100 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



reptiles and birds in the fifth day, synchronizes and corresponds with the be- 

 ginning of the Mesozoic period ; and that of man at the close of the sixth day, 

 with the commencement of the modern era in geology. These four great coin- 

 cidents are so much more than we could have expected in records so very 

 different in their nature and origin that we need not pause to search for others 

 of a more obscure character, * * * In both records the ocean gives birth 

 to the first dry land, and it is the sea that is first inhabited, yet both lead at 

 least to the suspicion that a state of igneous fluidity preceded the primitive 

 universal ocean. In scripture the original prevalence of the ocean is distinctly 

 stated, and all geologists are agreed that iii the early fossiliferous periods the 

 sea must have prevailed much more extensively than at present. Scripture 

 also expressly states that the waters were the birth-place of the earliest 

 animals ; and geology has as yet discovered in the whole Silurian series no 

 terrestrial animal, though marine creatures are extremely abundant ; and 

 though air-breathing creatures are found in the later Paleozoic, they are, with 

 the exception of insects, of that semi-amphibious character which is proper to 

 alluvial flats and the deltas of rivers. * * * Both records concur in 

 mamtaiaing what is usually termed the doctrine of existing causes in geology. 

 Scriptui'e and geology alike show that since the beginniag to the fifth day, or 

 Paleozoic period, the inorganic world has continued under the dominion of the 

 same causes that now regulate its changes and processes. The sacred narrative 

 gives no hint of any creative interposition in this department, after the fourth 

 day ; and geology assures us that all the rocks with which it is acquainted 

 have been produced by the same causes that are now throwing down detritus 

 in the bottom of the waters, or bringing up volcanic products from the interior 

 of the earth. * * * Lastly, both records represent man as the last of 

 God's works, and the culminating point of the whole creation. * * * Man 

 is the capital of the column, and if marred and defaced by moral evil, the sym- 

 metry of the whole is to be restored not by rejecting hirn altogether, like the 

 extinct species of ancient times, and replacing him by another, but by recasting 

 him in the image of his Divine Redeemer. Man, though recently introduced, 

 is to exist eternally. He is in one or another state of being to be the witness 

 of all future changes of the earth. He has the option before him of being one 

 Mith his j\Iaker, and sharing in a future glorious and finally renovated condition 

 of our planet, or of sinking" into endless degradation." 



First Traces of Life on the Earth. By S. J. Mackie, P.G.S. London: 

 Groombridge and Sons. 1860. 



Tliis little book, designed to display as a simple but highly instructive geo- 

 logical lesson the first appearance of animated beings on our planet, as indicated 

 by the oldest fossils yet discovered, is now issued. 



Emanating as it does from the pen and pencil of the editor of this magazine, 

 it would be obviously out of })lace to review it here. We therefore content 

 ourselves with expressing the hope that it may be favourably received by the 

 ])ublic; and that, in turning the thoughts of its readers towai"ds this one event- 

 fid i)assage of the past history of our planet, it may become the medium, by 

 directing their minds to the study of tlie beneficent "designs of the Eternal in 

 pji^t ages, to the just comprehension of the aim and pui'pose of the great 

 creative scheme in which we are all acting oiu' parts. 



