1 IG PROOFS OF LONG LAPSE OF TIME. 
sometimes losing whole families, which are re 
placed by new ones, have pervaded the entire 
range of fossiliferous formations. 
The most prolific source of organic remains 
has been the accumulation of the shelly covering® 
of animals which occupied the bottom of the sen 
during a long series of consecutive generations- 
A large proportion of the entire substance oi 
many strata is composed of myriads of these 
shells reduced to a comminuted state by tU® 
long continued movements of water . In other 
strata, the presence of countless multitudes n 
unbroken corallines, and of fragile shells, having 
their most delicate spines, still attached and nn 
disturbed, shows that the animals which forinen 
them, lived and died upon or near the spet 
where these remains are found. 
Strata thus loaded with the exuviae of innH' 
merable generations of organic beings, atfor 
strong proof of the lapse of long periods of tiine> 
wherein the animals from which they have hem’ 
derived lived and multiplied and died, at tb^ 
bottom of seas which once occupied the site 
our present continents and islands. Repeat^ 
changes in species, both of animals and veg® 
tables, in succeeding members of different fori*^ 
ations, give further evidence, not only of 
lapse of time, but also of important changes 
the physical condition and climate of the ancie*’ 
earth. 
Besides these more obvious remains of T®* 
