34 EXPLANATIONS. 



called in my early editions, The Clay-slate and 

 Grawacke system, in which we find " no animals 

 of the higher classes, with a regular skeleton and 

 a backbone ;" only corals, encrinites, crustaceans, 

 and mollusks. " Vegetable appearances," he says, 

 " do not appear among these British rocks ; but 

 there must have been a mass of vegetable life in 

 the ancient sea, as no fauna can apjDcar without 

 2k, Jiora to uphold it." This last inference is of 

 little immediate consequence ; but I may remark, 

 that it coincides with one which 1 ventured to 

 make, prompted thereto by some of the recent 

 papers of Mr. Murchison. We here see it sanc- 

 tioned by a writer who is understood to be a dis- 

 tinguished investigator of the lowest fossiliferous 

 beds. It is fi'om no wish to amuse the reader, 

 but merely as a pleading in behalf of several of 

 the alleged geological mis-statements in my book, 

 that I bring forward another distinguished re- 

 viewer of the Vestiges of Creation^ {North British 

 Review, No. 6,) taxing me with having been driven 

 to make this very surmise as an escape from a 

 difficulty ! More than this : the North Britisli 

 reviewer is at odds with his Edinburgh brother, 

 in bringing bones and teeth of fish into the first 

 fossiliferous formation ; grounding the statement 



