398 CONSISTENCY OF GEOLOGY WITH SACRED HISTORY. 



ing, however, the entire extinction of all the animals of a particular 

 race ; a multitude were entombed, as is proved by their remains, but 

 the species often survived ; in the mean time, new races were created 

 and petrified in the forming rocks : again perhaps, the diminished 

 race peopled the waters anew, and their relics were solidified in a new 

 deposition, and so on in succession. 



Whether animals and vegetables were deposited in the ocean, or in 

 seas, in lakes, rivers or estuaries, it is easy to imagine, that if all the 

 causes necessary to produce the events, were in successive operation, 

 they might follow each other in the order supposed ; and that this 

 was the fact, cannot be reasonably doubted, any more than that an 

 edifice, having granite for its foundation, and sandstone for its base- 

 ment, and marble for its superstructure, and wood for its roof, and 

 lead, zinc or iron for its covering was actually constructed of these 

 materials, by the architect and connected in that order by his intelli- 

 gent design. 



The great truths of geology are few, simple and intelligible ; need- 

 ing nothing but the application of a sound judgment, enlightened by 

 science, to the accurate observation of facts, which can often be dis- 

 tinctly observed, and the order of their succession ascertained, wheth- 

 er the proximate causes and the immediate circumstances can be dis- 

 covered or not. 



It is a supposition, altogether inadmissible, and unworthy of a se- 

 rious answer, that the animal and vegetable races, entombed in such 

 profusion, and buried often under entire mountain ranges, or firmly 

 cemented into their very bosom, were created as we find them. On 

 the contrary, there can be no doubt whatever, that they were once 

 living beings, performing the part belonging to their respective races, 

 and that at their death, or soon after, they were consolidated, in the 

 then concreting and forming rocky strata, or that they were, in vari- 

 ous instances, overwhelmed by igneous or diluvial catastrophes. 



Animal Remains in Secondary and other Rocks. 



The older secondary rocks often abound in shells of molluscous 

 animals, principally of extinct genera, and there is a progression 

 through the more recent strata, exhibiting a greater and greater ap- 

 proximation towards the more complicated structure of the most per- 

 fect animals ; while the newer rocks of this class, and of the strata 

 that lie upon them, including the tertiary, contain reptiles, fish, and 

 even birds, and terrestrial quadrupeds. 



