Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 23.djvu/848

828 We recognize this when we divide science into that which is experimental, or depends on apparatus, and that which is observational and classificatory—distinctions, these, which relate not so much to the objects of science as to our methods of pursuing them. This view also opens up to us the thought that the domain of science is practically boundless; for who can set limits to the action of mind on the universe, or of the universe on mind? It follows that science must be limited on all sides by unsolved mysteries; and it will not serve any good purpose to meet these with clever guesses. If we so treat the enigmas of the sphinx Nature, we shall surely be devoured. Nor, on the other hand, must we collapse into absolute despair, and resign ourselves to the confession of inevitable ignorance. It becomes us, rather, boldly to confront the unsolved questions of Nature, and to wrestle with their difficulties till we master such as we can, and cheerfully leave those we can not overcome to be grappled with by our successors.

Fortunately, as a geologist, I do not need to invite your attention to those transcendental questions which relate to the ultimate constitution of matter, the nature of the ethereal medium filling space, the absolute difference or identity of chemical elements, the cause of gravitation, the conservation and dissipation of energy, the nature of life, or the primary origin of bioplasmic matter. I may take the much more humble rôle of an inquirer into the unsolved or partially solved problems which meet us in considering that short and imperfect record which geology studies in the rocky layers of the earth's crust, and which leads no further back than to the time when a solid rind had already formed on the earth and was already covered with an ocean. This record of geology covers but a small part of the history of the earth and of the system to which it belongs, nor does it enter at all into the more recondite problems involved; still it forms, I believe, some necessary preparation, at least, to the comprehension of these.

What do we know of the oldest and most primitive rocks? At this moment the question may be answered in many and discordant ways; yet the leading elements of the answer may be given very simply. The oldest rock formation known to geologists is the lower Laurentian, the fundamental gneiss, the Lewisian formation of Scotland, the Ottawa gneiss of Canada. This formation of enormous thickness corresponds to what the older geologists called the fundamental granite—a name not to be scouted, for gneiss is only a stratified granite. Perhaps the main fact in relation to this old rock is that it is a gneiss; that is, a rock at once bedded and crystalline, and having for its dominant ingredient the mineral orthoclase—a compound of silica, alumina, and potash—in which are imbedded, as in a paste, grains and crystals of quartz and hornblende. We know very well, from its texture and composition, that it can not be a product of mere heat; and, being a bedded rock, we infer that it was laid down layer