during the period in question and in an element such as water, which admits of its associated ingredients-on their equilibrium being disturbed-so easily to obey the laws of gravity and to take a downward tendency, the bottom of the ocean was, of all others, the most suitable position for the collocation of the multitudinous artificers which it had pleased the Creator then to employ. It was also the most benign, for the lowest stratum of water would be that in which the last particle of sustenance would be found by them. To have conferred the power of their going elsewhere in quest of what could not have been found, would, on the other hand, have been inconsistent with our ideas of the Creator's goodness; while it would have been positively inimical to His future plans, as I shall hereafter abundantly make manifest.

When, in regular sequence, we come to treat of the fossil vegetable remains of the era to which I now allude, it will be shown that there was a succession, likewise, of distinct families of plants. That the epochs of their existence are clearly demonstrated by their fossil remains which are discovered in the strata. That by this undoubted test it is known that in many instances they grew coevally with the existence of certain molluscous and zoophytic animals, likewise now extinct. That the greater part being furnished with roots, they must have been attached to the bottom, consequently, were fixed during the whole period of their existence to the spot where they once took root. From all of which considerations I cannot imagine any reason why we should admit the fixity of the plants, and doubt or deny the degrees of immovability which are contended for in the other; and the more so, as the absence in the animals of the usual organs necessary for locomotion is as direct a corroboration, though negatively so, in their case, as the positive proof of roots is in the case of plants. Fixity is the general law governing the latter; hence the presence of organs adapted thereto is sufficient to complete the identity. Motion, on the other hand, is the general law of animal life; therefore the absence of organs fitted to effect this must be admitted as a proof, equally valid, of their incapacity to fulfil the requirements of their general law of being.

It has been asserted, "that all the fixed animals of the

present day are inhabitants of the water, whose fluctuations bring food within their reach:"* and, although this is very different from maintaining what the direct line of our argument would demand, that all animals which depend for food on the surrounding element must, necessarily, be fixed; nevertheless, there is a sufficiency of presumptive proof scattered throughout the writings of geologists who have given the subject their earnest attention, to show, that the extinct molluscous and zoophytic creatures which inhabited the profundity of the primeval waters were either fixed, or had not the faculty, in its usual general acceptation, of locomotion.

For, even were we to relax our confidence in the wisdom and benignity of the Creator, and suppose that, having willed those primeval animal forms into existence for the purpose of purifying the waters, draining them of certain ingredients, and locking up those otherwise noxious materials in a solid, insoluble form at the bottom of the ocean, while they at the same time contributed layer by layer to the outer crust of the Earth, HE endowed them with faculties of locomotion, not only to impede the accomplishment of His own plans of infinite wisdom, by rendering uncertain the accumulation of their remains in any given locality, but to admit of their going in search of what the waters (by animal action and secretion) had been incapable of supplying!—I repeat, that were we even capable of adopting so improper a view as this would infer, it would still be requisite to explain why, both in form and in the massiveness of their outward coverings, they were creatures apparently so ill adapted for locomotion, unless what I am so anxious to establish be conceded, namely, that primeval animal life, which is known to have existed, was restricted to forms which were either altogether deprived of the power of locomotion or endowed with it in a very limited degree.

Thus it would appear, that all the evidences, direct as well as presumptive, tend to prove this leading peculiarity with respect to the animal inhabitants of the waters which surrounded the globe during the period of non-diurnal rotation, while as yet there was no atmosphere, and "darkness was * Dr. Fleming's British Animals.

upon the face of the deep." In the sequel of this section I shall endeavour to show the perfect adaptation of creatures, such as testacea and zoophyta, to perform what was then in procress of execution; and at the same time point out the incapability of forms possessing locomotion, in the plenary sense of the term, either to have performed that work, or to have existed in the then condition of the world.

Perhaps the strongest light in which the question can be put-after what has been adduced-would be to imagine the difficulty attendant, on any attempt to wrest the mass of evidence, which can be collected on the subject, so as to sustain the opposite position-to endeavour to prove that the animals of the primitive ocean were possessed of the faculty of moving themselves, at will, from place to place; and that, too, when, from the concomitant circumstances of the period alluded to, every part of the circumfluent ocean must have been as nearly as possible alike.

Before leaving this part of the subject, I would take occasion to point out with precision, that what has been said has had no reference whatever to the fossil remains of those extinct monstrous animals which have been discovered in the

tertiary and other recent strata. They, too, have been extirpated by a fiat of the Omnipotent, but this, I firmly believe and trust, hereafter, satisfactorily to prove, was that denunciatory decree which caused the Noachian deluge.

SECTION I.

THE ANIMAL EXISTENCES OF THE PERIOD OF NON-DIURNAL ROTATION.

WE

CHAPTER II.

E have thus, step by step, and by the most careful investigation, reached another resting-place on our onward and upward course. At the previous stage we became acquainted with the necessary conditions of animal life, and wherein it differs from mere vegetable existence.

We have since been assured by the concurring testimony of some of the most accomplished naturalists of the age, that several extensive and numerous sections of the animal kingdom are entirely destitute of the faculty of locomotion, and others of it, in its plenary signification; and consequently all alike independent of atmospheric air. In very many and very important instances this fact is spontaneously and directly asserted. In other cases it is as conclusively inferred; thus completing, by those concurring testimonies, the proofs in favour of the concluding part of the hundred and thirty-first Theorem: although it is extremely difficult to draw the line with perfect precision which separates the beings possessed of locomotion from those which are fixed, yet such a distinction does actually exist, and is, therefore, capable of being delineated.

Had it been merely to establish the fact of the existence of animal forms destitute of the power of voluntary motion, I might have rested satisfied with what has been accomplished; but, when it is considered how studiously the whole

division of creatures so constituted seem to have been excluded from the command, which, on the fifth day of the Mosaic week, called into existence "the moving creature that hath life;" and then take into account, how clearly and how conclusively the fact has been established of there being so many distinct tribes of Testacea and Zoophyta, which did not, indeed could not, have sprung into being on the promulgation of that command which called forth forms possessing a faculty to which they cannot make pretension-there can be little hesitation in admitting that the immovable creatures, and creatures with restricted power of motion, had been willed into existence before; and, strange as the means may appear, that they, nevertheless, formed part of the agency employed by the Omniscient Creator "in the beginning, when He created the heavens and the earth." Nor should any limitation of our own mental capacity be permitted so far to derogate from a just appreciation of the attributes of God as to cause us to hesitate in admitting this assumption, which our judgment, founded on the palpable evidence of the senses, so clearly demands. No man, endowed with reason, for an instant doubts or pretends to deny that the world in its finished state, with all its inhabitants, is the workmanship of God; an irresistible concession which confessedly implies his power (when required for the accomplishment of ulterior plans) to have exercised what, to us, appears a minor degree of creative energy; if, in reality, it can be considered a more restricted manifestation of wisdom and power, to constrain a simpler form of animal life to work out and accomplish any portion of the great and progressive plan of the Creation!

We must now follow up the vantage ground which we have gained, by ascertaining, from the compilations of geologists, what are the classes, orders, genera, and species of the fossil animal exuvia which have been discovered embedded in the strata; and, by comparing them with those which we have presupposed, exhibit the analogy which exists between the two-an accordance as perfect as the state of scientific research warrants.

Referring, therefore, to the lists given in the Appendix,* a satisfactory coincidence will be discovered between the *See Appendix C.