26 THE HISTORY OF CREATION, 
the organic remains enclosed in them has been entirely 
destroyed. It has been preserved only here and there by a 
happy chance, as in the case of the most ancient petrifac- 
tions known, the EKozoon canadense, from the lowest 
Laurentian strata. However, from the layers of crystalline 
charcoal (graphite) and crystalline limestone (marble), 
which are found deposited in the metamorphic rocks, we 
may with certainty conclude that petrified animal and 
vegetable remains existed in them in earlier times. 
Our record of creation is also extremely imperfect from the 
circumstance that only a small portion of the earth’s sur- 
face has been accurately investigated by geologists, namely, 
England, Germany, and France. But we know very little 
of the other parts of Europe, of Russia, Spain, Italy, and 
Turkey. In the whole of Europe, only some few parts of the 
earth’s crust have been laid open, by far the largest portion of 
it is unknown to us. The same applies to North America and 
to the East Indies. There some few tracts have been investi- 
gated ; but of the larger portion of Asia, the most extensive 
of all continents, we know almost nothing ; of Africa almost 
nothing, excepting the Cape of Good Hope and the shores of 
the Mediterranean; of Australia almost nothing; and of South 
America but very little. It is clear, therefore, that only quite 
a small portion, perhaps scarcely the thousandth part of the 
whole surface of the earth, has been palzontologically 
investigated. We may therefore reasonably hope, when 
more extensive geological investigations are made, which 
are greatly assisted by the constructions of railroads and 
mines, to find a great number of other important petrifac- 
tions. A hint that this will be the case is given by the 
remarkable petrifactions found in those parts of Africa and 
