526 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



allotted to man has revolved in its orbit through a period of time so vast, that 

 the mind, in the endeavour to realize it, is strained by an effort like that by 

 which it strives to conceive the space dividing the solar system from the most 

 distant nebulae. 



" Palaeontology has shown that, from the inconceivably remote period of the 

 deposition of the Cambrian rocks, the earth has been vivified by the sun's light 

 and heat, has been fertilized by refreshing showers, and washed by tidal waves ; 

 that the ocean not only moved in orderly oscillations regulated, as now, by sun 

 and moon, but was rippled and agitated by winds and storms ; that the atmos- 

 phere, besides these movements, was healthily influenced by clouds and vapours, 

 rising, condensing, and falling in ceaseless circulation. With such conditions of 

 life, palaeontology demonstrates that life has been enjoyed during the same count- 

 less thousands of years ; and that with life, from the beginning, there has been 

 death. The earliest testimony of the living thing, whether coral, crustacean, or 

 shell, in the oldest fossiliferous rock, is at the same time proof that it died. At no 

 period does it appear that the gift of life has been monopolized by contemporary 

 individuals through a stagnant sameness of untold time, but it has been handed 

 down from generation to generation, and successively enjoyed by the countless 

 thousands that constitute the species. Palaeontology further teaches, that not 

 only the individual, but the species perishes ; that as death is balanced by gene- 

 ration, so extinction has been concomitant with the creative power which has 

 produced a succession of species ; and furthermore, that, in this succession, there 

 has been 'an advance and progress in the main.' Thus we learn that the 

 creative force has not deserted the earth during any of the epochs of geological 

 time that have succeeded to the first manifestation of such force ; and that, in 

 respect to no one class of animals, has the operation of creative force been 

 limited to one geological epoch ; and perhaps the most important and significant 

 result of palaeontological research has been the establishment of the axiom of 

 the continuous operation of the ordained becoming of the species of living things." 

 (" Palaeontology," 2nd edition, p. 2.) 



In a diagram illustrating the above generalizations, the genetic succession of 

 animal life is summed up. It appears from this corrected statement of the latest 

 discoveries in palaeontology, that the class of fishes makes its first appearance in 

 the Upper Silurian strata, and Prof. Owen draws the conclusion that " those spe- 

 cies which are most useful to man have immediately preceded him in the order of 

 creation," and that they " have superseded species which, to judge by the bony 

 garpikes (Lepidosteus) were much less fitted to afford mankind a sapid and whole - 

 some food." 



The earliest known reptile is found, not, as generally supposed, in the Devo- 

 nian age, but in the Coal measures, and all the earliest created forms belong to 

 the lowest or Ganocephalous group, analogous to the Lcpidosirens, or mud-fishes, 

 which attracted so much attention at the Crystal Palace some time ago. It is 

 not until the Tertiary times that the reptiles approach in organization to those 

 of the present day. 



The class birds is represented by footprints in the Upper Trias, in which 

 stratum, however, no evidence has. yet been found of actual bones, which more 

 conclusive proof is not found below the Lower Chalk. All the earliest created 

 buds exhibit the characters of the order Cursores, " characters of the embryo or 

 immature individuals of the " higher orders of birds, and are consequently placed 

 at the lowest step of the scale of ornithic organization. 



Tn the higher class mammalia it is most interesting to find again that the 

 greatest part of the earliest created mammalia belong to the lowest orders of the 

 class. We find marsupials in the Upper Trias (Microlestcs), and in the Oolitic beds. 

 We find a solitary small vegetable feeding pachyderm Stcrcognatlius in the Oolite, 

 and a doubtful cetacean in the Grcensand. But it is not till the Eocene division 

 of tertiary time that we find the class reach its cuhninant development. The 

 earliest, created mammals were the nearest to the ideal archetype. The fossil 

 AnoplotJu res and Palazothcres resembled each other in their dentition more than 

 the existing musk-deer and tapirs. The former extinct animals, however, gave 



