12 Notice of the Wonders of Geology. 



exempt from scientific details, by giving a quotation at some 

 length from the conclusion of his work, believing that all which 

 is necessary to render these general views intelligible, will be 

 found either in the remarks themselves or in our preceding obser- 

 vations. 



" General Inferences. — Restricting ourselves within the bounds 

 of legitimate induction, and forbearing to speculate on those points 

 which rest on insufficient or questionable data, we may neverthe- 

 less venture to draw some general inferences as to the varying 

 physical conditions of our planet, and of animal and vegetable 

 life, through the immense periods contemplated by geology, 



" From the remotest epoch in the earth's physical history recog- 

 nizable by man, to the present time, the mechanical and chemical 

 laws, which govern inorganic matter, appear to have undergone 

 no change. The wasting away of the solid rocks by water, and 

 the subsequent deposition and consolidation of the detritus by 

 heat ; the subsidence of the dry land beneath the sea, and the 

 elevation of the ocean-bed into new islands and continents ; the 

 decomposition of animal and vegetable substances on the surface^ 

 and their conversion into stone or coal, under circumstances in 

 which the gaseous principles were confined; the transmutation 

 of mud and sand into rock, and of earthy minerals into crystals, — 

 these physical changes have constantly been going on under the 

 influence of those fixed and immutable laws, established by Di- 

 vine Providence for the maintenance and renovation of the ma- 

 terial universe. 



" And although among the sentient beings which have from 

 time to time inhabited the earth, we discover at successive periods 

 the appearance of new forms, which flourished awhile and then 

 passed away, while other modifications of life sprung up, and 

 after the lapse of ages, in their turn were annihilated ; yet the 

 laws which governed their appearance and extinction, were in 

 perfect harmony with those which regulate inorganic matter. 

 Every creature was especially adapted to some peculiar state of 

 the earth at the period of its development ; and when the physical 

 conditions were changed, and no longer favorable for the exist- 

 ence of such a type of organization, it necessarily became extinct. 

 Thus we have seen diff"erent modifications of animal and vegeta- 

 ble life prevailing at diff"erent epochs of the earth's physical his- 

 tory, yet all presenting the same principles of structure, the same 



