400 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



If we take the time-ratios of the rocks we shall find that they point forward 

 like silent indices to a time for the close of this period that is very distant in the 

 future. Adopting the estimates generally employed by geologists, considering 

 that limestones increase with extreme slowness compared with fragmental depos- 

 its, not more than one foot of limestone being deposited while five feet of frag- 

 mental rocks accumulate, the duration of the Cenozoic, Mesozoic and Palaeozoic 

 will probably stand related as i, 2 and 4. And when we compare the Cenozoic 

 to the Azoic it is lost as a drop in the ocean. But the Cenozoic, or present age, 

 is the most important one in. the Earth's history. It is the age of mammals ; it is 

 the age of man ; it is the age of mind. All preceding ages find in it their devel- 

 opment and fulfillment on the earth. It gives significance in our earthly devel- 

 opment to all the immense seons of geological history. It is the age that embraces 

 the human period, the crown and glory of the whole creation. Can any species 

 of analogy reduce this age to a comparative insignificance in the time-ratios, 

 while the preceding ages of preparation are drawn out and occupy such immense 

 periods? Rhetorically speaking, is the order of creation anti climatic? As crea- 

 tion advances to higher and better forms of being, shall things become ephem- 

 eral? When everything begins to assume value and importance in creation, when 

 they begin to have real significance, and arrive at a point where we would natur- 

 ally reason they should have some solidity and permanence, shall we there find 

 that the natural analogical order of creation breaks down, and shall the creation 

 as we find it on the Earth prove a comparative failure? After immense periods, 

 almost infinitudes of time, when we reach the substance of things, shall it sudden- 

 ly crumble beneath our touch, and disappear to our view ? Or shall we not more 

 rationally conclude that the present Age reaches forward to its fair analogical pro- 

 portions until the human period shall have its natural development and fulfillment, 

 until mankind in all the races, the seething populations of the globe, shall be car- 

 ried forward, and developed, in a word, redeemed and prepared for the higher 

 and better order of things, the Golden Age of all the Earth's history? 



As voices reechoing in a mighty canon indicate its amplitude, so there are 

 many voices sounding through the corridors of time which prophesy its immense 

 duration. If we take the coal-fields for example we find fuel stored up in the 

 earth practically in unlimited quantities. But coal is made to burn, was created 

 for the use of man, and it is fair to conclude that man is destined to use it, not in 

 infinitesimal quantities, but the supply and demand are to be somewhat in pro- 

 portion. The law of supply and demand is more perfectly observed in nature 

 than in human affairs. Now there is one coal-field, the Western Interior Area, 

 covering part of Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas and Northern 

 Texas, which would supply all the accumulating population of the globe for a 

 million years. And what shall we say of other coal-fields, many of which in 

 polar regions have not been developed, and of the unlimited areas of coal be- 

 neath the ocean much of which will probably in future ages, by the absorption of 

 fluids by the solid portion of the earth, be rendered accessible? Should a man 

 be ten years in erecting a mansion with all the elaboration of m'odern architec. 



