GENERAL OBJECTS OF THIS WORK. 
9 * 
fhe second volume, or Part III., being exclusively devoted to the description of 
Organic Remains, necessarily constitutes the great mass of evidence which practical 
geologists and palaeontologists will require. 
This brief exposition of the objects we have laboured to attain, will, we trust, 
suffice to enable our readers to judge of the success with which our leading views 
have been developed. A few years ago only, when unable to indicate the first 
created animals, or the exact relative places occupied by some of the earliest forma- 
tions, we were compelled to trace the sequence downwards by commencing with 
deposits previously analysed, proceeding thence to those of anterior date 1 ; but now 
having learnt to decipher the very first letters in the long records of animal life, 
VVe assume a more distinct position as historians, and exhibit in their natural order, 
the successive organic features which appear in the stony legend of the earth, from 
their earliest dawn to the present condition of the planet. 
In a word, after a patient study of the types of palaeozoic life, we can now 
arlessly assert, that the geological history or sequence of the earliest races of 
fossil animals is firmly established. Its truth is sustained by the display of forms, 
which mark the period when the first vestiges of life can be discovered, as well as 
the following successive creations ; and thus whilst, with the exception of one 
sacred record, we can truly say, that the origin of the greatest empires of man is 
ne m fable and superstition, the hard and indelible register, as preserved for 
out inspection in the great book of ancient Nature, is at length interpreted and 
ead off with clearness and precision. 
Passing, however, from these grand, general considerations, to which we may be 
1 ardoned for alluding, since they bear so directly on the sublimity and truthful- 
ness of geological science, we now proceed to the special objects of our own 
undertaking. 
1 See the ' Silurian System,’ and the plan pursued in that work (passim). 
c 
o 
