Page:The evolution of worlds - Lowell.djvu/221

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
A PLANET'S HISTORY
183

fact, the transformation was marked. That its epochal character has failed to impress itself generally on geologists, is perhaps because they look too closely, missing the march of events in the events themselves,

Earth as seen from above—Photographed by Dr. Lowell at an altitude of 5500 feet.

and because, too, of the gradual nature of its processional change. We can recall only De Lapparent as having particularly signalled it; although not only in its cause, but for its effects, it should have delimited two great geologic divisions of time.

Astronomy and geology are each but part of one universal history. The tale each has to tell must prove in keeping with that of the other. If they seem at variance, it behooves us very carefully to scan their respective stories to find the flaw where the apparent incongruity slipped in. Each, too, fittingly supplements the other, and especially must geology look to astronomy