66 SECONDARY SERIES. 



exclusively marine; others amphibious: others were terres- 

 trial, raging in savannahs and jungles, clothed with a tropi- 

 cal vegetation, or basking on the margins of estuaries, lakes, 

 and rivers. Even the air was tenanted by flying lizards, 

 under the dragon form of Pterodactyles. The earth was pro- 

 bably at that time too much covered with water, and those 

 portions of land which had emerged above the surface, were 

 too frequently agitated by earthquakes, inundations, and at- 

 mospheric irregularities, to be extensively occupied by any 

 higher order of quadrupeds than reptiles. 



As the history of these reptiles, and also that of the ve- 

 getable remains,* of the secondary formations, will be made 

 a subject of distinct inquiry, it will here suffice to state, that 

 the proofs of method and design in the adaptation of these 

 extinct forms of organization to the varied circumstances 

 and conditions of the earth's progressive stages of advance- 

 ment, are similar to those we trace in the structure of living 

 animal and vegetable bodies ; in each case we argue that the 

 existence of contrivances, adapted to produce definite and 

 useful ends, implies the anterior existence and agency of 

 creative intelligence. 



• The vegetable remains of the secondary strata differ from those of the 

 transition period, and are very rarely accumulated into beds of valuable 

 coal. The imperfect coal of the Cleveland Moorlands near Whitby, on the 

 coast of Yorkshire, and that of Brora in the county of Sutherland, occurs in 

 the lower region of the oolite formation; that of Biickeberg in Nassau, is ia 

 the Wealdean formation, and is of superior quality. 



