carbonate
of lime in solution, and may be regarded as an accompaniment or sequel
of volcanic activity. In most cases, thermal mineral springs depositing
travertine make their appearance in the later phases of a volcanic
period, and often continue long after every other manifestation of
subterranean heat has died out. But at the Torretta di Quinto the
sheet of travertine is found among the records of the beginning of the
volcanic history. Another exceptional feature in this sheet is the
proof that it was laid down on the floor of the sea, for it encloses
the remains of some of the shells that lived at the time in that sea.

More direct and obvious proof of the breaking-out of volcanic eruptions
is to be found in the strata that lie above the travertine. In some
of these may be detected truly volcanic minerals such as felspar,
augite and black mica, derived from the explosion of lava within
eruptive vents and from the falling of the volcanic dust upon the
silt and shells of the sea-bottom. Higher up more pronounced evidence
of successive eruptions is furnished by abundant lapilli and scoriæ
of black slaggy lava, and by bands of true tuff, composed almost or
entirely of volcanic detritus.

This section at the Torretta di Quinto is of great interest as
indicating that the volcanoes of the Campagna began their career under
the sea. Similar evidence obtained at other places makes it probable
that the whole chain of volcanoes in central and southern Italy, from
those of Bolsena on the north to those of Naples and Sicily on the
south, started their eruptions on the sea-floor. When the activity of
this chain was at its height, a band of eruptive vents flanked the
western coast from the neighbourhood of Aquapendente and Ovieto to
perhaps as far as the Bay of Salerno. At first the cones formed round
these vents were probably submerged, and were no doubt more or less
washed down and levelled by the agitation of the sea, but as they were
renewed by successive discharges, the larger examples among them may
have risen above water and scattered their dust and stones into the
air. These volcanic islets would then front the mainland of Italy, much
as the Aeolian islands now flank the northern coast of Sicily. Etna,
Lipari, Volcano, Stromboli and the other islets may be regarded as the
last lineal descendants of the insular volcanoes to whose operations
the scenery of Central and Southern Italy is so largely indebted.

The solid substances ejected by these volcanoes in the earlier stages
of their history consisted mainly of fragmentary material--dust, sand,
stones, scoriæ, and the other discrete forms in which molten lava is
blown out of volcanic vents by the explosion of its absorbed vapours
and gases. Sometimes pieces of limestone or other rock, which were
torn away from the older formations underneath, are found dispersed
through the volcanic detritus. This fragmentary material, now more or
less compacted into the form of Tuff, extends throughout the length
and breadth of the volcanic tract and must thus cover some thousands
of square miles. In the Campagna, which lies upon it and derives
thence its distinctive features, it reaches a thickness of 300 feet
or more, while inland it overlaps the Pliocene deposits in detached
outliers which run far up the Apennine valleys, reaching heights of
1,200 feet and upward. Compared with the Pliocene strata that lie
below it, the tuff presents some characteristic differences which at
once arrest attention. It lacks the rapid alternation and variety of
parallel layers so marked in the Astian sands. Yet it can generally be
seen to possess a stratified arrangement. Here and there, indeed, this
structure gives place to a tumultuous accumulation of coarse detritus,
huddled together as it fell, large and small lumps of lava being
confusedly mingled in the general matrix and forming the rock known
to geologists as Agglomerate. Such coarser intercalations probably
indicate proximity to centres of eruption, and in some cases may
even mark the position of the vents themselves. Alternations in the
character of the successive beds of tuff may be regarded as evidence of
variations in the energy and distribution of the active orifices. It
may be added that the tuff supplied the Romans with various admirable
building materials. In the days of the Kings and of the Republic, its
more compact kinds were quarried in large quadrangular blocks for the
construction of massive walls, while in later times some of its more
incoherent varieties were discovered to be capable of forming the most
durable concrete, which in the hands of Roman architects was employed
with a boldness and skill that have never since been equalled.

That the materials of the tuff were assorted under water is suggested
by their stratified structure. This inference is strengthened by the
intercalation among them of sheets of sand, gravel, clay and marl. The
layers of gravel are especially important, for their component pebbles
of limestone and other non-volcanic stones are unmistakably fragments
of Mesozoic rocks, which have been rolled along by running water from
their original resting places among the Apennines so as to acquire
smoothed and rounded forms. But though the tuff was accumulated under
water, it presents a strong contrast to the clays and sands below it
by its generally unfossiliferous character. Leaves, branches and stems
of ilex, oak and other land-vegetation have been obtained from it at
various places, sometimes as mere hollow moulds or in carbonised forms,
but occasionally with the internal structure still preserved. Less
frequently it has yielded the bones, antlers or tusks of terrestrial
quadrupeds. But both the plants and animals have obviously been
drifted from the land, and did not live where their remains have been
found. It is worthy of remark that though so many observers have been
at work in successive generations among the rocks of the Campagna, no
undoubted example of marine mollusk has been recorded from the tuff
in the interior of the Campagna. The crowds of shells in the Pliocene
strata underneath are there absent. That the conditions required for
the existence of an abundant marine fauna continued over this site
until the beginning of the volcanic period is manifest from the crowded
pteropods, lamellibranchs and gasteropods of the clays and sands. But
as the eruptions increased in area and in intensity these conditions
were eventually destroyed. The descent of continued showers of hot
dust, ashes and stones over the sea-bottom, the rise of mephitic
gases from below, as well as of hot springs that deposited sheets of
travertine, must have made that sea-floor no congenial home for either
plant or animal.

