502 LINK SUPPLIED BY CYCADEiE. 
these Prototypes of the family of Cycadese 
ceased to exist, the fact of their containing so 
many combinations of peculiarities identical with 
those of existing Cycadese, connects these an- 
cient arrangements in the Physiology of fossil 
Botany, with those which now characterize 
one of the most remarkable families among, 
existing plants. In virtue of these peculiar 
structures, the living Cycadese form an im- 
portant link, which no other Tribe of plants 
supplies, connecting the great family of Coniferae, 
with the families of Palms and Ferns, and thus 
fill up a blank, which would otherwise have 
separated these three great natural divisions of 
dicotyledonous, monocotyledonous, and acotyle- 
donous plants. 
The full development of this link in the Se- 
condary periods of Geological history, affords an 
important evidence of the Uniformity of Design 
which now pervades, and ever has pervaded, all 
the laws of vegetable life. 
Facts like these are inestimably precious to 
the Natural Theologian ; for they identify, as it 
w^ere, the Artificer, by details of manipulation 
throughout his work. They appeal to the Phy- 
siologist, in language more commanding than 
human Eloquence ; the voice of very stocks and 
stones, that have been buried for countless ages 
in the deep recesses of the earth, proclaiming 
the universal agency of One all-directing, all- 
