HYPOZOIC ERA. 81 



fickle and uncertain as these may seem but is the re- 

 sult, immediate and remote, of Law, could we only grasp 

 the multifarious conditions that are connected with its 

 production. In tracing, then, the Flora and Fauna of suc- 

 cessive epochs, as far as the limits of a popular sketch will 

 permit, we can only indicate a few of their more prominent 

 features and the laws that seem to bear on their develop- 

 ment ; and yet, restricted as these limits are, enough, we 

 trust, will be indicated to arrest the attention and to arouse 

 the interest in the further prosecution of a subject that 

 stands second to none on the roll of human acquirements. 

 And, after all, it is better to be imbued with the right 

 spirit of research, and to be impressed with the conviction 

 of the universality and uniformity of natural law, than to 

 have the mind bewildered with details which it cannot 

 connect, and for whose occurrence in nature it is altogether 

 unable to render a reason. 



And, first, we enter on what has been termed the PALEO- 

 ZOIC or " Ancient-Life" period of the world a period em- 

 bracing the Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, and Per- 

 mian formations, and characterised, as far as geological 

 evidence goes, by the almost total absence of a dicotyledon- 

 ous flora, by a preponderance of invertebrate life, and by 

 the general absence of the higher vertebrata, as reptiles, 

 birds, and mammals. The lowest in rank seem the earli- 

 est in time ; and so in this primeval epoch, cryptogams 

 and cold-blooded water -breathers become the leading 

 manifestations of vitality. The strata lying beneath the 

 PaLeozoic (as will be seen by a reference to the Geological 

 Eecord) have been termed the Azoic or " void of life ; " 

 but, more correctly and philosophically, the HYPOZOIC, which 

 merely indicates their position "beneath" the fossiliferous 

 strata, and that without asserting them to be wholly desti- 