It has often been assumed that the tuff of the Roman Campagna was
derived from the eruptions of the Alban volcano on the one side, and
of the Bracciano volcano on the other. A careful study of the tuff,
however, and a comparison of it with that of more ancient volcanic
districts, the structure of which has been more fully laid open by
prolonged denudation, leads, in my opinion, to a conviction that this
assumption is founded on inaccurate observation. The rapidly varying
and lenticular character of the materials when followed along the
cliffs where they are exposed, and their occasional agglomeratic
character which increases and diminishes in various directions, with
no reference to the two great volcanic centres on each border of the
district, point not to showers of detritus from these centres, or from
any other vents at a distance, but to local eruptions from many and
generally small vents, discharging here fine, there coarse materials,
at different times and independent of each other. I have not myself
been fortunate enough to detect a 'neck,' which would mark the site of
one of these vents, nor so far as I am aware, has any example of this
structure been recorded from the general body of the Campagna tuff. But
this failure of proof, I am disposed to believe, is to be accounted for
rather from the special kind of evidence required not having hitherto
been recognised, or searched for with sufficient experience, than
because it does not exist.

One of the tasks which I think might hopefully be undertaken in regard
to the geological history of this district is that of seeking for
proofs of the distribution of some of the vents whence the tuff was
ejected. Among the numerous crags along the hillsides, and in the
abundant stream-courses or _fossi_, where the naked rock has been laid
bare all over the Campagna, sections might be met with that would help
to solve this problem. The numerous unquestionable 'craters' of the
Alban and Ciminian Hills belong to a much later stage of the volcanic
period than that in which the main mass of tuff was formed. We must
remember also, in considering this question, that the tuff, with its
distinctive and persistent characters, stretches far beyond the limits
within which the materials fell that were discharged from the Alban
or Bracciano volcanoes, even when these were at the height of their
vigour. It can be followed in numerous detached tracts of valley-floor
through the hills eastwards to Sora, and southwards to near Gaeta.
There is reason to believe, indeed, that the type of small submarine
vents extended all through the volcanic tract from its northern to its
southern limit.

A little reflection will show that the sites of these vents may be
expected to be difficult of detection. In the first place, though
numerous, their small size may easily make them escape notice, even
where they may have been wholly or partially laid bare by denudation.
Probably a close parallel to their original forms and to the way in
which they were in some places crowded together is to be found in
the Phlegræan Fields near Naples--a district which well deserves
the careful scrutiny of any one who desires to follow the volcanic
history of the Roman Campagna. Its cones are terrestrial, indeed, not
submarine. Being much younger, they have been far better preserved
than those of the submarine stage of the period. One of them, Monte
Nuovo, though now as cold and silent as the oldest of them, was thrown
up so recently as A.D. 1538. Another, that of the Solfatara, is still
a steaming vent, while Vesuvius from time to time vigorously asserts
its claim to rank in the list of active volcanoes. These Neapolitan
cones probably convey a fair idea of the general distribution and
aspect of those of the Campagna, especially in the later time when the
volcanic platform had eventually been raised above the level of the
Mediterranean. We see, as in the case of the youngest and smallest of
the three craters which have risen through each other to the north
of Astroni, that some of the Neapolitan vents were only a few yards
in diameter. And we learn also that at least one, and probably others
of them, were the product of single eruptions, for Monte Nuovo, which
is nearly 500 feet in height, was thrown up in the course of two
days. Doubtless, these small and rapidly built monticules had many
predecessors of like type on the Roman Campagna.

In the second place, the cones connected with the tuff of the district
around Rome, being composed of loose fragmentary materials, would be
easily washed down. No one can ramble over that area without being
struck with the singular scarcity of solid lava among the endless
exposures of tuff. It is true that around the great craters of the
Alban and Ciminian Hills a good deal of lava can be seen to have been
emitted. But these masses, like the volcanoes that gave vent to them,
belong to that later stage of the volcanic history to which I have
referred. Only to a trifling extent does the tuff of the Campagna
appear to include contemporaneous sheets of lava. If, then, molten rock
has hardly ever poured out at the surface, it may rarely have risen and
consolidated in the upper parts of the throats of the volcanoes, so as
to form there a hard core which would remain as a projecting knob when
the surrounding loose ashes were levelled down by denudation.

