innocent pursuits, it should not rank low In 

 the scale of benefits. 



From an examination of the various strata, 

 as discovered in mines or exposed in cliffs, we 

 have been taught that the surface of the earth 

 has at times been violently agitated, and that 

 there have been intervals of rest, in which the 

 growth of animal, vegetable and mineral sub- 

 stances has regularly proceeded : but however 

 rugged the surface of the earth, and broken its 

 strata, very few determinate ideas could be 

 formed, were they not accompanied, as they are, 

 with the remains of organized substances. 



The celebrated Cuvier, in his Memoir on 

 Fossil Bones, thus commences his observa- 

 tions : '' It is now universally known that the 

 globe which v/e inhabit, on every side presents 

 irresistible proofs of the greatest revolutions : 

 the varied productions of living nature, which 

 embellish the surface, is but a garment cover- 

 in p* the ruins of an antecedent state of na- 

 ture. Whether v.e turn up the plains, v.he- 

 ther we penetrate the cavernous mountains, 

 or climb their broken sides, the remnants of 



