412 PALEONTOLOGY 



and asiphonate Gastropods, have left their remains in secondary 

 strata, is not more reasonable, as it seems to me, than to con- 

 clude that the proportion of mammalian life may have been as 

 great in secondary as in tertiary strata, because a few small 

 forms of the lowest orders have made their appearance in 

 triassic and oolitic beds. 



Turning from a retrospect into past time for the prospect 

 of time to come, I may crave indulgence for a few words, of 

 more sound, perhaps, than significance, relative to the amount 

 of prophetic insight imparted by Palaeontology. But the re- 

 flective mind cannot eA r ade or resist the tendency to speculate 

 on the future course and ultimate fate of vital phenomena in 

 this planet. There seems to have been a time when life 

 was not ; there may, therefore, be a period when it will cease 

 to be. 



Our most soaring speculations still show a kinship to our 

 nature : we see the element of finality in so much that we have 

 cognizance of, that it must needs mingle with our thoughts, 

 and bias our conclusions on many things. 



The end of the world has been presented to man's mind 

 under divers aspects : as a general conflagration ; as the same, 

 preceded by a millennial exaltation of the world to a paradisiacal 

 state, — the abode of a higher race of intelligences. 



If the guide-post of Palaeontology may seem to point to a 

 course ascending to the condition of the latter speculation, it 

 points but a very short way, and in leaving it we find ourselves 

 in a wilderness of conjecture, where to try to advance is to find 

 ourselves "in wandering mazes lost.'" 



With much more satisfaction do I return to the legitimate 

 deductions from the phenomena which have been under review. 



In the survey which has been taken of the various forms of 

 life that haA'o passed away — of their characters, succession, geo- 

 logical position, and geographical distribution — if 1 have sue- 



