28 FOSSIL MAMMALIA. 



We now come rapidly to the transition strata, where matter 

 Hfeless and unorganised appears to have made its last stand 

 against the vivifying and organising principle of nature. Here 

 we find black limestone and schistus, with Crustacea and shells 

 of unknown genera, alternating with the latest of the primitive 

 strata. We finally arrive at the most ancient formations 

 which we are permitted to discover, — the marble, the primitive 

 schistus, the gneiss, and the granite, the ancient foundations 

 of the earth, and which are themselves, in all probability, the 

 result of the united action of fire and water, after myriads of 

 revolving ages. 



Such is the exact enumeration of the series of strata which 

 compose our globe ; such is the order of facts which geology 

 has been enabled to establish, by calling in the aid of mine- 

 ralogy, and the sciences of organization, by abandoning the 

 reveries of arbitrary hypothesis, and steadily pursuing the safer 

 path of observation and induction. 



We shall now rapidly enumerate the fossils in those various 

 allocations, beginning with the earliest, and ending with the 

 latest formations. 



We have observed that zoophytes, mollusca, and certain 

 crusta,cea, begin to appear in the transition strata. Bones and 

 skeletons of fish may, perhaps, be also found there. But we 

 are far from discovering, among those early formations, the re- 

 mains of land animals, or any formed for the direct respiration 

 of atmospheric air. 



The great strata of pit-coal, and the trunks of palm and fern 

 of which they bear the impression, must presuppose the exist- 

 ence of dry land and aerial vegetation. Yet no bones of quad- 

 rupeds are found there, not even of the oviparous species. 



Their first traces are found a step higher, in the bituminous 

 coppery schistus. There we find quadrapeds of the family of 

 the lizards, very similar to the monitors, which are now natives 

 of the torrid zone. Many individuals of this description are 

 found in the mines of Thuringia in Germany, among innu- 



