PROCEEDINGS OF THE POLYTECHNIC ASSOCIATION. 433 



while life, I think, should be considered the grand conservatory force in 

 animated nature. 



Parenthetically, I may remark that Darwin, the author of "The Vestiges 

 of Creation," and all writers of the development school, ignore the great 

 negative arguments against their theory, derived from palaaontology. 



The true theorist should so weave the fabric of his brain, that while the 

 positive enters into the warp the negative should not be forgotten in the 

 woof. 



What is the argument from palasontology ? We would broadly state it 

 thus. In all the stony records of the past, there has been progression in 

 animal and vegetable life, and this .progression has proceeded pari passu 

 with the formation of large islands and continents, the relative increase of 

 dry land over the domains of the ocean. When the ancient record fails 

 and living succeeds, we find the greater number of individuals and species 

 in the present era, because of the larger territory of dry land as compared 

 with any previous geological epoch, and consequently of the greater capa- 

 city for the support of its inhabitants. Of existing species it may be said^ 

 that each continental and insular area, has a provincial fauna and flora 

 peculiar to itself, and while some features are common to many, none are 

 common to all. 



In this respect agrees each great epochal division of ancient fauna and 

 flora. We may cite as an instance, that the Athyris suhtilita (Hall), a 

 carboniferous brachiopod, is common to all the ancient carboniferous seas; it 

 is found in India, Europe, England, North and South America. Yet each of 

 these great geographical divisions of the coal measures, has fossils which are 

 peculiar to itself, and not found elsewhere. Tiiis truth is confined to more 

 limited areas. Pennsylvania has fossils not seen in the fauna of Illinois, 

 and the latter not in the former. 



The carboniferous formation marks a grand epoch in the biological his- 

 tory of the earth. The old then in part was buried; the new began to ap- 

 pear. The promise of a more glorious future shone brightly upon its 

 horizon. Previously the flora had mainly been marine, or confined to the 

 sandy beaches of the shallow seas, and consequently the land fauna were 

 extremely meagre. In this epoch, great carboniferous continents were 

 formed; the land was clothed in arborial verdure; flowering plants adorned 

 it with their beauty; insects were allured by their odor; air breathing ani- 

 mals fed upon its fruits and reposed in its shade. 



Let us compare the primordial with this meridian flora. In round num- 

 bers, and not including fruits, cones and stems, for these might possibly 

 be a repetition of plants already known by their leaves, we have in America 

 at least 244 species of continental and insular plants. A forest, which in 

 the number of its species, would well compare with many provincial forests 

 of the present era. 



This forest, so far as known, was peopled with six species of reptiles; 

 three or more of insects, and two of pulmoniferous gasteropods. None of 

 its inhabitants, and not one of its species of trees and plants, were known 

 in the primordial, or even in the later silurian. In all of its flora there 



[Am. Inst.J C* 



