32 1 OUR COMMON BRITISH FOSSILS. 



lished by the Palseontographical Society of Great 

 Britain, which form one of those unconscious monu- 

 ments of English vokmtary science, the rest of the 

 world can only wonder at. 



One common lesson is written upon the rocks of 

 all geological ages by these palaeontological characters 

 — that in the midst of life we are literally in death ! 

 That the platforms, on which the vitality of animals 

 was temporarily exercised during one period, had their 

 foundations laid down, and were built up, by the death 

 and extinction of the species of a preceding period ! 

 " Upwards and onwards " has been the motto of the 

 Organic Life of the globe, — in spite of those " fallings, 

 off, vanlshlngs," of which Retrogradation takes par- 

 ticular note. One cannot reverently study these 

 incomings and outgoings of the life-forms of succeed- 

 ing epochs without feeling that " one Divine Purpose 

 runs " throughout the ages, connecting and uniting 

 them into a single great Life-scheme, of which we as 

 yet sec only the tangled and disjoined portions ! 



