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PREPARATION OF THI EARTH

FOR THE

INTELLECfllAL RACES.

REESE LIBRARY

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.

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PREPARATION OF THE EARTH

INTELLECTUAL RACES.

preparation ot tjje SEartf) for t&e Xnteliectual

A LECTURE

DELIVERED AT SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA,

APRIL 10, 1854,

INVITATION OP THE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY.

C. F. WINSLOW, M.D.

€SEUi OF THE iVERSITY 4

BOSTON:

CROSBY, NICHOLS, AND COMPANY,

111, WASHINGTON STREET.

1854.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 18,54, by

CROSBY, NICHOLS, & CO. In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

BOSTON: PRINTED BY JOHN WILSON AND SON,

No. 22, SCHOOL STREET.

HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY,

March 30, 1854. DEAR SIR,

I have been directed by the Assembly to extend to you an invitation to deliver at the capital, on such evening as will suit your convenience, a public lecture upon the sub- ject of Agriculture.

If, upon the receipt of this communication, it will suit your convenience to comply with the request of the Assembly, you will please inform them, through me, at what time it will suit you. Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

B. M'ALPIN,

Clerk of Assembly. Dr. C. F. WINSLOW,

San Francisco.

SA.N FRANCISCO,

March 31, 1854. DEAR SIR,

I have had the honor to receive this morning your polite letter, extending to me an invitation, in the name of the Assembly, to deliver a lecture on Agriculture at the capital.

It will give me pleasure to comply with the wishes of the Assembly, as nearly as my time, tastes, and pursuits will allow ; and, if it meet their convenience, I will deliver a dis-

6

course on " The Preparation of the Earth for the Intellectual Races,*' on the evening of Monday, 10th prox.

Do be so kind as to express to the Assembly my high sense of the honor conferred on me by their instructions to you; and allow me, my dear sir, to subscribe myself most respectfully, Your obedient servant,

C. F. WINSLOW.

B. M'ALPIN, Esq., Clerk of Assembly, Sacramento.

HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY,

April 5, 1854. DEAR SIR,

I am in receipt of your letter of the 31st of March, proposing to deliver a public lecture on Monday even- ing, the 10th inst.

The contents of your communication have been laid before the Assembly, and I have been instructed to inform you that the day selected by you meets the cordial approbation of the members. I have the honor to be

Your obedient servant, BLANTON M«ALPIN,

Clerk of Assembly. Dr. C. F. WINSLOW.

OF THE

UNIVERSITY

LECTURE.

GENTLEMEN, — In the discourse to which 1 have the honor to invite your attention, I shall endeavor to trace the connection of the most prominent events in the history of our planet, and to unbind, link by link, the golden chain which unites man with the earth, and the earth with its Creator. The subject is vast in extent; but my de- sign is only to present to your careful ob- servation a picture of a few great landmarks in the progress of time, and to give a brief abstract of the present state of human knowledge, expressly adapted to the high- est interests of this new Commonwealth. Without entering into the details of agri-

8 LECTURE. *

culture itself, I have ventured to believe that it might, at this time, be more instruc- tive and useful to unfold the great funda- mental principles on which all agricultural sequences are based. Instead of going into the minutiae growing out of the application of any particular science to the cultivation of the soil, I shall embrace, in one grand generalization, the affinity of all the sci- ences to agriculture ; and its relation, as a consequence, to the highest interests of hu- man life.

Some of the most striking considerations you may observe to be original, and the application of the whole range of thought many persons may imagine bold and no- vel ; but I shall solicit your patient at- tention and kind indulgence for a short time, trusting that a kindly and confiding stroll, hand in hand with the Infinite Crea- tor, may conduct us to brighter insights into his nature, and impart to us that su-

LECTURE. 9

blimity of knowledge which can only be attained by a calm and profound contem- plation of his works.

As salts exist in the ocean dissolved and invisible, so, in the original condition of things, the matter composing this earth existed as a solution in ether, and was diffused throughout space. As the salts of the ocean crystallize by condensation, and assume specific shapes ; so primordial atoms, subject to forces instituted by Su- preme Wisdom, assumed solidity, and be- came planetary spheres. Atoms, endowed with similar degrees of the creative forces, possessed similar properties, and became the simple elements of nature, which have been brought to light by the power of the human understanding. The accumulation of elementary masses of condensed matter was attended with galvanic results so po- tent that complete fusion ensued to the

10 LECTURE.

earth, and what existed at first as molecules dissolved in ether, and afterwards as solid masses of varying metallic and mineral composition, or as gas and fluid, became, when ultimately mingled together, a glow- ing globe of compound and liquid rock, eight thousand miles thick, circling around the sun.

Such was the primeval condition of the planet which is now our delightful and in- viting abode.

In process of time, the incandescent globe cooled on its surface ; and, in solidi- fying, a second condensation ensued under circumstances not favorable to the forma- tion of such enormous crystals as probably existed when matter possessed greater free- dom and mobility in space. The degree of ^fluidity, however, in the molten matter, was sufficient for such elective affinities to take place as resulted in the formation of the granitic or primitive rocks constituting,

LECTURE. 11

throughout its surface, the rib-work and solid foundation of the earth. Succeeding these events, gases condensed around the sphere, forming an envelop of water charged with soluble matters a thousand fathoms deep, and an envelop of atmosphere many miles in height.

