20 RELICS FROM THE WRECK 



lead to the conclusion of a vast antiquity, and of the 

 physical revolutions it has undergone since it has become 

 a planet. Our limits forbid us from entering into detail on 

 all the multifarious forms which geology has disclosed to 

 our observation, nor, were we doing so, could it prove inter- 

 esting to any of our readers, except such as have made 

 comparative anatomy more or less their study, nor will our 

 limits allow of more than a general notice of the most re- 

 markable of those forms which peopled our planet prior to 

 the existence of our own species. 



" Every rock in the desert, every boulder on the plain, every pebble by 

 the brook-side, every grain of sand on the sea-shore, is replete with les- 

 sons of wisdom to the mind that is fitted to receive and comprehend their 

 sublime import." 



The rocks of which the crust of the earth is chiefly com- 

 posed, occur in beds or layers ; on examining them we find 

 every evidence of their having resulted from matter carried 

 by rivers into lakes, estuaries, or seas. This is demonstra- 

 ble from some of them being composed of fragments of 

 other rocks worn and rounded by the action of water, so as not 

 to be distinguished from the gravel strewed upon the shore, 

 or which we meet with in the path of a mountain stream, 

 except in its having been consolidated into a stony mass 

 such rocks are called conglomerates. The red sandstone 

 formations of Arran, and the coasts of Argyle and Ayrshire, 

 Scotland, consist of immense beds of such rocks, alternat- 

 ing with layers of red clay, and red sandstone. This for- 

 mation itself is many thousand feet thick ; we never find in 

 it any fragments of the coal, or of any newer formation ; 

 on the contrary, the conglomerates consist solely of pieces 

 of quartz, slate, red sandstone, and other rocks of more 

 ancient date. In the same formation, which stretches from 

 Argyle through Stirlingshire and Forfarshire, to the eastern 

 coast, remains of fishes in a very perfect state of preservation, 

 have been found. In both the conglomerates then, and in the 



