2 Reflections on Primitive Vegetation. 



progress, that we could scarcely have hoped that a new track 

 would be opened, equally rich in discoveries as stimulating 

 to human curiosity as those which the telescope and micro- 

 scope had led us through. But nevertheless, the investigation 

 of the soil which we daily tread under foot, has become, dur- 

 ing the last half century, in the hands of Werner, Cuvier, and 

 a crowd of other scientific men, who have followed rapidly in 

 their steps, a science most fertile in results, that are not only 

 deeply interesting to those immediately engaged in this study, 

 but calculated to strike the imagination of every one who loves 

 to reflect on the great phenomena of nature. 



Geology has, in fact, become capable of revealing to us the 

 history of the earth, during the long periods which preceded 

 its present state. For, by studying the beds of which the 

 crust of the earth is composed, their order of superposition, 

 their nature, and the remains of animals or vegetables which 

 they enclose, we become acquainted with the creatures which 

 have successively inhabited its surface, the revolutions which 

 have occasioned their destruction and given birth to the mi- 

 neral beds in which they are entombed, and the modifications 

 which this surface itself has undergone, in consequence of 

 these revolutions ; and finally, geology proves to us, that all 

 these phenomena, which must necessarily have required ma- 

 ny ages to effect them, took place before the creation of man. 



Geology thus gives us an insight into the events, and ena- 

 bles us to construct anew the beings, which have preceded, 

 by many millions of years, not only man's earliest historical 

 traditions, but even his very existence. 



As in the history of nations, so, during the long history of 

 the formation of the crust of the earth, we find there have 

 been alternate periods of repose and of revolution ; the for- 

 mer having been sufficiently tranquil to allow the surface of 

 the earth, and the masses of water which partially covered it, 

 to become peopled with inhabitants of different kinds, — but 

 during the latter, we see the operation of powerful influences 

 breaking up the surface, elevating mountains, submerging 

 parts of the globe previously uncovered by the ocean, and 

 raising above the level of the waters others which had before 

 formed the beds of seas ; and, finally, spreading over pre-ex- 

 isting rocks, the materials of new beds, containing the remains 

 of living beings, which had been destroyed by these violent 

 catastrophes; whose preserved relics enable us to ascertain, 

 after so many millions of years, the nature of the ancient po- 

 pulations of our globe, and the order in which they succeeded 

 each other. 



The study of the periods of revolution and of those of re- 



