90 Feather stonhaugh^s Geological Report. 



over hundreds of square miles, and constantly distinguished 

 by the same peculiar species of fossil shells." 



But, as these new genera come on the stage, the saurian 

 reptiles disappear, and are replaced by crocodiles coming near 

 to existing species. Ammonites and belemnites cease, and 

 the buccinea begin to increase. Many of the fish in the lower 

 part of the group are now extinct, but the greater part of the 

 genera approach the living ones, and are most analogous to 

 those now found in the tropical seas. The mastodon, the ele- 

 phant, and the rhinoceros, appear in the upper formations, as 

 well as on the existing surface, both in Europe and America. 

 The vegetation of these periods is the converse of what it 

 appeared to be in its dawn, dicotyledons, or plants having 

 bark, wood, and pith, being the most numerous, and cryptoga- 

 mous plants, without sexual organs, being least in number, in 

 accordance with the present order of nature. 



In looking over this imperfect, but still faithful, as far as facts 

 are concerned, sketch of the geological state of the planet, the 

 student will perceive the elevated character of this science, 

 furnishing, as it does, such conclusive reasonings for natural 

 theology. In all these phenomena we see the evidences of 

 design. If we try them by physical laws, the spheroidal form 

 of the earth reveals to us its once fluid state, and chemistry 

 informs us it was igneous fluidity. Here we see the truly 

 magnificent means provided for causing " the dry land to ap- 

 pear," through the once circumambient waters of the globe. 

 Every new exertion of this subterranean power is a page in 

 its ancient history, and as history shows the beginnings of 

 nations and their progress onwards to civilization, so does 

 each additional formation of rocks, with its imbedded fossils 

 of distinct species, from the earliest zoophytes to the elephant, 

 show the design of creation was a progressive one, whether 

 we look to the aquatic or the terrestrial organic bodies. For 

 those ancient remains do not consist of forms and of a struc- 

 ture so strange as to separate them entirely from the more 



