Outlines of the Geology of England and Wales, with an Introductory Compendium of the General Principles of that Science, Part 1

Front Cover
W. Phillips, 1822 - Geology - 470 pages

From inside the book

Selected pages

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page lviii - The grand fact of an universal deluge at no very remote period is proved on grounds so decisive and incontrovertible, that had we never heard of such an event from Scripture or any other Authority, Geology of itself must have called in the assistance of some such catastrophe to explain the phenomena of diluvial action...
Page 463 - Munster coal-district occupies a considerable portion of the counties of Limerick and Kerry, and a large part of the county of Cork. It is by much the most extensive in Ireland ; but as yet there is not sufficient information respecting the number, extent, or thickness of the beds of coal it may contain. " Coal and culm have been raised for near a century in the neighbourhood of Kanturk, in the county of Cork.
Page xxxvii - After this, the calcareous sand lies undisturbed, and offers to the seeds of trees and plants, cast upon it by the waves, a soil upon which they rapidly grow, to overshadow its dazzling white surface. Entire trunks of trees, which are carried by the rivers from other countries and islands, find here, at length, a restingplace after their long wanderings ; with these come some small animals, such as lizards and insects, as the first inhabitants.
Page 464 - The Connaught coal-district stands next in order of value and importance to the Leinster and Munster, and possibly may be found to deserve the first place when its subterranean treasures shall be explored. At present nothing is known, except that the outer edges of several beds of coal have been observed, but they have not been traced to any distance, so that their extent is by no means ascertained. The coal is of the bituminous species. This coal is particularly adapted to the purposes of iron-works,...
Page 465 - On examining this subterranean wonder, it was found to be a complete gallery, which had been driven forward many hundred yards to the bed of coal : that it branched off into numerous...
Page lxi - The concessions, if they may be so called, of the believers in Revelation on this point, have been amply remunerated by the sublime discoveries as to the prospective wisdom of the Creator, which have been gradually unfolded by the progressive improvements in astronomical knowledge. We may trust with the same confidence as to any future results from geology...
Page 465 - About the year 1770," says he, "the miners, in pushing forward an adit toward the bed of coal, at an unexplored part of the Ballycastle cliff, unexpectedly broke through the rock into a narrow passage, so much contracted and choked up with various drippings and deposits on its sides and bottom, as rendered it impossible for any of the workmen to force through, that they might examine it farther. Two lads were, therefore, made to creep in with candles...
Page lii - ... thus separating these waters from their native salt, (which, though of the highest utility to preserve the purity of the sea, renders them unfit for the support of terrestrial animals or vegetables,) and transmitting them in genial showers to scatter fertility over the earth, and maintain the never-failing reservoirs of those springs and rivers by which they are again returned to mix with their parent ocean; — in all these circumstances, we find such evidence of...
Page 376 - ... little to the south of Hartley, or about three miles north of Shields, and running westward crosses the Tyne at Lemington, about four miles west of Newcastle Bridge. In some places it is only a few inches wide, but in Montagu colliery it is 22 yards wide, and is filled with hard and soft sandstone. From the southern side of this dyke two others branch off, one to the south-east and the other to the south-west The latter, called from its breadth the 70-yard dyke, is also filled with hard and soft...
Page lii - In the whole machinery also of springs and rivers, and the apparatus that is kept in action for their duration, through the instrumentality of a system of curiously constructed hills and valleys, receiving their supply occasionally from the rains of heaven, and treasuring it up in their everlasting storehouses to be dispensed perpetually by thousands of never-failing fountains ; we see a provision not less striking or less important.

Bibliographic information