THE EECENT. 



CAIXOZOIC SYSTEMS. THE TERTIARY AND POST -TERTIARY. 



HAVIXG passed the middle ages of the earth's history, 

 whose life-species have all, or nearly all, disappeared, we 

 enter upon an epoch whose forms insensibly graduate into 

 those that are now our fellow-participators in the great pro- 

 gressional scheme of vitality. In other words, we approach 

 the Cainozoic, or " recent-life period," which, though but 

 as yesterday compared with the aeons of the paleozoic and 

 mesozoic, yet embraces a vast lapse of time, and is neces- 

 sarily characterised by higher and still advancing forms. 

 We say necessarily characterised, for though science can 

 prove no causal connection between the physical and vital 

 manifestations of the globe, the one set of changes so in- 

 variably accompany the other, that we are compelled to 

 regard them as necessary concomitants^. And yet, though 

 concomitants in time, they may stand in no relation to each 

 other as cause and effect, but be each an independent phase 

 of that divine creational plan that is still evolving itself 

 around us. "We, who but dimly perceive the broken out- 

 line of the scheme, can only note the coincidence ; those 

 in after ages of higher intelligence may succeed in tracing 

 the connection. But whatever that connection, it is now 

 more marked and appreciable, and geologists can associate 

 with almost every fluctuation of condition, a change in the 

 accompanying aspects of cairiozoic life. 



