50 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES 



active, and sought their food in the little bays and 

 inlets. 



But there were then no fishes : these Cephalopoda 

 were the lords and tyrants of that creation ; they were 

 the most numerous, the most highly organized, the 

 least defended by stony or scaly armour, and the 

 most powerful. Their long shell was probably not 

 meant to shelter them from danger, and their whole 

 appearance and character indicates that they were 

 the attackers not the attacked, and, like other 

 powerful animals, were unprovided with defensive 

 weapons, their vigour, strength, and activity answer- 

 ing this purpose sufficiently. 



It is not for us to calculate how often our globe per- 

 formed its annual course in the heavens between the 

 commencement and the close of the long period which 

 we have been considering in this chapter. We may 

 conjecture, indeed, from the evidence before us in the 

 fossil remains, and the order and condition in which 

 they occur, that these revolutions must be counted 

 rather by tens of thousands than by units ; for during 

 this lapse of time, whatever it may have been, many 

 thousand feet of deposits were formed in various 

 parts of the bottom of the sea, and each succeeding 

 deposit, though only of a few inches, is provided 

 with its own written story, its sacred memoranda, 

 assuring us of the regularity and order that obtained, 

 and of the perfect uniformity of plan. The changes 

 that took place during this time were gradual and 

 successive ; the world of water was then being pre- 

 pared, slowly but surely, for the reception of more 

 highly organized beings, and, at length, although 

 there is little appearance of physical alteration, the 



