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    378 The < Leader andSaturday [ Analyst .. [ April 21 , I 860 .

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    wants . Geologists are not : unknown there , Tor the late Edward Fbrbe's , and the present Messrs . Ramsay and Salter have been there , and , as they have assured us , would gladly go again . Listening to the remarks of one of these . excellent geoiog-ists , we felt prompted to quote two lines of one of Dr . Watts ' s hymns for the young , — "Wehavebeenthere , and still would go / 'Tis like a little heaven below . " After having refreshed ourselves , let us sally forth with hammer in hand and zeal for science in our hearts . We soon find ourselves on the hills , and the best course is first to walkover or across them * aiid after having viewed their general contour , to descend into the valley below us , and hammer in certain promising places . A walk of about four miles up hill will lead us "by a stony and winding road along the Longmynd Hills , over long- stretches of sheep pastures , by rounded masses arid grassy eminences , away from everything human . One man only did we meet on our last journey across these wild tracks . A kindly salutation and a clownish joke being ovei-, on we passed , each of us not to see the other ' s like again that morning . Striking off into he scrubby and mossy wilderness , we come to a bright or green streak that marks an undercurrent . Soon we reach the only spring of water known hereabouts , and slake our thirst . On we travel , " Remotej unfriended , melancholy , slow , " until we atlast arrive at the Longmynd Pule , a tall , wind-swayed staff , marking-the spot of which we have been in search , and from which ,, as the countryman we passed assured us , we can see " over the world like . " The day is ¦ . rathe * hazy—when is a day ever otherwise , as tone , ascends a mountain to gain a view ? But we do see a great way , and can believe that if the flay were clear , ( a kind of fabulous day in all our mountain walks ] , we should really see half the neighbouring world . The view ¦ ¦ frdni the Worcestershire Beacon in the Malvern range is very extensive , but that from the Jjongmynd Pole is scarcely inferior , and well worth attempting to obtain , even at tlie cost of , a solitary walk , where neither cockneys , nor Worcester fashionables , nor oppressed donkeys pass us , nor Dr . Gully's water-drinking patients cast melancholy glances upoii healthy men . Geologically , regarded , the Longmynd Hills- represent what we at present consider the lowest sedimentary rocks . ; that' is ., rocks formed from the sediment of very ancient seas , and formed at their bottoms . Although only about eight hundred feet -high , the thickness of the rocks of which they are composed is , wlien measured jieologieally , at the outcrops of their highly inclined edg-es , more than 2 O O 0 O foet ,-in'fact , the Government gcolog'ic : tl surveyors , sny , 26 , ( 00 feet . It is not at sill easy to conceive of the iinmense duration of time demanded for the -sedimentary deposition of this mass of rocks ; and it would be difficult to makeTany popular representation of such duration . In geological -nomenclature , they form the Cumbrian rocks of JVrurehLs ' on and of the geological surveyors , but only a part of the Cambrian system of Sedgwick , who extends that term higher xip , so as to include a part of the lower Silurian systoin of Murchiwon . They repose on gneiss and granite , which according to the old phrase are the " primitive rocks " of the immense primary series . The primitive rocks contain no fossils , and no signs of . ancient life . Geological research has constantly tended ¦ io deepen , and thus multiply the evidences of life in the older sediinehtnry rocks . For many years , tliese Longmynd rocks , and the-Cumbrian rocks generally , were supposed to be destitute of all traces of organic remains , ' but recent and very minute search had led us to infer that there was sonic life , even in those very ancient seas , though , sis far as wo can at present . judge , ' but little , its evidences being few and very far between . Tin ' s life , however , was certainly the most ancient upon our g'lobe , speaking" always in accordance with our knowledge up to this day ; It was in 1856 that fossils wero first discovered