38 NATURAL HISTORY 



ing tlie strange inscriptions on the bricks and slabs 

 of those ancient buried cities. Their engravers, 

 and those who wrote and spoke the languages, are 

 gone: not a single letter will ever be added to 

 those already written ; from them alone, unchang- 

 ing and unchangeable, must a key be found by 

 which the world can unlock their meaning. Not so 

 of the inscriptions in the rocks of the earth. The 

 language engraven there, God is repeating every 



year in the sunshine and storm, and in the varied 







forms of animals and plants that live and die. This 

 language the students of nature already knew. As 

 they opened the leaves of stone, the forms were 

 strange indeed and antiquated, like the characters in 

 the old black-letter volumes of our libraries, but the 

 language was still the same, it had been the mother 

 tongue of naturalists for generations. The intel- 

 lectual triumphs in this field are too recent to need 

 mention here. The ablest leaders have still their 

 armor on. But for fifty years there has been no 

 such field of thought as Geology no study to which 

 the universal mind has so turned none that has 

 dispelled more prejudice none that has thrown up 



