2 Geographical Distribution of Animals. 



quires preliminary investigation, which seems to have been 

 entirely lost sight of by all those, without exception, who 

 have studied the geographical distribution of animals, and 

 which seems to us to be the keystone of the whole edifice, 

 whenever we undertake to reconstruct the primitive plan of 

 the geographical distribution of animals and plants. The 

 distribution of organized beings over the surface of our globe 

 in its present condition cannot be considered in itself ; and 

 without an investigation, at the same time, of the geographi- 

 cal distribution of those organized beings which have existed 

 in former geological periods, and had become extinct before 

 those of the present creation were called into being. For it 

 is well ascertained now that there is a natural succession in 

 the plan of creation — an intimate connection between all the 

 types of the different periods of the creation from its begin- 

 ning up to this day ; so much so, that the present distribution 

 of animals and plants is the continuation of an order of things 

 which prevailed for a time at an earlier period, but which 

 came to an end before the existing arrangement of things 

 was introduced. 



The animal kingdom, as we know it in our days, is there- 

 fore engrafted upon its condition in earlier periods ; and it is 

 to the distribution of animals in these earlier periods that we 

 must look, if we would trace the plan of the Creator from 

 its commencement to its more advanced development in our 

 own time. 



If there is any truth in the view that animals and plants 

 originated from a common centre, it must be at the same 

 time shewn that such an intimate connection between the 

 animals existed at all periods ; or, at least, we should, before 

 assuming such a view for the animals living in our days, 

 discover a sufficient reason for ascribing to them another 

 mode of dispersion than to the animals and plants of former 

 periods. But there is such a wonderful harmony in all the 

 great processes of nature, that, at the outset, we should be. 

 carefully on our guard against assuming different modes of 

 distribution for the organized beings of former periods, and 

 for those which at present cover the globe. Should it be plain 

 that the animals and plants did not originate from a common 



