— 
Misa 
’ 
: 
THE MEDALS OF CREATION. £7 
acquire a high degree of importance, not only from the 
intrinsic interest they possess as objects of natural history, 
but also for the light they shed on the physical condition of 
our planet in the remotest ages, and for the data they afford 
as to the successive physical revolutions which the surface 
of the earth has undergone. 
Fossils have been eloquently and appropriately termed 
Mepats oF Creation ; for as an accomplished numismatist, 
even when the inscription of an ancient and unknown coin 
is illegible, can from the half-obliterated efigy, and from 
the style of art, determine with precision the people by 
whom, and the period when, it was struck ; in like manner 
the geologist can decipher these natural memorials, interpret 
the hieroglyphics with which they are inscribed, and from 
apparently the most insignificant relics, trace the history of 
beings of whom no other records are extant, and ascertain 
the forms and habits of unknown types of organization whose 
races were swept from the face of the earth, ere the creation 
of man and the creatures which are his contemporaries. 
Well might the illustrious Bergman exclaim, “ Sunt instar 
nummorum memorialium, que de preteritis globi nostri fatis 
testantur, ubi omnia silent monumenta historica,” 
To derive from these Medals of Creation all the infor- 
Mation they are capable of affording, regard therefore must 
be had not only to their peculiar characters, but also to the 
geological relations of the strata in which they are imbedded. 
Data may be thus obtained by which the relative age of a 
formation or group of strata can be determined, as well as 
the mode of deposition, and the agency by which it was 
effected ; whether in the bed of an ocean, or of a lake, or 
estuary,—by the action of the sea, or of rivers, or running 
streams,—by the effects of icebergs or glaciers,—by slow 
processes through long periods of time, or by sudden 
Inundations or deluges,—or by the agency of volcanoes 
and earthquakes. 
VOL. I. Cc 
