138 SKETCHES OF CREATION. 



Marshall — barely enumerated the epochs of two great pe- 

 riods of the world's organic history, the Silurian and De- 

 vonian. Who has considered the measureless intervals 

 which have been so glibly hurried over — the rising and 

 setting suns, the passing tempests, the lonely-budding tree, 

 the sands worried to and fro upon the uncertain beach, the 

 lives of myriads of conscious forms in a long succession of 

 populations, the heaving shore, the rise of continents, the 

 burial of beautiful but senseless ruins beneath acres of sed- 

 iments from which they shall never be exhumed ? Let me 

 commend the sublimity of the theme to the reader's atten- 

 tion. 



We are now on the threshold of another great period 

 of the world's history. Graceful tree-ferns are waving in 

 the distance, and giant club-mosses are uttering from their 

 fronds a breezy murmur refreshing to the mind wearied 

 with the contemplation of the uncouth and sombre forms 

 which vegetated in the earlier sea^. Looking through the 

 vistas of the future, we behold lazy reptiles reposing upon 

 banks protected by the tangled stems of lepidodendra and 

 calamaria, or floating in the tepid bayous of a tropical jun- 

 gle. The novelty and interest of the prospect invite us 

 onward, but the vastness of the field bids us pause and re- 

 fresh ourselves before Ave venture upon our jottings from 

 the scenes of the Carboniferous Period. 



