66 SKETCHES OF CMEATION. 



It would seem almost inevitable that the temperature 

 and constitution of the primeval sea should be incompati- 

 ble equally with vegetable and animal life. It is true that 

 both plants and animals are now known to nourish under 

 conditions of heat and cold, and chemistry, which are en- 

 tirely at variance with the general notions of organic 

 adaptability. Certain plants, for instance, are reported as 

 nourishing in the boiling geysers of Iceland and the hot 

 springs of California. Others make their habitat upon the 

 snows of Greenland, and impart the ruddy glow of warmth 

 even in the undisputed empire of frost. The germs of veg- 

 etable, and even of animal life, populate every element and 

 every locality ; and only a temperature of some hundreds 

 of degrees suffices to rid a fluid exposed to the air of all 

 the vitalized germs that inhabit it. The egg of an insect, 

 stuck in the crevice of the bark of an apple-tree, endures 

 the rigors of a Canadian winter ; and the organized chrys- 

 alis seems, in many cases, to possess equal powers of re- 

 sisting cold. It is unsafe, then, to attempt to determine 

 at what epoch the waters of the primeval sea became suf- 

 ficiently cooled and purified to receive the first organic 

 forms. There was, in all probability, an earliest epoch 

 that was completely destitute of organic forms. But, to 

 ascertain its beginning and its end, Geology must yet ap- 

 ply herself to a closer study of the monuments of the 

 gneissic age. 



Reasoning deductively, it is equally presumable that 

 vegetable life preceded animal life in order of appearance. 

 Vegetable life is capable of enduring more extreme condi- 

 tions. Vegetation could better tolerate the excess of car- 

 bonic acid in the atmosphere and the waters. Vegetation, 

 moreover, is capable of drawing its sustenance from the 

 mineral world, while animals rely exclusively upon organ- 

 ic food. The vegetable stands between the animal and 



