Z PAL/EONTOLOGY. 



extinct animals ; and much further insight has been carried 

 into the true system of classification since palaeontology 

 expanded our survey of the animal kingdom. 



But no collateral science has profited so much by palae- 

 ontology as that which teaches the structure of the earth's 

 crust, with the time, order, and mode of formation of its 

 constituent stratified and unstratified parts. Geology, indeed, 

 in her recent progress, seems to have left her old hand- maiden 

 mineralogy to lean upon her young and vigorous offspring, the 

 science of organic remains. 



By this science the law of the geographical distribution 

 of animals, as deduced from existing species, is shewn to have 

 been in force during periods of time long antecedent to human 

 history, or to any evidence of human existence ; and yet, in 

 relation to the whole known period of life-phenomena upon 

 this planet, to have been a comparatively recent result of 

 geological forces determining the present configuration and 

 position of continents. Hereby, palaeontology throws light 

 upon a most interesting branch of geographical science, that, 

 viz., which relates to former configurations of the earth's 

 surface, and to other dispositions of land and sea than prevail 

 at the present day. 



Palaeontology shews that climate has changed in the same 

 latitude from warm to cold and from cold to warm, in a degree 

 greater than any recorded in human history, and thus supplies 

 meteorology with a most interesting though obscure problem 

 in regard to the physical conditions of such alternations. 



Finally, palaeontology has yielded most important facts in 

 the highest range of knowledge to which the human intellect 

 aspires. It teaches that the globe allotted to man has revolved 

 in its orbit through a period of time so vast, that the mind, 

 in the endeavour to realize it, is strained by an effort like 

 that by which it strives to conceive the space dividing the 

 solar system from the most distant nebulae. 



