32 SKETCHES OF CREATION. 



tier's. And here it perished — its entire lineage perished. 

 Not a solitary individual has survived ; and there is not a 

 living being upon all the earth, or in all the wide realm 

 of the ocean, with which we may compare this anomalous 

 vestige, and determine how it stood related to other be- 

 ings. Not one, I said ; but the faithful explorations of the 

 forgotten zoologist have brought to light, perchance, a sol- 

 itary family which has inherited the outre forms of this 

 primeval ancestor. So do we find the mute monarchs of 

 the ancient continents and seas represented in modern 

 courts by a few obscure individuals still wearing the 

 quaint livery of their antiquated ancestors. Thus do we 

 often witness the remotest past united to the present by 

 single links; and thus do we learn the identity of that In- 

 telligence whose finger-marks remain upon the ruins of 

 past geological epochs, and whose wisdom and benevo- 

 lence have beautified the landscapes which we daily ad' 

 mire. 



But water has not been the only purifier of the materi- 

 als of the solid crust of the earth. I spoke of " pre-exist- 

 ing rocks," from which the pebble had been broken by the 

 violence of time. These have been purified by fire. Every 

 where do we find these massive crystalline rocks resting 

 beneath the entire series of those which have been accu- 

 mulated in the form of sediments from water, and which 

 have buried in their common sepulchre the hordes of 

 earth's pre- Adamite existences. These foundation-granites 

 are bearing upon their Atlantean shoulders the weight of 

 twenty miles of solid strata. They contain no organic re- 

 mains. The granites of this class exhibit no evidence of 

 having been produced from sediments. They bear the 

 marks of fire. The devouring element has caused their 

 stubborn sides to yield. They have been in a molten con- 

 dition. You may take a fragment and fuse it in a furnace, 



