——_ — 
1822.] 
Gestly describes his work, ‘‘as a slight 
but comprehensive sketch, attempting to 
shew the difference of forms and structure 
in the numerous organized beings with 
which the earth was peopled before the ex- 
istence of man; to mark the circnm- 
stances in which they agreed with, or dif- 
fered from, the inhabitants of the present 
world ; and to point out, from the stratain 
which their remains exist, the order in 
which they were probably formed.” After 
a few general remarks on the mineraliza- 
tion which organic remains have mostly 
undergone, the author proceeds to consider 
vegetable fessils, and speaking of the coaly, 
tubular, vegetable remains, commonly 
found in the sand-stones of our coal-fields, 
and usually denominated reeds, when of 
small or moderate size, but which have 
eften, and even recently, been described 
by writers as trunks of trees, the author 
shews, on the contrary, that all this class 
of vegetables have been hollow pipes, in 
that respect resembling the reeds, the 
bamboos, or the gigantic cretii of South 
America. At page 35 the author enters 
‘on the consideration of animal fossils, be- 
ginning with Zoophytes; under which 
head, the characters of 161 recent species 
of sponges are given, after M. Lamoureux, 
with the intention of facilitating the dis- 
tinction and arrangement of those sponges 
which are already known, or which may 
yet be discovered in a mineral state; the 
analogous fossil species are then treated 
of, with reference to this list. Fifty-one 
recent species of alcyonii are next de- 
scribed, and then the known fossil species 
are described and compared therewith: 
the next forty-seven pages are devoted to 
the coraline and encrinal tribes; and then, 
beginning at p. 105, the echinide are amply 
considered in the following forty pages. 
At p. 145 the important department of 
shells is entered upon; concise definitions 
of the most important conchological terms 
are first given, with reference to a plate; 
and then, beginning at p. 150, the charac- 
ters (and a figure of most of them) are in- 
serted, of each of the known genera of 
shells, which are usually of sufficient 
size to be investigated without the aid of 
a microscope: the microscopic fossil shells 
(referable probably to several hundreds of 
genera!) being alone omitted, except as 
to three species, viz. milivlites saxorum, 
cornuammonis ariminierse, and gyrozonites ; 
a descriptive list follows, of 714 species of 
fossil shells, chiefly foreign, which have 
been described by M. Lamarck. ‘The 
next thirteen pages are devoted to the 
novel and important purpose of arranging 
477 species of fossil shells (for the most 
part described and engraven in the 
_“Miueral Conchology” of Mr. Sowerby, 
prior to the last twenty-one numbers of 
that useful periodical work,) in the order 
of the swrata in which, respectively, their 
. Mornury Mac. No. 372, 
Literary and Critical Proémium. 
153 
genera first occur in the British series, 
commencing with the earliest of our strata. 
“ Which arrangement may, it is presumed, 
(says Mr. Parkinson,) assist our conjec- 
tures, whilst contemplating the relative 
periods of the creation, duration, and ex- 
tinction of the animals, which are only 
known to us through their mineralized, or 
otherwise preserved fossil remains.” Inthe 
following pages (and again at page 333, in 
concluding) ourauthor draws a number of 
curious and interesting conclusions from 
this table; particularly in refutation of 
those childish dogmas in geology, which 
assert, that the class, the order, the 
genera, or even’ the species of organic 
beings, having “ the simplest forms and or- 
ganization,” were the earliest that ex- 
isted on our planet ; a doctrine, involving 
the monstrous absurdity, that organiza- 
tion, even the most perfect, as in man, is 
the result of natural causes, combining 
and producing successively more compli- 
cated forms out of very simple, perhaps 
the most simple forms, priorly and neces- 
sarily existing, according to some! It is 
to be observed, however, that our author, 
in altering the arrangement of his table 
from that of Mr. Farey’s tables (on 
Smithian principles) at the ends of Mr. 
Sowerby’s volumes, té which he refers in 
p- 230, viz. from a Stratigraphieal arrange- 
ment of the species, (a natural division,) 
to an‘arrangement of the genera (a matter 
wholly of convention, and which, in the 
opinion of many of the best naturalists, is 
alien to nature) he has, apparently without 
perceiving the same, involved his reason- 
ings with a position, scarcely more tena- 
ble or less erroneous than those he re- 
futes ; viz. that from some one first pair of 
each genus, all the species of that genus 
have progressively sprung, or, as is said in 
page 252, have been “multiplied in nu- 
merous species,” by mere procreation, 
and without the special intervention of all- 
wise creative power, which so obviously 
to the unprejudiced and attentive geolo- 
gist, at the times, and in the places, best 
fitted for His inscrutably beneficent pur- 
poses, gave existence to the first pairs of 
each living species, mostly, apparently, to 
very numerous similar pairs at the same 
time, and endowed these with powers, 
successively to produce their like: until, 
through the operation of causes, alike 
wisely and beneficently pre-ordained, 
their several races should be extinguished ; 
as now, through the modern lights af- 
forded by the Smithian geology, we may 
see, has happened to several thousands of 
entire races of beings. In accordance 
with the prevailing fashion, derived from 
our ingenious rather than profound neigh- 
bours on the continent, Mr. P. says a good 
deal at page 254 on the extinct races of 
supposed — fresh-water and — salt-water 
testacea ; an idle and unfounded specula- 
Xx tion, 
