kind has also left remains, to indicate their existence. The modern limestone formations are full of cavities and caverns; and these have been found to abound with fossil bones of these antediluvian animals.* In some few of these, human bones occur; but the era to which their possessors ought to be referred, has not been yet satisfactorily ascertained. Though some are more modern, others seem to claim justly an antediluvian antiquity.t

From this brief review of the fossil remains of the pri meva! animals, and from our former chapter on the ancient vegetable relics, you will perceive that they both begin with the secondary formations of our earth, and therefore were called into existence after the primordial rocks had been placed and consolidated. All the animal exuviæ that occur before the tertiary beds, are aquatic animals, of one sort or other; and the far largest part are of the testaceous and zoophytal order. It is with the tertiary and diluvial fragmentary masses and strata that the mammalia or land quadrupeds appear. This announces that they were formed the latest and diffused the least and the most slowly. It is quite natural that the sea creatures should spread them

* Dr. Ure has made a valuable summary of the chief facts of the bone caverns, in his Geology, 557-592. . . . M. Cuvier has also discriminated fossil dolphins, and a fossil lamentine, a genus resembling our seals, and which is now peculiar to the torrid zone.

Human bones have been found in several places. Donati noticed. them in the mountains of Dalmatia; and Canobio, in a calcareous tufa near Genoa. Bull. Univ. 1826. p. 22. .... M. Boue saw them, in 1823, behind the lake in Baden; and Count Razoumovski, in Lower Austria, mixed with quadrupeds partly extinct. Count Breuner also found them near Krems, in Lower Austria. M. Sterberg met with them at Kostritz, in Saxony. Germar confirmed Donati's account of those in the Dalmatian breccias. Others have been seen among the Caraibs and the inhabitants of Chili. Bull. Univ. 1830. p. 296, 162. . . . . At Torquay, pieces of pottery, siliceous axes, and other works of art, were found in the diluvian ossifere clay. Ib. p. 386... In France, human bones have been a short time ago discovered in two caverns in the Department du Gard at Poudre and Jouvignarque, mixed with mammalia ones. Acad. de Scien. Others, also, at Bize, in a black mud, with those of lost animals. Bull. Un. 1829, p. 237. . . . . M. Renaux saw human bones in 1820, in a grotto of jura limestone, at Dufort. Ib. 1830, p. 30. M. Bernardi describes them as occurring with those of hippopotami and others, in a grotto at Mount Griffon, near Palermo. Gior. Offic. de Palermo, Ap. 1830.. A human skeleton was found in Travestin, in Auvergne, and a fossil human head in the Travestins of St. Alisse, at Clermont, by Le Coq. In the same locality, M. Peghoux observed bones of domestic animals mixed with pottery, and many fragments of human .bones. Bull. Un. 1830, p. 407. And see Marcel des Serres' observations on the human bones which he and M. Tournal discovered, in Bull. Un. 1830, p. 34, 6.

selves the earliest and the most universally. The sea surrounds the earth, and for a time overflowed its whole surface. But although the rocks of the earth are distinguishable into the three divisions of the primordial, the secondary, and the tertiary, yet, as there was only one general creation of our globe-that, which Moses has recorded-the elementary materials of all these three classes must have been in existence at its commencement. All the substance that forms them may be assumed to have been in being from the time that the creative fiat was issued, and that its operative agency took place; and in this case, the secondary and the tertiary masses would not be new creations, of later epochas; but only new arrangements, structures, and depositions from the older matter of the primordial ones, and of the other elements and things co-existing with them; of which, the chief is recorded to have been water. This, according to the Hebrew historian, accompanied the earth from its commencement, and was in the first stage attended by intermingling light, which, in its modifications, is also heat and fire.

With this general outline, the main facts that have been ascertained seem to correspond. The secondary rocks are either new compositions from the fragments, or disintegrations of some of the granitic and primordial series, or are new formations from water and mariné animals; or are the products of vegetable life. The fracture and decombinations of the upper portion of the granitic rocks, and the eruption of subterraneous ones of this class, in the form of molten or fluid granite, and of its posterior trap, will account for the sandstones, slates, and clays, and their interspersed or incumbent trap and basalt. From the waters of the ocean and on land, and the marine animals which were ordered into existence, all the limestone and calcareous rocks, of every species, appear to have originated.

The coal is now unanimously referred to a vegetable parentage; and every season from the birth of creation, must have been adding new layers of organic mould on the previous surface, from the natural decay of every year's successive reproductions. Thus, the primordial rocks, water, vegetation, and animal existences account for the matter of all the secondary rocks. But no one disputes that the tertiary have been formed from the fracture, the ruins, the disintegration and decomposition of those which had preceded them; and principally of the secondary, with addi

tional volcanic eruptions of the primordial, in many regions, and with all the additional mould and matter which the decaying remains of the vegetable and animal kingdoms have been every year steadily and successively adding to the variegated mass. Thus there is no incongruity between the Mosaic account and these geological facts.

