200 
LIFE OF DEAN BUCKLAND. 
[CH. VIII. 
of fossil organic remains, form perhaps the most striking 
results at which we arrive from the study of geology. It 
must appear almost incredible to those who have not 
minutely attended to natural phenomena, that the micro¬ 
scopic examination of a mass of rude and lifeless limestone 
should often disclose the curious fact, that large proportions 
of its substance have once formed parts of living bodies. 
It is surprising to consider that the walls of our houses are 
sometimes composed of little else than comminuted shells, 
that were once the domicile of other animals, at the bottom 
of ancient seas and lakes. It is marvellous that mankind 
should have gone on for so many centuries in ignorance of 
the fact, which is now so fully demonstrated, that no small 
part of the present surface of the earth is derived from the 
remains of animals that constituted the population of 
ancient seas. Many extensive plains and massive mountains 
form, as it were, the great charnel-houses of preceding 
generations, in which the petrified exuviae of extinct races 
of animals and vegetables are piled into stupendous 
monuments of the operations of life and death, during 
almost immeasurable periods of past time. 4 At the sight 
of a spectacle/ says Cuvier, 4 so imposing, so terrible, as that 
of the wreck of animal life, forming almost the entire soil 
on which we tread, it is difficult to restrain the imagination 
from hazarding some conjectures as to the causes by which 
such great effects have been produced.’ 1 The deeper we 
descend into the strata of the earth, the higher do we ascend 
into the archaeological history of past ages of creation. 
We find successive stages marked by varying forms of 
animal and vegetable life, and these generally differ more 
and more widely from existing species as we go further 
downwards into the receptacles of the wreck of more 
ancient creations. 
44 When we discover a constant and regular assemblage 
of organic remains, commencing with one series of strata, 
and ending with another, which contains a different 
assemblage, we have herein the surest grounds whereon 
1 Cuvier, “Rapport sur le Progres des Sciences Naturelles,” p. 179. 
