46 PHYSIOGRAPHIC GEOLOGY. 



dividuality apparent even in its plants and animals. The study of the 

 existing Fauna and Flora of the earth brings out this distinctive char- 

 acter of each with great force ; but the review of geological history 

 makes it still more evident, by exhibiting the truth in a continued suc- 

 cession of faunas and floras, giving this individuality a history looking 

 back to " the beginning." 



The great truth is taught by the air and waters, as well as by the 

 lands, that the diversity about us, which seems endless and without 

 order, is an exhibition of perfect system under law. If the earth has 

 its barren ice-fields about the poles, and its deserts, no less barren, 

 toward the equator, they are not accidents in the making, but results 

 involved in the scheme from its very foundation. 