in these rocks , in nearly vertical beds of hard , flug-gy sandstone , occurring along the strikft of tho Lonp-myiids , about u milo and a half east of the principal ridge . These consisted of tlie marks of the burrosvinjes of worms upon the wave-washed surface * of the primitivo struta , some small and others largo , but all crowded together and crossed , just us is the case on the sua-shoi'os <> f thq present nye . The shale ( schists , siuidstones , and conglomerates ) of these hills are , in fact , the ooze , sands and beaches of the primeval seas , tindtho worms' burrows n , ro before \ is to-day as they wore innumerable years ago , when the sea bout over them and tho worms crawled and crept into little sand holes . The playground of the primitive worm is hardened nnd handed clown to . the latter cloys of the world , to become tho ground for scientific discussion nnd grave disputations . Not to speak of ripple inarms and of ruin mnrkn , which are preserved upon tho stones as faithfully as if the surf rippled before us , and the win poured down upon us at this day , wo notice more particularly tho frogmen is of tho primeval crustacean found in these beds . The most distinct portion ( and yot very faint , ns most would think ) is tho caudal extremity of tho litt In creature ( which is affirmed to bo a spoait ' S of ti'ilobitq ) , and id named Palfttopi / go JZamsai / i , that is ,, in plain Kngliah , tho anoiont tqtil-pfooo of Ramsay—not that worthy rYol ' Otffior Hiunsay lias or ever had a tui ) , but that the trilobite having hud n tail , nnd its discoverer wishing to immortalise Professor Ramsay ( and ho deserves it ) , bethought him of this mode of sending 1 down lliimsuy to e-oologioal posterity . . It is well to explain those things , for tho books and their writers no vet" do , nnd otherwise some simple people might think this enmlal fragment hud iv personal rola * tion to Mr . Kunisny . Although thftfc'g-entJoinan hm no tail , wo van assure' pur readers that ho has n hone ] , nnd u very good uso lip makes , of ' it m his favourite studies .

    England has not yet yielded the head of this crustacean , but its whole body , or rather one very like it , has been found in Minnesotaj United States , and isnamed jbikeiocep Jialus Mhinesoiensis , which , as far as . we can guess ( for nobody condescends to English these names ) means mattock-headed ( . trilobite ) of Minnesota . JDicephalus would be the Greek term for two-headed , and there is an appearance in the fossil which might have suggested this idea and name . The Greek of geologists , however , is not the Greek of Athens . This faint fossil tail is now boarded and lodged in theivir . seumin Jermyn-street , London , where w e have often gazed upon-it reverently and in faith . We respect its . discoverer , and believe that he believes it to be a tail , and this is what we believe . Furthermore , we have the melancholy belief that we ourselves east away two or three or more such taiis when at '' Church Stretton , not knowing them to-be tails ; but we must not proceed in this strain , only remarking- as we pass on— thereby hangs a iail . There are strata of like age and period elsewhere . Several thousand feet of grits lie at Harleeh , in North Wales ; a coarse sandstone of this era " is found upon a mountain near Bfingor , and upon it . vcry obscure remains of sea-weeds ( c 7 ionch'iles ) have been found ; similar weeds upon slates have been found near Skiddaw , in Cumberland , ' - and something of the same kind at Bray Head , -county Wk-klow , Ireland . This latter locality is known as the source of what may be a still earlier trace of life—namely , of the remains of a spucies of Hydroid polyp , «> r horny zoophyte ,, allied to the Sei-tulam , and other flexible horny corals . This was discovered by Iilr . Oldhara , and bears the naiiie OliUutmia antiqua { OWJniwia ¦ radiata is another but-less common , form ) , and marks , ( lie surfaces of the old Irish schists in myriads . All the specimens we have seen require to be carefully looked at-in order to detect the signs of organic existence ; and for no fossils so much as these niost ancient ones , docs the' -spectator feel the necessity of n yoo' logically educated eye . To this circumstance ., probably , is due the fact that they have only . been . ko recently discovered . -We . mu 4 warn our readers that they would feel , grievously disappointed if these fossils were presented to them for the first time , under hi < rli-• wrought expectations of beh . olding distinct and bold evidences of the first creatures of the most " remote eras of life . . The .. inferences to be -.