Whether we speak of the cedar, the oak, the lichens, or the grasses, all equally derive their support from the elements afforded by the mineral world… - Gideon Mantell

In the latter part of the seventeenth century, there were several eminent men in England who were greatly in advance of the age in which they lived, and strenuously exerted themselves to discover and promulgate the true principles of Geology. Among these Dr. Martin Lister, physician to Queen Anne, was one of the most distinguished. This accomplished naturalist in his great work on shells... figures and describes many fossil shells as real animal productions, and carefully compares them with recent species. He also recognised the distinction of strata by the organic remains they contain; and to him the honour is due of having first suggested the construction of geological maps...

Every walk we take offers subjects for profound meditation,—every pebble that attracts our notice, matter for serious reflection; and contemplating the incessant dissolution and renovation which are taking place around us in the organic and inorganic kingdoms of nature, we are struck by the force and beauty of the exclamation of the poet—
"My heart is awed within me, when I think
Of the great miracle which still goes on
In silence round me—the perpetual work
Of Thy Creation, finished, yet renewed
For ever!"

Every part of the earth's surface presents unequivocal proofs that the elevation of the bed of the ocean in some places, and the subsidence of the dry land in others, have been, and are still, going on; and that, in truth, the continual changes in the relative position of the land and water, are the effects of laws which the Divine Author of the Universe has impressed on matter, and thus rendered it capable of perpetual renovation:—
Art, Empire, Earth itself, to change are doomed;
Earthquakes have raised to heaven the humble vail,
And gulf's the mountain's mighty mass entombed,
And where the Atlantic rolls wide continents have bloomed.