SECONDARY ROCKS—ORGANIC REMAINS: 29 



stances under which its strata were deposited. The arriv- 

 ing at the conclusions, however, to which the study of or- 

 ganized fossils leads, presupposes a complete knowledge of 

 all the kingdoms of existing nature, — an acquirement which 

 never has been, and probably never will be, centred in one 

 observer. As a knowledge of the natural history of the or- 

 ganic world cannot be obtained but by the exertions of 

 men devoting their energies exclusively to its several grand 

 divisions ; so to these the geologist must refer, for details 

 connected with the structure and other relations, of the ani- 

 mal and vegetable relics which he discovers in his investi- 

 gations. The immediate duty of the geologist, in regard 

 to fossil remains, is, to examine their relations to the several 

 strata of the formation in which they occur, and the connec- 

 tion of that formation with others; while it is the department 

 of the zoologist and botanist, and the most difficult, arduous, 

 and philosophic part of their studies, to discover the nature of 

 these remains, and, from the present conditions of similar liv- 

 ing beings, to speculate on the state of the world as con- 

 nected with temperature, and the distribution of land and 

 water in those epochs when the fossil species enjoyed life. 

 To acquire a knowledge of the ancient world, there must be 

 a division of labour : the examination cannot be conducted 

 by one ; but, in this great work, there is required the com- 

 bined efforts of a Werner, a Cuvier, a Brongniart, and an 

 Agassiz. In this state of things, our remarks will be on this 

 subject sufficiently brief. 



Throughout all the various members of the white sand- 

 stone series of the Lothians, the remains of vegetables occur, 

 and it is there only that they are to be met with. In the red 

 sandstone series there is, in the circumstance of layers of bi- 

 tuminous matter, occurring in the sandstone, an indication 

 that these strata had been formed, after the creation of ve- 

 getables, and we have never found any more marked proofs 



