Omphalos: "If any choose to maintain, as many do, that species were gradually brought to their maturity from humbler forms ... he is welcome to his hypothesis, but I have nothing to do with it."

Omphalos by Philip Henry Gosse

AN ATTEMPT TO UNTIE THE GEOLOGICAL KNOT.  WITH FIFTY-SIX ILLUSTRATIONS ON WOOD.

Philip Henry Gosse was born in Gloucester on April 6th, 1810 and is remembered as one of the earliest natural scientists whose curiosity enabled much to be discovered and understood about our surroundings. Such was his enthusiasm for observation that he started the Victorian craze of aquariums.

He tried to reconcile his religious zeal with an interpretation of scientific fact that almost cost him his reputation. Instead it propelled him forward to engage with ever more curiosity on all manner of subjects and to write carefully and draw beautifully of what he discovered.

Index of Contents

PREFACE

I. THE CAUSE.

Evidence of the Senses often delusive—Deductions of Reason fallible—Essentials sometimes overlooked—Discrepancy between Scripture and Geological Conclusions—Painful Dilemma—Efforts to escape from it—Supremacy of Truth—Various Attempts at Reconciliation—Denouncers—Opinions of Brown—Blackwood—Macbrair—Ure—Penn—Young—Cockburn—Miller—Sedgwick—Turner—Sumner—Chalmers—Harris—Gray—Conybeare—Hitchcock—Pye Smith—Protoplast—Babbage—Powell—Vestiges—Amplitude of Choice.    

II. THE WITNESS FOR THE MACRO-CHRONOLOGY.

A Court of Inquiry—The Witnesses—Testimony of One—Strata of Thames Tunnel—of Hertfordshire—of Yorkshire—of the Globe—Granite—Granitic Strata—Organic Remains—Silurian System—Corals—Trilobites—Mollusks—Devonian System—Old Red Sandstone—Its Formation—Fishes—Carboniferous System—Coral Limestone—Millstone Grit—Coal—Predominance of Carbonic Acid—Extent and Thickness of Coal-Fields—Formation of Coal—Conjecture as to its Age—Antediluvian Theory untenable—Sauroid Fishes—Earliest Reptiles—Footprints of Frogs.

III. THE SAME—(continued.)

Disturbances of Strata—Internal Heat—Changes of Land and Sea—New Red Sandstone—Footprints—Labyrinthodon—Lias Formation—Crinoids—Ammonites—Belemnites—Fishes—Marine Reptiles—Ichthyosaur—Plesiosaur—European Archipelago—Oolitic Formation—Cycads—Megalosaur—Bat-Lizards—Iguanodon—Hylæosaur—Earliest Mammal—Chalk Formation—Infusoria—Diatomaceæ—Their Minuteness and Numbers—Chambered Cephalopods—Mosasaur—End of Secondary Formations—Convulsions—Basalt—Uprearing of Mountain Chains—London Clay—Plants and Animals—Fishes—Reptiles—Birds—Mammals—Anoplotherium—Condition of Europe—Dinotherium—Mastodon—Mammoth—Trees—Crag Formation—Tertiary Fauna—Bone Caves—Kirkdale—Erratic Blocks—Glaciers—Sloths—Marsupials—Birds—Raised Beaches—Human Period—Moho—Present Cosmical Operations—River Deltas—Coral Beefs—Volcanoes—Changes of Level—Earthy Deposits—Stalagmite—Shells—Recapitulation.

IV. THE CROSS-EXAMINATION.

Grandeur of the Evidence—Proposed Line of Objection—It is but circumstantial—Example of Confusion of Thought—Analysis of the Reasoning—-Dependent on the exhaustive Power of Observation—Relation of Precedence and Sequence—Of Cause and Effect—Force of my Position.

V. POSTULATES.

The Creation of Matter—The Persistence of Species. 