In the third place, there can now be no doubt that the greater part of
the sheet of tuff in the Roman Campagna was accumulated under the sea.
This subject was for many years one on which various contradictory
opinions were held. Some writers, from the general stratified
structure, correctly maintained the marine origin of the tuff. Again,
on the evidence of enclosed land-plants and animals, some observers
have regarded it as a freshwater deposit, while others have looked
upon it as a terrestrial formation. It is true, as I shall point out
a little further on, that here and there, especially in its upper
parts, the tuff includes intercalated bands of strata containing land
and freshwater shells as well as bones of terrestrial mammals, and
indicating that the floor of the sea had been converted into low land
with brackish lagoons and lakes of fresh water. But as regards the main
mass of the tuff of the Campagna, the question of its marine origin may
now be considered as definitely settled by the researches of Professor
Portis, of the University of Rome. In specimens of different varieties
of the rock from all parts of the district, and previously supposed
to be entirely unfossiliferous, this careful observer has found that
foraminifera are often abundant and well preserved. These organisms are
unequivocally marine, swimming freely in the upper waters and sinking
when dead to mingle with the silt or to form of themselves an ooze on
the bottom. We can thus understand how they might be borne along above
a seafloor on which molluscan life was hardly possible.

If, then, cones of loose ashes and scoriæ were thrown up on the bottom
of the sea, they would obviously be apt to be rapidly lowered by
the agitation of currents and ground swell, while those which rose
above the surface of the water, as Lipari, Volcano and Stromboli
do now, would be subject also to continual erosion by rain and to
unceasing attack along their shores by wind-waves. They would thus
tend to be ultimately planed down, their materials being strewn over
the surrounding sea-bottom, so as to add to the general accumulating
sheet of tuff. The rapidity with which this kind of demolition may
be completed was impressively exemplified in this very area of the
Mediterranean by the history of Graham Island, which in the summer of
1831 was thrown up by a submarine eruption off the southwest coast of
Sicily. In the course of less than a month, a cone of loose cinders,
scoriæ and pumice was piled up to a height, it is said, of more than
200 feet above sea-level, with a circumference of three miles and a
large crater inside. In about three months, this volcano was levelled
with the surface of the sea.

As a consequence of the prolonged eruptions, the sea along the west
coast of Central Italy must have become increasingly shallow. This
result may not improbably have been expedited by that uplift of the
whole region to which reference has above been made. In course of
time, not only would volcanic cones appear as islands above sea-level,
but the action of winds, waves and tidal currents would throw up
bars or _lidi_, like those of Venice or those of more ancient date
which traverse the alluvial plain on either side of the mouth of the
Tiber. Further deposition of sediment, either from the volcanoes or
from the torrents of the Apennines, would lead to the silting up of
the lagoons between these bars. The hollows on the newly gained land
would eventually become fresh-water lakes, and the drainage from
the mountains would find its way by numerous channels across the low
plain into the sea. Thus, the Tiber, escaping from its narrow estuary
among the hills not improbably continued its southwesterly course, so
as to pass across what afterwards became the great volcanic district
of Bolsena and to enter the sea somewhere between Civita Vecchia and
Orbetello. The Anio would thus at that time be the main stream in the
Roman Campagna.

From the layers of lacustrine or fluviatile deposits in the tuff and
also from cavities and fissures in the limestone-hills, which then as
now rose abruptly from the edge of the volcanic plain, an interesting
series of organic remains has been obtained which throw a vivid light
upon the plants and animals of the centre of Italy in the volcanic
period. So far as yet discovered, the flora was on the whole similar
to that which still survives in the district. But the fauna was
strangely different. If the remains have been correctly identified, the
land animals of the time consisted of a curiously mixed assemblage,
including, on the one hand, many forms which have long been extinct,
together with some which still inhabit the surrounding region; and on
the other hand, quadrupeds characteristic of southern Europe or Africa,
as well as a few whose descendants are only found much farther north.
The open glades were traversed by various species of deer, gazelle and
wild ox, most of which are no longer living but which comprised the red
deer and the reindeer. There were likewise herds of more than one kind
of horse, whose bones have been found at some places in great numbers.
The caverns and clefts in the hills were tenanted by lions and hyenas,
lynxes and wild cats. The woods were haunted by brown bears, badgers,
wolves and foxes. Strangest of all the denizens of the region were the
huge pachyderms--mastodons, elephants, and rhinoceroses, including that
northern form, the mammoth. Beavers built their dams across the smaller
streams, while the hippopotamus disported himself in the rivers, which
were likewise tenanted by several species of aquatic tortoises. There
is occasionally something strangely incongruous in the circumstances
under which the remains of these primeval creatures are found in
places that have long been known only from their association with the
course of Roman history. One of the most singular examples of this
contrast was seen in the recent unearthing of a well-preserved tusk of
a hippopotamus a few inches underneath the pavement of the atrium of
the Vestal Virgins in the Forum Romanum. There can be little doubt that
the main part of this curiously varied fauna had established itself in
Italy long before the volcanoes first began their eruptions and that
many of its most singular and characteristic members continued to live
on during the volcanic period, for their remains have been exhumed from
some of the later deposits. A few like the otter, the mole, the hare
and the fox have remained in this region down to the present day.

