70 . Results of Geology. 



ingenuity, but as an act of infinite power : let the earth, let the 

 sea, let the air bring forth things of their kind, was the fiat of the 

 ' Almighty ; and I cannot but think, that at each portion of the 

 earth this fiat led to the production of genera and species suitable 

 to the conditions of each, and to the appearance, therefore, in dif- 

 ferent localities, of species representative of, but rarely identical 

 with, each other. On such a principle, how easy is it to under- 

 stand that the colonies of M. Barrande should, although not iden- 

 tical with those species which had pre-existed in a locality, still 

 have co-existed with them ! Absolute identity would indeed be 

 more opposed to the laws of creation than the slight variations 

 we observe in closely allied species. 



Let me too for a moment refer to that theory which would as- 

 cribe the destruction of species to the agency of man, and has 

 sought to bestow upon the human race an antiquity far greater 

 than that usually assigned to it. Doubtless the actual number of 

 years of the existence of the human race might be multiplied ten, 

 or a hundred -fold, and yet the problem left unsolved. Man, as a 

 species, in a natural state, is restricted in his development by the 

 hardships of life, and the difficulty of obtaining subsistence. So 

 far from being an agent of destruction, beyond those limits which 

 render the existence of the Carnivora compatible with the exist- 

 ence of the Ruminantia and other harmless animals, he, perhaps, 

 of all animals, is the most feeble and defenceless ; and it is only 

 when he has become a civilized species that his race is capable of 

 great development, and he becomes a really destroying agent. 

 The ordinary history of the world is sufficient to prove this state- 

 ment ; and, if we compare the wide forest and prairie lands of 

 America as they were 200 years ago, when the wild Indian tribes 

 only killed for subsistence, and used for that purpose only the 

 simple weapons which barbaric ingenuity had enabled them to 

 form, with their present state, when civilized man has not only 

 invaded their lands, but supplied the still uncivilized natives with 

 the weapons of civilization, not merely to supply the wants of their 

 own existence, but also to minister to the luxury of civilized man, 

 ■ — we shall see that the actual destruction of species, so far as the 

 agency of man is concerned, could never have occurred, to any 

 appreciable extent, had not that extraordinary phasis in man's 

 existence — civilization — occurred ; and I will add, that even civi- 

 lized man would have required a vast extension of time to work 

 out the destruction of species, had not the invention of gunpowder 