Thus God made the material world, — a mere atom in space, — but to us appear- ing so vast and mysterious, that no mor- tal powers have yet fathomed the forces by which its centre is vivified, or its sur- face rendered so rich and prolific in animal and vegetable forms.

To transmute rock into fertile soil, fresh exertions of wisdom and power became ne- cessary. The arrangement of the spheres in space subjected all subsequent events to the operation of fixed and eternal laws, and simplified the exertions and manifestations of the Infinite Will. As the globe made its annual circuit around the sun, a periodical

XIITIVERSITT

V ^ OF

^

12 LECTURE.

change in the density of its mass ensued, the result of which has either been to ele- vate areas of greater or less extent above the ocean to form islands and continents, or to open fissures in the crust, to afford an outlet for melted rock. Thus, overlying the granite, we find sedimentary materials of such a nature as to show that the consti- tuents of the granite had been comminu- ted, while in fusion, by contact with the primeval ocean. The process of granula- tion, on the largest possible scale, laid the first foundation for the future soil of conti- nents. Here is the origin of the gneis, the mica-slate, and of some clays which have become so useful to mankind in the pro- gress of civilization. These materials were so easily acted on and decomposed by me- teoric and mechanical causes, that their si- licious and alkaline elements were rapidly reduced to dust, and fitted for the admix- ture of the vegetable and animal remains

LECTURE. 13

which were subsequently destined to enrich their composition, and prepare the earth for the CREATION of the human race.

How marvellous in number are the cy- cles of ages which have elapsed since the inception of the thought of that creation in the Infinite Mind ! But how clearly we discover, that the remoteness of the past was to be allied to the present ; that with the creation of the ancient globe was uni- ted the thought of the creation of the future man ! How steadily, how undeviatingly, progressed the development of that grand idea of the Supreme Being ! Here, at last, we stand in the midst of the teeming earth, and embrace the productive soil as our greatest benefactor. There is no escape from the fact of our origin, nor from the immortal destiny allotted to our race. God is our Father; the earth is our mother, and from her bosom is drawn the sustenance of our bodies ; while the immortal spirit of

14 LECTURE.

the Almighty enkindles our immaterial being. So surely as we sprang from an ancestor, and that ancestor from the earth, and the earth from chaos, and chaos from God, just so surely are we linked to the first thought of the Eternal in the remote past, and with the consummation of his designs in the everlasting ages to come. It is only from this point of view that we discover the lofty dignity of human nature, and are enabled to embrace the means of attaining the highest ends, and the greatest happiness of which our being is suscepti- ble.

But what a long chain of great events is stretched between us and the infancy of the earth, — between its present surface, so fertile and productive, and that bare, unin- habitable rock which was first uplifted from the bosom of the primeval seas ! How long the epochs devoted to the accom- plishment of that wonderful scheme, — the

LECTURE. 15

fertilization of the soil, and its preparation for the advent of the human race ! How vast the designs, how varied the means employed to elaborate and adapt it to the highest developments of agriculture; and to fit it, not only to afford the richest nour- ishment to the body, but to enlarge the mind to the broadest expansion of its fa- culties !

Spread out on the gneis and mica-schist, full ten miles deep, and below the accumu- lations of the remains of extinct and re- markable races of plants and animals, are inexhaustible quarries of an humble and unseemly rock, called roofing slate. So ancient is this material, that embosomed within it have been recently discovered the fossil remains of marine vegetation, — the first which the Almighty created upon the globe, and their germs were planted in the sea. And there is much reason to suppose, that these vast beds of laminated rock,

16

LECTURE.

which have been so useful to man in va- rious ways, are neither more nor less than the accumulations of decomposed feldspar, crowded with marine vegetables extinct for countless ages, and the types of which appear now in the sea-weeds and kelps that grow along our coasts. The humble origin of these slate-beds, and their ex- treme antiquity, are no less remarkable than the purpose which they have sub- served in the improvement and cultivation of the loftiest faculties of man. They con- tain the first germ of the organic power, whose agency now clothes this beautiful earth with such lovely and numerous forms. The living mark of the Almighty's presence is there; and it is the first instrument of scientific culture placed in the hands of the young in all the enlightened commu- nities of the world. It is by the agency of these rude slabs of ancient rock that the human faculties have been cultivated and

LECTURE. 17

enlarged, until they are trained to weigh the earth as in a balance, to measure un- imaginable distances into infinite space, and to calculate the positive existence of undiscovered worlds. Here again we trace an unmistakable connection between the mind of God and the destiny of man, and behold the wonderful fact, revealed in characters of living light, that, through the instrumentality of the humblest vegetable growths, was appointed to ultimately spring the loftiest truths which adorn the pages of science and philosophy.

So, from one step to another, as we as- cend from the crystalline crust through the fossiliferous strata to the surface of the earth, we discover most clearly the same foresight, — I mean that divine foreknow- ledge and omnipotency, which, when they planted the first organic germ in the pri- meval ocean, destined that it should be a connecting link between the attributes of

18 LECTURE.

the Infinite and the attributes of the finite ; and that it should be the means of educa- ting the future man, not only to figure up the results of his commercial operations and to measure the latitudes and longi- tudes of the earth, but, by the abstruser powers of his understanding, to fathom the distant realms of space as with a plummet- line, and to calculate the strength of the forces by which the burning hosts of hea- ven are bound together.

