P REFACE.
E very generation of man is born to stave at something, wiiicli, as long as it eludes llieii'
understanding, is a very African Fetisho to the many and a Gordian knot to the few. But Chance—tiic
puppet-man of our race—volatile as tiie trifles it sets in motion, has a fresh miracle for every age: no
sooner is the vulgar world a-tired with one spectacle than another rises to excite its wondciment, and
tlius, by long habit, a disposition to the marvellous is coniu'med in the minds of the majority—wliicli
takes not tlie trouble to think—and of scepticism on the part of the philosophizing and melanic—the
fiaction that does. But there are mysteries which require a tliousand years for their solution; grand
phenomena that oppose liigh barrier to the human mind ; lessons wliicli teach us our own proper littleness
better than the starry language graven on tlie face of the mighty heaven, or tlic ten thousand ponderous
lomes bequeathed us by the ancient times, of which they treasure tlic multifarious experience. Of
these—few on account of their vastiness — rare because they require a seraph of our kind for tlieir
comprehension—Geology is tlie most wondrous and sublime. A monument inscribed by tlie finger of
Jehovah to the purpose of men, they have been as ignorant of its nature as the scavabei arc of that of
the giant pyramid—built a temple to their divinity—around whicli tliey wheel. For when tlic lii'st man,
awoke to being and, at the same moment, to wisdom, looking around him, expressed liis swelling joy by
the adoration of tlie Creator, no scribe was present wlio should convey to liis posterity the record oitlicr
of (lie sensations that it was his peculiar lot to experience, or a transcript of those ideas whicli to liis
unique and primal soul were assuredly innate;—no, the fall of Adam was not guarded against, and wc
inherit its negative as well as positive consequences. Howbiet, there is no doubt that the antediluvians—
whose bones, ground to powder, any one may (ind in a gravcl-pit—were ivcll acquainted with tlie primary
elements of geology as well as those of the other practical sciences, for they were cunning artificers in
metal, and knew the arts of building; but oral tradition is liable to much accident, and the stories of tlic
primitive ages that survived witli Noe, related by him to his family, soon met the doom that every thing
of heavenly original underwent when placed at the mercy of a degenerate race:—they were sacrificed
upon the altars of the dread Past, of wliich they were tlie accusing mementos, or corrupted l)y sucli
metaphor as an heretical hicravcliy—their unholy depositary—found it their interest to forge. Hence it is
that in the various cosmogonies of the old kingdoms—of Babylon, China, India and Persia—wc find so
much palpable absurdity admixed with fact that is undeniable; so much extravagance with truth, that it
is no easy matter to separate the antagonist principles so as to render the histories at'al! available. But
of this wc arc certain, that the early progenitors of our stock were well skilled in the mechanical arts.