The preparation of the earth, for the intellectual races: a lecture delivered at Sacramento, California, April 10, 1954, at the invitation of the House of Assembly

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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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