434 FOSSIL INVERTEBRATED ANIMALS. 



the crystallizations took place, which are observed in granite, 

 porphyry, and other primitive substances, which contain no 

 vestiges of bodies that once were animated, the waters covered 

 these crystallizations ; if, indeed, they had not already been 

 formed in their bosom, as every thing leads us to beUeve ; for 

 we pass from these last, without any sensible interval, to strata 

 which contain organized bodies, which most assuredly have 

 existed in the waters. 



We are informed, indeed, by some scientific men, that above 

 certain strata, containing the remains of organized bodies, crys- 

 tallizations have been found similar to those of the granite ; 

 but circumstances of this kind, which may be referable to vol- 

 canic action, are so rare, and the places where they have been 

 remarked, of such confined extent, in comparison to all the 

 surface of the globe whence nothing of the sort has been found, 

 that no satisfactory inference can be drawn for the establish- 

 ment of any general principle respecting such phenomena. 



Our observations can never enable us to ascertain whether 

 or not the primitive substances which we behold have been 

 preceded by one, or many other worlds of greater antiquity, 

 which may be covered by them ; but, admitting that they have 

 been preceded only by other substances similar to themselves, 

 we see that life originally commenced with aquatic animals, of 

 species and genera very different, for the most part, from those 

 which exist at the present day. 



In the most ancient strata are found trilobites, orthoceratites, 

 ammonites, belemnites, encrinites, terebratulites, and many 

 other genera, the greater portion of which no longer exist in 

 the living state. Of those, too, which still exist, some, such 

 as the encrini, which at present, in our actual seas, are of the 

 rarest occurrence, were once so common, that their debris, con- 

 nected by a calcareous cement, constitute, of themselves alone, 

 strata of very considerable extent. 



If any doubts can be raised relative to the crystallization of 

 primitive substances in the waters, scarcely any can exist 



