1862.] COLLAPSE OF THE LANCASHIRE SYSTEM. 139

hands be needed, by less civilized beings, who may be raised and trained in the transitional school of Lancashire work. But I am justly indignant, when I find Mr. * * * *, and the organs of the Manchester school, holding up this Lancashire system (which is no system at all) as the model of human societytaking their stand on it to insult all that four-fifths of England holds dear,—the monarchy, the government, the church, the army, the navy, the landlords, the sturdy agricultural peasant; and after doing more than all the demagogues to set class against class, accusing me of setting class against class, 'under well-known Satanic influences' (the actual words of the Morning Star), because I interfere to see common justice done to the British public and to the Lancashire workman.

"Years since, when I was the only free-trade parson for miles round, I fought a similar battle against landlords and farmers. I have found that by so doing I did not lose their respect. Angry as they were at the time with me, their English justice and common sense confessed me slowly to be in the right; and no one is better friends with squire and farmer now, than I who was looked on as a firebrand once."

CHAPTER XX.

1863.

AGED 44.

FELLOW OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY-GEOLOGY OF PALESTINE AND THE BIBLE-WORK AT CAMBRIDGE. - WELLINGTON COLLEGE MUSEUM-LECTURE AT WELLINGTON-LETTER FROM DR. BENSON -WONDERS OF SCIENCE-MAN AND THE APE-MOCKING BUTTERFLIES-A CHAIN OF SPECIAL PROVIDENCES-TOADS IN ROCKS -PRINCE OF WALES'S WEDDING-D.C.L. DEGREE AT OXFORD -BISHOP COLENSO-SERMONS ON THE PENTATEUCH.

How seldom, friend, a good great man inherits
Honour or wealth, with all his toil and pains.
It sounds like stories from the land of spirits,

If any man obtain that which he merits,

Or any merit, that which he obtains.

For shame, dear friend! renounce this canting strain.
What would'st thou have the good great man obtain ?
Place, titles, recompense? a gilded chain,

Or throne of corses that his sword hath slain ?

Hath he not always treasures, always friends,

The good great man? Three treasures, Love and Light,
And Calm Thoughts, regular as infant's breath;
And three firm friends, more sure than day and night,
Himself, his Maker, and the angel-Death.

COLERIDGE.

PROFESSOR KINGSLEY was this year made a Fellow of the Geological Society- he was proposed by Sir Charles Bunbury, and seconded by Sir Charles Lyell. "To belong to the Geological Society," he writes to the former, "has long been an ambition of mine, but

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VOLCANIC ACTION IN PALESTINE.

141

I feel how little I know, and how unworthy I am to mix with the really great men who belong to it. So strongly do I feel this, that if you told me plainly that I had no right to expect such an honour, I should placidly acquiesce in what I already feel to be true." The distinction of F.G.S. came as a counterbalance to his rejection at Oxford for that of a D.C.L. degree, which his friends there had proposed to confer on him. From boyhood geology had been his favourite study; but since he entered the Church it had assumed a deeper importance from the light he believed it must throw on Bible history; and long before any scientific exploration of Palestine was planned, we find him urging it on travellers. The following fragment of a letter, written early in 1853 to Dean Stanley, will show his speculations on the subject:

".... While you are on your way to the Holy Land, I wish to point out to you the great help you might give to our understanding the prophets, especially Micah and Isaiah, by trying to make out whether there are volcanic features in the country to the south-west of Jerusalem. I need not point out to you the distinct allusion to volcanic phenomena of every kind, with which these two writers connect the drought of Ahaz's time, the great misery of the landholders of Judea, and the final destruction of Sennacherib's army, as well as the desolation of Edom and Moab which occurred about the same time. I have been trying for a long time to arrange them, and also to connect them with the remarkable (though well-known in similar cases) re-appearance of the springs throughout a large part of the country, of which Isaiah speaks (cap. xxx. 25, and also xxxv.). But the travellers, except to the volcano district of Sinai, have been such bad geognosts, that I cannot get enough from them. And, moreover, scientific travellers think themselves bound to ignore the Bible, and 'pious' ones to

