§ 48. 



RETROSPECT. 447 



and his palaces :* — while from these various strata, the 

 Geologist gathers together the relics of the beings that- 

 lived and died in periods of unfathomable antiquity, and of 

 which the very types have long since been obliterated from 

 the face of the earth, and endeavours by these natural 

 memorials to determine the nature and succession of those 

 physical revolutions, which preceded all human history and 

 tradition. 



48. Retrospect. — Such is a plain enunciation of the 

 results of our investigations ; but I will embody these 

 inductions in a more impressive form, by employing the 

 metaphor of an Arabian writer, and imagining some higher 

 intelligence from another sphere to describe the physical 

 mutations of which he may be supposed to have taken cog- 

 nizance, from the period when the forests of Portland were 

 flourishing, to the present time. 



" Countless ages ere man was created," he might say, 

 " I visited these regions of the earth, and beheld a beautiful 

 country of vast extent, diversified by hill and dale, with its 

 rivulets, streams, and mighty rivers, flowing through fertile 

 plains. Groves of palms and ferns, and forests of coniferous 

 trees, clothed its surface ; and I saw monsters of the reptile 

 tribe, so huge that nothing among the existing races can 

 compare with them, basking on the banks of its rivers, and 

 roaming through its forests ; while in its fens and marshes, 

 were sporting thousands of crocodiles and turtles. Winged 

 reptiles of strange forms shared wdth birds the dominion of 

 the air, and the waters teemed with fishes, shells, and Crus- 

 tacea. — And after the lapse of many ages I again visited 

 the earth ; and the country, with its innumerable dragon- 

 forms, and its tropical forests, all had disappeared, and an 

 ocean had usurped their place. And its waters teemed 

 with nautili, ammonites, and other cephalopoda, of races 

 now extinct ; and innumerable fishes and marine reptiles. 

 * The Isle of Portland. 



