Wor] AND SYMBOLS. 399 



stupendous phases, there are at the present moment alterations 

 still everywhere going on which in their intrinsic importance 

 are, and in their future consequences will be, as momentous as 

 the phenomena by which they have been preceded. Not only 

 does the surface of our globe undergo entire and perpetual 

 changes, but as a necessary consequence, all the forms of vege- 

 table and animal life are merely transient phenomena. With 

 one exception, all the old tenants of this place have left it, and all 

 their near kindred have gone too. In digging in and exploring 

 the rocks and shores around Lyme Regis in Dorsetshire, we get 

 some glimpses of what they were like, and of the life they must 

 have led when, in the morning of the world, they hungered and 

 thirsted, and roamed about to maintain their existence as poor 

 human beings anxiously do to-day. There was the ichthyosaurus, 

 a huge marine lizard. This carnivorous reptile often measured 

 from twenty to thirty feet long. It had a head like a crocodile, 

 the vertebrae of a fish, and for its locomotion the paddles of a 

 whale. There was the plesiosaurus. This creature somewhat 

 resembled the ichthyosaurus. It had a lizard's head, though it 

 was smaller, and its neck, which was like a snake's, was very 

 long; for propelling power it had a strong tail and its four 

 paddles were even larger than those of the ichthyosaurus. There 

 was the pterodactyle. This curiously-constructed creature, 

 probably the first of the winged creation, very much resembled 

 an enormous bat, and possessed a bird's head, neck, and tail. 

 It had five fingers provided with wings, and could fly like a bat. 

 "With its wings it could either fly or swim, with its feet it 

 could walk, with its claws it could climb, and thus with hands, 

 wings, or feet it pursued its way. Then with these creatures 

 there were the iguanodon, the nautilus, the ammonite, marvellous 

 rnollusks, gigantic cuttle-fishes, and many more. With the 

 exception of the nautilus, which appears to be a persistent type, 

 these forms of existence have vanished from the world. In 

 examining the strata of other parts of the globe, whether for 

 vegetable or animal fossils, a like result will be reached. We 

 shall evermore be confronted with the fact that there is nothing 

 stationary in Nature ; everything is in a state of perpetual change. 

 We can trace some few processes, we can discover some few 

 causes and effects, but what is to be the grand climax of the 