VI. LAWS.

The Course of Nature a Circle—Illustrations—Scarlet Runner—Lady-fern—Hawkmoth—Plumularia—Cow—Universality of the Law—Creation an Irruption into a Circle—False Witness to Past Processes—Prochronism and Diachronism—Phenomena illusory—Recapitulation.

VII. PARALLELS AND PRECEDENTS.

(Plants)

Ideal Tour on Creation-Day—Chronological Investigations—Queried Age of a Tree-fern—Data for the Inquiry—Development of the Leaves—Leaf-scars—Report—Its manifest Error—Selaginella—Bamboo—Couch-grass—Screw-pine—Pashiuba—Sugar Palm—Areca—Rattan—Agave—Traveller's Tree—Butterfly Flower—Orchis—Gladiolus—Grass-tree—White Lily—Testudinaria—Caffer-Bread—Fig—Banyan—Euphorbia—Tulip-tree—Bignonia—Loranthus—Prickly Pear—Mangrove—Silk-cotton-tree—Locust-tree—Restriction of the Inquiry—Uniform Testimony to Untruth. 

VIII. PARALLELS AND PRECEDENTS.

(Invertebrate Animals)

Resumption of the Examination—SeaPen—Millepore—Madrepore—Organ-pipe—Medusa—Sea-urchin—Feather-star—Tapeworm—Serpula—Terebella—White-ant—Goliath-beetle—Gnat—Case-fly—Melicerta—Julus—Buprestis—Shore-crab—Barnacle—Lepralia—Botryllus—Clavagella—PricklyVenus—Scorpion Stromb—Tiger Cowry—Thorny Murex—Pearly Nautilus—Cuttlefish. 

IX. PARALLELS AND PRECEDENTS.

(Vertebrate Animals)

Examination of the Vertebrata—Sword-fish—Gilt-head—Laminæ of Scales—Shark—Arrangement of Teeth—Their Structure—Tree-frog—Metamorphosis—Rattlesnake—Crocodile—Tortoise—Laminæ of Plates—Skull of Cassowary—Peacock—Humming-bird—Trogon—Structure and Growth of Feathers—Whalebone of Whale—Horn of Ibex—Horn of Stag—Teeth of Horse—Of Babiroussa—Of Hippopotamus—Tusk of Elephant—Molars of Elephant.  

X. PARALLELS AND PRECEDENTS.

(Man)

Examination of Primal Man—Blood—Its Formation—Its Oxygenation—Nails—Hair—Bones—Teeth—All formed by successive Processes—Stature—Thyroid Cartilage—Beard—Development of Teeth—Proportion of Bloods—Condition of Skeleton—Navel—False Conclusion.

XI. PARALLELS AND PRECEDENTS.

(Germs)

Assumption of adult Development at Creation—Its Reasonableness—The Position waived—Assumption of the Germ-Hypothesis—Double Cocoa-nut—Coral Tree—Tulip—Earth-pea—Mangrove—Medusa—Connexion of Germs with Parent—In Echinoderms—In Annelids—In Insects—Egg of Butterfly—Of Nut Weevil—Of Bots—Of Ichneumon—Of Pill Chafer—Of Gall-fly—Of Lace-fly—Of Spider—Of Gipsy Moth—Of Coccus—Of Saw-fly—Of Cockroach—Of Dirt-dauber—Metamorphosis of Star-fish—Eggs attached to Brachionus—Viviparous Progeny of Rotifer—Of Asplanchna—Of Daphnia—Egg-purse of Shark—Economy of Surinam Toad—Egg of Fowl—Foetus of Kangaroo—Umbilicus.  