If we survey the palaeozoic age, we find a depth of twenty thousand feet filled with the remains of countless fishes, and mol- luscous animals, and beds of limestone, formed by the decay and metamorphic changes of corals, shells, and sea-weeds, — all the production of the most ancient seas; and all so different from the fishes, mollusks, and corallines of the present day, as to prove, beyond a doubt, that fresh ex- hibitions of creative power have been, from

LECTURE. 19

time to time, manifested to renew the infe- rior races of the planet. This vast accumu- lation of the remains of the primitive races, mingled with the drifting sands of decom- posing reefs and metamorphic rocks just emerging from the wild and noiseless waste of waters that enveloped the ancient world, must have occupied the lapse of ages, an attempt to conjecture which bewilders the imagination. The myriads of marine forms that lived and decayed, and were piled up to form the compost for the extraordinary age of terrestrial vegetation which was to follow, no calculation can number. Every marine plant and animal, however humble its shape or size, was a living laboratory, whereby the original elements of inert mat- ter were converted into new forms, to be subsequently decomposed, pited away, and solidified, and held in reserve for the neces- sities of the bright and beautiful ages which were to clothe the globe, from the equator

20 LECTURE.

to its poles, with a tropical, luxuriant, and perennial vegetation. I never contemplate these marvellous events, and their silent march through the cycles of remote time, without being brought into closer relations with the Great Eternal, and without a feel- ing that his everlasting arm, in substantial manifestation, hovers over the globe, and directs the arrangement of these great phy- sical and geographical affairs. When the mind, in some midnight hour, when all within and all without has settled into complete repose, — when the mind, thus tranquil, stretches through the past and makes itself the solitary inhabitant of the palaeozoic ages, and, like some broad- winged bird sailing through the upper regions of the air, looks down on the new- made earth, how lonely and solemn dawns upon us that first morning of creation ! No lofty mountains clothed with verdant woods ; no broad plains filled with waving

LECTURE. 21

grasses; no tropical shores covered with towering palms ; no howl nor breathing sound of beast, bird, nor insect, salutes the senses. All is one endless waste of ocean, save here and there a bleaching bank of coral, or a broad black rock, the nucleus of future continents, just peering above the waves. For many a league, we may behold fields of § kelp springing from the shallows, and everywhere countless tribes and numbers of voracious fishes, whose forms are so strange as to defy classification with succeeding races, and the destruction of all of which has been so complete that the dog-fish of the pre- sent seas is the only living type of all the creatures which existed during that most ancient epoch.

On the refuse materials accumulated by the decomposition of the fishes and sea- weeds, during the palaeozoic ages, sprang up a vegetation so abundant and rapid,

22 LECTURE.

that geologists have named the period oc- cupied by the presence of these events the CARBONIFEROUS AGE. In those days3 the earth, enriched with the fertilizing essences, — the phosphates, the ammonias, the alka- lies, and the acids, distilled from the produc- tions and decompositions of the preceding ages, — teemed with gigantic forms of vege- tation, which are represented at present by the ferns and flags of our low and marshy grounds. The ferns grew fifty and sixty feet in height, and twelve feet in diameter; while the fossil remains of the rushes show them to have attained the extraordinary diameter of twelve inches. Under the influence of tropical heat which appears to have uni- versally prevailed in those days throughout the earth's surface and reeking moisture which readily dissolved the silicates and the ammoniacal salts stored up during the preceding ages, the whole globe was stimu- lated into wonderful fertility. But that fer-

LECTURE. 23

tility was only fitted for the purposes which Divine Wisdom foreordained that it should subserve. As the remains of- the marine plants and animals had been previously treasured up as a foundation for the great vegetable growths which were to follow, so these vegetable forms were accumulated in vast heaps, and allowed to decompose and consolidate for the necessities of races to come still later. Thus were laid down the inexhaustible beds of bituminous and anthracite coal which are now so necessary for the comfort of man, and so advantage- ous, directly and indirectly, in developing the resources of the world, and in enlarging the limits of human knowledge and power. The connection of these great deposits with the commercial developments of the pre- sent age, by which all the faculties of the most enlightened communities are stimu- lated to their largest capacity and a con- stantly increasing energy, cannot be over-

24 LECTURE.

looked nor misunderstood. But they are only one link in the great chain of events which succeed each other so beautifully and undeviatingly through the long pro- cession of the ages, and which were cal- culated to unite the physical being of man with the creation of the first material mo- lecule in space, and his moral nature with the immaterial essence of the Deity, — a principle which is equally the central force that binds together atoms and planets, and the whole universe of suns.

The earth, during the carboniferous age, so rank and abundant in gigantic trees and herbage, was yet as silent as the grave. There was not a living ear to note the fall of the mighty palm, the roar of mountain torrents, nor the thunderings of the earth- quakes which overturned the solid hills. The broad continents were choked with pestilential vapors, unfit to prolong the life of breathing creatures. No beasts prowled

LECTURE. 25

through the jungle of those ancient forests. Only insects buzzed among the branches, and scorpions nestled in their steaming mould.

