128 IMPORTANCE OF ORGANIC REMAINS. 
ancient lands. As the forces of rains, torrents, 
and inundations have conveyed this detritus into 
lakes, estuaries, and seas, it is probable that 
many carcases of terrestrial and amphibious 
animals, should also have been drifted to great 
distances by currents which swept such enormous 
quantities of abraded matter from the lands ; and 
accordingly we find, that strata of aqueous for- 
mation have become the common repository not 
only of the Remains of aquatic, but also of ter- 
restrial animals and vegetables. 
The study of these Remains will form our 
most interesting and instructive subject of in- 
quiry, since it is in them that we shall find the 
great master key whereby we may unlock the 
secret history of the earth. They are documents 
which contain the evidences of revolutions and 
catastrophes, long antecedent to the creation of 
the human race ; they open the book of nature, 
and swell the volumes of science, with the 
Records of many successive series of animal 
and vegetable generations, of which the Creation 
and Extinction would have been equally un- 
known to us, but for recent discoveries in the 
science of Geology. 