XII. THE CONCLUSION.

Uniformity of Results—Prochronism of Organic Nature—Phenomena inadequate to settle Chronology—Historic Testimony alone oracular—Familiar Illustration—Objections met—Analogy between an Organism and a World—Illustration from a Tree—Analogy between the Life of a Species and that of an Individual—History Divinely Projected—Grand Plan of Nature—Diachronic Existence not necessary—Deceptive Phenomena inseparable from Created Organisms—Illustrations abundant—Hypothesis of the Life-history of the Globe—Supposition of 1857 being the Era of Creation—What its State?—Minuteness and Verity of Proofs of Life present no Difficulty—Coprolites—Fæcal Residua in newly-created Animals—Cyclical not Organic Condition the Test of Prochronism—Illustrations from the inorganic World—Rivers—Ocean Currents—Celestial Bodies—Velocity of Light—Records of Entities actually passed—No Tree has Leaves—Plates of Testudinaria—Leaf-scars of Palm—Column of Nerita—Spines of Murex—Madreporic Plate of Cribella—Hilum of Seed—Navel of Mammal—Argument of Great and Small—Old Hypothesis of Lusus Naturæ—Demonstration of a Law—Effect of this Principle on the Study of Geology—Summing up.  

FOOTNOTES

MARINE - NATURAL HISTORY CLASS

PHILIP HENRY GOSSE – A SHORT BIOGRAPHY

PHILIP HENRY GOSSE – A CONCISE BIBLIOGRAPHY

PREFACE.

You have not allowed for the wind, Hubert, said Locksley, in Ivanhoe; or that had been a better shot.

I remember, when I was in Newfoundland, some five-and-twenty years ago, the disastrous wreck of the brig Elizabeth, which belonged to the firm in which I was a clerk. The master had made a good observation the day before, which had determined his latitude some miles north of Cape St. Francis. A thick fog coming on, he sailed boldly by compass, knowing that, according to his latitude, he could well weather that promontory. But lo! about midnight the ship plunged right against the cliffs of Ferryland, thirty miles to the south, crushing in her bows to the windlass; and presently went down, the crew barely saving their lives. The captain had not allowed for the polar current, which was setting, like a sluice, to the southward, between the Grand Bank and the land.

When it was satisfactorily ascertained that the heavenly body, now known as Uranus, was a planet, its normal path was soon laid down according to the recognised law of gravitation. But it would not take this path. There were deviations and anomalies in its observed course, which could in nowise be referred to the operation of any known principle. Astronomers were sorely puzzled to explain the irregularities, and to reconcile facts with laws. Various hypotheses were proposed: some denied the facts; that is, the observed places of the planet, boldly assuming that the observers had been in error: others suggested that perhaps the physical laws, which had been supposed to govern the whole celestial machinery, did not reach so far as Uranus's orbit. The secret is now known: they had not allowed for the disturbances produced by Neptune.

In each of these cases the conclusions were legitimately deduced from the recognised premises. Hubert's skilled eye had calculated the distance; his experience had taught him the requisite angle at which to shoot, the exact amount of force necessary, and every other element proper to insure the desired result, except one. There was an element which he had overlooked; and it spoiled his calculations. He had forgotten the wind.

The master of the ill-fated brig had calculated his latitude correctly; he knew the rate of his vessel's speed; the compass had showed him the parallel on which to steer. These premises ought to have secured a safe conclusion; and so they would, but for an unrecognised power that vitiated all; he was not aware of the silent and secret current, that was every hour setting him to the south of his supposed latitude.

The path of Uranus had been calculated by the astronomers with scrupulous care, and every known element of disturbance had been considered; not by one, but by many. But for the fact that the planet had been previously seen in positions quite inconsistent with such a path, it would have been set down as beyond controversy correct. Stubborn fact, however, would not give way; and hence the dilemma, till Le Verrier suggested the unseen antagonist.

I venture to suggest in the following pages an element, hitherto overlooked, which disturbs the conclusions of geologists respecting the antiquity of the earth. Their calculations are sound on the recognised premises; but they have not allowed for the Law of Prochronism in Creation.

The enunciation of this principle will lie in a nut-shell; the reader will find it at p.124; or p.347. All the rest of the book is illustration.

