TRANSMISSION OF FOSSILS. 
169 
delicate sea-weed, extending its tiny 
branches on the surface of the stone. 
By what a wonderful process has this 
waif been drifted down the stream of the un- 
reckonable past to be cast up at the feet of the 
explorer of to-day. What revolutions of the 
solid globe, what convulsions, elevations, 
fires and floods, have left it unscathed, a 
silent testimony of still earlier phenomena; 
the witness from an epoch so mysteriously 
remote, that it appears linked rather to 
past eternity! 
“ Thus He who makes and peoples worlds still works 
In secrecy, behind a veil of light; 
Yet through that hiding of his power, such glimpses 
Of glory break as strike presumption blind, 
But humble and exalt the humbled soul. 
Whose faith the things invisible discerns, 
An4 God informing, guiding, ruling, all:— 
He speaks, ’tis done ; commands, and it stands fast. 
He calls an island from the deep,—it comes ; 
Ordains it culture,--soil and seed are there; 
Appoints inhabitants,—from climes unknown. 
By undiscoverable paths, they flock 
Thither; like passage-birds to us in spring; 
They were not yesterday,—and lo! to-day 
They are, but what keen eye beheld them coming V* 
Montgomery, 
P 
