2(50 GENE HAL REMARKS ON 



That is, that this limestone might, in its upper parts 

 at least, if not in its conglomerates, have been pro- 

 duced by animals, like the others, but that having 

 been exposed to heat during the revolution so nearly 

 connected with it, the fossil bodies had disappeared, 

 as I have shown them to do in the ordinary cases of 

 organic limestones connected with trap. In either case, 

 equally, it might alternate, as it does, with argillaceous 

 and arenaceous strata ; but this fact is perhaps more 

 confirmatory of the first explanation. And I also 

 think that the first suggestion is confirmed by the 

 condition of the red marl ; an immense deposit from 

 degradation, containing few or no organic bodies, as 

 if a new creation following, or to follow, the last revo- 

 lution, had either not occurred or not begun to predo- 

 minate. 



The peculiar difficulties attending on this singular 

 sandstone have already been pointed out ; and though 

 geologists do not seem to have seen any, from never 

 analyzing nor philosophizing on the facts before them, 

 I must repeat my inability to offer any rational expla- 

 nation of its sources and nature, beyond that which 

 must be obvious from what I have just said. It should 

 be apparent that it is the produce of the degradation 

 of the supramarine rocks remaining after the depres- 

 sion of the coal, wherever it is actually superior to that 

 series ; or existing at the period of that formation, 

 whenever it may be lateral and coincident in time; 

 while the immense accumulations which it presents, 

 together with its wide extent, always under a similar 

 condition, and without intervening beds of limestone, 

 bespeak a long period in the earth, during which an 

 organic creation was scanty, if not absolutely wanting. 

 As far as it may contain organic fossils, whether ter- 

 restrial or marine, vegetable or animal, I need not 

 repeat the former suggestions ; while they seem appli- 



