200 WHAT IS LIFE? 



Many forms of shell-fish, which played so large a 

 part in the Secondary formations, now cease. So do 

 the great reptiles, which were dominant in that period. 

 Now those higher animals which suckle their young 

 the Mammalia appear in force. Ever an advancing 

 alteration in life, a greater complexity of form. The 

 lowest layers of this system are called by geologists the 

 Eocene rocks. 



Limestone often several thousand feet in thickness, 

 and formed of disk-like foraminiferal shells, is found in 

 the Eocene formation. These coin-shaped shells vary 

 from the size of a mere pin-head to that of the size of a 

 florin or larger. They are made up of whorls or con- 

 centric formations, the central part being the first 

 formed, and the shell grew by the deposits of the 

 animal which lived in it. These shells were secreted 

 by a species of protoplasm which, as before stated, 

 most likely consists of living molecules, so minute that 

 the eye of man cannot perceive them, even with the 

 strongest magnifying power. Man, however, sees the 

 mass and he calls it protoplasm. These layers, which 

 we must bear in mind are often thousands of feet thick, 

 are found in Europe and Asia, including China and 

 Japan. These shells again give evidence of such vast 

 time for the formation of the rocks of which they 

 are composed, that the human mind utterly fails in 

 attempting to grasp the apparent infinity of time for 

 the formation of the strata. Not only have we to 

 give time for the growth of each individual shell, but 

 time for the deposit of these shells in water and time for 

 this vast and thick deposit to be upheaved out of the 

 water to become the dry land. The pyramids of 

 Egypt were practically built of these shell-deposits. 



