Other editions of book The Story Of The Earth And Man

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Title: The Story of the Earth and Man.Publisher: British Library, Historical Print EditionsThe British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. It is one of the world's largest research libraries holding over 150 million items in all known languages and formats: books, journals, newspapers, sound recordings, patents, maps, stamps, prints and much more. Its collections include around 14 million books, along with substantial additional collections of manuscripts and historical items dating back as far as 300 BC.The GENERAL HISTORICAL collection includes books from the British Library digitised by Microsoft. This varied collection includes material that gives readers a 19th century view of the world. Topics include health, education, economics, agriculture, environment, technology, culture, politics, labour and industry, mining, penal policy, and social order. ++++The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to insure edition identification:++++<Source Library> British Library<Contributors> Dawson, John William; <Original Pub Date> 1873.<Physical Description> xiii. 403 p. ; 8º.<Shelfmark> 7109.aaa.41.

This book was originally published prior to 1923, and represents a reproduction of an important historical work, maintaining the same format as the original work. While some publishers have opted to apply OCR (optical character recognition) technology to the process, we believe this leads to sub-optimal results (frequent typographical errors, strange characters and confusing formatting) and does not adequately preserve the historical character of the original artifact. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as blurred or missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work or the scanning process itself. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy seeing the book in a format as close as possible to that intended by the original publisher.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

The title of this work is intended to indicate precisely its nature. It consists of rough, broad sketches of the aspects of successive stages in the earth’s history, as disclosed by geology, and as they present themselves to observers at the present time. The last qualification is absolutely necessary, when dealing with a science whose goal to-day will be its starting point to-morrow, and in whose view every geological picture must have its light and shaded portions, its clear foreground and its dim distance, varying according to the lights cast on them by the progress of investigation, and according to the standpoint of the observer. In such pictures results only can be given, not the processes by which they have been obtained; and with all possible gradations of light and distance, it may be that the artist will bring into too distinct outline facts still only dimly perceived, or will give too little prominence to others which, should appear in bold relief. He must in this judge for himself; and if the writer’s impressions do not precisely correspond with those of others, he trusts that they will allow something for difference of vision and point of view. The difficulty above referred to perhaps rises to its maximum in the present chapter. For how can any one paint chaos, or give form and filling to the formless void? Perhaps no word-picture of this period of the first phase of mundane history can ever equal the two negative touches of the inspired penman—“without form and void”—a world destitute of all its present order, and destitute of all that gives it life and animation. This it was, and not a complete and finished earth, that sprang at first from its Creator’s hand; and we must inquire in this first chapter what information science gives as to any such condition of the earth. In the first place, the geological history of the earth plainly intimates a beginning, by utterly negativing the idea that “all things continue as they were from the creation of the world.” It traces back to their origin not only the animals and plants which at present live, but also their predecessors, through successive dynasties emerging in long procession from the depths of a primitive antiquity. Not only so; it assigns to their relative ages all the rocks of the earth’s crust, and all the plains and mountains built up of them. Thus, as we go back in geological time, we leave behind us, one by one, all the things with which we are familiar, and the inevitable conclusion gains on us that we must be approaching a beginning, though this may be veiled from us in clouds and thick darkness. How is it, then, that there are “Uniformitarians” in geology, and that it has been said that our science shows no traces of a beginning, no indications of an end? The question deserves consideration; but the answer is not difficult. In all the lapse of geological time there has been an absolute uniformity of natural law. The same grand machinery of force and matter has been in use throughout all the ages, working out the great plan. Yet the plan has been progressive and advancing, nevertheless. The uniformity has been in the methods, the results have presented a wondrous diversity and development. Again, geology, in its oldest periods, fails to reach the beginning of things. It shows us how course after course of the building has been laid, and how it has grown to completeness, but it contains as yet no record of the laying of the foundation-stones, still less of the quarry whence they were dug. Still the constant progress which we have seen points to a beginning which we have not seen; and the very uniformity of the process by which the edifice has been erected, implies a time when it had not been begun, and when its stones were still reposing in their native quarry.

This book was digitized and reprinted from the collections of the University of California Libraries. It was produced from digital images created through the libraries’ mass digitization efforts. The digital images were cleaned and prepared for printing through automated processes. Despite the cleaning process, occasional flaws may still be present that were part of the original work itself, or introduced during digitization. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found online in the HathiTrust Digital Library at www.hathitrust.org.

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.