Featherstonhaugh s Geological Report. 79 



the highest moment, replete with phenomena which serve to 

 prove that the succession of strata produced by such various 

 and wide-spread convulsions as would seem to belong to the 

 chaotic energies of a system of destruction, are the progressive 

 steps of a most singularly beautiful plan of creation, in the 

 study of which we may not only advance our personal inter- 

 ests, but acquire for ourselves an elevation of mind still more 

 valuable. 



An opinion formerly obtained that there was a point in the 

 ascending series of rocks at which the evidences of a com 

 mencement of organic forms was to be found, the earth passing 

 by transition as it were, from an inorganic to an organic state. 

 This appears to have been conjectural. It is true, calcareous 

 matter, so essential to organization, is comparatively scarce in 

 the primordial rocks, and only begins to abound where organic 

 life appears. The high temperature of the planet before the 

 deposition of the stratified rocks would preclude, perhaps, the 

 possibility of organic existence, and we may, therefore, natu 

 rally expect to find the evidence of it first in beds deposited 

 from water, where the temperature, though high, would be tol 

 erable, and where the means of self-preservation and per 

 petuity of kinds would not be wanting; but it is no longer 

 pretended that the first rudiments of organization have been 

 observed, or even that we know what they were. There are 

 observations, however, of importance to be made on this sub 

 ject in the early periods of stratification. If primordial rocks 

 of the same kind, separated by the greatest geographical dis 

 tances, have the same species of crystallized minerals imbedded 

 in them, we also find organic affinities very general in the 

 older stratified rocks, from whence the inference may be drawn 

 that the influences prevailing at these two periods, though dis 

 tinct, were general to the planet. At an older period of the 

 history of the planet, we do not find this to be the case : the 

 increase of genera and species seems to mark great changes 

 in the temperature, as well as in the surface of the crust of the 



