Page:The Journal of geology (IA journalofgeology11893univ).pdf/198

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
182
THE JOURNAL OF GEOLOGY.

fication took little or no account of actual time-factors in geology.

Lehmann[1] (Johann Gottlob Lehmann died in St. Petersburg, 1767) is generally credited with having first proposed a classification of rocks on the basis of the order of their formation, as Primitive, Secondary, and a third class, the modern or superficial rocks made by the deluge or ordinary river action. Lehmann recognized also a direct relation of origin of the Secondary from the Primitive rocks, and thuse arose the beginnings of the geological time-scale. Lehmann recognized three originally distinct kinds of rocks, or rock formations. The volcanic were separated from the others because having no particular connection with either in origin. The distinction, however, between Primitive and Secondary was fundamental. The Primitive was strictly the original basal rock formed by crystallization from chemical solution before organisms lived; and the Secondary rocks were of secondary origin, made out of fragments of the older and always lying above them. In the original classification of Lehmann, Secondary included all the stratified rocks, as we now consider them, and in the classifications following Lehmann for some years the term Secondary was applied, though in a restricted sense.

Cuvier and Brongniart proposed the name Tertiary for the rocks classified as Secondary by Lehmann, but lying above what is now known as the Cretaceous system; and Quaternary was introduced by Morlot in 1854 for the rocks of superficial position and of glacial or fluviatile origin. Thus the nomenclature of Lehmann, which was proposed originally to indicate the derivation of the Secondary from the Primitive, was expanded on the basis of stratigraphic succession, and we observe the anomaly of a retention of two names (Tertiary and Quaternary), formed on the principle of Lehmann's terms, but his own terms, as well as his theory as a basis of classification, entirely discarded.

  1. J. G. Lehmann, Versuch einer geschichte von floetz-gebürgen, etc., Berlin, 1756. French translation cited by Lyell.Essai d'un Hist. Nat. des Couches de la Terre, 1759. See Lyell, "Principles," Vol. 1, p. 72, and Conybeare and Phillips "Geology," p. vi, and p. xiii.