44 Astronomy and Geology compared. PT. i. 



left in the chain. Where our resources and means 

 of proof are so slender and limited, where the facts 

 are so few and so scattered, how easy it is to adopt 

 some erroneous conclusions and to follow some false 

 lead. The bases upon which Geologists seem to be 

 agreed are : First, the great, though unknown and 

 incalculable, antiquity of the Earth. Second, the 

 series of changes which its surface has undergone. 

 Third, the long period of time which must have 

 elapsed while the Earth was passing through these 

 stages ; the record which they have successfully left 

 in the strata which they have accumulated, and in 

 the various deposits which have been preserved 

 embedded in each of these strata ; the regularity 

 of the succession in which the strata occur, showing 

 that the periods were the same throughout the 

 Globe. 



This portion of Greological study has reference only 

 to inanimate nature ; but by far the most interesting 

 and important branch of it relates to those vestiges 

 and relics of Life which are sealed lip in these strata, 

 the great repositories of the past. Here it may be 

 observed the great interest in G-eology centres, and 

 in this branch of inquiry it has an undoubted 

 superiority over its sister science. Mighty as are 



