Theoretical Considerations. 



245 



It is certainly an interesting thought, that this delightful valley, 

 which now forms so charming a residence for man, once constituted, 

 and for an immense period, the bottom of a tropical ocean, where 

 gigantic Gorgoniae, certainly 20, and perhaps 40 feet high, formed 

 coral groves, and Fucoideae more numerous, flourished. The aston- 

 ishing change brought about in the course of ages, exalts our con- 

 ceptions of the wisdom and extent of the plans of the Deity ; and 

 leads us to anticipate future changes, whenever those plans require. 



I have said it was a tropical ocean. I mean that its temperature 

 was much higher than that of the ocean which now washes our 

 shores. For otherwise, how could sea-fans, larger than any which 

 our tropical seas now produce, have been sustained. The fact that 

 in early times, while the secondary rocks were depositing, the climate 

 in high latitudes must have been much warmer than at present, is, 

 indeed, so completly established by researches in other parts of the 

 world, that it would be strange if we should not find the same thing 

 to be true on this continent. But the few facts which I have detailed, 

 that throw any light on this enquiry, all tend to show that there is no 

 exception here to the general law. New England certainly had a 

 tropical climate when the ocean that deposited the new red sandstone 

 stood over it. And Adolphe Brongniart says, that two species of 

 Fucoides, found in the limestone of Canada, approach very near to a 

 genus of these plants that now grows only in tropical seas : a fact 

 that tends to corroborate the views which have been presented rela- 

 tive to the new red sandstone of the Connecticut valley. 



A careful examination of the fossils of this sandstone, will con- 

 vince any one that their resemblance to any now found living on the 

 globe, is very faint : so that probably they cannot be referred to the 

 same genera, much less to the same species. This too accords with 

 the facts that have been observed in other parts of the world. The 

 farther down in the series of rocks we penetrate, the more unlike 

 living animals and plants are those found in a fossil state. And it 

 seems to be now pretty well established, that there have been several 

 successive creations and extinctions of animals and plants on our 

 globe, before the production of its present organized beings. It is 

 not certainly ascertained how many of these destructions and renew- 

 als have taken place. Adolphe Brongniart thinks that four changes 

 of this kind are clearly discernible among fossil vegetables.* Hence 



* Dictionnaire D'Historie Naturelle, Art. Vegetaux fosasiles. 