But a new and marvellous epoch was to supervene, when fresh demonstrations of creative power were to be displayed on the earth's surface. The rich soil of the palae- ozoic world had been measurably exhausted in affording nourishment to the vegetable productions of the carboniferous era; and another fertilizing preparation was neces- sary for a surface destined to become the future abode of the pastoral and intellec- tual races. Up to this period, no breathing quadruped had been created. Now, how- ever, the time had arrived to usher in new forms ; and we behold, creeping from the sea, and basking on the shores of great inlets and of fresh-water lakes, vast swarms of reptiles that respire the air, and whose magnitude is so prodigious and voracity

26

LECTURE.

so great, as to awaken wonder, and, for a moment, lead us to doubt the wisdom, goodness, and intelligent design of their creation. It is only for a moment, how- ever, that the soundest and most cultivated minds doubt the benevolence of the Deity. We must embrace these extraordinary events in .the largest philosophical gene- ralization ; and, occupying the summit of the ages, a scrutinizing retrospect reveals to us the resplendent glory of the Omnipo- tent. Those hideous and monstrous forms of the Ichthyosaurii, Megalosaurii, Plesio- saurii, Iguanodons, and countless other amphibious creatures, the design of whose creation was accomplished, and whose ex- tinction from the face of the earth was wrought long ago, were not created merely for the pastime of their Maker; neither .were they made for the purpose of astonishing mortal men with the magnitude of their frames, or the rapacity of their appetites.

LECTURE. 27

They were ingeniously designed for the noblest and most useful of all purposes, — vast laboratories, whereby the marine races were to be transformed into new and ferti- lizing elements for the soil ; and at last they were to lay down their own unwieldy forms on the earth, and mingle their decomposing remains with the ancient rocks. Chemistry unfolds the interesting mystery, that the secretions of reptiles and birds afford the most quickening principles of vegetable growth ; a'nd, if we cast the eye over some of the most productive commercial opera- tions of the present time, we behold whole navies transporting these products from one extremity of the globe to the other, for the purpose of imparting fresh fertility to ex- hausted soils. These decomposed materi- als of the amphibious races and of sea- birds, called guano, which have accumu- lated for ages on some solitary islands of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, are only a

.UNIVERSITTI

28

LECTURE.

grain of sand on the seashore, in compari- son with the vast amount of the decom- posed remains of reptiles that were piled up with the drifting sands and deposits of the secondary ages. Some of the mon- sters of that day were sixty feet in length ; and the aquatic birds were of such enor- mous size, that their foot-prints, left in the sand or mud of those ancient shores, sub- sequently hardened into rock, exhibit a length of eighteen inches, and are five feet apart. Now the mysteries of those won- derful ages are unfolded to human compre- hension. The whole work of God had been to prepare the earth for man ; but man's time had not yet come.

The secondary ages passed away. Old islands and continents sank beneath the sea ; and, after countless ages, they rose again to display new and more perfect forms of vegetable and animal life. The races of huge amphibious creatures, with

LECTURE. 29

a single heart and cold blood, had finished their work ; and ponderous beasts with warm blood and double hearts, which breathe the air and feed on trees and shrubs and grass, and some of which de- vour each other, were introduced and mul- tiplied in endless numbers. This is the TERTIARY AGE, the age of mammiferous animals, through whose agency all the organic elements of nature were amalga- mated, and laid down upon the earth, *and stored up in successive strata for the agri- cultural epoch to ensue at the introduction of the human race. These, in time, passed away by the physical changes of the sur- face; and, at last, after cycles of ages so infinite in number that no human thought can imagine or calculate their beginning, the most perfect work of the Almighty was created by a special act, and planted in the rich alluvial valleys of Asia, which in the Hebrew tongue are called " Eden," or the

30 LECTURE.

abodes of pleasure and delight. Previous to that time, " there was not a man to till the ground."

Thus the remarkable revelation by Mo- ses of God's design in the introduction of man, is clearly sustained by following the physical history of the globe from chaos to the period when its surface was sufficiently stored with vegetable and animal remains to fit it for the highest developments of scientific agriculture. And it seems to me no less extraordinary than remarkable, while the first great truths from Heaven were planted among the flags of the Nile, that they should never have attained their complete germination, until they have grasped the entire circuit of the earth, sub- stantially encircling both hemispheres, and uniting the Asiatic and European civiliza- tions amid the bull-rushes of the Sacra- mento. The operation of the mysterious laws controlling the motion and transmu-

LECTURE.

