420 JOSEPH FOURIER. 



eye. It is necessary also to note this capital fact, that 

 each stratum has a well-defined limit ; that no process of 

 transition connects it with the stratum which it supports. 

 The ocean, the original source of all these deposits, un- 

 derwent then formerly enormous changes in its chemical 

 composition to which it is no longer subject. 



With some rare exceptions, resulting from local con- 

 vulsions the effects of which are otherwise manifest, the 

 order of antiquity of the successive strata of rocks which 

 form the exterior crust of the globe ought to be that of 

 their superposition. The deepest have been formed at 

 the most remote epochs. The attentive study of these 

 different envelops may aid us in ascending the stream- 

 of time, even beyond the most remote epochs, and en-^ 

 lightening us with respect to those stupendous revolutions 

 which periodically overwhelmed continents beneath the 

 waters of the ocean, or again restored them to their for- 

 mer condition. Crystalline rocks of granite upon which 

 the sea has effected its original deposits have never ex- 

 hibited any remains of life. Traces of such are to be 

 found only in the sedimentary strata. 



Life appears to have first exhibited itself on the earth 

 in the form of vegetables. The remains of vegetables 

 are all that we meet with in the most ancient strata de- 

 posited by the waters ; still, they belong to plants of the 

 simplest structure, to ferns, to species of rushes, to 

 lycopodes. 



As we ascend into the upper strata, vegetation becomes 

 more and more complex. Finally, near the surface, it 

 resembles the vegetation actually existing on the earth, 

 with this characteristic circumstance, however, which is 

 well deserving attention, that certain vegetables which 

 grow only in southern climates, that the large palm-trees, 



