138 SKETCHES OF CREATION. 



Marshall barely enumerated the epochs of two great pe 

 riods of the world s organic history, the Silurian and De 

 vonian. Who has considered the measureless intervals 

 which have been so glibly hurried over the rising and 

 setting suns, the passing tempests, the lonely-budding tree, 

 the sands worried to and fro upon the uncertain beach, the 

 lives of myriads of conscious forms in a long succession of 

 populations, the heaving shore, the rise of continents, the 

 burial of beautiful but senseless ruins beneath acres of sed 

 iments from which they shall never be exhumed ? Let me 

 commend the sublimity of the theme to the reader s atten 

 tion. 



We are now on the threshold of another great period 

 of the world s history. Graceful tree-ferns are waving in 

 the distance, and giant club-mosses are uttering from their 

 fronds a breezy murmur refreshing to the mind wearied 

 with the contemplation of the uncouth and sombre forms 

 which vegetated in the earlier seas. Looking through the 

 vistas of the future, we behold lazy reptiles reposing upon 

 banks protected by the tangled stems of lepidodendra and 

 calamaria, or floating in the tepid bayous of a tropical jun 

 gle. The novelty and interest of the prospect invite us 

 onward, but the vastness of the field bids us pause and re 

 fresh ourselves before we venture upon our jottings from 

 the scenes of the Carboniferous Period. 



