OF CREATION. 25 



Nor should it be supposed that such appearances 

 are confined to the slaty and tough beds of this 

 particular period. They are as common in the older 

 schists, and in the gneiss, as in these strata, and they 

 appear again in the similar rocks of the next newer 

 period ; but there is this difference observable in the 

 case of England, namely, that the disturbances seem 

 either to have diminished in intensity, or to hlive 

 produced a smaller effect at each later time, while 

 they are nowhere more remarkable than in the case 

 of the lower silurian strata of North Wales and 

 Cumberland.* 



In these ancient beds, so greatly altered by me- 

 chanical violence from their original condition, often 

 deposited amidst much disturbance, and presenting so 

 many analogies with the earlier and non-fossiliferous 

 stratified rocks, we find for the first time distinct 

 marks of the existence of beings endowed with life. 



We naturally turn with considerable interest to 

 inquire concerning the nature of the inhabitants of 

 our globe, as exhibited by their remains in these 

 rocks ; and in doing so, we find, that, although the 

 conditions were, in some respects, very different, and 

 the animals often unlike existing species, there is yet 

 sufficient analogy to enable us to determine with con- 

 siderable certainty the nature of the groups of species 

 living in the sea at that early period. 



The first thing that strikes the geological natural- 

 ist, in looking over the numerous fossils obtained from 



* The evidence of great disturbance observable in these beds in the 

 British Islands does not extend to Russia and Scandinavia, where they 

 also occur. Here, and in other parts of the world, they have been less 

 disturbed, but their general character is the same. 



C 



