48 
Geology op Sydney. 
which it was peopled, of their habits and domestic 
economy, how they lived, how they died, and how they 
were buried in those graves, from which, after the 
lapse of we know not how many ages, they now come 
forth into the light of the day. As it is, however, we 
can but gaze and wonder. We have nothing here but 
the relics of death and destruction; there is no feeling, 
no memory, no voice, in these dry bones ; no living 
tenant in these hollow skulls, to recount to us the 
history of former times. 
“So thinks and reasons the ordinary observer, 
lint far different is the language of the geologist. 
These dry and withered bones, he tells us, are gifted 
with memory and speech; and, though the language 
they speak may seem at first unfamiliar and obscure, 
it is not on that account beyond our comprehension. 
Like the birds, reptiles, fish, and other symbols, 
inscribed on the obelisks of ancient Egypt, these bones 
and shells stored up in the crust of the earth, have a 
hidden meaning which it is the business of Science to 
search out and explain. They are Nature’s hiero- 
glyphics, which she has impressed upon her works to 
carry down to remote ages the memory of the revo- 
lutions through which our Globe haspassed; and, when 
we come to understand them aright, they do unfold to 
us the story of that ancient world to which they 
belonged.” 1 
o 
1 Molloy, “ Geology and Revelation,” p, 235. 
