v. EARLIEST LAND AND SEA. 61 



but so very generally expanded below the whole series of fossili- 

 ferous strata. 



They were stratified: the materials were collected in water, 

 and arranged under the influence of water. Whence came these 

 materials ? In the strata whose earlier aspect has not been changed 

 by metamorphism, we have no difficulty in replying ; partly from 

 wasted coasts and wasted lands; partly from organic secretions, 

 precipitation of marine salts, mineral sublimations. 



Only the first of these conditions can be made in any way to 

 fit with the case in hand. Before the earliest rocks of Malvern 

 were still more ancient lands and shores. What was then the solid 

 earth ? Shall we suppose a cooled granitic crust, easily disintegrated, 

 to have been the parent of gneiss and mica schist ? That these 

 rocks as we now see them have been again half or more than half 

 reconverted to granite ? That granite is the recurring term of a 

 series now anterior, then succeeding, now the wasted parent, and 

 again the renewed product of gneiss? Settle this as we may, 

 land and sea existed in this part of the globe before the earliest 

 rocks visible in the British Isles. 



Was the land, and especially was the sea inhabited ? There is 

 no record. Only in another part of the world, among strata of 

 gneiss as old, if not older, than these of Malvern, has one solitary 

 organic body been found c , viz. in the 'Laurentian' gneiss of 

 Canada. There being no limestone in the Malvern gneiss, there 

 is but little chance of discovering organic remains. There is no 

 history, tradition, record, or monument of this mythical period. 

 Those who in modern times have studied the ' theories of evolu- 

 tion ' which for a century and more have amused the ' philosophy 

 of nature/ are aware of the importance of this lost evidence. They 

 who adopt these theories must do so under the enormous logical 

 difficulty of replacing unknown records by imaginary terms 

 founded on the theory which requires them to be real, 



' Etiam periere ruinae.' 



c Eozoon Canadense. This foraminifer or sponge has not obtained its certificate, 



' Proved by the ends of being, to have been,' 



without protest. See Geological Proceedings for papers by Carpenter, Dawson, 

 King, Rowney, and others. 



