THE HISTORY OF LIFE 165 



Masses of molecular matter are cast into the air, they 

 fall by gravitation, they are piled up, and a volcanic 

 mountain is created. Yet again, when the water is 

 cut off, or the material for combination is exhausted, 

 we have then an extinct volcano. 



All, all is a state of slow change. New mountains 

 formed, new valleys formed, new continents, new rivers, 

 new seas, new oceans formed old continents destroyed, 

 old seas destroyed, yes, the rivers and the lakes depart, 

 and the world would not know the history of life but 

 for one remarkable fact : in many of these changes the 

 remains of life are permanently, indelibly recorded, in 

 these old layers of earth, aye, old as eternity (to our 

 minds) are thes3 remains. These fossils are the letters, 

 the words, the sentences, and chapters of the past 

 history of the life on our earth our stone Bible. 1 



And this fairy-like tale continues. All the pheno* 

 mena continue, and tend to the view that they will 

 continue for a time that to our minds is expressed in 

 the words for ever. 



Incessant change, incessant warfare of molecular 

 motion, of molecular generation and regeneration, such 

 is the history of the present and the past of this world. 



1 " The Geological Record is at the best but an imperfect chronicle 

 of the geological history of the earth. It abounds in gaps, some oi 

 which have been caused by the destruction of strata owing to 

 metamorphism, denudation, or otherwise, some by original non- 

 deposition, as above explained. Nevertheless, it is from this record 

 that the progress of the earth is chiefly traced. It contains the 

 registers of the births and deaths of tribes of plants and animals, 

 which have from time to time lived on the earth. Probably only a 

 small proportion of the total number of species, which have appeared 

 in past time, have been thus chronicled, yet, by collecting the broken 

 fragments of the record, an outline at least of the history of life upon 

 the earth can be deciphered." (Idem, p. 677.) 



