REVlEWa. 
131 
The subject of raLi^oiitolngy is then taken up, and regarded in the light of the 
continuance t)f God's creative energy and providence ; each successive Mfe-stage 
being subjected to analysis and special notice in descending series from the most 
recent with the remains of man and of his works through the ages of gi'eat beasts, 
of gigantic reptiles, of i)rofuse vegetation, of trilobites, to that of primeval worm- 
tracks and rain-drops. Everywliere in these rocks " we find the clearest evidences 
of adaptation in the character of the animal-remains of their successive beds. One 
kind of life flourishes in the fine shales, the consolidated imj)alpable mud of the 
early seas ; another affects the coarser sandstone, loving the littoral conditions 
suited to its existence ; a thuxl abounds only in shell-sand ; whilst the most 
numerous occupy the calcareous zones, which are the chief sepulchres of the remote 
past." The first appearance of every creature in the geological scale is not in a 
rudimentary or imperfect condition, and so sudden has sometimes been the addition 
of life that one band of the Upper Silurian Formation — the Niagara limestone — 
presents us with 150 new species. The results of extensive observations in various 
regions show that marine species in the olden geolugical periods had a wider range 
than those now living, so that the climatal or physical conditions of the ocean over 
large areas must have been more uniform, although particular localities were 
characterised by the predominance of particular forms. Thus lifting the curtain of 
the past, we are struck by the endless procession of animated existence ajjpearing 
on the stage, moving slowly across it, and visibly ending, not by wom-out life, but 
by changed conditions, nor " can we announce that there have been absolute life- 
break.s, for evidence is continually coming in, showing that such lines do not exist, 
or if existing in one district, do not extend to others." 
" The study of Geology puts to flight for ever the opinion that God has rarely, 
if ever, been actively employed in creation since the issuing of His fiat for its com- 
mencement. There have been no long periods of inaction, positively no rejiose 
whatever of Divine power, no trace of quiescence, no proof of abandomnent for a 
moment." 
From these reflections the author's thoughts turn hopefully to futurity, and he 
concludes " if He has thus cared for the material universe from all eternity, so He 
will for the moral, and the traces of continual provision for the one may be 
well appealed to as tokens of assurance for the other. It is not, therefore, 
as a stranger that the geologi.st opens the Word of God." 
The fourth chapter deals with the history of our globe. In it, of course, the 
high antiquity of our planet is dwelt upon, and a pretty illustration of this 
is thus pleasingly given : " Just as we should learn much of the history of 
England by tracing the fortunes of one of oiu: aristocratic families backward to the 
Norman man-at-arms who came over with the Conqueror, so we may obtain a lively 
impression of the sequences in the geologic past by tracing the fortunes of any 
family which has survived from the earliest times to the present, in the palseonto- 
logical roll." And so Mr. Pattison selects the Lingula, and traces the family- 
pedigi'ee back from the tiny moDuscous inhabitant of the Polynesian coral-reefs 
" beyoTid the time whereof the memoiy of man mnneth not to the contrary," 
beyond "legal memory, whose boundary is the departure of brave Coeur-de-Lion to 
the Crusades— beyond Herodotus, the father of history, from before the voyage of 
the good ship Argo, it has l)een living and flourishing unknown to fame." " It 
may have attracted the attention of the world's grey lathers in their boyhood ; but 
it claims a still higher ancestry, for we find it in pre-historic times." Backward in 
time the pedigi'ee is traced — among the crag shells, in the sands of the cretaceous 
sea, we find it " in the region of the oolites, it takes its place mth the coral then 
growing over the new-made grave of the gigantic saurians, beyond still with the 
marine fossils of the mountain limestone, — in the Devonian and Silurian rocks," 
but we must still press on, " for the little Lingula ascends to the utmost limit of 
organic life ;" and thus, by the aid of Geology, " we carry back into untold ages 
the evidences for God, which the naturalist so triumphantly gathers from the 
creation around." " Palfeontology and mineralogy both tell us that the world has 
a history not recorded, because not i^rofessed to be recorded in the Scriptiu-es ; and 
that the great actor in this history was unquestionably God, ' blessed for ever- 
more.' He has in the Bible given us adequate information to make wise unto 
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