stance, the badger of the Meiocene is the same animal in all respects as the badger of our own times; and the same may be said of many other animals, such as the goat, the fox, and the wild cat. We know also, that many of the now existing reptiles were the contemporaries of extinct Tertiary quadrupeds in India. Again, immense numbers of the shells of Mollusks now inhabiting our seas, are found in positions that prove the existence of the species to have been long prior to that of the human race; and in the same way, many of the trees and plants which now fill our forests, and clothe our plains and hills with their verdure, have been discovered in the Tertiary formations, far below the level of the Alluvium in which are found the first indications of Man and his works.

Going back to the earliest geological ages-to the first moment of physical life upon our planet— the evidence is distinct, that some of the species of each system have lived contemporaneously with some of those of the succeeding systems. For instance, we find the fossil remains of some of the Zoophytes, Mollusks, and Crustaceans, the first tenants of the Silurian ocean, associated in the next strata with those of the Fish of the Devonian, while the latter have been found mingled with the exuvia of the Reptiles of the Permian,

Lias, and Oolite; and animals of those systems are found to have lived contemporaneously with the Mammals of the Tertiaries; and, again, some of those Mammals are found, as we have already stated, in existence to the present hour. These facts establish the proposition, that no blank or break of continuity has hitherto occurred in the animal kingdom from the beginning; and that there is nothing to favour the hypothesis, that there has been, at any time, a death of existing races, and a new birth of those which followed. On the contrary, all the facts of Geology prove that such an event has never occurred.

This will be found of importance, when we come to the consideration of the theory on which Dr. Chalmers, and other eminent Christian inquirers, have built their arguments to prove the consistency of Geology and Scripture. Their systems of interpretation require that life must have been blotted out, and a new series of organic beings have commenced their existence, at the date of the human era. But geological facts have taught us, in a language not to be mistaken, that since life was first poured out upon our planet, it has never ceased to flow, without interruption, through the various species of those organic forms which God ordained to be the receptacles of the vitalities in and through which his power, wisdom,

and goodness have been disclosed to men and angels. And though the globe on which we dwell has experienced great vicissitudes, and has from time to time been the scene of vast elementary convulsions, it has never been reduced to such a state of lifeless elementary turmoil, as that which is known from Geology to have preceded the Silurian era. Geological history, which com

municates the undoubted fact of the surface of our planet having been dark and untenanted, "without form and void," down to the close of the Azoic age, furnishes us with evidence equally satisfactory, that the Almighty has never blotted out or withdrawn his gifts of light and life, so as to necessitate the exercise of a creative power, similar to that which first called them into marvellous being, to account for their present existence.

CHAPTER III.

THE MOSAIC RECORD OF THE CREATION.

"So reads he Nature, whom the lamp of truth

Illuminates. Thy lamp, mysterious Word."-CowPER.

THE Record of the Rocks is now before us; and on its stony pages we have traced the actual progress of the creation of the various races of animals and plants, which have occupied our planet from "the beginning." We have ascended from the era of the lowly Zoophyte, groping in the mud and darkness of the primeval ocean, up to that of lordly Man, surrounded with all the glories and beauties of animated nature, and endowed with an intellect wherewith to understand and appreciate them. We are now in a position to test the accuracy of the written Record-but before we open it, let us pause for a moment to survey the wondrous scene of the creation, which our examination of the Book of Nature has been unfolding to our view.

The first glimpse of our planet presents us with

a revolving mass of igneous fluid, wheeling its annual course around the Solar centre of the system, and gradually cooling down by radiation into space, whereby a granitic crust is formed upon the surface. The gases and vapours, capable of producing water and air, thus condensing, the globe becomes enveloped, first with its aqueous, and then with its aërial garment. The whirling mass, encircled with water, expanding into vapours by the still existing central heat, exhibits a chaotic turmoil of gaseous exhalations, and liquid and muddy ejections from beneath, which, mingled with the detritus and abrasions of the primordial granite, form a thick sediment, that, gradually subsiding on the crust below, deposits the first layer of sedimentary rocks. From the circumstance of no fossil remains having been discovered in those bottom rocks, we are warranted in our conclusion, that at this period of its history, no life existed on the globe. This is succeeded by another aqueous deposit, in which the first specimens of organic life make their appearance in the humble forms of Fucoids, Zoophytes, Mollusks, and Crustaceans; the latter being the highest form of animal organization during the long period occupied by the formation of the Silurian system of rocks. We are then presented with the next succeeding strata (the Devonian), in which we find