-deduced from these fossils are many and most interesting . We see , for example , that organic life has not commenced upon our -. globe-with the lowest grades , nor yet with the ¦ hi ghest . The ancient . lugvwdrm was radiant with gay colours , and more sightly than the unctuous , earth-worm of our lands . The Oldhamia may possibly have been allied to the flexible branching-Bryozoans ; but certainly the trilobite was far higher'in the scale of ¦ organization than cither , and is very much removed from tlie simplest form of life . . Taking' the Dikelort-plmlus ( also-found in a very old rock ) with the crustacean of tlie .-Loiigrnynds-, we have at once a decided negative to the theory of the author of the '" Vest iyc- , " - to the ; Ijiimarckian theory of development , and to that most n-et-nfc lt . odification of it winch Mr . Darwin has . put forth , and which seems destined to receive a disapproving notice from nearly tvory literary and scientific periodical of the day . Of Mr . Mackie ' s little , book we would speak kindly , nnd would commend it ns likely to be very useful , to beginners . 'But the auiirov must accept a liiiit . from us—meant in the most friendly spirit : he would Uo well to ' write in simple and cloar Eng-lish , and to oschow all attempts at superfluous metaphor and an . ornate stylo . AH ' ccU-d sublimity is n <) . t pleasing- even to our friends , iuul really we cannot but smile at tho attempts . made in pome of these few png-cs . Havenof -, the png'cs . nppenrud before tinder Mr . Iilackie's editorial euro ? If so , then the miidvcrlencies smd fonfuscil sentences which sonictimes disfigure them are not to be set down to - the printer or " reader . " We do not quote proofs of what we say , but hope the author will take a friondlv ' admonition into candid eon-udorntiim . Mr . Thomas A , Dayifs * would not admit Hint any of tin- fossils just dc'scrine-d , or tiny fossils nnywhoro iouiul , are the true trncos of ' nnciont life . Amidst a straup-e jumblo of inexplicable assertions , lie reproduces tho old and absurd " theory that tho fossils iiov-i had life , never were anything but stones oi ' soinothing- like them , and were evented , or , as ho ' froquontly and elegantly nilirnis , fiatcd as w « Hud them . It is very dilik'ult to discover whnt is his own phihusophv , for he contrndiots and confounds himself . Tlnr nearest approncu to n theory wo can find in this : " a fossil is u stone socalU-d , or n collection of metallic or non-metallh ! nuncrul crystuls , or amorphous masses of limestone in thu shape of a plant or nniinnl , or parts ot them , or an imprint upon some rock . " " To produce tho p . 'lrifuction termed 'the fossil , ' two conditions nre necessary—tho sulistimeo to yivo form , and tho vitality , whoro petrifaction will oiihul ' , iuul \ 'io resulting form will bo that of tho substance which was in a condition to take on tho potrifyiny vitality . " Nuthiniu : more positive aiici direct «•«» wo discover in tho volume , and they who can nuiko ft theory out of the nbovo greatly exceed us in penetration . Wo have now g-ivon n day to tho reading of this strunyo volume , ana can truly s « y ut its close with one of o ] , d—^ though in a difl ' cront Bi-nso —J ^ o'dlcli tUoni ! , , Tlio worst ohnvnetoristio of the volume , however , is it-i a ' isive , nnd roi'ltloss lang ( ia , g o nyainst tlio lato Hng-h Mjillor , ( tho buihlor o « a "truly infidol stnujtuvo , " ) ami inclu , « ivuly nil pooloyists wln . i tliinU with him . Ho nfHrmn , "if tho guologio faith bo true hi lln'MO oonolusions , tho Mosiua micount in a liuyo fabric of deception , In Ins in Ji ) Cinii »} jr , faln « in spirit , nml falno in directly stilted f « yl » . ' ¦ 1 , I | 1 S is tho burden of , his song- or ruthor hid invoclive ; but his vuitfin'Jiy

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    * Aimwcv to Uiuilt # ////<>)• ami Miwcth Qeuh , v ana tfoii . lbwu .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), April 21, 1860, page 378, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2344/page/14/