It was after the Campagna had become a land-surface, tenanted by this
remarkable assemblage of animals, that the manifestations of volcanic
energy reached their climax. Instead of finding outlets in many minor
vents that discharged showers of ashes and stones, it now broke out
in a few large orifices from which not only copious discharges of
fragmentary materials, but also streams of lava were emitted. In
the district around Rome this greater localisation and more violent
activity were specially concentrated in two areas separated from each
other by an intervening plain about thirty-five miles broad. On the
south side of this plain, the group of the Alban Hills was built up
by many successive eruptions; on the north side, a chain of important
vents stretched from Bracciano northwards to the great crater of
Bolsena. Of these two areas, the southern comes more closely into
connection with Rome and the Campagna, and as it tells its story
vividly and fully, it claims our more special attention.

The Alban Hills, so striking a feature in the scenery of the region and
so indissolubly associated with the early chronicles of the Eternal
City, consist essentially of one great volcanic cone of the type of
Vesuvius, with a base about twelve miles in diameter. This cone has
been so greatly truncated that its summit, from one side of the rim
to the other, measures about six miles. The highest point of the rim
is 3,071 feet above sea-level. Inside lies the huge cauldron-like
depression that formed the original crater of the volcano, encircled
with steep slopes and rocky walls save on the north-west side towards
Rome, where the continuity of the crater-ring has been destroyed.

The abrupt truncation of this cone, the disappearance of the western
portion of its rim, the great size of its crater compared with the
total height of the mountain, and the existence of a later cone and
crater inside, together with a number of craters outside, suggest that
the energy of the volcano culminated in a gigantic explosion, whereby
the upper half of the cone, perhaps twice as high then as it is now,
was blown away, leaving inside a yawning chasm or caldera that opened
towards the west, where the wall was broken down. Such a paroxysm is
known to have occurred in the history of other volcanoes. In the case
of Vesuvius, for example, Monte Somma remains as a fragment of the
earlier and ampler condition of the mountain, before the catastrophe in
which the upper part and the southern half of the cone were blown away.
Since that event a new and smaller cone, forming the present Vesuvius,
has been piled up on the southern segment of the old crater-rim.

The explosion that eviscerated the Alban volcano must have caused
widespread desolation over the surrounding country. It was not
improbably followed by a long interval of repose. But the subterranean
energy was not exhausted, though it never again showed itself on so
vigorous a scale. We can trace, indeed, the signs of its gradual
enfeeblement. When it recommenced its activity the vent, which served
as the channel by which its eruptions took place, still retained its
central position. Round this vent a new but much smaller cone, bearing
witness to less vigour of eruption, was built up in the middle of the
crater. This younger mass rises in Monte Cavo to a height of 3150 feet,
the highest elevation on the whole mountain. It encloses a well-marked
crater with the flat plain of the Campo di Annibale at its bottom.
Eventually the central orifice came to be choked up by the lava that
had risen and solidified with it, and as the volcanic forces still
sought an outlet to the surface, they were compelled to find egress at
other and weaker points of the volcano. At least two explosions took
place on the old crater-rim and produced the deep-sunk and singularly
impressive lakes of Albano and Nemi. Others broke out on the flanks
of the great cone. Of these, the largest is marked by the crater of
the Valle Arriccia, but at least two dozen of smaller size have been
discriminated by the geologists of the Government Survey round the
outer slopes of the volcano. These lateral vents not improbably mark
the sites of the last eruptions.

While the Alban Mount was heaped up on the southern margin of the
Campagna, another independent series of volcanoes rose on the northern
border. The Lago di Bracciano marks the position of the vent that lay
nearest to Rome. The huge cavity in which this sheet of water lies
is some six miles in diameter and not improbably owes its origin to
another and still more stupendous explosion than that of the Alban
Hills. The level of the lake is 538 English feet above the surface of
the Mediterranean, and as the water is as much as 900 feet deep, the
bottom is 362 feet below sea-level. The crater wall still rises in
the Rocca Romana to a height of 1,437 feet above the sea, or 900 feet
higher than the lake which it encloses. Numerous streams of lava have
poured down the outer slopes of the cone, especially on the southern
flank. A few minor craters have been opened on its east side, and all
round there still rise warm springs and emanations of sulphuretted
hydrogen. To the north of this great vent lies another of similar
character and origin but of smaller size, which now contains the Lago
di Vico. The surface of this lake, which stands at a height of 1,663
feet above sea-level, is encircled by a crater-wall which on the west
side mounts to nearly 1,600 feet above the sheet of water which it
encircles. To the northeast rises the volcanic mass of Monte Cimino,
3,464 feet high. Still farther north is the largest of all the Italian
crater-lakes, the Lago di Bolsena, which is no less than twenty-eight
miles in circumference.

