013
014
015 016
017
018
019 020
021
Darien to Savannah. -- Black Baptist Church and Preacher. -- Negro Prayer. -- Negro Intelligence. -- Bribery of Irish Voters. -- Dirt-Eaters. -- Railway Expedition on Hand-Car. -- Geology of
Georgia. -- Negroes more progressive in Upper Country. --
Indifference of Georgians to Winter Cold. -- Want of Elbow-Room in
Pine-Barrens.
[019] [Travel to Savannah, Georgia] "In
proportion as these colored people fill places of trust, they are
involuntarily treated more as equals by the whites. The prejudices
which keep the races asunder would rapidly diminish, were they not
studiously kept up by artificial barriers, unjust laws, and the
reaction against foreign interference."
223
224
225
226
227 228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
Cincinnati to Fittsburg. -- Improved Machinery of Steamer. -- Indian Mound. -- Gravel Terraces. -- Pittsburg Fire.
-- Journey to Greensburg. -- Scenery like England.Oregon War Question. --
Fossil Foot-prints of Air-breathing Reptile in Coal Strata. -- Casts of
Mudcracks. -- -Footprints of Birds and Dogs sculptured by Indians. --
Theories respecting the Geological Antiquity of highly organized
Vertebrata. -- Prejudices opposed to the Reception of Geological
Truths. -- Popular Education the only Means of preventing a Collision
of Opinion between the Multitude and the Learned.
[235] [Commenting on reptile tracks
discovered 100 feet below the main Pittsburg coal seam]. "Geologists
have been in the habit of taking for granted, that at epochs
anterier to the coal there were no birds or air-breathing quadrupeds in
existence... I can not conclude these remarks on the geological
discoveries made in these remote valleys of the Alleghanies, without
alluding to a moral phenomenon, which was forcibly brought before my
mind in the course of the investigation. The interest excited by these
singular monuments of the olden times, naturally led to animated
discussions ... during which the high antiquity of the earth, and the
doctrine of former changes in the species of animals and plants
inhabiting this planet before the creation of man, wer assumed as
established truths. But these views were so new and startling, and so
opposed to popular prepossessions, that they drew down much obloquy
upon their promulgators, who incurred the censures not only of the
multitude, but also of some of the Roman Catholic and Lutheran clergy.
... Several of the ministers of the Lutheran church, who had studied
for years in German universities, were too well infomed not to believe
in the conclusions established by geologists, respecting the immensity
of past time and former vicissitudes, both in animal and vegetable
life; but ... they were compelled by prudence to conceal their opinions
from their congregations, or they would have lost all influence over
them, and might perhaps have seen their churches deserted. Yet by
maintaining silence in deference to the opinions of the more ignorant,
they become, in some degree, the instruments of countenancing error;
nay, they are rearing up the rising generation to be, in their turn,
the persecutors of many of their contemporaries, who may hereafter be
far in advance in their scientific knowledge.
'To nothing but error,' says a popular writer of our times, 'can any
truth be dangerous; and I know not,' he exclaims, 'where else there is
seen so altogether tragical a spectacle, as that religion should be
found standing in the highways, to say, "Let no man learn the simplest
laws of the universe, lest they mislearn the highest. In the name of
God the Maker, who said, and hourly yet says, Let there be light, we command that
you continue in darkness!" ' [quoting Thomas Carlyle, July, 1848]"
