FACTS AND INFERENCES. 303 



gneiss and quartz rock.* The idea, that none of our fossil animals 

 or vegetables can be assigned to any i-ecent species, cannot be ad- 

 mitted, without shutting our eyes against the clearest evidence; and 

 several genera and species now regarded as extinct, may yet be 

 found recent. Many countries, rivers, and creeks, remain to be 

 explored ; and doubtless the ocean contains living treasures hitherto 

 unseen. Brown in his travels in Egypt, &c. (p. 70), observes, that, 

 with the exception of some eels, none of the fishes which he found in the 

 Nile correspond with the European fishes: and every scientific travel- 

 ler discovers in distant parts of the world, new species, and even new 

 genera, of animals and plants. Within these few years, the trigonia, 

 which was deemed an extinct genus, has been found recent; and the 

 same remark is applicable to a few other genera. After the recent 

 accessions which natural history has acquired, particularly the dis- 

 covery of the ornithorhynchus and of the animal of Stronsay, we 

 need not despair of seeing the lizard-fish in a living state. 



The authors of the hypothesis of successive creations, ov forma- 

 tions, as they are more frequently termed, have not told us, what we 

 are to make of the extensive strata containing no organic remains, or 

 next to none, intervening between strata that abound with them. 

 Was the creative power suspended or contracted for some ages? Did 

 worlds of barren sand alternate with worlds replete with life? 



We have other objections to produce against this theory, but 

 they will appear with more advantage under the next observation. 



19. We have reason to believe, from the facts before us, that no 

 considerable interval occurred between the deposition of the several 



* Description of the Western Islands, II. p. 512. It is worthy of notice, that Dr. M. 

 observed in Rasay and Siiy, a series of strata, reposing on graywacke schist, conolomerate and 

 gneiss, bearing a strong analogy to part of our strata; consisting of white sandstone, dark blue 

 shale with thin seams of coarse limestone, and below that, red sandstone. The shale contains 

 ainmonitesj ostracites, gryphites, belemnites, &c. Ibid. I. p. 250, &c. 



