In Civil History records are consulted, medals examined, 

 and antique inscriptions deciphered, in order to determine the 

 epochs of human revolutions, and verify moral events ; so in 

 Natural History we must search the archives of the world ; 

 draw from the bowels of the earth the monuments of former 

 times ; collect the fragments, and gather into one body of proofs 

 all the indices of physical changes^ which may enable us to re- 

 trace the different ages of nature. It is thus only that we can 

 I Jix some points in the immensity of space, and mark the pro- 

 gressive stages in the eternal march of time. 



