more numerous, complex, variable and practically important.
From the underlying abstract mathematical considerations all
through the superimposed physical, biological, anthropological,Conclusion.
political and commercial development of the
subject runs the determining control exercised by crust-forms
acting directly or indirectly on mobile distributions; and this
is the essential principle of geography. (H. R. M.)
GEOID (from Gr. γῆ, the earth), an imaginary surface employed
by geodesists which has the property that every element
of it is perpendicular to the plumb-line where that line cuts it.
Compared with the “spheroid of reference” the surface of the
geoid is in general depressed over the oceans and raised over
the great land masses. (See Earth, Figure of the.)
GEOK-TEPE, a former fortress of the Turkomans, in Russian
Transcaspia, in the oasis of Akhal-tekke, on the Transcaspian
railway, 28 m. N.W. of Askabad. It consisted of a walled
enclosure 134 m. in circuit, the wall being 18 ft. high and 20 to
30 ft. thick. In December 1880 the place was attacked by
6000 Russians under General Skobelev, and after a siege of
twenty-three days was carried by storm, although the defenders
numbered 25,000. A monument and a small museum commemorate
the event.
GEOLOGY (from Gr. γῆ, the earth, and λόγος, science), the
science which investigates the physical history of the earth.
Its object is to trace the structural progress of our planet from
the earliest beginnings of its separate existence, through its
various stages of growth, down to the present condition of
things. It seeks to determine the manner in which the evolution
of the earth’s great surface features has been effected. It unravels
the complicated processes by which each continent has
been built up. It follows, even into detail, the varied sculpture
of mountain and valley, crag and ravine. Nor does it confine
itself merely to changes in the inorganic world. Geology shows
that the present races of plants and animals are the descendants
of other and very different races which once peopled the earth.
It teaches that there has been a progressive development of the
inhabitants, as well as one of the globe on which they have
dwelt; that each successive period in the earth’s history, since
the introduction of living things, has been marked by characteristic
types of the animal and vegetable kingdoms; and that,
however imperfectly the remains of these organisms have been
preserved or may be deciphered, materials exist for a history
of life upon the planet. The geographical distribution of existing
faunas and floras is often made clear and intelligible by geological
evidence; and in the same way light is thrown upon some of
the remoter phases in the history of man himself. A subject
so comprehensive as this must require a wide and varied basis
of evidence. It is one of the characteristics of geology to gather
evidence from sources which at first sight seem far removed
from its scope, and to seek aid from almost every other leading
branch of science. Thus, in dealing with the earliest conditions
of the planet, the geologist must fully avail himself of the
labours of the astronomer. Whatever is ascertainable by
telescope, spectroscope or chemical analysis, regarding the constitution
of other heavenly bodies, has a geological bearing.
The experiments of the physicist, undertaken to determine
conditions of matter and of energy, may sometimes be taken
as the starting-points of geological investigation. The work
of the chemical laboratory forms the foundation of a vast and
increasing mass of geological inquiry. To the botanist, the
zoologist, even to the unscientific, if observant, traveller by land
or sea, the geologist turns for information and assistance.
But while thus culling freely from the dominions of other sciences, geology claims as its peculiar territory the rocky framework of the globe. In the materials composing that framework, their composition and arrangement, the processes of their formation, the changes which they have undergone, and the terrestrial revolutions to which they bear witness, lie the main data of geological history. It is the task of the geologist to group these elements in such a way that they may be made to yield up their evidence as to the march of events in the evolution of the planet. He finds that they have in large measure arranged themselves in chronological sequence,—the oldest lying at the bottom and the newest at the top. Relics of an ancient sea-floor are overlain by traces of a vanished land-surface; these are in turn covered by the deposits of a former lake, above which once more appear proofs of the return of the sea. Among these rocky records lie the lavas and ashes of long-extinct volcanoes. The ripple left upon the shore, the cracks formed by the sun’s heat upon the muddy bottom of a dried-up pool, the very imprint of the drops of a passing rainshower, have all been accurately preserved, and yield their evidence as to geographical conditions often widely different from those which exist where such markings are now found.
But it is mainly by the remains of plants and animals imbedded in the rocks that the geologist is guided in unravelling the chronological succession of geological changes. He has found that a certain order of appearance characterizes these organic remains, that each great group of rocks is marked by its own special types of life, and that these types can be recognized, and the rocks in which they occur can be correlated even in distant countries, and where no other means of comparison would be possible. At one moment he has to deal with the bones of some large mammal scattered through a deposit of superficial gravel, at another time with the minute foraminifers and ostracods of an upraised sea-bottom. Corals and crinoids crowded and crushed into a massive limestone where they lived and died, ferns and terrestrial plants matted together into a bed of coal where they originally grew, the scattered shells of a submarine sand-bank, the snails and lizards which lived and died within a hollow-tree, the insects which have been imprisoned within the exuding resin of old forests, the footprints of birds and quadrupeds, the trails of worms left upon former shores—these, and innumerable other pieces of evidence, enable the geologist to realize in some measure what the faunas and floras of successive periods have been, and what geographical changes the site of every land has undergone.
It is evident that to deal successfully with these varied materials, a considerable acquaintance with different branches of science is needful. Especially necessary is a tolerably wide knowledge of the processes now at work in changing the surface of the earth, and of at least those forms of plant and animal life whose remains are apt to be preserved in geological deposits, or which in their structure and habitat enable us to realize what their forerunners were. It has often been insisted that the present is the key to the past; and in a wide sense this assertion is eminently true. Only in proportion as we understand the present, where everything is open on all sides to the fullest investigation, can we expect to decipher the past, where so much is obscure, imperfectly preserved or not preserved at all. A study of the existing economy of nature ought thus to be the foundation of the geologist’s training.
While, however, the present condition of things is thus employed, we must obviously be on our guard against the danger of unconsciously assuming that the phase of nature’s operations which we now witness has been the same in all past time, that geological changes have always or generally taken place in former ages in the manner and on the scale which we behold to-day, and that at the present time all the great geological processes, which have produced changes in the past eras of the earth’s history, are still existent and active. As a working hypothesis we may suppose that the nature of geological processes has remained constant from the beginning; but we cannot postulate that the action of these processes has never varied in energy. The few centuries wherein man has been observing nature obviously form much too brief an interval by which to measure the intensity of geological action in all past time. For aught we can tell the present is an era of quietude and slow change, compared with some of the eras which have preceded it. Nor perhaps can we be quite sure that, when we have explored every geological process now in progress, we have exhausted all the causes of change which, even in comparatively recent times, have been at work.
In dealing with the geological record, as the accessible solid part of the globe is called, we cannot too vividly realize that at
