XXXU. HUGH MILLER. 



among the Silurian molluscs. The existence of the highly- 

 organized cephalopods in the same formation, not only neu- 

 tralizes this argument, but authorizes the conclusion that an 

 animal of a very high order of organization existed in the 

 earliest formation. It is of no consequence whether the ce- 

 phalopods or the brachiopods were most numerous. Had 

 there been only one cuttle-fish in the Silurian seas, and a 

 million of brachiopods, the fact would equally have overturned 

 the development system. 



In the same chapter, Mr Miller treats of th^ geological 

 history of the fossil flora, which has been pressed into the 

 service of the development hypothesis. On the authority of 

 Adolphe Brongniart, it was maintained that, previous to the 

 age of the Lias, " Nature had failed to achieve a tree, and 

 that the rich vegetation of the Coal Measures had been ex- 

 clusively composed of magnificent immaturities of the vege- 

 table kingdom, of gigantic ferns and club-mosses that attained 

 to the size of forest trees, and of thickets of the swamp-loving 

 horse-tail family of plants." True exogenous trees, however, 

 do exist of vast size, and in great numbers, in all the coal- 

 fields of our own country, as has been proved by Mr Miller. 

 Nay, he himself discovered in the Old Red Sandstone, lignite, 

 which is proved to have formed part of a true gymnosper- 

 mous tree, represented by the pines of Europe and America, 

 or more probably, as Mr Miller believes, by the Araucarians 

 of Chili and New Zealand. This important discovery is 

 pregnant with instruction. The ancient conifer must have 

 waved its green foliage over dry land ; and it is not probable 

 that it was the only tree in the primeval forest. " The ship 

 carpenter," as our author observes, " might have hopefully 

 taken axe in hand to explore the woods for some such stately 

 pine as the one described by Milton, — 



* Hewn on Norwegian Mils, to be the mast 

 Of some great admiral.'" 



