50 PRIMARY STRATIFIED ROCKS. 



The total absence of organic remains throughout those 

 lowest portions of these strata, which have been called pri- 

 mary, is a fact consistent with the hypothesis which forms 

 part of the theory of gradual refrigeration; viz. that the 

 waters of the first formed oceans were too much heated to 

 have been habitable by any kind of organic beings.* 



In these most ancient conditions, both of land and water, 

 Geology refers us to a state of things incompatible with the 

 existence of animal and vegetable life ; and thus on the evi- 

 dence of natural phenomena, establishes the important fact 

 that we find a starting point, on this side of which all forms, 

 both of animal and vegetable beings, must have had a 

 beginning. 



As, in the consideration of other strata, we find abundant 

 evidence in the presence of organic remains, in proof of the 

 exercise of creative power, and wisdom, and goodness, 

 attending the progress of life, through all its stages of 

 advancement upon the surface of the globe ; so, from the 

 absence of organic remains in the primary strata, we may 

 derive an important argument, showing that there was a 

 point of time in the history of our planet, (which no other 

 researches but those of geology can possibly approach,) ante- 

 cedent to the beginning of either animal or vegetable fife. 

 This conclusion is the more important, because it has been 

 the refuge of some speculative philosophers to refer the ori- 



signable to the primary and fundamcnlal rocks,) the oilier by concretion 

 from a<[ueou3 solution. We have here distinctly stated the great basis of 

 every scientific classification of rock formalioris. By the repetition of sinii- 

 iar causes (i, e. disruption of the crust and consequent inundations) frequent 

 clternations of new strata were produced, until at length these cuuscs having 

 been reduced to a condition of quiescent equilibrium, a more permancnr. 

 slate of tilings emerged. Have we not here clearly indicated the data on. 

 which, what may be termed the chronological investigation of the series or 

 ecological phenomena, must ever proceed?" 



* So long a^ the temperature of tlie earth continued intensely high, water 

 could have existed only in the state of steam or vapour, floating in the at- 

 jnosphere around the incandescent surface. 



