OF CREATION. 11 



in this light, they become the groundwork of classifi- 

 cation ; and every successive observation proves that, 

 when properly and carefully made use of, they are 

 entirely to be depended on, as being not only the best, 

 but the only safe means of separating some strata, and 

 uniting others into groups. Such is their Geological 

 value : and their bearing upon Natural History is no 

 less real or important. They afford numerous links 

 in the great chain of organized beings ; they explain 

 difficulties otherwise inexplicable ; they suggest rea- 

 sons and causes for the most extraordinary variations 

 from the ordinary course of nature ; and they teach 

 us the important truth, that, throughout all time, there 

 has been a perfectly uniform plan pursued in the con- 

 struction of the world, and its adaptation for successive 

 races of beings ; but that this plan has admitted of 

 innumerable modifications in the manner of carrying it 

 out, all evidently adapted to changing circumstances. 

 In one word, it is by the proper interpretation of 

 fossils that a science has arisen, unlike any other in 

 its investigations ; nobler than any, except Astronomy, 

 in the object at which it aims ; and more interesting 

 than any, inasmuch as it combines every branch of 

 Natural History, commonly so called, with those in- 

 quiries into a former condition of existence which are 

 best calculated to attract the fancy and excite the 

 imagination. Removed, however, from the condition 

 which it long occupied, as an amusement for specu- 

 lative men who were contented to imagine for them- 

 selves theories of the earth, and propound them for 

 the astonishment, the admiration, or the contempt 

 of the world, Geology has now become the recep- 

 tacle of innumerable observations, carefully made and 



