the discreditable origin of the Bible, in Hebrew mythology. His remarks, however, apply with full force to the genealogy of geology. It was cradled in poetry and mythology, and its children of the nineteenth century claim their kindred to the Titans. The poets, too, recognize the geologists as brethren. When Professor Sedgwick was staying with Wordsworth, pursuing his geological researches, he labored long in vain to interest the poet in his favorite science. At length, one day he persuaded him to accompany him on a geological excursion, showing him the strata, and giving him the theory. The poet at once brightened up. "O, Professor," said he, "I begin to like your geological pursuits very much, there is so much imagination in them." Geology comes honestly by its grand poetical visions. It was born in the gorgeous and glowing East. The land of Sinim is the cradle of geology. While the greatgrandfathers of our Lyells and Hitchcocks were roasting wild boars upon the stalagmite pavement of the bone caves of Britain, all incurious concerning the precious deposits of bare bones and fossils over which they stretched their naked limbs, the geologists of China were observing diluvial phenomena, and forming geological theories, which, as they are the oldest, so they are decidedly the most popular expositions of that science. Taking into account the number of literati in China, and the fact that there are no conflicting systems, Chinese geology, professed by ten times the number of savans claimed by any western system, and continuing unchanged for at least a millennium, carries with it a weight of authority for which the conflicting novelties of Hutton and Werner will long sigh in vain. Like them it begins at the granite, and concurs with them in ascribing to it a great elevation in the geological era, finding it quite as troublesome and intrusive as in Europe. In fact, it enveloped the present world like a vast shell, leaving the earth to occupy the position of Pluto and Proserpine in Capt. Symmes' interior world. As no opening had been provided, and daylight and air could not reach the surface, great inconvenience was experienced. Heaven was formless, an utter chaos. Order was first produced in the pure ether. From the subtle essence of heaven and earth, the dual principles Yin and Yang were formed. From their joint operation came the four seasons, and these putting forth their energies, gave birth to all the products of the earth. The first man, Pwanku, was hatched from the chaos by the dual powers, like Darwin's first men; though, of a nobler turn of mind, he did not sit down chipping flint axes at Abbeville, but devoting himself to practical geology, he seized hammer and chisel and commenced the work of clearing off the granite crust. THE CHINESE MANUALS OF GEOLOGY, which must be exceedingly interesting to those scientific skeptics who have so long praised Confucius and sneered at Moses, give wood engravings, showing him hewing out vast masses of granite, with the sun, moon and stars appearing through the openings; and exhibit the tortoise, dragon, and phoenix, whose genesis is as obscure as that of the granite, uniting with Pwanku in grinning hugely over the success of his toils. For eighteen thousand years he continued his labors, and grew with his work. The heavens rose, the earth spread out, and Pwanku increased in stature, each of them six feet, not in a century, according to Lyell's slow system, but every day. His labors done, he died for the benefit of his works. His head became mountains, his breath wind and clouds, his voice thunder, his limbs were changed into the four poles, his veins into rivers, his sinews into the undulations of the earth's surface, and his flesh into fields; his beard, like Berenice's hair, was turned into stars, his skin and hair into herbs and trees, his teeth, bones, and marrow into metals and rocks; his dropping sweat increased to rain, and the insects which stuck to his body were transformed into people.* Sublime and simple theory of evolution! It is our misfortune, however, to live in an improving world, in which men will propose to amend almost everything; so when Pwanku was gone, a race more imaginative than the Chinese resolved on an improved cosmogony. Starting from the Lyellian notion that what is, is what has been, and perceiving that all organized existence is from the egg, and believing the universe to be an organized being, THE HINDOO GEOLOGISTS say that Brahm produced a vast egg containing all atoms, qualities and principles, which floated, like our nebular essence of solar systems, in the abyss. Disdaining the paltry 18,000 years of their careful Chinese predecessors, the Hindoo sages, with genuine geological generosity of time, assigned to Brahm 1,000 yugs or 4,300,000,000 solar years, for hatching the egg. Fourteen strata of worlds were thus produced, of which our earth is the eighth. These are all minutely described in the Vedas. The primary, secondary, tertiary, etc., are the abodes of monsters and all manner of loathsome creatures. Our own earth is circular, like the flower of the water lily, in which the rows of petals project beyond each other. It consists of seven concentric islands, in which we are placed upon the central, Jamba Dwip, surrounded by a sea of salt water. The second island is washed by a sea of sugar-cane juice. The third island, lying around the sea of sugar cane juice, by some diabolical distillation, The Middle Kingdom. S. Wells Williams, New York, 1863. II. p. 196. is surrounded by a sea of rum. The fourth island is surrounded by a sea of melted clarified butter. This and the others are probably prairie or pasture lands, as the seas successively consist of sour curds and milk, and lastly of sweet water-rather a luxury after such a voyage among sweets-for the diameter of each of these islands and seas is a good many hundreds of thousands of miles. The diameter of the whole arrangement is considerably larger than that of La Place's nebulous cloud, which contracted itself so wonderfully in taking up house in our little solar system, and which also had a habit of peeling off into concentric rings like those of Brahm's manufacture. HINDOO GEOLOGIC CYCLES. The Hindoo geologists also recognize the necessity of providing mountain chains sufficiently large to afford materials for such a breadth of sedimentary strata, a necessity which none of our western geologists has ever ventured to consider. The centre of our earth is accordingly occupied by Su Meru, a mountain several thousand miles high; and which they declare to be in the shape of an inverted pyramid; as indeed are all mountains traced to the centre of the sphere. Its mango and rose-apple trees, producing fruit as large as elephants, the juice of which forms mighty rivers, would more properly fall into the department of botany, but for the mineralogical influence of the waters in converting the earth over which they pass into purest gold. But it is only when we come to the question of duration that the grandeur of Hindoo geology displays itself. Truly our western savans must enlarge their idea of cycles if they be found worthy to loose the sandals of the Brahmins, whose numeral characters they employ. A day of the gods is one of our solar years—three hundred and sixty such constitute a year of the gods-twelve thousand such, form an age of the gods, a maha yug or 4,320,000 years of mortals. Seventy-one of these compose a manwantara, or great cycle, during which one Manu reigns on the earth. Of these, fourteen reign in succession, each introducing a new creation of species; for the course of Hindoo geology is catastrophical, beginning well, progressing through golden, silver, brass and iron ages, to a general degeneracy of nature, and insufferable wickedness of mankind, and ending in deluges and earthquakes which depopulate the world. The sun, moon and stars are shrouded in darkness, clouds from above pour down torrents of rain. The seven lower worlds are at once submerged, as well as the earth we inhabit, and the inundation rises till the two superior worlds are drowned, reaching even to the pole-star. Then Brahma appears, and recreates the world. This constitutes a day of his life, and his night has the same duration. Three hundred and sixty of these periods of activity and repose constitute a year of his life, which consists of a hundred such years, or three hundred billions of common years! The most magnificent theories of the West pale before these glorious rays of the Eastern sun. But though grand and vast, these calculations are by no means indefinite. The point which has so long engaged the ingenuity of western geologists in vain, the connection of geological chronology with present time, is as definitely settled as the age of the pyramids. We are now in the 4,959th year of the Kali yug, of the 28th Maha yug, of the seventh manwantara, of the first day of the 51st year of Brahma—in the middle of time.* We should, however, do our readers, and the human mind, a gross injustice if we left them to suppose that we have reached the limit of speculation. There is, in truth, nothing which more fully asserts man's celestial origin than his adventurous progress into the regions of *Duff's India and India Missions. Edinburgh, 1840. P. 112. |