THE SILURIAN BEACH. 
59 
lias been intended also to be educational for Man, 
and to teach him his own relation to the organic 
world. The embryology of the modern types 
confirms this idea, for here we find an epitome 
of their geological history. The embryo of the 
present Star-Fishes recalls the Crinoids ; the em- 
bryo of the Crab recalls the Trilobites ; the em- 
bryo of the Vertebrates, including even that of 
the higher Mammalia, recalls the ancient Fishes. 
Foes not this fact, that the individual animal in 
its growth recalls the history of its type, prove 
that the Creative Thought in its immediate pres- 
ent action embraces all that has gone before, as 
its first organic expression included all that was 
to come ? The study of Nature in its highest 
meaning shows us the present doubly rich with 
all the past, and the past linked and interwoven 
with the present, not lying divorced and dead 
behind it. 
I have spoken of the Silurian beach as if there 
were but one, not only because I wished to limit 
my sketch, and to attempt at least to give it the 
vividness of a special locality, but also because a 
single such shore will give us as good an idea of 
the characteristic fauna of the time as if we drew 
our material from a wider range. There are, 
however, a great number of parallel ridges be- 
longing to the Silurian and Devonian periods, 
running from east to west, not only through the 
