TRANSMUTABLE. 11 



to assume that this is but a fragment in the 

 world's history! 



But is there any proof of an animated world 

 prior to the silurian epoch? Not a vestige. And 

 yet we are told by Mr. Darwin, to believe that 

 an equally long period at least occurred before, 

 the evidences of which are still buried beneath 

 the sea; and upon this merely gratuitous assump- 

 tion we are at once to surrender our belief in 

 special creation and design ! 



I may be permitted however to remark here, 

 that two billions and a fifth of years is no mean 

 fraction of time. If we count two hundred a 

 minute, it will take us nine years, or nearly,' to 

 count a billion. Surely this is something in the 

 record of the past; and yet it tells us nothing 

 of the transmutation of species ! 



In the first of all fossiliferous rocks the Cam- 

 brian, what do we find? Sertularians, Anrielidans, 

 arid Trilobites, representing the Radiate and Ar- 

 ticulate sub-kingdoms of modern naturalists. 

 Some traces also of sea-weed have been discovered 

 by Mr. Salter, at Moel-y-ci, near Bangor, and 

 others have been described in Skiddaw slates by 

 Professor Me' Coy. (Mackie, p. 149.) When we 

 get a little higher up in the scale into the true 

 silurian, we find the forms much more numerous. 

 We have mollusca represented by well-developed 

 and peculiar species in almost all its divisions, 

 namely, Polyzoa, Brachiopoda, Lamellibranchiata, 

 ( Holostornatous Gasteropods, allied to our snails,) 

 Cephalopoda, containing representatives of the 



