196 INDOOR STUDIES 



suddenness; the life of the globe was full and 

 riotous. Enormous forms began to appear, — flying 

 dragons and terrible and grotesque monsters of the 

 deep. There was a plethora of power, an excess of 

 mere animal life. 



But as the ages rolled on, Nature began to sober 

 down: her pace became slower and more deliber- 

 ate, and she began to rise on stepping-stones of her 

 dead self. The higher forms of life began to ap- 

 pear. Birds emerged, mammals came forth. In 

 the Tertiary age the brains of mammals, according 

 to Marsh, began to increase in size ; henceforth the 

 struggle was not to be one of physical strength 

 merely, but intelligence began to play a part. The 

 maturity of the tree of life was approaching. 



That the geological changes were more rapid in 

 the earlier history of the earth than they are now, 

 seems to me to admit of no doubt. The forces of 

 the globe were more restless and titanic. They had 

 not yet attained to the equilibrium and the repose 

 that we now see. The crust of the earth was thin- 

 ner; the internal fires were nearer; the solid ground 

 was less solid than that we now walk upon. Vol- 

 canoes were more active, earthquakes more fre- 

 quent. The crust of the earth still throbs and 

 palpitates under the influence of lunar and solar 

 attraction and of unequal atmospheric pressure. 

 Think, then, how much more it must have done 

 so, say in the Silurian age. The cataclysmal theo- 

 ries of the earlier geologists have been much modi- 

 fied by Lyell and his school, but, so far as they 