31

tation of matter and of society by life and death, though ever active and constantly attaining minor results, is nevertheless in- sensible. But the great events growing out of the aggregate of these changes, con- stitute landmarks in the history of the earth, which become the more conspicuous by appearing remote and widely separated from each other. Such are the conditions of time, and the relations of the ages, from chaos to Adam, and from Adam until now. The instinctive foresight of many ani- mals induces them to store up food for their future necessity, or for the nourish- ment of an offspring which is to appear at some subsequent period. So the intelli- gence of all varieties of the human family induces them to make provision for future want ; and the strong commercial wisdom of enlightened communities not only cre- ates the thousand forms of merchandise suited to the tastes and necessities of all

32

LECTURE.

races of merr, but it transports these from one region of the earth to the other, as the demands of society require. This is the result of intellectual foresight and acti- vity,— the finite exhibition of a principle which, in the Creator of the world, be- comes infinite. Through the long ages occupied in the vegetable and animal growths, and in the various geological for- mations and changes, the same econo- mical ideas were manifested, and similar arrangements provided for all the various agricultural and commercial necessities of mankind. This fact is fully comprehended when we survey the present diversity of the earth's surface. Had the deposits of vegetable and animal remains continued for ever in the same horizontal positions in which they accumulated, they would have been very unavailable to our present neces- sities. But the same forces which were exerted in the original state of matter to

LECTURE. 33

4

concentrate it into globes, and to move these globes through space, in ceaseless circuits around each other, are still dis- played in such a manner as to create the physical and geographical changes of the surface, which everywhere arrest the eye of the most common observer. These forces, employed to produce the alternate eleva- tion and depression of whole hemispheres in a quiet and insensible manner, by a periodical change of density in the planet as it approaches or recedes from the sun, are oftentimes exerted in spasmodic out- breaks through various parts of the earth's crust. These local exhibitions arise from the tension of the whole molten interior of the planet ; and those portions of the crust which are thinnest, or which have been weakened by previous subterranean action, yield the most readily to the pressure of the internal repulsive agency. Thus vol- canic phenomena arise by the formation

34 LECTURE.

of fissures through the crust; and earth- quakes, dykes, craters, and inundations of lava, ensue. These are the agencies em- ployed to act beneath the 'crust for the purpose of disturbing the horizontality of original deposits. After these comes the operation of atmospherical agencies which are so necessary to accomplish the disin- tegration and diffusion of the most ancient strata. Here we behold again the marvel- lous display of an Infinite Wisdom, and trace, with an unmistaking eye, the links of adamant which chain together the begin- ning and the end. The remote past, ex- tending to chaos, and advancing step by step through the palaeozoic, carboniferous, reptilian, and mammiferous ages, opens upon our wondering senses, like an im- mense panorama in which the events are so strange, great, numerous, and complex, as to overwhelm us with their grandeur, and to appear fabulous and incredible. But

LECTURE. 35

the first display of forces by which matter was gathered up in space, and formed into worlds, was connected, beyond a question, with the present condition of the globe, when the multiform deposits on its primi- tive crusts are overturned and exposed, so as to become accessible to man, and to fit the soil for the most elaborate cultivation. Not a shower of rain falls on the hills, ex- cept those old storehouses of sedimentary rock, so fall of silicates and of the solid or dissolved remnants of the organic ages, yield up a portion of their fertilizing ele- ments which flow over the plains or valleys, endowing them with fresh energies, and enriching them with successive harvests of fruits and grain. The Nile, in its annual inundations, spreads itself over the broad vale of Egypt, loaded with the detritus which was first garnered up in the paleo- zoic seas. Thousands of years have not exhausted those fertilizing treasuries ; and

36 LECTURE.

for thousands of years to come they shall continue to pour down their wealth upon the heated plains of Africa, and abundant fields of golden grain shall reward the toils of industrious husbandry. The great Sa- cramento valley is a counterpart of the valley of the Nile. The periodical over- flows of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers are loaded with solutions and detri- tus gathered from the ancient rocks by countless rills, which, at last uniting into formidable tributaries, rush with impetu- osity through the foot-hills of the Sierra Nevada. The gold which they transport is the least valuable of all their freight. The decomposed bones of one Ichthyo- saurus or of one Mastodon would stimulate the growth of tons of wheat and barley ; while the whole valley full of gold dust, properly ploughed and harrowed, laid down with good seed and well irrigated, would breed a famine in the land.

LECTURE. 37

But all the products of the earth have their use, and are substantial articles of wealth ; and they are not to be degrad- ed below their real value by any system of philosophy. The same agency which turned up the coal-beds and the strata so rich in the elementary materials of agri- culture, has also exposed the metallic veins, and mankind has been endowed with facul- ties to discover the utility of iron, copper, silver, and gold ; and while one exerts an immense influence in extending his power, the other will not be without its influence in a more advanced state of civilization, in extending the warmest charities of the heart. Thus all the agents of nature will work together for the physical, intellectual, and moral development of human society.

It is not the object of a discourse so phi- losophical in its character as this, and extending over so broad a range, to enter into extensive details of any sort ; but only,

38 LECTURE.

by a series of bold touches, to present a panoramic picture of the earth, and to show that, by special arrangements of Pro- vidence, it was directly prepared for the habitation of the intellectual races, and for the perfection of the immaterial nature with which they are endowed. The re- mains of man and his monuments are no- where found below the surface; but through strata extending ten miles deep, we find the fossil exhibitions of previous life, ad- vancing, in each successive series, from the original bare surface of the gneissoid rock, through higher stages of development, un- til, at last, man was created with the cow, sheep, and camel, which are so essential to all his pastoral and agricultural pursuits. It would be a delightful and instructive theme to walk with Adam and the patri- archs, and to dwell long on the nomadic employments which occupied primeval so- ciety during its unfoldings in Asia. But it

LECTURE. 39

is in Egypt that we trace the first develop- ments of agriculture, and discover its con- nection with the mechanic arts, and with the refinement and wealth of nations. Even the pastoral and wandering tribes of Syria and Arabia became dependent on that pro- lific valley for bread ; and science, learning, and the arts flourished, and spread to the Indus on one hand, and to Greece on the other. In Greece the same arts were cul- tivated under a new form of civilization; and added to them were the luxuriant and sequestered groves of Athens, resounding with the eloquence of various systems of philosophy, and a hundred temples conse- crated to mythological divinities whose especial province was to preside over the germination of the cereal grasses and the general fruitfulness of the land.

