166 SKETCHES OF CREATION. 



these mail-clad fishes, and then turn to our own times and 

 find them reduced to a few isolated, hated, and hunted spe- 

 cies. The garpike or "billfish" (Lepidosteus) , and the stur- 

 geon (Acipens&r), are the only surviving representatives of 

 the royal families of the Carboniferous Age. In turn, the 

 dynasty of the fishes was superseded by that of the rep- 

 tiles. 



It was impossible that air-breathers should inhabit the 

 earth before the atmosphere became purified of the noxious 

 gases which remained from the ancient igneous condition 

 of the globe. The principal impurity — carbonic acid — was 

 destined to be consumed by the demands of an abundant 

 terrestrial vegetation. The latter part of the reign of fishes 

 was marked by the advent of multitudes of land-loving 

 vegetable forms — the heralds of the close of the dominion 

 of races whose element was the water. It was many ages 

 after its first appearance before terrestrial vegetation be- 

 came fully established. We know that here and there one 

 of these stranger forms grew upon the shores of those seas 

 which were the domain of the fish ; and, falling down upon 

 the beach, or borne along by river torrents, the decaying 

 trunks were drifted seaward, and sunken among the sands 

 which entombed the bodies of the royal families of the age. 

 We know that the slight improvement in the condition of 

 the atmosphere was responded to by the introduction of 

 a few air-breathers of sluggish and imperfect respiration. 

 The name of the oldest air-breathing animal at present 

 known to have lived upon our earth is Telerpeton JElginense. 

 Its remains have been found in the south of Scotland, in a 

 yellow sandstone supposed to be of the same age as the 

 Old Red Sandstone. The same rock has furnished some 

 other remains, formerly supposed to be the vestiges of 

 fishes, but now known to be the remains of reptiles ; and 

 geologists are not by any means of one accord in the opin- 



