~Sa 
OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 19 
Geology was first cultivated by Mineralogists, and constituted a subordinate branch of their 
science; and hence rocks were identified by their mineral composition and structure. Its cultivators 
had indeed observed that certain rocks contained no fossil remains, whilst others abounded in such 
forms. ‘This led, at once, to the division of rocks into primary and secondary ; but beyond this, 
although Hooke seems to have been aware, in 1688, that some fossils were “peculiar to certain 
places,” no further use was made of fossils, as the basis of a classification of rocks, until Mr. 
William Smith, in 1790, proposed the identification of the strata of the secondary formations of 
England, by their peculiar fossils. He had studied the rocks around Bristol, and was struck with 
the fact that each formation had fossils peculiar to itself. ven beyond Bristol he found the same 
fossils, characterizing identical formations, and conceived the thought of determining rocks by their 
organic remains. ‘To satisfy himself of the truth of this happy generalization, he made numerous 
journies on foot, and embodied the result of his observations in a geological map of England—a 
work of extraordinary merit. Here Geologists saw at once a far more certain mode of determining 
the contemporaneous character of rocks than could be hoped for from the most minute study of 
their physical structure; and the fragment of a shell became to them what a medal or coin is to the 
eye of the antiquary. 
About this period the attention of the immortal Cuvier was directed to certain fossil bones found 
in an excavation near Paris. Applying to these, with incomparable skill, the immutable laws of 
existence, he was enabled, in many cases, from mutilated fragments, to restore the entire skeleton 
to which they belonged. j 
These researches gave an impulse to science that is still felt. Botanists, Conchologists, and 
Zoologists, anxious to connect their favorite sciences with the past, pursued their investigations 
with a success truly astonishing; and startling were the results of their labors. The remains of 
animals were found in countries where even the order to which they belong is no longer found 
among their living fauna. Many wanting links in the chain of actual being were supplied, and 
not afew forms were discovered that have no living types to which they can be referred as 
analogues. It is thus that Geology has assumed its elevated position among the sciences, and that 
the history of rocky strata becomes identified with elevated views of the history of the dawn 
and progress of life upon the earth. 
A correct knowledge of the past can only be acquired by a careful study of existing nature ; but 
it is obvious that the characters presented by fossil remains must be quite limited, compared with 
those of living organisms, as it is the hard and more indestructible portions alone that are found 
embedded in the rocks: so that, for the most part, the laws of anatomical analogy alone can furnish 
us with any certain guide in our investigations. So successfully have these laws been applied, that 
anew science has grown up, in modern times, which has received the name of Paleontology, (the 
science of ancient being.) 
The following classification of the Animal Kingdom, by Professor Owen, offers some slight modifi- 
cation of that of Cuvier. + 
Kingdom—Animat1a—Animals. 
Sub-kingdom—V ertebrata—having a spinal column. 
Class—Mammalia—animals that give suck. 
“  —Aves —birds. 
