390 Professor Agassiz on the Development of Organised Beings 



oysters, and the lioles bored by pholades on the flanks of 

 mountains, seem to indicate ancient shores. In other locali- 

 ties, numerous remains of fishes, and immense banks of corals 

 lying in their natural position, compel us to admit that our 

 solid lands have formerly been submerged, and that the beds 

 composing our loftiest mountains occupied the bottom of the 

 sea, before they elevated their daring summits to the sky. 



At first sight nothing but confusion appears in these masses 

 of debris ; and, like Cuvier, we are tempted to compare them 

 to an immense overthrown cemetery, so many members of 

 various animals being mixed together pell-mell. But just as 

 the antiquary has been able, by dint of assiduous study, to re- 

 cognize, in the ruined monuments of ancient nations, evident 

 traces of several distinct civilizations, of which written histo- 

 ry makes no mention ; so, in like manner, it was reserved for 

 modern science to lay hold of the impress of the different 

 epochs which have succeeded each other at the surface of the 

 globe. This impress once recognized, investigation ne- 

 cessarily led to much more precise results, inasmuch as the 

 laws of nature are not subjected to those veerings which, in 

 the history of nations, betray every moment human incon- 

 stancy. It is thus that a comparative examination has taught 

 geologists to recognize, in the midst of the greatest derange- 

 ments, the order of succession of all the leaves of which the 

 crust of the earth is composed ; and if, in this immense book, 

 there are still some obscure passages among these leaves, in- 

 quirers have not been the less successful in ascertaining the 

 exact connection which exists between the different ages of 

 the earth. With such results before us, we are no longer per- 

 mitted to adopt an opinion on the history of creation, which 

 does not take these data into account. 



Before discussing the connection of the phenomena to which 

 I have just alluded, and before searching for its import, let 

 me be permitted to analyze them briefly, restricting myself 

 to the facts relative to the animal kingdom, with which I am 

 more specially occupied. When we study the remains of or- 

 ganized beings which we find buried in the beds composing 

 the earth''s crust, we are soon struck at finding that the order 

 in which they succeed one another, from above downw^ards, 

 and from below upwards, does not at all harmonize with the 



