Part 2 (1/2)

There was a singular parallel between the early careers of these two men. Both were the sons of parents of ample means, and were thus freed from the distractions of a business or profession, while throughout life they alike remained exempt from family cares. Each of them received the ordinary education of the English upper cla.s.ses--Scrope at Harrow, and Lyell at Salisbury, in a school conducted by a Winchester master on public-school lines. In due course, the two young men proceeded to the University--Scrope to Cambridge, to come under the influence of the sagacious and eloquent Sedgwick, and Lyell to Oxford, to catch inspiration from the enthusiastic but eccentric Buckland. On the opening up of the continent, by the termination of the French wars, each of the young men accompanied his family in a carriage-tour (as was the fas.h.i.+on of the time) through France, Switzerland and Italy; and both utilised the opportunities thus afforded them, to make long walking excursions for geological study. They both returned again and again to the continent for the purpose of geological research, and in the year 1825, at the age of 28, found themselves a.s.sociated as joint-secretaries of the Geological Society. By this time they had arrived at similar convictions concerning the causes of geological phenomena--convictions which were in direct opposition to the views of their early teachers, and equally obnoxious to all the leaders of geological thought in the infant society which they had joined.

[Ill.u.s.tration: G Poulett Scrope]

It is interesting to note that each of these two young geologists arrived independently, _as the result of their own studies and observations_, at their conclusions concerning the futility of the prevailing catastrophic doctrines. This I am able to affirm, not only from their published and unpublished letters, but from frequent conversations I had with them in their later years.

Scrope, who was slightly the elder of the two friends, spent a considerable time in that wonderful district of France--the Auvergne--in the year 1821, and though he had not seen the map and later memoirs of Desmarest, he pourtrayed the structure of the country in a series of very striking panoramic views, and was led, independently of the great French observer, to the same conclusions as his concerning the volcanic origin of the basalts and the formation of the valleys by river-action.

Scrope was at that time equally ignorant of the views propounded both by Generelli and by Hutton.

By April 6th, 1822, Scrope had completed his masterly work _The Geology and Extinct Volcanoes of Central France_, and had despatched it to England. It would be idle to speculate now as to what might have been the effect of that work--so full of the results of accurate observation, and so suggestive in its reasoning--had it been published at that time.

It is quite possible that much of the credit now justly a.s.signed to Lyell, would have belonged to his friend. Unfortunately, however, Scrope, instead of seeing his work through the press, determined first to make another tour in Italy. He arrived at Naples just in time to witness and describe the grandest eruption of Vesuvius in modern times, that of October 1822. What he witnessed then--the blowing away of the whole upper part of the mountain and the formation of a vast crater 1000 feet deep--made a profound impression on Scrope's mind. His interest thus strongly aroused concerning igneous phenomena, Scrope continued his travels and observations on the volcanic rocks of the peninsula of Italy and its islands, and was thus led to a number of important conclusions in theoretical geology, which he embodied in a work, published in 1825, ent.i.tled _Considerations on Volcanos: the probable causes of their phenomena, the laws which determine their march, the disposition of their products, and their connexion with the present state and past history of the globe; leading to the establishment of a New Theory of the Earth_.

It is only right to point out that, in calling this book a _new_ 'Theory of the Earth,' Scrope had no intention of comparing it with Hutton's great work, with which he was at that time altogether unacquainted.

Nevertheless, his conclusions, though independently arrived at, were almost identical with those of the great Scotch philosopher. But Scrope made the same mistake as Hutton had done before him. He allowed his theoretical conclusions to precede, instead of following upon an account of the observations on which they were based. Scrope's book is certainly one of the most original and suggestive contributions ever made to geological science; but the very speculative character of a large portion of the work led to the neglect of the really valuable hypotheses and acute observations which it contained. In the preface, however, the author gives a most striking and complete summary of the doctrine of Evolution as opposed to Catastrophism, in the inorganic world, as will be shown by the following extracts:--

Geology has for its business a knowledge of the processes which are in continual or occasional operation within the limits of our planet, and the application of these laws to explain the appearances discovered by our Geognostical researches, so as from these materials to deduce conclusions as to the past history of the globe.

The surface of the globe exposes to the eye of the Geognost abundant evidence of a variety of changes which appear to have succeeded one another during an incalculable lapse of time.

These changes are chiefly,

I. Variations of level between different const.i.tuent parts of the solid surface of the globe.

II. The destruction of former rocks, and their reproduction under another form.

III. The production of rocks _de novo_ upon the earth's surface.

Geologists have usually had recourse for the explanation of these changes to the supposition of sundry violent and extraordinary catastrophes, cataclysms, or general revolutions having occurred in the physical state of the earth's surface.

As the idea imparted by the term Cataclysm, Catastrophe, or Revolution, is extremely vague, and may comprehend any thing you choose to imagine, it answers for the time very well as an explanation; that is, it stops further inquiry. But it has also the disadvantage of effectually stopping the advance of science, by involving it in obscurity and confusion.

If, however, in lieu of forming guesses as to what may have been the possible causes and nature of these changes, we pursue that, which I conceive the only legitimate path of geological inquiry, and begin by examining the laws of nature which are actually in force, we cannot but perceive that numerous physical phenomena are going on at this moment on the surface of the globe, by which various changes are produced in its const.i.tution and external characters; changes extremely a.n.a.logous to those of earlier date, whose nature is the main object of geological inquiry.

These processes are princ.i.p.ally,

I. The Atmospheric phenomena.

II. The laws of the circulation and residence of Water on the exterior of the globe.

III. The action of Volcanos and Earthquakes.

The changes effected before our eyes, by the operation of these causes, in the const.i.tution of the crust of the earth are chiefly--

I. The Destruction of Rocks.

II. The Reproduction of others.

III. Changes of Level.