I do not claim originality for the thought which I have here endeavoured to work out. It was suggested to me by a Tract, which I met with some dozen years ago, or more; the title of which I have forgotten: I am pretty sure it was anonymous, but it was published by Campbell, of 1, Warwick Square. Whether it is still in print I do not know; I never saw another copy. If the author is alive, and if he should happen to cast his eye on this volume, he will doubtless recognise his own bantling, and accept this my acknowledgment.

The germ of the argument, however, I have found, since these pages were written, in The Mineral and Mosaical Geologies, of Granville Penn (1822). The state of physical science when he wrote did not enable him to press the argument to a demonstration, as I have endeavoured to do; for he could not refer to structural peculiarities as sensible records of past processes, inseparable from newly created organisms.

I would not be considered as an opponent of geologists; but rather as a co-searcher with them after that which they value as highly as I do, TRUTH. The path which I have pursued has led me to a conclusion at variance with theirs. I have a right to expect that it be weighed; let it not be imputed to vanity if I hope that it may be accepted.

But what I much more ardently desire is, that the thousands of thinking persons, who are scarcely satisfied with the extant reconciliations of Scriptural statements and Geological deductions,—who are silenced but not convinced,—may find, in the principle set forth in this volume, a stable resting-place. I have written it in the constant prayer that the God of Truth will deign so to use it; and if He do, to Him be all the glory!

P. H. G.

MARYCHURCH, TORQUAY,

October, 1857.

I.

THE CAUSE.

Is there not a cause?—1 SAM. xvii. 29.

An eminent philosopher has observed that "nothing can be more common or frequent than to appeal to the evidence of the senses as the most unerring test of physical effects. It is by the organs of sense, and by these alone, that we can acquire any knowledge of the qualities of external objects, and of their mutual effects when brought to act one upon another, whether mechanically, physically, or chemically; and it might, therefore, not unreasonably be supposed, that what is called the evidence of the senses must be admitted to be conclusive, as to all the phenomena developed by such reciprocal action.

Nevertheless, the fallacies are numberless into which those are led who take what they consider the immediate results of sensible impressions, without submitting them to the severe control and disciplined analysis of the understanding.[1]

If this verdict is confessedly true with regard to many observations which we make on things immediately present to our senses, much more likely is it to be true with respect to conclusions which are not the immediate results of sensible impressions, but are merely deduced by a process of reasoning from such impressions. And if the direct evidence of our senses is to be received with a prudent reserve, because of this possibility of error, even when we have no evidence of an opposing character, still more necessary is the exercise of caution in judging of facts assumed to have occurred at a period far removed from our own experience, and which stand in contradiction (at least apparent, primâ facie, contradiction) to credible historic testimony. Nay, the caveat acquires a greatly intensified force, when the testimony with which the assumed facts are, or seem to be, at variance, is no less a testimony than His who ordained the facts, who made the objects of investigation; the testimony of the Creator of all things; the testimony of Him who is, from eternity to eternity, [Greek: HO APSEUDÊS THEOS]!

I hope I shall not be deemed censorious in stating my fear that those who cultivate the physical sciences are not always sufficiently mindful of the Humanum est errare. What we have investigated with no little labour and patience, what we have seen with our eyes many many times, in many aspects, and under many circumstances, we naturally believe firmly; and we are very prone to attach the same assurance of certainty to the inferences we have, bonâ fide, and with scrupulous care to eliminate error, deduced from our observations, as to the observations themselves; and we are apt to forget that some element of error may have crept into our actual investigations, and still more probably into our deductions. Even if our observations be so simple, so patent, so numerous, as almost to preclude the possibility of mistake in them, and our process of reasoning from them be without a flaw, still we may have overlooked a principle, which, though perhaps not very obvious, ought to enter into the investigation, and which, if recognised, would greatly modify our conclusions.

