NOMOS. 185 



Was this beginning within historic times, The organic 



or was it not ? We find the answer, as remains en - 



. . i i tombed in 



it seems, in the organic remains which the strata 



, . i i -i -I n.i show that the 



lie entombed within the strata; and the process of 



answer is by no means equivocal. The 

 existence of any remains at all may in- 

 deed be taken as a certain proof that pilfer, if 



* . otherwise, 



this entombment was accomplished with these remains 



i {* v, e XT. must have 



a certain degree of rapidity ; for it the been removed 

 entombment had been deferred, all traces 

 of them must have soon disappeared under the 

 destructive action of air and water, or under the 

 attacks of those creatures which are commissioned 

 to rid the earth of decomposing organic matters. 

 The very existence of organic remains, we repeat, 

 is an argument of the rapid entombment of these 

 remains. And if so, what must we say of the 

 more perfect of these remains ? What of those ferns 

 whose fronds are cast so accurately in the coal- 

 measures that every spore-case is copied ? What of 

 those insects whose wings retain every nervure, and 

 whose eyes have lost none of their many eyelets? 

 And what of the cuttle-fish, whose ink-bags have 

 furnished the ink with which the artist has copied 

 them ? All these must have been buried before the 

 finger of decay had time to touch them. Nay, some 

 of the animals whose remains are preserved appear 

 to have been buried in the very act of gorging their 

 prey as in the case of the fish in the Museum at 

 Naples which has another fish in its throat; and 

 others appear to have been overwhelmed rather than 

 buried, so broken and crushed are their remains. 



