32 On the former Changes of the Alps. 



cleared away by the application of modern geology, as based 

 upon the succession of organic remains, and then proceeded 

 to indicate the accumulations of which the Alps were com- 

 posed, and the changes or revolutions they had undergone, 

 between the truly primaeval days when the earliest recog- 

 nizable animals were created, and the first glacial period in 

 the history of the planet. 



The object being to convey in a popular manner clear ideas 

 of the physical condition of these mountains at different 

 periods, three long scene-paintings, prepared for the occasion, 

 represented a portion of the chain at three distinct epochs. 

 The first of these views of ancient nature exhibited the Alps 

 as a long, low archipelago of islands, formed in great part 

 out of the Silurian and older sediments which had been raised 

 above the sea, when the lands bore the tropical vegetation 

 of the carboniferous era. 



Stating that there were no relics in the Alps of the forma- 

 tions to which he had assigned the name of Permian, as 

 marking the close of the primaeval or palseozoic age, Sir Rode- 

 rick rapidly reviewed the facts gathered together by many 

 geologists from all quarters of the globe, and maintained that 

 they unequivocally sustained the belief, that there had been 

 a succession of creations from lower to higher types of life, 

 in ascending from inferior to superior formations. He care- 

 fully, however, noted the clear distinction between such a 

 creed, as founded on the true records of creation, and the 

 theory of transmutation of species ; a doctrine put forth in 

 the popular work entitled the " Vestiges of Creation," and 

 from which he entirely dissented. 



In the second painting (an immense lapse of time having 

 occurred) the Alps were represented as a mountainous ridge 

 in which all the submarine formations, from the mediaeval 

 up to the older tertiary or Eocene, had been lifted up upon 

 the flank of the primaeval rocks. Each rock system being 

 distinguished by a colour peculiar to it, the nature of the 

 animals contained in each of these deposits was succinctly 

 touched upon. Between the youngest of the primaeval for- 

 mations and the oldest of the mediaeval or secondary rocks, 

 it was stated, that there is not one species in common to the 

 two in any part of Europe ; the expression being that '* an 