ignore science. So science suffers from neglecting the history which is ready made for them, and the Bible suffers, being considered to be a mere tale of portents and 'miracles,' even by the pious. Now I want some one like you, to look at these points: (1) The recent volcanic marks in Edom. Isaiah, cap. xxxiv., connects the eruption there with the great events of Hezekiah's time. But no one has worked the country well to the east of the Dead Sea. And no one will tell me whether there are marks (as I expect) of recent upheaval, which have caused the disappearance of water in Edom. Oh, for some one to look for raised beaches half-way up the cliffs on the east side, and to examine the famous sand-cliff between El-Ghor and the Dead Sea, and tell us whether it bears marks, as I expect, of recent upheaval.

"(2) The liability of Jerusalem to earthquakes. They evidently very seldom shook the city itself; but they did not always spare it. Josephus, Antiq. ix. 10, in fine, connects the Rabbinical legend of Uzziah's attempt to offer sacrifice with an earthquake which broke the temple roof, and hurled a large rock close to the city into the king's garden. See also the passage of Jeremiah, which has now got into Zechariah xiv. 4, 5, whereon Whiston with exquisite naiveté, makes the pardonable remark, that "there seems to have been some considerable resemblance between these historical and prophetical earthquakes." The same earthquake seems to me (if you believe as I think we ought that Isaiah's lyrics are chronologically arranged) to be spoken of very clearly in Isaiah ii.

"His most important chapter, xxix., speaks of the eruption during Sennacherib's invasion as visiting Jerusalem with earthquake and flame, and also with tempest; that latter puzzles me as being a crater-volcano-phenomenon, while I can find as yet no craters or lava streams nearer than the country round Tiberias to the north, and Sinai to the south. The flame is a common phenomenon as issuing from earthquake cracks-it did so in Bashan during the great earthquake of 1837. That earthquake, like those of 1759 and 1202, did not affect Jerusalem; the centre of detonation being the volcanic district of

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143

Tiberias. And Isaiah in cap. xxvi. 1, and in other places, intimates that Jerusalem, though shaken, would escape.

"But Jerusalem is surrounded by volcanic phenomena. Russegger says that the mountains between Jerusalem and Jordan are full of earthquake-faults. We know of the hot springs of that neighbourhood, of the mineral and evidently volcanic fountain of Siloam, and of the periodically 'troubled' pos! of Bethesda. Will you, en passant, be so good as to see to that ebbing and flowing of the pool of Siloam, which some one wants to make out the consequence of the Arabs damming back. the water? It, like the troubling of the lost Bethesda, probably like it, a strong mineral spring, is among the commonest of volcanic-spring phenomena.

66

examine the volMicah, the Mor

'(3) But my great object of anxiety is, to canic traces to the south-west of Jerusalem. asthite, who lived some twenty-five miles to the south-west, down the valley of Eschol, speaks, cap. i., as if he had seen lava streams with his own eyes. Pray look about there for black trap-dykes, pumice, and crater cones. You are likelier to find craters in the sides and spurs, than on the tops of those limestone hills; often they will stand right out in elevated plains, of which the soil, which you should observe at cuttings and deep lanes, will be full of pumice and slag, and often of little bits of half-burnt rock; if limestone burnt white and crumbly, if silicious, black or red, and hard. Also little nodules containing crystals of olivine, augite, &c. Also, all the way from there to Bethlehem, look for cracks in the earth and in the rocks, and faults and shifts in the strata. Distortions don't count, they are ante-human by whole æons. Also look for big boulders fallen into the valleys, and for any appearance of black trachyte, &c., cropping out, or running down into the valleys. A lava stream will look, atop, like a long dyke of loose stones, more or less over-grown with vegetation. I speak from pretty good experience, having worked a large extinct volcanodistrict last summer. Basalt of course you will recognize; but it will be recent only if low in valleys, and damming up

watercourses.