316 Ancient Vegetation of the Earth. 
nated one of his most noble faculties, whenever directed to any 
end really worthy of his being. 
It is this which continually excites us to extend the field of our 
knowledge, and to fathom the most hidden mysteries of nature, 
without being able to hope, for the most part, any other reward 
than the good which will result to all intelligent beings, in pro- 
portion as they are able to form ideas more exact upon the nature 
of the phenomena which surrounded them. "These phenomena 
appear the more difficult of investigation in proportion as, by their 
nature and position, they are farther removed from our direct ob- 
servation; and in like manner we are struck with the results to 
which profound researches have conducted those men who have 
made these investigations the object of their studies, 
The invention of the telescope, by opening to our view what 
is passing in the elongated regions of space; and of the micro- 
scope, by revealing to us the existence of numberless beings s0 
minute as, but for this instrument, would forever have escaped 
our observation, have made, upon the human imagination, the 
most vivid impression. 
The sciences have made such rapid advances, within late years, 
that no one can reasonably expect to open new views and to dis 
close new truths equally exciting to human curiosity as those 
disclosed by the telescope and the microscope; but still, the study 
of the soil upon which we daily tread, has become, within the 
last half-century, in the hands of Werner, of Cuvier, and the 
crowd of learned and able men who have assiduously followed 
these illustrious pioneers, one of the sciences the most fruitful ib 
results, not only of high interest to the professionally learned, but 
well calculated vividly to interest the imagination of all persons 
who love to reflect upon the great phenomena of nature. 
In investigating the layers which compose the superficial strata 
of the earth, their order of superposition, their nature, and the 
animal and vegetable remains which they contain, Geology traces 
for us the history of the earth dusing the long periods of time 
that have preceded its present condition; it makes known to us 
the beings which have successively inhabited its surface, the reV- 
olutions that have conduced to their destruction, and those which 
have given birth to the mineral layers the earth contains, and the 
modifications to which this surface itself has been subject by ree 
son of these revolutions ; it discloses to us, in short, that all these 