In this volume I venture to suggest such a principle to the consideration of geologists. It will not be denied that Geology is a science that stands peculiarly in need of being cultivated with that salutary self-distrust that I have above alluded to. Though a strong and healthy child, it is as yet but an infant. The objects on which its senses have been exercised, its [Greek: ta blepomena], are indeed plain enough and numerous enough, when once discovered; but the inferences drawn from them, its [Greek: bebaia], find their sphere in the most venerably remote antiquity,—an antiquity mensurable not by years or centuries, but by secula seculorum. And the dicta, which its votaries rest on as certitudes, are at variance with the simple literal sense of the words of God.

I am not assuming here that the Inspired Word has been rightly read; I merely say that the plain straightforward meaning, the meaning that lies manifestly on the face of the passages in question, is in opposition with the conclusions which geologists have formed, as to the antiquity and the genesis of the globe on which we live.

Perhaps the simple, superficial sense of the Word is not the correct one; but it is at least that which its readers, learned and unlearned, had been generally content with before; and which would, I suppose, scarcely have been questioned, but for what appeared the exigencies of geological facts.

Now while there are, unhappily, not a few infidels, professed or concealed, who eagerly seize on any apparent discrepancy between the works and the Word of God, in order that they may invalidate the truth of the latter, there are, especially in this country, many names of the highest rank in physical (and, among other branches, in geological) science, to whom the veracity of God is as dear as life. They cannot bear to see it impugned; they know that it cannot be overthrown; they are assured that He who gave the Word, and He who made the worlds, is One Jehovah, who cannot be inconsistent with Himself. But they cannot shut their eyes to the startling fact, that the records which seem legibly written on His created works do flatly contradict the statements which seem to be plainly expressed in His word.

Here is a dilemma. A most painful one to the reverent mind! And many reverent minds have laboured hard and long to escape from it. It is unfair and dishonest to class our men of science with the infidel and atheist. They did not rejoice in the dilemma; they saw it at first dimly, and hoped to avoid it.[2] At first they believed that the mighty processes which are recorded on the everlasting mountains might not only be harmonized with, but might afford beautiful and convincing demonstrations of Holy Scripture. They thought that the deluge of Noah would explain the stratification, and the antediluvian era account for the organic fossils.

As the stone book was further read, this mode of explanation appeared to many untenable; and they retracted their adherence to it. To a mind rightly constituted, Truth is above every thing: there is no such thing as a pious fraud; the very idea is an impious lie: God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all; and that religion which can be maintained only by dissembling or denying truth, cannot proceed from Him that is Holy, Him that is True, but from him who is a liar, and the father of it.

Many upright and ardent cultivators of the young science felt that truth would be compromised by a persistence in those explanations which had hitherto passed current. The discrepancy between the readings in Science and the hitherto unchallenged readings in Scripture, became manifest. Partisans began to array themselves on either side; some, jealous for the honour of God, knew little of science, and rushed into the field ill-prepared for the conflict; some, jealous for science, but little conversant with Scripture, and caring less for it, were willing to throw overboard its authority altogether: others, who knew that the writings were from the same Hand, knew therefore that there must be some way of reconciling them, and set themselves to find it out.

Have they succeeded? If I thought so, I would not publish this book. Many, I doubt not, have been convinced by each of the schemes by which the discrepant statements have been sought to be harmonized. Each of them has had sufficient plausibility to convince its propounder; and, probably, others too. And some of them have attained a large measure of public confidence. Yet if any one of them is true, it certainly has not commanded universal assent. Let us examine how far they agree among themselves, who propose to reconcile Scripture and Science, the Mosaic and the Mineral Geologies.

