348 MODERN PHENOMENA. 



primary rocks up to the modern alluvial deposits, a pro- 

 gressive improvement of the earth's surface had been 

 effected, to fit it at last for the abode of the human 

 race. 



Thus have we preserved for us, in a natural manner, 

 evidences which, if we read them aright, must convince 

 us that the laws by which creation has ever been regu- 

 lated are as constant and unvarying as the Eternal mind 

 by which they are decreed. Our earth, we find, by the 

 records preserved in the foundation-stones of her moun- 

 tains, has existed through countless ages, and through 

 them all exhibited the same active energies that prevail 

 at the present moment. By precisely similar influences 

 to those now in operation, have rocks been formed, 

 which, under like agencies, have been covered with 

 vegetation, and sported over by, to us, strange varieties 

 of animal life. Every plant that has grown upon the 

 earliest rocks which presented their faces to the life- 

 giving sun, has had its influence on the subsequent 

 changes of our planet. Each trilobite, each saurian, 

 and every one of the mammalia which exist in the fossil 

 state, have been small laboratories in which the great 

 work of eternal change has been carried forward, and, 

 under the compulsion of the strong laws of creation, 

 they have been made ministers to the great end of form- 

 ing a world which might be fitting for the presence of a 

 creature endued with a spark taken from the celestial 

 flame of intellectual life. 



For a few moments we will return to a consideration 

 of the operations at present exhibiting their phenomena, 

 and examine what bearing they have upon our know- 

 ledge of geological formations. 



During periods of immense, but unknown, duration, 

 the ocean and the dry land are seen to have changed 

 their places. Enormous deposits, formed at the bottom 

 of the sea, are lifted by some mechanical, probably 

 volcanic, force, above the waters, and the land, like the 



