134 
GEOLOGY OF THE SECOND DISTRICT. 
with their mighty waters. The earth has had its stormy periods, without doubt; life has often 
been at the mercy of an agitated tumultuous ocean ; the earth has rocked with earthquakes, 
mountains have been upheaved from the deep, long lines of coasts have been reclaimed from 
the ocean’s sway ; living beings have had their allotted times of existence, and have ceased 
to exist; but all this has been but the still small voice, when compared with the tremendous 
convulsions taught by modern geologists. We must look at the past and present as belong¬ 
ing to one system, and to all the changes which have taken place as limited in degree and 
extent. The Lingula which existed at the era of the Potsdam sandstone, was fitted by its 
structure to exist now, for aught we can know to the contrary. The waters and air are as 
compatible to the existence of the Ichthyosaurus and Mastodon now, as in the era of the lias, 
or the period preceding the flood. 
The wonders of sober truth ought to be sufficient to satisfy the boldest minds, and to gra¬ 
tify the imaginations of the cultivators and lovers of positive knowledge, without seeking to 
magnify and distort the operations of nature, and to assimilate them to the dreams of an agi¬ 
tated and sickly mind. 
The above remarks have no reference to the limitation of animated existences, for we know 
of no limitation which shall compass the forms of living beings ; truth treads closely upon the 
wonderful and extravagant; and we realize in nature, both in the past and present, what to the 
untaught and unobserving would pass for the picturing dreams of a half wakeful condition. One 
sees that the possibilities of existence has no limit, though nature constructs and builds up 
her forms from models of the simplest kind, and often appears to husband her resources ; yet 
often do we meet her under forms and conditions so extraordinary that we have feared we 
should charge her with extravagance if we received and admitted only the truth, or believed 
what our eyes were permitted to see. These views by no means conflict with the preceding. 
The physical world is adapted to living beings; these adaptations are strictly limited, and 
will not permit of wide deviations from a certain standard under the present system upon 
which beings are organized. The extremes of heat, and cold are within narrow bounds to the 
unprotected ; the atmosphere above and the waters beneath, can suffer but little change be¬ 
fore it strikes a death blow to the organization of every being within their media. 
We may be assured that it is the will of nature to preserve and protect the races, till their 
destiny is completed; and we may reasonably doubt the teachings of geologists when they 
would have us believe that whole races have been extirpated at once. Individuals suffer, but 
the race may live on, till the powers of organization are too enfeebled to continue their kind, 
or to wage a longer warfare with the elements. 
