CLOSE OK THE FIRST EPOCH. 



in the lapse of ages other strata enveloped them, and preserved 

 the forms of their delicate leaves, and the markings of their 

 trunks and stems, for the inspection of long succeeding ages. 

 But all this time the sea was alive with its multitudes of corals, 

 of echini, trilobites, and peculiar cephalopods, and fishes. It 

 was during this epoch, that the ganoid fishes were most highly 

 developed, and innumerable sharks of all sizes abounded in the 

 carboniferous seas. 



We have now arrived at the end of our first epoch, just before 

 the introduction of reptiles. There seems in some respects to 

 have been a progression in organization, and yet, not such as to 

 support the view, however plausible, of the agency of an inferior 

 type of organization in introducing a higher group. The corals 

 and the encrinites still remained with but little change, but the 

 trilobites were nearly extinct, the cephalapodous animals, retain- 

 ing till now the straight and elongated form of the orthceratites, 

 assumed the spiral form of the goniatite. The small fishes of 

 the early epochs gave place to large and voracious species, pow- 

 erful swimmers and insatiably voracious; vast tracts of country 

 were settling down, and the rich, and rank vegetation,, which cov- 

 ered the land at the time of the coal epoch, was prepared for the 

 first stage of its change into coal. During all this period, wo 

 must not fail to note the entire absence of all the grasses, which 

 now form so prominent a portion of existing plants ; indeed, 

 the whole face of the globe, was so entirely different from its 

 present appearance, that could we now behold it, we might 

 realize that we were looking upon another planet. It is not for 

 us to discuss the question of the length of time necessary to ac- 

 complish all those changes which the globe has passed through, 

 or to speculate upon the distinct efforts of creative power ex- 

 hibited throughout those countless ages. It is sufficient for us 

 to know that myriads of beings, dissimilar to any now existing, 

 or only remotely connected, flourished perhaps for thousands of 

 years, when suddenly they disappeared, and quite as suddenly 

 new forms replaced those lost. There can be no way of account- 

 ing for these changes in the forms of animal and vegetable life, 

 except by the direct interposition of a creative power. 



