GO 
THE SILURIAN BEACH. 
State of New York, but far beyond, through the 
States of Michigan and Wisconsin into Minne- 
sota ; one may follow nine or ten such successive 
shores in unbroken lines, from the neighborhood 
of Lake Champlain to the Far West. They have 
all the irregularities of modern sea-sliores, run- 
ning up to form little bays here, and jutting out 
in promontories there ; and upon each one are 
found animals of the same kind, but differing in 
species from those of the preceding. 
Although the early geological periods are more 
legible in North America, because they are ex- 
posed over such extensive tracts of land, yet they 
have been studied in many other parts of the 
globe. In Norway, in Germany, in France, in 
Russia, in Siberia, in Kamtschatka, in parts of 
South America, in short, wherever the civiliza- 
tion of the white race has extended, Silurian de- 
posits have been observed, and everywhere they 
bear the same testimony to a profuse and varied 
creation. The earth was teeming then with life 
as now, and in whatever corner of its surface the 
geologist finds the old strata, they hold a dead 
fauna as numerous as that which lives and moves 
above it. Nor do we find that there was any 
gradual increase or decrease of any organic forms 
at the beginning and close of the successive peri- 
ods. On the contrary, the opening scenes of 
every chapter in the world’s history have been 
