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!
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 _Page_ 1-29
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 30-53
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. 54-101