SKETCHES OF CREATION. 



CHAPTER I. 



DISCLOSUEE OF THE SUBJECT. 



WHAT is this which I have opened from the solid 

 rock ? It has the appearance of a bivalve shell, like 

 a clam or an oyster. I was passing a delightful summer- 

 day amid the romantic scenery of Trenton Falls, and broke 

 from the rocky wall of the deep-cut gorge these unexpect- 

 ed forms. Who has not stumbled upon similar shapes at 

 the foot of some beetling cliff, or washed from the weath- 

 ered soil of some cultivated field ? Pause a moment, for 

 these are remarkable and unexpected discoveries. Let us 

 interrogate these forms. 



They can not be the shells of oysters or clams ; for, in 

 the first place, they are only stone in substance, with a pe- 

 culiarly, dead and mineralized appearance. In the next 

 place, they are nearly three hundred miles from salt water, 

 and as many feet above the level of the sea. Perhaps, 

 then, they are the dead and petrified shells of some fresh- 

 water molluscs, like mussels. This can not be, because the 

 resemblance is not sufficiently close. The beak, or most 

 prominent part of these shell-like forms, is exactly in the 

 middle (Fig. 1, a; see page 14), while the beak of the 

 mussel is always nearer to one end (Fig. 3, a; see page 

 14). And, farther, one piece or valve of these problematic 



