TEOPICAL CLIMATE OF THE ANCIENT EARTH. 59 



succession, and continuity were unsuspected ; for the laws 

 which determine these results were unknown. It was re- 

 served for geology to deduce harmony and regularity from 

 apparent discord and confusion, to extend the domain of 

 philosophy, and to enhance our conception of the Supreme 

 Being by revealing to us past spheres of his creative wisdom 

 and power. The arrangement of the various formations may 

 be represented by an alphabetical series from a to z ; and 

 this order, though it is frequently imperfect, is never in- 

 verted. "We often miss one or more terms in the series, and 

 lose, say the b, or h, or m, or even several letters in succes- 

 sion ; but we never find the 6 taking the place of the a, or 

 the d preceding the c, or any member of the series usurping 

 the position of another which ought to go before it ; in other 

 terms, we never meet with the entire series of deposits in 

 one place, but those which do occur invariably follow the 

 regular order of sequence. 



TEOPICAL CLIMATE or THE ANCIENT EARTH. Among 

 the varied contrasts afforded by the past and present con- 

 dition of our globe, must be enumerated the fact so clearly 

 demonstrated by the organic remains entombed in the fos- 

 siliferous rocks, that the climate and character of the pro- 

 ductions now limited to the immediate vicinity of the 

 equator, once extended to latitudes far removed from that 

 line. It is only, says M. Deshayes, in the second era of the 

 tertiary period,* the miocene, that the climate of the earth 

 cooled, from a degree of heat exceeding that of the equator, 

 to a temperature equivalent to that of Grambia and Senegal, 

 while it was only at the third and more recent epoch that it 

 assumed a European character. These results were deduced 

 from the comparison of a suite of fossil shells from the ter- 

 tiary strata of France, with a series of recent species from 

 the localities above mentioned. The observations of Count 

 Sternberg, on the flora of the ancient periods, indicate ana- 

 logous changes in the vegetation of these eras ; while the 

 discoveries of Cuvier, Agassiz, Owen, and Mantell afford 

 similar testimony as to the vertebrate fauna of the secondary 

 rocks. If we examine the fossiliferous strata with this view, 

 commencing with the most ancient, we shall find that the 



* Coquilles Fossiles des Environs de Paris, p. 779. 