Having regard to the great variety of material in these different
volcanic piles and to the evidence furnished by them that they were
formed by many successive eruptions, perhaps separated from each
other by long intervals of time, we cannot but be impressed with the
antiquity of the great subaërial cones and the protracted period
required by each of them for its formation. We must remember, too,
that from the very beginning of their history they were ceaselessly
attacked by the various agents of subaërial erosion. The first showers
of rain that fell on their young slopes of incoherent ashes gathered
into runnels which would plough furrows in their descent to the plain.
Century after century these watercourses were cut deeper and wider
until they have attained the dimensions of the numerous _fossi_ that
now radiate from each crater-rim. In some cases these lines of erosion
served as channels for the streams of lava that were poured down the
slopes, as may be well seen on the southern flanks of the Bracciano
volcano.

In most instances the molten rock stopped short on the flanks of its
parent mountain, but it occasionally descended into the plain, as in
the familiar example on the Via Appia, where the stream flowed from the
side of the Alban volcano for some six miles to within a short distance
of the site of the future capital of the world. The lava is here a
firm, compact, durable stone admirably adapted for pavements, a use to
which it has been extensively put for more than two thousand years,
both within the walls and on the great high roads that radiate from
them. Here, again, we see how bountifully Rome was favoured in regard
to the materials needed for the construction of a great city.

The heaping of so much volcanic rock over the surface of the country
must have greatly modified its topographical features. The drainage
would especially be affected. Streams descending from the Apennines
would find their direct passage to the sea blocked by the newly
formed ridges, hills and mountains, and they might have to make long
circuits before finding an exit. Lakes would gather in the hollows of
the irregularly deposited tuff and others would fill up the cavities
blown out by explosions, so as to become crater-lakes. The case of the
Tiber may be cited in illustration of the deflection of drainage. In
earlier times, as I have already remarked, this river probably flowed
southwestwards across the site of the volcanic district of Bolsena and
Viterbo; but in consequence of the subsequent eruptions, the lower
part of its course was buried and the stream, diverted at a right
angle, was made to run southeastwards, skirting the volcanic heights
until, near Monte Soracte, it reached the plain between the base of the
Bracciano and that of the Alban volcano, where it was able at length to
find a seaward passage across the site of the future Rome.

That the early races of man witnessed and suffered from the latest
eruptions may well be believed. The oldest traces of human occupation
are stone implements, found more particularly in the higher
river-gravels which, though they must undoubtedly date back to a
remote antiquity, are certainly much later than the general mass of
the tuff of the Campagna. Traditions of volcanic events seem to have
survived into historic times. The pages of Livy, for example, contain
references to showers of stones that fell in various places during
the early centuries of Rome, and were regarded as portents of divine
interposition in human affairs. We are told that in the hundredth year
of the city showers of that kind fell on the Alban Mount, accompanied
with loud noises from the wood on the summit. Again, in the year 540,
fearful storms are said to have been experienced, while a fall of
stones on the Alban Mount went on continuously for two days. Nineteen
years later, amidst a miscellaneous series of prodigies, it is said
to have rained stones at Aricia, Lanuvium, and on the Aventine. Such
references have by some writers been interpreted as proofs of true
volcanic eruptions, thus bringing the activity of the volcanoes around
Rome well down into historic time. A supposed confirmation of this
conclusion has been claimed to have been found on the ridge of Castel
Gandolfo, where numerous burial urns containing cremated human remains
have been unearthed five or six feet below the surface of the ground.
Associated with some of these interments were fibulæ and objects in
amber and bronze, together with specimens of Etruscan or Italo-Greek
pottery of a beautifully Archaic pattern. It has been maintained that
the superficial covering of volcanic material (which has even been
called 'lava') has been the product of one or more volcanic eruptions,
subsequent to the time of the burials, and hence that these eruptions
must have taken place not only after the Stone Age, but even so late
as after the coming of the Greek colonists. It has even been held that
the shepherds of the Alban Hills, driven away from these heights by
the violence of the volcanic disturbances, took refuge on the Seven
Hills, where they founded the city and empire of Rome. More probably
the volcanic detritus which overlies the cinery urns is of much more
ancient date, the interments having been made by digging down through
it, long after the last eruptions of the volcano had ceased.