Some centuries later, we behold the great Roman dominion spreading over the East, and overwhelming all that is so resplend-

40 LECTURE.

ent in the history of the past, and endea- voring to appropriate to. itself the refine- ments of agriculture, taste, and the arts, which had arisen in Egypt, and been perfected in Greece. Wherever the Ro- mans extended their arms over the barbaric races who inhabited Spain, Gaul, and Bri- tain, they carried their agricultural tastes, and not only laid the foundation of new cities, but planted the vine and cereal grains, and introduced all the varied opera- tions of husbandry. Such was the fruitful and smiling condition of the plains of Italy and of the whole South of Europe, that the fierce and naked sons of the German forests could not resist the temptation to invade them and enjoy their plenty. And though the fine arts and general learning were neglected and languished beneath the barbaric sky of the middle ages, nothing remained so undisturbed as the old imple- ments and methods of cultivating the soil ;

LECTURE. 41

and notwithstanding the rapid advance- ment of the white race, within two centu- ries, in astronomy, navigation, and some other lofty and useful pursuits, it is only within the present generation that agri- culture has begun to assume its true posi- tion among the sciences. Botany, em- bracing vegetable anatomy and physiology, is now explaining the difference in the structure and habits of the multiform crea- tions of the vegetable kingdom. Chemistry is exposing the nature of soils, and the nu- tritive, medicinal, and economical qualities of plants. Meteorology is exhibiting the operation of the electrical forces and other phenomenon which preside over the deve- lopment of germs, the circulation of the sap, and the formation of the ligneous fibre. Geology is unfolding to us the im- mense resources of the earth, and the rich composts of organic remains that have been garnered up from very remote ages. to

42 LECTURE.

meet the endless wants of the pastoral and agricultural races. And while Physi- cal Astronomy unveils the wonderful and mighty forces by which the earth is bound to the sun and to all other bodies in the universe, a new branch of inquiry, which I propose to name Astrography, will, in the progressive development of science, explain the mysterious operation of the forces that elevate and depress the surfaces of the planets, and thereby create the great and numerous inequalities of mountain and valley which have exposed the sedimen- tary strata on the earth, and rendered its face so fertile, and varied in temperature, and so suitable for all the wants of the human family. Thus, it may be observed, that researches in all the physical sciences directly extend the limits of agricultural knowledge ; — and that agriculture, as a science, is the complex offspring of all other departments of human learning ; and that

LECTURE. 43

it, embracing the kindred and more attrac- tive pursuits «f horticulture and floriculture, can only attain its complete development when all other sciences have reached their perfection.

Heretofore I have traced the history of the earth as especially intended for the ul- timate habitation of man, and have endea- vored thus far to show that the chief aim of the Creator was to store it with inex- haustible resources for man's physical ag- grandizement. If you will grant me your kind indulgence a little longer, I will be- stow a few reflections on what appears to have been even a higher aim 'of the Infinite Will.

In tracing all the great geological and organic events, — and even the mutations of society, — as one order of circumstances succeeds another, we discover a tendency to improve on the past, and an undeviating

44

LECTURE.

advancement towards perfection. Daring the palaeozoic, carboniferous, reptilian, and even the mammiferous ages, the vegetable forms had not attained that degree of de- velopment and perfection which is found to exist in connection with the appearance of the human race. Trees and plants, bear- ing flowers and fruits attractive to the highest sensibilities and the most delicate faculties of appreciation, had not been cre- ated. But, immediately preceding the ad- vent of the human family, they were called into being; and on the hill-sides and in the valleys, in the open plains and seques- tered forests, they unfold their smiling pe- tals, and hold out their varied fruitage to win the admiration, impart the most refined pleasure, and exalt the immaterial nature of man. Previous to this, the surface of the earth had not been so elaborated by the intermixture of organic remains, or so diver- sified in the elevation and temperature of

LECTURE. 45

its mountains and lowlands, as to fit it for the multiform varieties of the vegetable family. Now we find it prepared, both in climate and soil, to nourish not only the imperfect types of the earlier ages, but the most complicated ligneous structures which adorn the colder zones. So various is the distribution of land and water, — of moun- tain ranges, broad plains, and open or deep valleys, — of heat and cold, — and of the predominant elements derived from the different geological disintegrations and or- ganic deposits, that the earth has at last become capable of sustaining an endless variety of vegetable forms. And this fit- ness for such diversified productions had never existed previous to the TERTIARY AGE. But now we behold the earth an immense Eden, luxuriant with every plant and " tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food," and mankind placed in the midst thereof, with " the tree of knowledge

46 LECTURE.

of good and evil" overshadowing all, and the tree of life eternal unfolding its heav- enly blossoms and winning mortals to re- pose beneath its blissful and everlasting shades.

