JOHN ALEXANDER ANDERSON
Published: 2023-05-02
Total Pages: 366
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It is no mitigation of an author’s temerity in publishing, that he can say for himself he had no intention, when collecting and arranging his materials, of ever submitting them to the eye of the public, or of provoking criticism by his speculations. Certain it is, however, I have often, and with severity at times, questioned myself as to the propriety of my geological pursuits, my ardent love of them, and their compatibility with the strict discharge of professional duty. My answer generally was, I sought not these things of themselves; they were hung up and displayed before me, wherever I went on pleasure, on business, or on duty. I simply inquired after their names; and of all the geological phenomena that have passed under my review, I can safely affirm of them, in their darkest, deepest places, they have uniformly led me “from nature up to nature’s God,” and have inscribed upon them in brightest characters—BENEDICTUM SIT NOMEN DEI. How often, I have argued, in the leisure hours of life do we find men idling away their time, wasting it in vain talk, or consuming it in the most trifling pursuits, when a most interesting branch of science can be learned by wandering over the green fields, the rocky dell, the mountain side, or by the walk at even-tide, and there to hold converse with the Creator’s works and the records of his will? I have recalled the list of great and good men, whose names are imperishably connected with the science of geology, who have given much of their time to these researches, and who have reaped laurels from their discoveries. Can Buckland, Conybeare, Sedgwick, Sumner, Smith, Fleming, and Chalmers—all either explorers or expositors—and other eminent divines, have been engaged in improper pursuits, or have given the sanction of their authority to tenets and views connected with the scheme of nature that do not accord with the religious principle? Often on such occasions have I dwelt upon, and compared with my own humble pursuits, the lofty and impassioned descriptions of the Psalmist, where, sometimes in a single piece, he takes a magnificent sweep of the great master-keys of creation—the foundations of the steadfast earth—the course of the fluid waters—the revolutions of the sun and moon—the vicissitude of the seasons—the habits and instincts of the lower animals—the[v] earthquake and volcano—and all recited as demonstrations of Divine wisdom and goodness, and all calculated to awaken and to sustain the devotional feelings of the heart. Having, under the influence of such impressions, gathered, and now put together in this form, the notes of my researches, I do not mean to aver that I have visited every locality referred to, or personally observed everything noticed in the publication. Where so much has been done by others I have carefully examined their works. Where the field is so boundless, and the course of illustration necessarily so discursive, I have freely made use of their collected materials. Still, I have been chiefly induced to adopt the line of description from the Grampians to the Alps, because, at sundry though often distant periods, I have examined the various suites of rocks comprised betwixt these mountain boundaries. If there be any novelty in the volume, it will be found, not in the subject-matter itself nor in the mode of treating it, but by following the geographical sequence in the descriptions of the several geological formations, and their relations to each other in the countries passed over. I have to express my acknowledgments to Messrs. W. and R. Chambers for a considerable number of[vi] the figures contained in the volume, and which have already appeared in one or other of their numerous publications. To Mr. David Page, than whom I do not know a better practical geologist, I am indebted for much valuable information, gleaned by him in an extensive acquaintance with most of the ground passed under review. The errors of the volume are my own, and these, I doubt not, in a science subject to such daily mutations and receiving daily such additions as the science of geology, will be found neither few nor venial. NEWBURGH MANSE, May, 1850...FROM THE BOOKS.
