256 Marcel de Serres on the Old World 
rous and varied trees of still virgin forests cause him to ex- 
perience, by their immobility as much as by their size. He 
would have found everywhere a depressing uniformity, and 
would have seen, in the most different and remote countries; 
the same species reproduced, with the same forms and the 
same aspect. 
The forests of the ancient world, independently of the 
monotony of their verdure, would have been still more pain- 
ful to traverse from the circumstance that no voice could ever 
be heard in them to interrupt the silence or dissipate the gloom. 
Do you ask if such a world could be made for us, and if we 
would not have been appalled at encountering in our fields 
lizards as large as whales, or beholding, flying in the air, 
dragons with murderous teeth, which, like Milton’s Satan, 
might accomplish the most varied purposes? (See Note 17). 
A characteristic difference in the vegetation of ancient 
times, was its want of variety compared with that which now 
adorns the surface of the earth. Thus, the flora of the epochs 
anterior to the appearance of Man, was composed of scarcely 
2000 species, while we are now acquainted with more than 
80,000, and probably upwards of 100,000 exist on the surface 
of the globe. 
The same peculiarities are observed in regard to animals ; 
and, to mention only one example, it may be stated that, 
instead of the 80,000 species of insects now contained in 
our collections, the fossiliferous strata of the ancient world 
afford us scarcely a thousand (See Note 18). 
Do not suppose that the vegetables and animals met with in 
a fossil state belong to the same species as those living in the 
present day. Recent sedimentary formations are, in fact, the 
only ones in which we find species having such a degree of 
analogy to actual races that we cannot distinguish them. 
Setting aside these rare exceptions, the life of geological 
times, although constantly regulated by the same laws, has 
nothing in common with the new creation, as far as relates 
to its specific types (See Note 19). 
As for the rest, it is not to be denied that Creative Power 
manifests itself as well in causing the ancient races to dis- 
