Sketches of Creation

Abstract

THE main portion of this volume is occupied by a sketch of the geological history of the earth; and had Prof. Winchell confined himself within strictly scientific limits, the book would have been one in every respect commendable. The titles of some of the chapters are sensational and repellent, e.g. “The Ordeal by Fire,” “The Solar System in a Blaze” “Onward through the Ages;” and we could have wished that the author had kept aloof from speculations which are, to say the least, not profitable to the class to whom the book is addressed—on the former gaseous condition of the world and the solar system; and on the possible evolution of an animal superior to man. These parts being eliminated, the book may be safely relied on as the wrork of a practical geologist, who has a thorough acquaintance with his subject; and being laudably free from the excessive use of technical terms, occupies a place not precisely filled by any English treatise. The illustrations are numerous, and very various in quality. The drawing of Fingal's Cave at Staffa is a grotesque caricature; with others we are familiar in well nigh every geological handbook; especially interesting to English readers are those illustrative of the gigantic scale of geological action in the United States, as the Pictured Rocks of Lake Superior, and the Mauvaises Terres of Dacotah. Two chapters “On the Vitality of buried Vegetable Germs,” and “On Prairies and their tree-lessness,” have special reference to Prof, Winchell's well-known theory that the present vegetation of the prairies of America is lineally descended from that of the preglacial epoch, the seeds having retained tbeir vitality in the ground during the whole of the intermediate time. We cannot admit that the instances quoted by the author of vegetable tissue retaining its structure during an enormous lapse of time, wlaen not exposed tothe oxidising influence of the air, have any bearing on the question whether germs can retain their vitality for the same lengthened periods; as he himself says, the proof of the theory ought to rest on direct evidence: “It must be confessed that the crucial observation has yet to be made; if vegetable germs exist in the drift, they can be discovered beforehand. I am not aware that any thorough search has ever been made for them.”

Sketches of Creation.

A Popular View of some of the Grand Conclusions of the Sciences in reference to the History of Matter and of Life. By Alexander Winchell. (London: S. Low, Son, and Marston, 1870.)