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GE^^:rtAL con"sideratioxs 



HESPECTING THE ORIGIN OF THE ANIMATED TRIBES. 



Thus concludes the wondrous chapter of the earth's 

 liistor}^ which is told by geology. It takes up our globe 

 at the period when its original incandescent state had 

 nearly ceased : conducts it through what we have every 

 reason to believe were vast, or at least very considerable, 

 spaces of time, in the course of which many superficial 

 changes took place, and vegetable and animal life was 

 gradually developed ; and drops it just at the point when 

 man was apparently about to enter on the scene. The 

 compilation of such a history, from materials of so 

 extraordinary a character, and the powerful nature of 

 the evidence which these materials aiford, are calculated 

 to excite our admiration, and the result must be allowed 

 to exalt the dignity of science, as a product of man's 

 industry and his reason. 



If there is anything more than another impressed cm 

 our minds by the course of the geological history, it is^ 

 that the same laws and conditions of N'ature now ap- 

 parent to us have existed throughout the whole time, 

 though the operation of some of these laws may now be 

 less conspicuous than in the early ages, from some of 

 the conditions having come to a settlement and a close. 

 That seas. have flowed and ebbed, and winds disturbed 



