LOWER SILURIAN FOSSILS 



219 



a learned society as wholly and nothing else but a con- 

 demnation of the Vestiges !* 



A leading objection, with regard to the first fossil iferous 

 formation (Lower Silurian) is, that it does not solely pre- 

 sent animals of the lowest sub-kingdom, as corals and 

 encrinites, but also examples of the two next higher sub- 

 kingdoms, the articulata and mollusca, some of the latter 

 being of the highest order, the cephalopods. The latter 

 particular is what is chiefly insisted upon. 



At the time when I wrote, it was understood that the 

 highest orders of mollusca were not found in the first fos- 

 siliferous rocks. Professor Phillips, in 1839 (Treatise on 

 Geology,) said, expressly, with regard to what was then 

 called the Clay-slate and Grawacke system, " No gastero- 

 pods or cephalopods are as yet mentioned in these rocks 

 in Britain ; and we do not feel sufficiently acquainted 

 with the geological age of the limestones of the Hartz to 

 introduce any of the fossils of that argillaceous range of 

 mountains." So much as a justification of the view given 

 of the Clay-slate fossils in my first edition. Since then, 

 this formation, as it exists in England, has been found to 

 contain gasteropods and cephalopods, though not of such 

 high forms as afterwards appeared. I might here repeat 

 what was remarked in the later editions of the Vestiges, 

 u Even though the cephalopoda could be shown as per- 

 vading all the lowest fossiliferous strata, what more would 

 the fact denote than that, in the first seas capable of con- 

 taining any kind of animal life, the creative energy ad- 

 vanced it, in the space of one formation (no one can tell 

 how long a time this might be,) to the highest forms pos- 

 sible in that element, excepting such as were of verte- 

 brate structure." I might add, that this was no great 

 advance in comparison with the whole line of the animal 

 kingdom, if we may take as a criterion on this point the 

 analogous progress of an embryo of the highest animals, 

 as the portion of that progress representing the organiza- 

 tion of the invertebrated animals is only the first month. 

 I might here also revert to the book for some views with 

 respect to the space required for such a development. 

 According to the plan of animated nature, to which I 

 have made approaches in the later editions, we have not 



* Sse Examination of the theory contained in Vestiges of the 

 Natural History of Creation. By the Rev. A. Hume. Liverpool, 

 Whitby, 184*. 