This venerable and invaluable outline of the primordia of our globe begins with a general declaration, that the earth originated from the creation of God.* Its first unformed, dark, and void state, is noticed with the waters upon it; upon which the spirit of ELOHIM is represented to have been in active operation. The results of his agency are not detailed, nor is any chronology affixed to this period of our terrestrial formation; nor is any account given of the geological constructions that ensued. Our science is therefore left at full liberty to investigate and delineate, what it may discover to have been the actual process, by which the construction of our planet was accomplished.

The Mosaic chronology begins with the formation of Adam, and with the six preceding days or periods, which commenced with the production of light. What interval occurred between the first creation of the material substance of our globe, and the mandate for light to descend upon it-whether months, years, or ages, is not in the slightest degree noticed. Geology may shorten or extend its duration, as it may find proper. There is no restriction on this part of the subject. In this portion of time, or eternity, we may place the formation of our elementary matter the composition and arrangement of the vast central and interior contents, whatever they may be-and the construction, circumambiency, and consolidation of all the primordial rocks; and, indeed, the production to all things to which light was not essentially necessary.

After announcing the production of the atmosphere, the separation of the seas, and the creation of the vegetable and animal kingdoms, the Mosaic record makes no further allusion to the state of the earth, until the catastrophe of the deluge. This interval was at least a period of one thousand six hundred and fifty-six years; and therefore allows that

As the word bara, created, has an obvious affinity with bar, a son, and probably was derived from it, the pleasing idea of filiation is connected with creation, in the natural etymology of the term used by the sacred historian to express it. This is in gratifying unison with the repeated intimations of divine revelation, that the Creator deigns to consider himself as the father of his earthly creatures.

Hh

space of time for all the formations between the primordial and the tertiary. The violent changes which occurred at the diluvian ruin, seem to be most connected with the tertiary geology. Yet even as to this revolution, Moses says no more in express terms than that the fountains of the great deep were broken up. All additional matter, as to the terrestrial alterations at this epocha, can be but inferences from the other facts he mentions. Thus the sacred historian gives the largest latitude for the investigations and deductions of geological science; and presents nothing to our view, that is likely to be hostile to the actual truths which may ultimately be established, by that union of genius, knowledge, correct reasoning, and sound judgment, from which the great laws and principles of geology will be, as those of astronomy have been, so successfully discovered and determined. We have only to take care not to confound diffusion with creation; and therefore to remember that the first production of animals and vegetables were in such part or places only as was most fit. It is most probable that this was in some suited locality only, and that they were left to the appointed laws of their being, to disseminate themselves gradually according to their respective natures and qualities. A due recollection of this principle of natural diffusion, according to their respective powers and dispositions, will preserve your mind from many of those extravagant hypotheses and speculations which seem to have superseded the nursery and fairy tales of the continent, only to resemble and to rival them. But I hope that this panorama of creation which I have imperfectly endeavoured to delineate, will preserve your mind from the phantasms of philosophy, as well as from those of ignorant superstition. Each has its follies and its idols, from which the sound judgment will endeavour at all times to keep free. To separate the Deity from his works, is to surrender our intellect to error and to evil, and not less to discomfort. Look, then, upon nature as his intelligent and benevolent production; and enlarge your mind by surveying it in all its richness, grandeur, and diversity. This will make your ideas of him more sublime, and your feelings to him more grateful, affectionate, and duteous. To lead you to this happy result, and to assist you to arrive at it, has been the great motive and object of this literary correspondence. May it fulfil my earnest and anxious wish! True felicity will not otherwise be attained.

LETTER XIX.

Further considerations on the living principle in plants and animals, and its immaterial nature.-Division of existing things into the material and immaterial.-The four great classes of the latter.-Its possible connexion with other systems.

We have now surveyed succintly all the material forms in which the living principle appears on earth, except the human frame. We have found it to be invested, in the different kingdoms and individuals of nature, with very dissimilar configurations, and displaying such qualities in all as these varying structures have enabled or assisted it to exhibit. Let us bestow a few thoughts on the diversities of its appearance, and endeavour, from the phenomena which they disclose, to form, if possible, some notions of its real nature, or at least attempt, with cautious and moderated freedom, to suggest a few reasonings upon it. We will begin by considering it in its connexion with the vegetable kingdom.

Nothing seems more clear to our perception, when we allow no previous theory or prepossession to obscure its discernment, than the fact already alluded to, that life is not the material frame which it animates. From our consciousness of ourselves, from our observations of others, and from the phenomena which the living principle exhibits in all the departments of nature we have examined, this grand physiological truth emerges to our view. I feel it most satisfactorily in myself; and the more strongly as my body becomes weaker, more infirm and inefficient, while my mind retains all its faculties, activities and power of operation. What is thus true of life, wherever we can adequately discriminate it, we may consider it to be so in each of its forms and abodes where we can less investigate it; and therefore in plants as well as in animals, and in these as well as in man. Life I would therefore assume to be a principle in vegetation distinct from its material substance, and additional to it. But to live, is to be. Life is being. Vegetables, from having it, are therefore living beings; living in those peculiar configurations which distinguish their different classes.

But by a living being, we usually mean a living person