THEATRE ROYAL.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2479, 17 March 1882, Page 4

THEATRE ROYAL.

MB DENTON'S LEOIDBE3.

The third of the series of lectures now ia course of delivery by Mr Denton was given last night in the Theatre, when there was a good audience, all parts of the building being filled. It is satisfactory to be able to note that the piano soloist has retired in favor of a small but efficient band under Mr James Ooombes, which last night discoursed some very good music, Mr Denton, who on entering was warmly applauded, said that they had already traced the planet over a considerable portion of its progress and history, first as a fiery ocean, then a wilderness of heated rock. Ages had passed, then the clouds dropped rain, the oceans were formed, and tho grand battle between the rival forces of fire and water was fought out. Still farther advanciag they found that the first evidences of life came to be in the ocean, which was the only part cool enough. Then they came to the age of fishes and animals 08 near as possible to man as one living in water could be. From this the development of life went upwards unfalteringly, never receding, bat still pressing forward to the ultimate development of man. Tho subject for that evening’s consideration was the Carboniferous Books,” in which were comprised coal, limestone, and iron ores. The lower portion of the coal measures belonged to the metamorphic period, and underlying these rocks was the shale, which represented the sediments swept down into the ocean, which was, in those far off aces, land. Daring the early part of the carboniferous period, pebbles wore swept down in vast masses, and these had been converted, under pressure, into such a formation as that known as millstone grit. This was particularly noticeable in Ohio, and in some parts of England, too, it was found very thick indeed, forming large masses of stone, far larger than any building in the oily, not excepting the Cathedral. Then there were conditions under which corals, crinoids, and shells lived, and the result was that thick beds of limestone were formed. This was called mountain limestone, because it was found in Derbyshire, which was the most mountainous part of England, and in the Hartz Mountains in Germany, In America, also, this formation was found, but this was formed ot large masses of crinoids which bad been crushed into a mass of stone. This formation was called by a variety of names, such as St. Onthbert’s beads, Indian beads, Sir Walter Scott in one of his poems, had beautifully referred to this old monkish legend. But if St. Outhbert had, as was alleged, made these beads, he would have been the busiest Saint that ever lived. This limestone was also called oavernal limestone, because large oaves were found in it. the result ot the action of the water. If the limestone was full of shale the cavities would fill up ; but if the limestone was of solid character the cavities would gradually increase, until they got the immense caves of the world, such as those in Derbyshire, in the Hartz mountains in Germany, the mammoth oaves of Kentucky, and others. Ho had explored a very large cave in Indiana, known as Wyandotte Cave. The interior of this cave was a magnificent hall, with stalactites and stalagmites, and with crystals reflecting the light of their torches. This cave had been explored for twenty seven miles. The mammoth caves of Kentuozy had, it was said, been explored three hundred miles. However this might be, the cave was the most magnificent one in the world. The Echo Biver, exceedingly wide and deep, rising three miles from the entrance, and the grand columns in the vast halls bad to be seen to be appreciated, and it was only the soul of a poet which could thoroughly estimate the magnificence thus displayed. The Mammoth Cave of Kentucky was the grandest in the world; but for beauty the Imperial Cave of the King River, in New South Wales, bore away the palm. There were hundreds of thousands of stalactites white as snow, and the cave as a whole far exceeded in beauty the dream of a fairy palace. It was pleasing to be able to record that no vandal had been allowed to disfigure the marvellous beauty of that cave 5 no John Brown had written his name on the alabaster ceiling of that wondrous abode, a fact which should give pleasure to all true lovers of nature, because there was far 100 much tendency to destroy or obliterate the wondrous productions of nature, [Cheers.] Wow he came to the coal deposits, and the first question was what was this black inflammable deposit. Well, they were now able to solve this question, and to tell them that this coal was once a living, growing vegetable product. Here in New Zealand they could trace the coal from tho living wood to the bituminous coal. They could do this because their coal was young, and this was what was the matter with it. It was too young ; it had not the age of the coal of the carboniferous period. The lines of tho wood wore distinctly marked on the coal here, and by mean* of a microscope they could, if they were botanists, even determine to what family of plants the coal originally belonged. Going Into the coal mine they could see the impressions of plants on the ceilings, generally of shale—beautiful, indeed, as the rare paintings of the Italian palaces. When they found the impression of the plants above and the roots below they knew at once that was now called coal was once living vegetable matter. But at Willesbarre, in Pennsylvania, they had a bed of anthracite coal fifty feet thick Wow this argued that this mass of vegetable matter must have been some SOOft thick, bat the vegetation must have been very prolific. In the carboniferous period there was a warm and genial atmosphere, and the trees grew by millions, of a kind of vegetation something like the fern trees in New Zealand. These trees were strange to them now, but the vegetation in this period was 10 profuse that the tree* grew so os to almost prevent passage through them. These trees fell like grass befoie the scythe of the husbandman, and age after age successive layers of vegetable matter were deposited above each other, so forming what they now knew as coal. The water comes down on the subsidence, bringing with it earth, and then the pressure of the mud upon the vegetable matter formed it into the first stage of coal, the common brown tertiary coal. 80 the process went on till they got the bituminous coal. Beyond this the pressure formed the anthracite coal, which was nature’s own coke. The water receding the mud remained, and the seeds of plants being blown thither, they took Toot and decayed for ages and ages. Under the condition of the carbon being in the atmosphere, which was most favorable to vegetatation, forest after forest grew up and decayed on each other. In one part of America there was a place where no leas than seventy forests had grown one on top of the other. Then, still wandering through the forest of the carboniferous period, they would discover on the shore of the lake an impression of a five digited animal, and quite a number of other animals, &0., which, though not quite the same as those they now know, yet bore some resemblance. There were termites or white ants, scorpions, spiders, and cockroaches. It was very common for persons to boast of their family coming over with the Conqueror, but what would this boast be along aide that of a gentleman cockroach—if he could so boast—who would bo able to point to bis family existing long ere man was even a remote possibility. [Cheers ] The process of obtaining coal In New Zealand was easy, because they got their coal out of the side of the hills. Indeed he had seen on some of their railway lines tho cutting passing through a bed of lignite. But in older countries it was far more difficult: It was calculated that the coal of Great Britain would last but acme two thousand years, but in America they had enough to last for twelve thousand years. A great many people wore looking Iron day to day for tho general wind-np of tho world, but he did not believe that the end of the world would come while coal for thousands of years remained in nature’s storehouses. When the coal was exhausted nature would provide some other resource which would last them, not for thousands, but for millions of years. They were on the planet something like blind kittens, nine days’ old, just beginning to blink and open their eyesto the wonders and beauties of this world. Millions of ages ago these resources had been stored up for them by nature, and for millions of ages still to come nature would provide for those who inhabited the planet. [Cheers.] Now they came to the reptiles. They had gone through the whole of the animal life from the protozoa, and now they came to the Permian formation, where they found the reptiles, which was a still further advance towards the development of man. Here they met with the saliferous formation which was above the Devonian formation. In Droitwitoh in England, Cracow in Poland, and elsewhere there were immense deposits of salt. Then came the question how woe this salt deposited In the centre ot the earth t There was a time

