The geologist is the interpreter of the records of the rocks. From a
bit of strata here, and a bit there, he re-creates the earth as it
was in successive geologic periods, as Cuvier reconstructed his
extinct animals from fragments of their bones; and the same
interpretative power of the imagination is called into play in both
cases, only the palaeontologist has a much narrower field to work
in, and the background of his re-creations must be supplied by the
geologist.

Everything connected with the history of the earth is on such a vast
scale--such a scale of time, such a scale of power, such a scale of
movement--that in trying to measure it by our human standards and
experience we are like the proverbial child with his cup on the
seashore. Looked at from our point of view, the great geological
processes often seem engaged in world-destruction rather than in
world-building. Those oft-repeated invasions of the continents by
the ocean, which have gone on from Archaean times, and during which
vast areas which had been dry land for ages were engulfed, seem like
world-wide catastrophes. And no doubt they were such to myriads of
plants and animals of those times. But this is the way the
continents grew. All the forces of the invading waters were engaged
in making more land.

The geologist is bold; he is made so by the facts and processes with
which he deals; his daring affirmations are inspired by a study of
the features of the earth about him; his time is not our time, his
horizons are not our horizons; he escapes from our human experiences
and standards into the vast out-of-doors of the geologic forces and
geologic ages. The text he deciphers is written large, written
across the face of the continent, written in mountain-chains and