THE GEOLOGIST 
SEPTEMBER, 1859. 
THE COMMON FOSSILS OF THE BRITISH ROCKS. 
By S. J. Mackie, F.G.S., F.S.A. 
(Continued from i^age 192.) 
Chap. 4. First Traces of the Snccessinn- of Life. — The Lower SiJxrirai 
Itocls. 
How sweet the communing with oneself; the thoughts that rise 
and flee ; the dreams of soHtude, away from the busy hum of men — 
quiet — alone Avith God, thinking of His wonders and His powers, 
the beauty and skillfulness of His works. As late at night I sat at 
my open study -window gazing over the forest of roofs and chimneys 
of the sleeping city, with its towers and church-spires pointing to 
the holy heavens and star-lit sky, for the first time I heard the 
great bell of Westminster toll out the midnight hour— sonorous, 
solemn, slow, as if clinging with throbbing pulse and quivering 
frame to Time's flowing garments to arrest him in his sturdy march. 
Solemn and slow the changing hours of past creations have passed 
away, with no " Big Ben" to mark their passage ; but solemn and 
slow has Time himself impressed his footsteps on the yielding sands 
of earth, and left us his own record of his onward course. 
In this chapter we pass on to the first change of scene, and as we 
found it necessary, at the commencement of our work, to have a 
clear idea of the succession of the gTeat rock-masses of which the 
fossiliferous crust of our globe is constituted, so we shall find it 
imperative for a right comprehension and a clear understanding of 
the succession of organic life upon our planet to have a knowledge 
of the great types upon whicli the various members of the animal 
VOL. II. D D 
