290 Henry Woodward — Dawn of Life on the Earth. 



but far beyond this sbort historic period, which scarcely comprises 

 the lapse of one hundred and fifty generations, extends a space of 

 time, certainly far longer, known to us only by pure tradition. 

 Mankind, already arising from its infancy to a more enlarged self- 

 consciousness, had begun to link age to age by legends, poems, and 

 symbolic formula. The reminiscences of great events, migrations, 

 wars of races, alliances, exterminations, and triumphs of industry, 

 were incorporated into religion itself, and in an increasingly varied 

 form were handed down from age to age as the heritage of nations.^ 



In still more ancient times, in the dim mist of bygone ages, our 

 ancestors lived the life of wild beasts in forests and caves. 



Tradition, no less than history, is dumb as to this epoch of the 

 human race ; but by the labours of the geologist, we are beginning to 

 learn somewhat concerning the habits and customs of these earliest 

 ancestors of ours so long unknown to us. 



If then History and Tradition cannot relate these earlier chapters 

 in the infancy of mankind, but, like the efforts to recall the events 

 of our childhood, are arrested by want of memory from telling us 

 more, how powerless are they to inform us of those long lapses of 

 ages when the lower animals already peopled this earth of ours — 

 animals whose life-history probably extended over tens of thousands 

 of generations before Man, the proud ruler of the Earth, appeared 

 upon the scene of his conquests ! 



How then can we ever hope successfully to trace the dawn of life 

 upwards to its source through that long vista of ages comprised in 

 the life of our j)lanet, in comparison to which man's whole existence 

 is but as a thing of yesterday ? Truly the accomplishment of such 

 a task seems at first sight far more remote in prospect than the dis- 

 covery of the sources of the Nile. 



What records can we search ? What monuments explore ? Has 

 earth no sepulchre for the mighty save those erected by man to com- 

 memorate liis short-lived fellows ? Not so ; every quarry by the 

 road-side, every chalk-pit and brick-field are but so many mausolea, 

 in which repose the hosts of living beings which peopled earth, air, 

 or sea, in the old time, and, like the piled-up coffins in some ancient 

 cemetery, tliey rise one upon another until they culminate in the 

 snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas and the Andes, beside which 

 the proud pyramid of Cheops seems but as a mole-hill. 



Let us pry into this mighty charnel-house of Earth's great family, 

 and strive, by the light which science lends us, to decipher some of 

 the hieroglyphics, which tell to those who can read them aright 

 the life-history of our globe. And here a wonderful historical 

 parallelism presents itself to our minds between the early records 

 of mankind and those of the earth's life-history; for just as the 

 comparative labour of the palaeographer increases the farther he 

 carries his researches back into the remote past, encountering in 

 turn Eoman, Greek, Etruscan, Phoenician, Egyptian, and Assyrian 

 characters, so in like manner the palaeontologist passes gradually 

 from the consideration of forms differing but little, if at all, from 



1 Eeclus : English edition, edited by H. "Woodward. " The Ocean, Atmosphere, and 

 Life," Section 11. page 190. 



