UNCLE IN ENGLAND. 249 



Cornwall is composed of the lowest series of 

 rocks, which are therefore called primitive ; and 

 they, you know, must be entirely destitute of 

 organic remains. The next series contains them 

 very sparingly, but they abound in the three 

 succeeding series, or what are called the 

 secondary formations ; though sometimes there 

 are beds interposed, in which they are still rare. 

 In examining these organic remains, the skill of 

 the botanist and zoologist has discovered that 

 several of the plants and animals are entirely 

 different from any with which we are at present 

 acquainted ; and a vast field of inquiry has thus 

 been opened in those departments of nature. 



I asked my uncle whether these remains are 

 regularly distributed through the whole of those 

 series in which they are so numerous . He likes 

 that I should ask him questions; he says it 

 doubles his pleasure in giving information, when 

 he sees people really alive to what he tells them. 



He replied, that, in one respect, the regularity 

 is surprising, for they are found, as it were, in 

 families ; each formation containing a collection 

 of species often peculiar to itself, and differing 

 widely from those of the adjoining one ; so that 

 at any two points, in similar formations, however 

 distant, we are sure of meeting the same general 

 assemblage of fossil remains. For instance, if the 

 fossils found in the chalk of Flamborough Head 

 in Yorkshire, or in the cliffs of Dover, or even in 



