INTRODUCTION. 5 
not in the least more skilful than those that lived imme- 
diately after the deluge. But they can boast of kindred 
who were great before the flood, which have for ever passed 
away, though their existence is proved by their wonderful 
remains buried in the rocks in every place of our land. 
And they can more proudly boast of kindred yet alive in 
foreign climes, numerous almost as the sand on the sea- 
shore, which have already achieved, what human power 
could never have accomplished; and which with unwearied 
assiduity are still carrying on works, which the united 
efforts of myriads of millions of mankind would in vain 
attempt to effect. It will easily be understood that we are 
speaking of the coral-forming zoophytes of foreign seas. 
They have wrought wonders in the deep in ages that are 
past. According to my ingenious friend Mr. Ritchie’s dyna- 
mical theory of the formation of the earth, zoophytes and 
other apulmonic creatures were the only animals that existed 
in the preadamitic seas, when darkness brooded over the 
face of the deep, and ere God had yet said, ‘ Let there be 
light, and there was light ;’—that during countless ages 
they were working the work assigned to them by their 
Creator, gradually forming the crust of the earth. At 
whatever period the work was done, most evident is it that 
