INTRODUCTION, 



SOME geologists imagine that the order of creation 

 is registered in the rocks which compose the external 

 crust of the earth, and that they can there clearly read 

 a progressive development of organic life; in other 

 words, that a succession of more perfect animals may 

 be traced in ascending from the lower strata to the 

 upper or more recent formations; that there is a gra- 

 dual approach to the present system of things, and a 

 succession of destructions and creations; worlds of 

 living beings alternating with worlds of desolation 

 and death, antecedent to the existence of man. 



Others, again, contend that there is often a wide 

 and palpable discrepancy between the nature of the 

 rock, and the fossils which it contains, and, therefore, 

 that such inquiries afford no clue, whatever, to the 

 order of creation.* We propose not to enter the field 



* Nothing can be more opposed to true science, than to pro- 

 nounce on the priority of formation, or the comparative age of 

 rocks, from either their structure, or the organic remains they 

 present. M. Alexandre Brongniart thus propounds his opinion : 

 " In those cases where characters derived from the nature of the 

 rocks are opposed to those which we derive from organic re- 

 mains, I should give the preponderance to the latter." This 

 seems to us to imply an admission, that nothing definite can be 

 inferred from the nature of the rocks; moreover, that between 

 A 2 