The last vegetable germs planted on the earth by the Creator were those which pro- duced beautiful and fragrant flowers and grateful fruits ; and they are made capable of multiplying their forms and fragrance, and of being developed by scientific culti- vation, to an extent not dreamed of by un- informed minds. Coincident with them appeared the last and most elaborate ani- mal structure, — that of the human race, endowed with lofty powers of understand- ing, and a spiritual efflorescence capable of the highest degree of expansion. These two classes of material and moral develop- ments are intimately connected, and even dependent, one upon the other, in the at- tainment of their ultimate perfectibility.

LECTURE. 47

They are linked inseparably together. The budding and blossoming of the most lovely and odorous flowers are not only emble- matical of, but they are positively united with, the growth and unfolding of the sweetest, most delicate, and holiest affec- tions of the human soul. Moreover, while it seems to especially appertain to the stronger and more masculine spirit of man to regard and cherish the forming of the fruit, the deep, humble, chaste, and sweet spirit of the cultivated woman is exalted and beautified by its intercourse with flow- ers. So, under the spiritualizing influences of sickness and death, when all the hard and bitter memories of life are merged in the prospect of a more perfect state of be- ing and of intercourse with angels and with the Creator, we instinctively gather around our fading senses the inspiring companionship of the most beautiful and fragrant of vegetable forms, as types and

48 LECTURE.

emblems of the more perfect unfoldings of our own immaterial nature. Not only so, but after our frames are mingled with the common soil, the spirit of friendship and love — the finite personification of the pu- rest attribute of the Infinite — still follows us, weaving garlands of flowers to connect the mortal with the immortal; and they are planted above our decaying forms, as living types of the heavenly nature which attains its full development only in the bosom of the Creator.

Thus God and the chaotic night of re- mote time are connected by the wonderful organic life of the geological ages with the human race, and with the present surface and soil of the planet, which are so essen- tial to the happiness of man as a tempo- rary, and to his intellectual and moral culture, and to his religious inspiration, as an immortal being. Eternity past is joined with eternity to come by a chain whose

LECTURE. 49

links are marvellous and beautiful as they are unbroken, from the beginning to the end. The past and future are alike con- nected with the fertilization of the soil, and with the creation of man to till that soil ; for thereby he is fitted to perfect his physical and immaterial nature, to attain the highest refinements of civilization, and become prepared for still more exalted and enduring enjoyment.

Having traced some of the most remark- able events of the past, by bold and rapid touches of a pencil both feeble and unskil- ful, the final scene of the picture discloses the present age in peaceful possession of the broad alluvial valleys of this virgin and unbroken country. Its inhabitants, yet scanty, are surrounded with all the accumulations of scientific knowledge to aid in developing its resources. What a responsibility must rest on a community*

50 LECTURE.

fully awakened to the providential charac- ter of their destiny! Cast your eye over the physical geography of the western slope of the North American continent, and be- hold this comely region of the earth. God, in his government of the great physical and moral affairs of the globe, has reserved it until the present age, to give a fresh and more vigorous impulse to the development of human society. It holds the same rela- tion to the ancient nations and to old forms of civilization, as (Joes the modern geological age to ?ill that preceded it. It is the last stratum overlying all the rest, a sort of compound accumulation of all pre- vious deposits, from which shall spring the most diversified abundance, and where the richest flowers and fruits shall flourish with perennial increase. The old nations lie buried thousands of years deep below us. The primeval Asiatic growths of intelli- * gence are so profound and ancient, that, like

LECTURE. 51

the slate-beds and limestones of the primi- tive seas, the mere rudiments of life are discovered by only a doubtful tradition. The misty spectres of old Egyptian dynas- ties,— with their pyramids, temples, and sphinxes, — sucking the lifeblood of the Hebrew tribes and of the common people, stoeep before us and pass away, like the gluttonous races of the palaeozoic ages. A succeeding epoch brings forth new forms of intelligence ; and Greece — so beautiful and magnificent — so rich in letters, phi- losophy, and the fine arts — instinctively rises before the mind, as an emblem of the verdant and prolific creations which adorned the earth during the carboniferous era. Stored away in the dark abysses of revolutionary time, — covered up by the fragmentary and refuse materials of a hun- dred generations, are those wonderful re- mains of Homer, Plato, Socrates, Euclid, Hippocrates, Xenophon, and scores of other

52 LECTURE.

immortal men, whose resplendent genius warms and illuminates these later times.