when salt was not. How then did it come ? Well in the mines of Orarow they found remains ot dates, shells, &}., showing that the ocean must have rolled over where the salt mines now existed. The process was something like this. The sand drifted by the wind out off an arm of the sea. The sun drying up the water loft a bed of salt; upon this came the earth and sand, forming through the ages sandstone, so that they found salt below the sandstone. Water came down, carrying with it mud and sand, and thus above tho salt deposit the earth was built up, and then when after ages hud passed, some ono boring for coal came to a bed of salt. Thus came the deposits of salt to be made. To show how much salt was contained in water, he need only refer to the water of the Salt Lake, which produced salt on the shores of that lake like enow. Then how came tho sea to be salt, because at one time no sea existed I For an answer to this question they had to go to the chemist, and he told them that salt was chloride of sodium formed of chlorine and sodium. When the planet was in the primitive state he had described, anything that could be dissolved by water was carried into the depressions of the earth, such as the sea, and this chlorine and sodium combining no doubt with some of the acids which were evolved from the atmosphere—for at this period of the history of the planet it was one vast chemical laboratory—was thus conveyed into the sea, and it became salt. [Cheers.] On the next evening his lecture would bo most interesting, and would be illustrated by a number of beautiful photographs. The subject would bo the the age of reptiles. [Cheers.] Some very excellent views were then exhibited, shewing tho forests of the carboniferous period, &o. Mr Denton said he should be glad to answer any questions that might be asked of him on the subject of the lecture* ho had delivered, in order to elucidate anything that might be required.