THE fflSTORY OF CEEATION. 



CHAPTER XV. 

 PERIODS OF CREATION AND RECORDS OF CREATION. 



Reform of Systems by the Theory of Descent. — The Natural System as a 

 Pedigree. — Paleeontological Records of the Pedigree. — Petrifactions as 

 Records of Creation.— Deposits of the Neptunic Strata and the 

 Enclosure of Organic Remains. — Division of the Organic History of 

 the Earth into Five Main Periods : Period of the Tangle Forests, Eerii 

 Forests, Pine Forests, Foliaceous Forests, and of Cultivation. — The 

 Series of Neptunic Strata. — Immeasurable Duration of the Periods which 

 have elapsed during their Formation. — Deposits of Strataonly during the 

 Sinking, not during the Elevation of the Ground. — Other Gaps in the 

 Records of Creation. — Metamorphic Condition of the most Ancient 

 Neptunic Strata. — Small Extent of Palseontological Experience. — 

 Small proportion of Organisms and of Parts of Organisms Capable of 

 Petrifying. — Rarity of many Petrified Species. — Want of Fossilised 

 Intermediate Forms. — Records of the Creation in Ontogeny and in 

 Comparative Anatomy. 



The revolutionary influence which the Theory of Descent 

 must exercise upon all sciences, will in all probability affect 

 no branch of science, excepting Anthropology, so much as 

 the descriptive portion of natuial history, that which is 

 known as systematic Zoology and Botany. Most naturalists 

 who have hitherto occupied themselves with arranging the 

 different systems of animals and plants, have collected, named, 

 and arranged the different species of these natural bodies 

 VOL. II. B, 