A new social fabric arose over the de- caying institutions of the Peloponnesus; and Rome, with her ponderous armies and devouring ambition, overwhelmed the world, playing the part of a secondary age, swarming with monsters alike distin- guished for their cold blood and for their ferocity. On the ruins of this imperfect civilization sprang other developments of society, improved and embellished by the addition of the Christian element, and a spirit of scientific inquiry. This was a sort of tertiary age in the history of the moral world, when the old Spanish monar- chy, the French empire, and British sway, were represented by the paleotherii, me- gatherii, and mastodons ; the creation and destruction of whose huge forms were to prepare the earth for the great Ameri- can epoch, — the last stratum in the sue-

LECTURE. 53

cessive developments of human society. The mingling of the culture of decayed nations — the Oriental, Egyptian, Grecian, Roman, and Saracenic — with the Christian and scientific elements of the modern era, constitutes that vast store of intelligence and wisdom, — that rich subsoil from which are springing the thousand inventions and intellectual enterprises which adorn the hu- man character, as the flowers and fruits adorn the present surface of the earth. This favored land of our adoption is now in a state of partial submersion by the last great moral deluge. The richest alluvium is fast settling from the turbid waters that have rushed over it with such astonishing impetuosity ; and an intellectual soil will soon be formed, whose vigor and fertility will well compare with the agricultural strength of its prolific valley-bottoms. The last social stratum is forming from the accumulating detritus of all past races, and

54 LECTURE.

of all the kingdoms of nature ; and from this shall spring the most elaborate and abundant growths of intellectual and moral enterprise.

As firm as are the sinews of its strength, California is still but a nursling, — and a mere godchild at that, hugged in the self- ish laps, and surfeited with the sickening nutriment, of all the communities of the earth. Within its own bosom exist the permanent and inexhaustible elements of independence, and of every species of great- ness. All its diversified aspects invite in- dustry and intelligence to lay open its boundless stores of wealth. The very act of decomposing the rock, to prepare the foundation of a productive soil, has dis- tributed a precious medium of commercial intercourse throughout the surface of the highlands and the beds of the streams, and exposed it to the easy access of toil, as a stimulus to all sorts of enterprise. The

LECTURE. 55

broad and prolific valleys of the land have gone through their pastoral epoch, and their deep and rich alluvial bottoms are inviting enlightened husbandry to unfold their exhaustless fertility. No dense for- ests cover the earth, to retard the hand of the ploughman; but an open -and bound- less fallow allures him to turn its surface, and to plant a hundred golden hopes with every grain of golden seed. The moun- tains send up cedars so many fathoms high, as to remind us of the gigantic pro- ductions of the ancient ages ; while the valleys give nourishment to roots, cereals, and succulent vines, whose yields would appear fabulous, did we not possess sub- stantial evidence of their extraordinary growth and plenteousness. A million flow- ers announce with a million voices — from the earth and from the heavens — that the fulness of time has arrived, when the hu- man soul shall accept the silent and sweet*

56 LECTURE.

revelations of nature, and vanish from the sunlight with the profound conviction that mortal life is only a bud of inspiration, created to blossom in the elysian gardens of immortality. From the broad declivities of the Sierra Nevada to the rock-bound shores of the neighboring ocean, and from the icy summits of the Siskiyous to the sunny vales of the vine-clad South, the genii of rural wealth lift their smiling faces from the soil, at the magic touch of the ploughshare and reaping-hook, and, ming- ling their hymns with the inundations of the Sacramento, proclaim that lawgiver the greatest benefactor to the common- wealth, who advocates the most liberal enactments for founding agricultural insti- tutions, for stimulating agricultural enter- prises, and tilling the barns of the people with overflowing abundance.

In reaching, at last, the closing view of this hasty and imperfect tableau, we find

LECTURE. 57

ourselves standing on the summit of the ages ; and the immense vista of the past, filled with a succession of startling events, gradually receding before our eye, till all is lost in the profoundest night of chaotic antiquity. From the first dawn of a creative force, we behold, little by little, the unfold- ing of a scheme, at first indefinite in its object, but at last so clearly revealed, that we marvel at the amount of power, and at the infinitude of time, expended to lay down the agricultural and horticultural founda- tions of the earth. The great and unmis- takable fact bursts upon us, that the time occupied — however incalculable and infin- ite its duration — was especially spent for purposes connected with the intellectual races. The whole scheme was planned and developed to prepare the earth for man. The inference is as positive as the duration of organic life is infinite and in- calculable, that the creation of man is the

58 LECTURE.

last organic act intended by the Creator, and that his existence shall be without end, and his intellectual development eter- nally progressive. The history of the earth proves the truth of this declaration. For, now, nothing is wanting to stimulate the industry or the faculties of man. All past organic creations have stored the earth with their riches ; and as human wisdom gathers together merchandise of food, rai- ment, and fuel, for long and adventurous expeditions, so the Almighty has consoli- dated stratum over stratum, of rich mate- rials, which dissolve at even the touch of a dewdrop, and transform their solid shapes into esculent roots, herbs, and fruits. The economy of nature is such that no losses ensue to the surface of the earth. All that springs from it returns to enrich it still more. The preparatory ages have long since past. Even society has emerged from its infantile and preparatory stages ;

LECTURE. 59

and science so completely controls modern civilization, that the human faculties have no rest, and seek none, short of perfection. That perfection, in the nature of things, can never be reached; and therefore human progress becomes eternal. And as beauti- ful trees not only adorn the landscape, affording shade and nutriment to roaming herds, but mingle their decomposing sub- stance with the earth, to stimulate the growth of new and more refined forms of organic being ; so, not only do the lives of great and good men impart light and beauty to the social state, but their death also awakens fresh developments of intel- ligence and virtue. Thus, all nature tends to refinement ; and, though the processes of accomplishing its ends are silent, they are nevertheless positive ; and they appear slow because DURATION is the broad stage on which man is to act his part, and to consummate his destiny.

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