PRIMARY STRATIFIED ROCKS. 55 
Having this evidence both of the beginning 
and end of several systems of organic life, each 
affording internal proof of the repeated exercise 
of creative design, and wisdom, and power, we 
are at length conducted back to a period anterior 
to the earliest of these systems; a period in 
which we find a series of primary strata, wholly 
destitute of organic remains ; and from this 
circumstance, we infer their deposition to have 
preceded the commencement of organic life. 
Those who contend that life may have existed 
during the formation of the primary strata, and 
the animal remains have been obliterated by 
the effects of heat, on strata nearest to the gra- 
nite, do but remove to one point further back- 
wards the first term of the finite series of organic 
beings ; and there still remains beyond this point 
an antecedent period, in which a state of total 
fusion pervaded the entire materials of the fun- 
damental granite ; and one universal mass of 
was endowed, at the time of its creation, with the attributes and 
organization by which it is now distinguished." 
Mr. De la Beche also says (Geological Researches, 1834, p. 
239, 1st edit. 8vo.) '' There can be no doubt that many plants can 
adapt themselves to altered conditions, and many animals ac- 
commodate themselves to different climates ; but when we view 
the subject generally, and allow full importance to numerous 
exceptions, terrestrial plants and animals seem intended to fill 
the situations they occupy, as these were fitted for them ; they 
appear created as the conditions arose, the latter not causing a 
modification in previously existing forms productive of new 
species." 
