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characterised, were found by us aUke in these oldest forms of 

 earth's first inhabitants : so that if it was true that hundreds of 

 thousands of ages had rolled away since these creatures lived 

 in the primeval seas, the same laws that governed their being, 

 regulated their Hfe, and assigned them their place in creation, 

 were presiding over the countless organisms of the present time: 

 and if it was possible to reahse, in a material form, the words of 

 Scripture, that the Great Author of oui' being was 'the same 

 yesterday, to-day, and for ever,' he would point to the Corals, 

 Crinoids, Star-fishes, and Trilobites of the Silurian beach now 

 before them, and say, there are evidences which declare the 

 truth, and prove the reality of these aU-comforting words.'"" 



18 Transactions of the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club, 1866, p. 268. 



N2 