It is not necessary, however, to refuse credence to all the portents
recounted by Livy. More than two thousand years ago, when the events
cited by him are alleged to have happened, the volcanic forces of
the region must have been more potent than they now are, and various
manifestations by them may have occurred which we do not expect to
see repeated at the present day. Though the subterranean fires have
been steadily dwindling, they even yet retain heat enough to supply
many thermal springs and to discharge large quantities of sulphuretted
hydrogen gas. Now and then, also, they show a sudden though local
manifestation of energy, and cause disturbances sufficiently alarming
to fill the population with superstitious dread. An instance of this
kind, which was witnessed within living memory, may here be cited as
affording a reasonable explanation of some of the supposed supernatural
prodigies recorded in Roman history. On the south side of Monte Soracte
lies a dried-up lake which, no doubt on account of its offensive
sulphurous exhalations, was called the Lagopuzzo, or Stinking Mere. The
late Professor Ponzi has recorded that towards the end of the month of
October, in the year 1831, a series of cracks suddenly opened on this
old lake-bottom and a large piece of flat ground lying between them
gradually sank out of sight. At the same time subterranean rumblings
commenced and grew in intensity, mingled with detonations like the
thundering of cannon. The surrounding population fled in terror to the
neighbouring hills, whence looking back, they could see earth and water
thrown up from the fissures, while a thick coating of dust fell over
the whole district. The eruption began towards sunset and reached its
culmination about seven o'clock in the evening. Next morning it was
found that the Lagopuzzo was traversed by a chasm with vertical walls,
at the bottom of which lay a sheet of water covered with a white scum
and giving off a powerful odour of sulphuretted hydrogen. The ground
around the cavity was strewn with pools of water and lumps of erupted
earth, sometimes seventy cubic feet in size, which had been ejected to
a distance of one hundred feet. The cannon-like detonations continued,
but grew gradually less violent, each of them being accompanied by a
copious discharge of the ill-smelling gas which threw the water into
such commotion as to undermine the surrounding walls of alluvial earth
and to cause portions of them to fall into the abyss. After a few days
the disturbances ceased, leaving as their memorial a cross-shaped chasm
upwards of three hundred feet in diameter, with walls rising some
fifteen feet above the water, which was ascertained to be about one
hundred feet deep.

Many such incidents as this may have been experienced in the history
of ancient Rome. They would be quite enough to fill the minds of the
populace with terror, and to call for a nine days' expiation and
lustration of the city. The traditional legend of the chasm that opened
in the Forum, and into which Curtius threw himself in full armour to
propitiate the gods and save the city, may very well have been founded
on a real event of this nature. The lake or quagmire in the Forum may
have been another Lagopuzzo, rent open by an outburst of gas. The
subterranean rumblings and bellowings (_boati_), which were accounted
such dire portents in old times, were exactly repeated near Monte
Soracte in the autumn of 1831.

Before we pass from this volcanic period to the consideration of the
next phase in the history of the Campagna, it may be noted, as an
interesting feature in the growth of the Italian peninsula, that the
subterranean energy has been slowly dying out from north to south. The
volcanoes of Central Italy have long since entered into the closing or
Solfatara stage, when only steam, hot vapours, and gases are emitted.
But at the southern end of the chain lies the still vigorous Solfatara
of Naples, with the various cones around it, some of which have been
in eruption within the last few centuries, while Vesuvius continues to
maintain a persistent though variable activity. Still farther south
lie the Æolian Islands, where Volcano occasionally breaks out, while
Stromboli remains, as it has done since the beginning of authentic
history, in a state of constant ebullition and eructation. At the far
extremity of the volcanic belt rises the colossal cone of Etna, which
from time to time displays an energy worthy of its place among the
great volcanoes of the globe.

III. We have traced how the platform of the Campagna has been step by
step built up, partly by the accumulation of silt, sand, and gravel
on the sea-floor, partly by submarine volcanic ejections, and partly
by a widespread uplift of the whole region above sea-level, and by
continued subaërial volcanic activity. We now reach the third and last
section of our history in which we have to consider how the present
topography of the ground has been produced. A little reflection will
convince us that, even before its elevation into land, the submerged
surface of the district was probably far from presenting a dead flat,
though it no doubt approached nearer to that form than it has ever
done since. In spite of the levelling action of waves and currents,
the sea-floor in front of the Apennine chain must have abounded in
inequalities caused not only by the scour of the water, but more
especially by the irregular distribution of the volcanic débris and
the greater accumulation of the material around the submarine vents.
Such inequalities would not only remain but grow more pronounced when
the sea-bottom became a land-surface. Every subsequent outbreak of
eruptive energy would aggravate them. But ultimately more potent still,
because incessant in its operation, would be the influence of the
various subaërial agencies by which the land is continually abraded.
It is to these agencies that we must mainly ascribe the present
topography of the district. By a ceaseless process of sculpture, the
volcanic platform has been ultimately carved into hillock and ridge,
crag and cliff, valley and ravine. The tools which Nature has employed
in this task have been the air, with its wide range of temperature and
moisture, frost, rain and running water in all its manifold forms, from
the tiniest rill to the broad current of the Tiber.

