T,H£ KAItlH. OJ 



omitted the mention of one, whirh, in some measure, more than 

 any of the rest, would have served to strengthen his theory. 

 We are informed, by almost every traveller' that has described 

 the pyramids of Egypt, that one of them is entirely built of a 



If so, it contributes to establish a fact, on which much specniation has bcpn 

 employed, of the original uniformity of climate at those remote points on tha 

 earth's surface, lu plate I, other representations of fossils may be seen. 

 Fig. 2 represents the impressioa of leaves, on sand-stone, of a pale yt'lluw 

 colour. In this specimen a circumstance is observable which is highly deserv- 

 ing observation. Lhwydd and others remark, that sometimes, though 

 rarely, the leaf will be found so well preserved, that even the colour may ba 

 discerned : and in this specimen the leaves are evidently of a very dark olive 

 green. Fig. 3 represents an asterial fossil fiom America, apparently of the 

 nature of the Encrinus. Fig. 4 represents the Lily Encrinite, with part 

 of its vertebral column attached to it 



Accumulations of trees, called "subterranean forests," may be traced a 

 iotervals, along our eastern coasts. Some of them, apparently, are the ra 

 mains of forests which clothed the surface of our soil prior to the last grea 

 geological epoch. Most of the trees of this class, although broken off, over, 

 whelmed by tremendous violence, and often flattened by the pressure of di- 

 luvial and alluvial deposits, appear to occupy their original sites; their 

 stumps still remain rooted in the soil on which they evidently once flourished. 

 These lignites have been much confounded with others of obvious postdilu. 

 vian lacustrine origin. Mosses, conferva;, and other equally delicate vege. 

 table substances, preserved in agate and chalcedony, have been examined by 

 Dr MacCulloch, who is inclined to refer their origin to a period nei;r!y 

 coeval with the earliest existence of organic matter. Naturalists have often 

 failed in their endeavours to identify the antediluvian plants with those now 

 existing. They evidently flourished under a warm climate; but botanists 

 hesitate to pronounce upon the species, or even the genera. In one instance, 

 lately, a fossil plant has been determined with unusual precision. Under the 

 name Trichomanes rotundatus, Mr Lindley has described a vegetable, discov. 

 ered within a nodule of argillaceous ironstone, which plant he does not hesi- 

 tate to identify closely with one which is now only known recent in the 

 deep forests of New Zealand. 



Zoophytes, which form the link between vegetables and shellfish, are little 

 less obscure than th 5 plants ; and we are again struck with the want of 

 agreement between the organic productions of the ancient and of the present 

 world. As far as the investigation has been pursued, it would seem that the 

 loophytes of those remote and mysterious times were not less numerous 

 . ;iad beautiful than those of our own days. Mr Parkinson examined K (• 

 fossil corals, and found nearly the whole differed from any that are no w 

 known. " In my attempt," says tliis able observer, "to preserve a paralell 

 between the recent and the fossil species, I have been,most completely foiled. 

 Indeed, so little could this parallel be preserved, that I am under the neces- 

 sity of acknowledging I am not certain of the existence of tne recent ana- 

 logue of any one mineralised coral." 



When the ihellfish that inhabit our ocean are compared with the fosse 



2 Hasselqnist, Sandys. 



