q2? THE GEELONG NATURALIST. 
Its ancestors saw the reign of the Trilobite and the Belemnite, 
"and now the lonely child of the sea seems about to pass away, after 
an unbroken pedigree from the Cambrian to the present day. 
Soon after nature had planted the first germ of animal life that 
we can fiad (the Foraminifera) in the old Laurentian Sea, a great 
change takes place, and as we reach the Cambrian formation, the 
Trilobites, Cephalopods, and Brachiopods first make their appearance. 
Passing through an immense period of time we come to the 
Silurian.. The upper parts of this system witnessed the birth of the 
oldest fish known, a kind of Pteraspis. 
As we get into the Devonian formation, of which the Old Red 
Sandstone is a portion, the increase of the mollusca is enormous; no 
Jess than between one and two thousand species being classified. 
Here the oldest known insects have been found, and there are first 
discovered plants of the same order as in the following Carbonaceous 
period, but as we get into the real Carbonaceous strata, the number 
of species of mollusea falls off. The same causes that seem to have 
affected the life of the mollusca must have been continued through 
the Carbonaceous into the New Red Sandstone and Permian 
systems, the total number of species being reduced to seventy-four. 
As we leave the Coal Measures and reach the Trias we find 
these causes removed, for they are now again on the increase, the 
numbers having reached seven hundred and thirteen. 
The stream of life appears like a river whose source is a num- 
ber of springs ; in the outward course through time some of these 
springs run dry, but there are always more to take their place, so 
that the stream is always full. 
Shells teach that millions of years before the higher animals 
appeared on the globe, countless generations of these lovely forms 
of life had lived and passed away; that this globe of ours is one 
vast cemetery, for some of the highest mountains in the world are 
composed of sea shells; that man is but a creature of yesterday, 
being one of the latest forms of life; that millions of beautiful and 
curious creatures have lived and died on this earth, before any of 
the higher forms appeared on the globe, and all that is left is a few 
(limestone rocks, and that it is highly probable that man himself will 
pass away from the face of the earth, and make way for a higher 
form of life, as so many thousands of species of animals have done 
before his advent into the world. 
THE RECENT COLLEGE EXHIBITION. 
Turs exhibition was opened on the 24th of October last and remained 
open for about a week. The whole of the College buildings were 
‘filled with the exhibits which consisted of loans from the Govern- 
