SILLIMAN'S INTRODUCTION. 17 



of those mighty empires, those successions of monarchs, heroes, 

 and demi-gods, for so many thousand years ? Let us look forward 

 for ten or twenty thousand years to come, during which time, we 

 will suppose that plagues, famine, wars, and earthquakes, shall have 

 made great havoc in the world, is it not highly probable, that at the 

 end of such a period, pillars, vases, and statues, now in being, of 

 granite, or porphyry, or jasper, (stones of such hardness as we 

 know them to have lasted two thousand years above ground, without 

 any considerable alteration,) would bear record of these and past 

 ages ? Or that some of our current coins might then be dug up, or 

 old walls, and the foundations of buildings, show themselves, as 

 well as the shells and stones of the 'primeval world, which are pre- 

 served down to our times."* This remarkable passage proves that 

 the great man from whom it fell, saw the geological argument in a 

 true light, and felt its force to such a degree as to convince him of 

 the great antiquity of the earth, which he justly viewed, as in no 

 way inconsistent with the comparatively recent origin of man, or 

 with the historical account of both events contained in the Genesis. 

 It is easy to understand how such a mind would have been con- 

 vinced, warmed, and excited even to enthusiasm, by the discoveries 

 that have burst upon us during the last fifty years. 



9. Organic Re^iains. — As we descend from the alluvial soil 

 under our feet, through the strata, the lowest of which lies upon 

 the granite, or the early slates, we are seldom without the records 

 of life, in ages long past, and those records are drawn both from 

 the animal and vegetable world. 



Early Animals. — Shells of molluscous and testaceous animals 

 are everywhere seen ; their forms, their casts, their substance, are 

 apparently preserved in stone, but generally converted, by the sub- 

 stitution of mineral matter, into true fossils. Myriads on myriads 

 of these things are found, not merely in the superficial strata, but 

 in the heart of the mountains, and at profound depths, forming an 

 essential part of the solid framework of the globe.f The animals 

 and plants are not accidental resemblances, but authentic specimens 

 of ancient organisms, enclosed in the strata and mountains, as the 

 materials, in mechanical or chemical suspension in the waters, con- 

 creted around them. 



* Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher, vol. ii. pp. 84, 85. 1732. 

 t See the list of strata formed wholly, or in great part, of organic remains, in 

 our Author's Eighth Lecture; and in his " Medate of Creation." 



C 



