45 
limited, I have been obliged to leave out many well 
worth visiting. Indeed every bit of rock that shows 
itself in this neighbourhood deserves notice. Fossils 
abound everywhere, but perhaps not in such numbers, 
or in such choice specimens, as at the places I have 
described. 
One of the great charms to me in fossil collecting 
is, that we never know what me may not find. A single 
blow of the hammer may bring to light an entirely new 
species, a new medal of past life, that lived during the 
vast ages that preceded man’s existence on the globe. 
From the age of the formation of the lowest sedimen¬ 
tary rock up to that of the highest, life has existed 
upon the earth; and from the dawn of creation to the 
present age there has been a gradual progression of 
species, some races of beings dying out to give place to 
others of a higher order, until at iength man, the last 
and most finished of the Almighty’s works, appeared 
upon the scene, endowed with a mind capable of 
understanding a few of the wonderful things revealed 
by each medal of creation that is stored up in the book 
of nature, and there waiting his enquiries. Yet man’s 
time will surely come—he will also perish; but we may 
be sure, from what geology teaches us, that something 
superior will arise after him, which may be man in his 
perfect condition, in as near an approach to God as 
created can be to the Creator ; then this will end the 
scroll of time—this will be the finishing stroke to 
geology. 
“ Fair Nature, tliee with all thy various charms. 
I’ll fondly press, and clasp within my arms.” 
