260 PALAEONTOLOGY : FOSSIL ORGANIC REMAINS. 



sagacity of Hooke led him to anticipate, marks one of the most 

 brilliant eras in the progress of modern geology, into which 

 paleeontological studies have, as it were, breathed new life, 

 investing it with fresh charms and richly varied interests. 



In the fossiliferous strata are inhumed the remains of the 

 floras and faunas of past ages. As we descend from stratum 

 to stratum to study the relations of superposition, we ascend 

 in the order of time, and new worlds of animal and vege- 

 table existence present themselves to the view. Widely 

 extended changes of the surface of the globe, elevations of 

 the great mountain chains of which we are able to deter- 

 mine the relative age, have been accompanied by the de- 

 struction of existing species, and by the appearance of new 

 forms of organic life ; a few only of the older remaining 

 for a time amongst the more recent species. In our igno- 

 rance of the laws under which new organic forms appear from 

 time to time upon the surface of the globe, we employ the 

 expression of " new creations," when we desire to refer to 

 the historical phsenomena of the variations which have taken 

 place at intervals, in the animals and plants which have 

 inhabited the basins of the primitive seas and the uplifted 

 continents. It has sometimes happened that extinct species 

 have been preserved entire, even to the minutest detail of 

 their tissues and articulations. In the lower beds of the secon- 

 dary period, the lias of Lyme Hegis, a sepia has been found so 

 wonderfully preserved, that a part of the black fluid with wliich 

 the animal was provided myriads of years ago to conceal itself 

 from its enemies, has actually served, at the present time, to draw 

 its picture. ( 297 ) In other cases such traces alone remain, as 

 the impression which the feet of animals have left on wet sand 

 or mud over which they may have passed when alive, or the 



