522 



corapanied so entire a change in mineral structure. The absence, 

 then, of organic fossils in crystalline stratified rocks, of whatever 

 age, aftbrds no presumption in favour of the non-existence of ani- 

 mals and plants at remote periods. 



The author, however, in another part of his Treatise contends, 

 that even if the strata called primary once contained organic re- 

 mains, there is still evidence in the fundamental granite of an ante- 

 cedent universal state of fusion, and consequently a period when 

 the existence of the organic world, such as it is known to us, was im- 

 possible. There was, he says, one universal mass of incandescent 

 elements, forming the entire substance of the primaeval globe, 

 wholly incompatible with any condition of life which can be shown to 

 have ever existed on the earth*. Believing as I do in the igneous 

 origin of granite, I would still ask, what proof have we in the earth's 

 crust of a state of total and simultaneous liquefaction either of the 

 granitic or other rocks, commonly called plutonic? All our evi- 

 dence, on the contrary, tends to show that the formation of granite, 

 like the deposition of the stratified rocks, has been successive, and 

 that different portions of granite have been in a melted state at di- 

 stinct and often distant periods. One mass was solid, and had been 

 fractured before another body of granitic matter was injected into 

 it, or through it in the form of veins. In short, the universal 

 fluidity of the crystalline foundations of the earth's crust can only 

 be understood in the same sense as the universality of the ancient 

 ocean. All the land has been under water, but not all at one 

 time ; so all tlie subterranean unstratified rocks to which man can 

 obtain access have been melted, but not simultaneously. 



Nor can we affirm that the oldest of the unstratified rocks 

 hitherto discovered is more ancient than the oldest stratified 

 formations known to us; we cannot even decide the x'elations in 

 point of age of the most ancient granite to the oldest fossiliferous 

 beds. 



But why, I may ask, should man, to whom the early history of his 

 own species and the rise of nations presents so obscure a problem, 

 feel disappointed if he fail to trace back the animate world to its 

 first origin? Already has the beginning of things receded before 



* BiK'kland's Bridgewater Treatise, vol. i. p. 55. 



