88 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 



RESPECTING 



THE ORIGIN OF THE ANIMATED TRIBES. 



THUS concludes the wondrous section of the earth's history 

 which is told by geology. It takes up our globe at the 

 period when its original incandescent state had nearly ceased ; 

 conducts it through what we have every reason to believe 

 were vast spaces of time, in the course of which many super- 

 ficial changes took place, and vegetable and animal life was 

 gradually evolved ; and drops it just at the point when man 

 was apparently about to enter on the scene. The compilation 

 of such a history, from materials of so extraordinary a cha- 

 racter, and the powerful nature of the evidence which these 

 materials afford, are calculated to excite our admiration, and 

 the result must be allowed to exalt the dignity of science, as 

 a product of man's industry and his reason. 



It is now to be remarked, that the whole series of opera- 

 tions displayed in inorganic geology is concluded upon as 

 having taken place under the agency of natural laws. Those 

 movements of subterranean force which thrust up mountain 

 ranges and upheaved continents, stand in inextricable connec- 

 tion, on the one hand, with the volcanoes which are yet belch- 

 ing forth lavas and shaking large tracts of ground, as, on the 

 other, with the primitive incandescent state of the earth. 