The key to the interpretation of the origin of the scenery of the
Campagna is supplied to us by the lines of drainage. On the uplift
of the region into land, the streams that descended from the steep
front of the mountains would make their way seaward along the lowest
levels which they could reach. The channels thus chosen by them would
be maintained for the future, save where some landslip or volcanic
eruption drove them to seek new courses for their waters. Failing
such exceptional causes of diversion, the original lines of drainage
would gradually be carved deeper into the framework of the land by the
erosion of the water running in them. Thus the streams and the valleys
which they have cut out for themselves are the most ancient features
of the topography. Between them lie ridges and plateaux, which have
gradually become prominent owing to the excavation of the intervening
hollows. These eminences, though not subject to such marked and rapid
demolition as the channels where running water is allowed free play,
nevertheless undergo an appreciable decay. Attacked by the alternate
expansion and contraction, due to the heat of clear Italian noons,
quickly followed by the chill of starry Italian nights, the faces
of the crags and cliffs are slowly disintegrated. Heavy rain washes
off the loose crust and exposes a fresh surface to renewed attack.
Alternate saturation by rain and drying in sunshine, the effects of
frost and the abrading influence of wind, all contribute their share to
the process of carving. By this universal process of denudation, while
the topographical features have been made continually more pronounced,
a considerable thickness of rock has no doubt been removed from the
general surface of the whole ground since its elevation into land.

While it is thus easy to realise, as one traverses the Campagna, how
its main topographical characteristics have been evolved, there is
a special fascination in pursuing the investigation of particular
features and trying to trace their origin in detail. Take, for
instance, the story of the valleys. I can hardly imagine a more
delightful task for a lover of geology than to work out the history
of the Tiber--an investigation which, from the point of view we are
here considering, still remains to be accomplished. Even from any of
the hills of Rome it is not difficult to follow some of the stages
of this history. We have seen that the river may have flowed at first
south-westward, from its estuary among the Todi hills, across the site
of the volcanic district to the sea somewhere north of Civita Vecchia.
We have further found that the volcanic eruptions, which gave rise to
the long line of heights between Aquapendente and Bracciano, probably
blocked up the older channel, turned the stream towards the southeast,
and for many miles kept it from once more bending seawards until at
last it found its escape across the low ground of the Campagna. Looking
from the Monti Parioli up the broad strath, we see the Tiber meandering
through its flat alluvial plain which, from a width of a mile and a
half, suddenly contracts immediately below us to less than a third
of that space. The meaning of this constriction will be understood
if we remember the position of the sheet of hard travertine to which
allusion has already been made. When the river began to flow across
this tract of country, the general level of the ground, not yet reduced
by prolonged denudation, was no doubt a good deal above what it is now,
and the bed of the stream may even have lain at a higher level than the
tops of the present ridges on which Rome is built. After traversing the
volcanic plain, the Tiber reached the western margin of this tract near
where the Monti Parioli now rise. It then flowed southwards between
the slopes of Monte Mario and the edge of the volcanic accumulations.
It cut its way downward through the upper parts of the tuff, and at
length encountered the sheet of travertine near the Ponte Molle. This
hard stone would form for a time a barrier to the erosion which must
have been comparatively rapid among the soft overlying tuffs. The
river, ponded back into a lake-like expansion in front of the mouth of
the Anio, was made to sweep in a wide curve into the softer Pliocene
strata of the Vatican ridge on the right bank. The travertine extends
through the Parioli ridge and round the base of the Pincian Hill. A
similar rock emerges in the precipitous bank on the west side of the
Aventine, and farther south at the Monte Della Creta, opposite the
Magliana bridge. Even where this resisting stone disappears, its place
has often been taken by a variety of tuff much more compact than the
usual rock of the district. It is the presence of these more durable
kinds of stone that has curbed the erosive progress of the river on
its left bank, through the area on which the city stands. Where these
barriers to its action were locally absent, the river was able to
scoop out bays and recesses among the softer parts of the tuffs. The
Capitoline, Palatine, Aventine and Celian hills have survived as more
or less isolated eminences, owing to their fortunate possession of a
more obdurate stone than the loose granular tuff of the surrounding
Campagna. They once rose as islands out of the flood plain, and their
steep sides, such as the Tarpeian rock and the cliffs that surrounded
the original Roma Quadrata, owed their precipitousness mainly to the
scour of the Tiber as it swept past their base.

