p. 371 | Geological Formations Forming Simultaneously

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 18, 1881

Geological Formations Forming Simultaneously

By Richard Anthony Proctor

"If there is one theory which geologists have thought more justly founded than all others, it is the view that the various strata of the earth were formed at different times. A chalk district, for example, lying side by side with a sandstone district, has been referred to a totally different era. Whether the chalk was formed first, or whether the sandstone existed before the minute races came into being which formed the cretaceous stratum might be a question. But no doubt existed in the minds of geologists that each formation belonged to a distinct period. Now, however, Dr. Carpenter and Prof. Thompson may fairly say, 'We have changed all this.' It has been found that at points of the sea-bottom, only eight or ten miles apart, there may be in progress the formation of a cretaceous deposit and of a sandstone region, each with its own proper fauna. 'Wherever similar conditions are found upon dry land of the present day,' remarks Dr. Carpenter, 'it has been supposed that the formation of chalk and the formation of sandstone must have been separated from each other by long periods, and the discovery that they may actually coexist upon adjacent surfaces has done no less than strike at the very root of the customary assumptions with regard to geological time.'" — Prof. R. A. Proctor.