THE HISTORY OF CREATION, 
CHAPTER XV. 
PERIODS OF CREATION AND RECORDS OF CREATION. 
Reform of Systems by the Theory of Descent.—The Natural System as a 
Pedigree.—Palzontological Records of the Pedigree.— Petrifactions as 
Records of Creation.—Deposits of the Neptunic Strata and the 
Enclosure of Organic Remains.—Division of the Organic History of 
the Earth into Five Main Periods: Period of the Tangle Forests, Fern 
Forests, Pine Forests, Foliaceous Forests, and of Cultivation.—The 
Series of Neptunic Strata.—Immeasurable Duration of the Periods which 
have elapsed during their Formation.—Deposits of Strataonly during the 
Sinking, not during the Elevation of the Ground.—Other Gaps in the 
Records of Creation.—Metamorphic Condition of the most Ancient 
Neptunic Strata.—Small Extent of Paleontological Experience.— 
Small proportion of Organisms and of Parts of Organisms Capable of 
Petrifying.—Rarity of many Petrified Species—Want of Fossilised 
Intermediate Forms.—Records of the Creation in Ontogeny and in 
Comparative Anatomy, 
THE revolutionary influence which the Theory of Descent 
must exercise upon all sciences, will in all probability affect 
no branch of science, excepting Anthropology, so much as 
the descriptive portion of natural history, that which is 
known as systematic Zoology and Botany. Most naturalists 
who have hitherto occupied themselves with arranging the 
different systems of animals and plants, have collected, named, 
and arranged the different species of these natural bodies 