Hardly less attractive would be the task of deciphering the history
of the rough, craggy ridges and broad, smooth plateaux which form
such distinctive features in the scenery of the Campagna. In this
investigation, we would mark how these differences of contour have
mainly arisen from variations in the character of the volcanic tuff.
Where the rock has possessed little coherence, and has consequently
yielded more easily to the weather, it has crumbled away for the most
part into gentle slopes which have been more or less shielded from
further decay by a mantle of vegetation. But where the loose ashes and
scoriæ have been accompanied with much fine dust, and have consolidated
into a hard, compact stone, this material has survived to form the more
rugged features of the scenery. Every stage in the progress of the
sculpture may be instructively seen at the edge of the volcanic plain,
where it winds round the projecting spurs and into the retreating
hollows and bays of the great Apennine wall. Little imagination is
needed to picture this plain as a sea-floor over which the waves
rolled along the base of the mountains. But when this sea-floor was
raised into land, the torrents from the uplands began to dig out
of it winding channels, which were gradually deepened into gullies
that unite into wider ravines as they descend. Between these defiles
portions of the old plain have been left, along the sides of which
the successive sheets of tuff run as bold ribs or as green slopes,
according to their relative durability. Here and there one of these
outliers, girdled round with vertical walls of rock, rises as an almost
inaccessible platform above the ravines around, and has served as the
site of some prehistoric citadel or of some medieval fortalice. All
over the Campagna, indeed, from the very earliest ages, advantage has
been taken of such defensible sites. They were selected as positions
for the cities of Latium and Etruria, art often aiding to scarp their
sides into steeper and more continuous crags than Nature had provided.
They supplied convenient sites for the abundant _suburbana_ or country
villas and manors of ancient Rome, and they were used over again in
the stormy Middle Ages for the erection of fortified farms and refuge
towers.

A discussion of the history of the Campagna would probably be regarded
as culpably incomplete without at least a reference to the causes
that have led to the solitude and desolation of the region. There can
be little doubt that in the days of the Empire the plain was thickly
peopled and well cultivated. It could not have been the fever-stricken
place which it has since become. The wealthy Romans were delighted to
escape from the tumult of town to their quiet and healthy retreats in
the country where, amid the pleasures and occupations of their farms,
they could spend the hottest, and what is now the most insalubrious,
season of the year. Yet there would seem to have been even then
malarious tracts in the Campagna. Cicero boasts of the healthiness
of Rome, compared with the pestilential character of the surrounding
district. The porousness of the tuff all over the country, as I have
above remarked, allows a large proportion of the rain to sink at once
under ground, instead of flowing off into runnels and brooks. The water
finds its way again to the surface at lower levels, either in the form
of springs or oozing from the soil. In the hollows where the drainage
accumulates, stagnant pools and marshes arise, which become the great
nurseries of malaria. In the most flourishing days of Rome, when the
whole surface of the Campagna was populous and in full cultivation,
attention was alive to the importance of drainage. Probably many of the
swampy tracts, whence mosquitoes now swarm, were then dry and turned
over by the plough or spade. The general processes of agriculture
prevented the accumulation of stagnant water and rotting vegetation.
But with the fall of Rome and the devastation of the Campagna by
successive hordes of barbarians, the villas fell into ruins, the
inhabitants were in great measure extirpated, the farms remained
untilled, the soil was left untouched, the water was allowed once more
to gather and the vegetation to decay in the hollows. In the well-known
words of Gibbon, 'the Campagna of Rome was speedily reduced to the
state of a dreary wilderness in which the land is barren, the waters
are impure and the air is infectious.' Fever, which probably always
found a home in various parts of the district, now stalked everywhere,
until at the end of the twelfth century, when the population of the
city had fallen to no more than 35,000 souls, Pope Innocent III. could
declare that it was difficult to find there a man of forty years of age
and hardly possible to meet with one of sixty.

No one will dispute that the sole, or at least the chief, cause of
this long-continued depopulation is to be found in the prevalence of
malarious fever. Nor, since modern science has so clearly revealed
the nature and source of this decimating malady, can there be any
hesitation as to the more important steps that must be taken to
restore the region to healthfulness and fertility. Schemes are now in
contemplation to reclaim these wastes to cultivation, and to repeople
them with an industrious peasantry. While every lover of Italy will
rejoice over the successful accomplishment of such a beneficent reform,
those who have known the Campagna in the days of its desolation, and
have found in its weird loneliness and quiet beauty, in its monuments
and memories of the past, an inexpressible delight, will perhaps be
pardoned if they regretfully look back upon another of the charms of
Rome which shall then have passed away.


GLASGOW: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO.
LTD.

FOOTNOTE:

[103] _International Quarterly_, June 1904.




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|Transcriber's note:                              |
|                                                 |
|Obvious typographic errors have been corrected.  |
|                                                 |
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