And first, it is, perhaps, right to represent the opinions of those who stand by the literal acceptation of the Divine Word. There have been some, indeed, who refuse to entertain the question of reconciliation, taking the high ground that, as the Word of God is and must be true, it is impious to set any evidence in competition with it. I cannot but say, my sympathies are far more with these than with those who, at the opposite pole of the argument, would make scientific deduction paramount, and make the Word go to the wall. But, then, we ought to be quite sure that we have got the very Word of God; and, so far from being impious, it seems highly proper and right, when conflicting evidence appears to flow out of what is indubitably God's work, to examine afresh the witnesses on both sides, that we may not make either testify what it does not.

Those good men who merely denounce Geology and geologists, I do not quote. There are the facts, written and engraven in stones, and that by the finger of God. How can they be accounted for?

Some have recourse to the assumption that the natural processes by which changes in the earth's surface are now going on, may have operated in antediluvian times with a rapidity and power of which we can form little conception from what we are cognisant of. The Rev. J. Mellor Brown takes this ground, adducing the analogies of steam-power and electricity, as effecting in a few moments or hours, what formerly would have required several days or weeks to accomplish.

God's most tremendous agencies may have been employed in the beginning of his works. If, for instance, it should be conceded that the granitic or basaltic strata were once in a state of fusion, there is no reason why we should not call in the aid of supposition to produce a rapid refrigeration. We may surround the globe with an atmosphere (not as yet warmed by the rays of the newly kindled sun) more intensely cold than that of Saturn. The degree of cold may have been such as to cool down the liquid granite and basalt in a few hours, and render it congenial to animal and vegetable life; while the gelid air around the globe may have been mollified by the abstracted caloric.[3]

A writer in Blackwood (xli. 181; xlii. 690), in like manner, adheres to the literal sense of Genesis and the Decalogue, and alludes to the great agencies—the magnetic, electrical, and ethereal influences—probably instrumental in all the phenomena of nature, as being far more powerful than is generally suspected.

Mr. Macbrair—who does not, however, appear, from the amount of his acquaintance with science, competent to judge of the physical evidence—supposes stratification to have proceeded with immense rapidity, because limestone is now deposited in some waters at the rate of six inches per annum. Because a mass of timber, ten miles in length, was collected in the Mississippi, in thirty-eight years, he considers that a capital coal field might be formed in a single century. Alluvial strata are mud lavas ejected from volcanoes. The whole difficulty of fossil remains is got rid of by ignoring the distinctions of species, and assuming that the ancient animals and the recent ones are identical. The Pterodactyle and the Plesiosaurus he does not allude to.[4]

According to Dr. Ure,—The demiurgic week ... is manifestly composed of six working days like our own, and a day of rest, each of equal length, and, therefore, containing an evening and a morning, measured by the rotation of the earth round its axis.... Neither reason nor revelation will justify us in extending the origin of the material system beyond six thousand years from our own days. The world then received its substance, form, and motions from the volition of the Omnipotent.

His theory of the stratification extends over the whole antediluvian era. He supposes that successive irruptions of the central heat broke up the primitive strata and deposited the secondary and tertiary. The basaltic or trap phenomena lead to the conclusion that such upheavings and subversions were not confined to one epoch of the antediluvian world, but that, coeval with its birth, they pervaded the whole period of its duration.... The Deluge—that universal transflux of the ocean—was the last and greatest of these terraqueous convulsions.[5]

Another class of this school of interpreters refers the stratification of the earth, either to the deluge alone, or to that convulsion conjoined with the one which is considered to have taken place on the third day of the Mosaic narrative. Perhaps the most eminent writer of this class is Mr. Granville Penn, whose opinions may be thus condensed.

He supposes that this globe has undergone only two revolutions. The first was the violent rupture and depression of the surface to become the bed of the sea, and the simultaneous elevation of the other portion to become dry land,—the theatre of terrestrial existence. This first revolution took place before the creation of any organized beings. The second revolution was at the Noachic Flood, when the former bed of the sea was elevated to become the dry land, with all its organic accumulations of sixteen centuries, while the former land was correspondingly depressed and overflowed. "The