THE EO7.OIC AGES. 31 



impressions of a delicate nature, such as those left by 

 graptolites, or mollusks, or annulose crawlers. Indeed, 

 one or two such traces are supposed to have been 

 recognised, so that the almost total absence of the 

 traces of life in this enormous series is best understood 

 by the supposition that in these parts of the sea little 

 or no life existed. But the same remark of the ex- 

 cessive rarity of life in the lower deposits is made in 

 North America, in Norway, and in Bohemia, countries 

 well searched for this very purpose, so that all our 

 observations lead to the conviction that the lowest of 

 all the strata are quite deficient of organic remains. 

 The absence is general it appears due to a general 

 cause. Is it not probable that during these very early 

 periods the ocean and its sediments were nearly 

 devoid of plants and animals, and in the earliest time 

 of all, which is represented by sediments, quite de- 

 prived of such ? " These words were written many 

 years ago, and about the same time were published in 

 America those anticipations of the probability of life 

 in the Laurentian already referred to, and Lyell was 

 protesting against the name Primordial, on the ground 

 that it implied that we had reached the beginning 

 of life, when this was not proved. Yet there were 

 elements of truth in both views. It is true now, as 

 then, that the Primordial seems to be a morning hour 

 of life, having, as we shall see in our next paper, un- 

 mistakable signs about it of that approach to the 

 beginning to which Phillips refers. It is also true 

 that it is not so early a morning hour as one who has 



