ed between the rocky leaves of the mountains, were the layers of carbon, changed from the poison to the comfort of the coming man!

To recount the events of the following ages is to repeat the story of the past. By-and-by the plastic hand of Nature had moulded the continent to its destined features. It seemed to need but man to be a finished work. But the Creative Architect contemplated a higher finish than human wisdom could have contrived. Now that the Atlantic and Pacific had completed those portions of the continent in their more immediate vicinage, it remained for the smaller sea which surrounds the pole to develop by its pressures the northern slope of the land, and thus to become the remote agent in strewing the surface of the rocks with an arable soil. The uplift of the arctic regions brought on the reign of ice, and wintry devastation swept over the late verdant landscapes. The downthrow of the Arctic highlands ameliorated the climate, and Spring again visited the icy fields. The movements of ice and water left the surface covered with cubic miles of rubbish produced from the destruction of the underlying rocks. But the entire continent was destined to a new baptism. The once forbidden ocean was readmitted to career in triumph over states that had long ago been reclaimed from his dominion. Michigan disappeared beneath the wave, and Ohio, and Pennsylvania, and New York, and Canada. The entire northern and middle regions of the continent sank down to a level lower than had been reached since the deposition of the coal. Then, in due time, began the last resurgence of the land. By degrees the finny waters shrunk back nearly to their former lines. Now the river channels were dug out; and now the Niagara began anew to plow its stupendous gorge. Unknown ages passed, and man assumed the sceptre of the earth.

With what fidelity has geology deciphered the records of this wonderful history! We marvel that so many secrets of the silent ages have been found out. And yet we run over their chronicles as if but the annals of the last year. How immense a field for the imagination to sweep over! What amazing intervals of time to contemplate! what gigantic operations to trace! And yet we behold from the beginning the action of the same physical forces as are

in action to-day. The immutable and omnipresent forces of chemistry first held the elements under sway. Affinity, gravitation, caloric, electricity, in their varying operations, have wrought out the diverse phases of the modern earth. The plan of operations has been equally uniform. Igneous forces pressing upward-oceanic waters bearing downward and outward. An incipient wrinkle, a growing ridge, an upheaved cordillera. The ocean bed was made for the primeval waters. The place for the continents was marked. out in earliest time, and each successive event contributed consistently to the final consummation. Even their outlines were foreshadowed in the trend of those primal ridges which made a mockery of dry land before a living thing had appeared upon the earth. And when the finishing touch was to pass over the globe, we find it effected by the same general agency as piled up miles of strata and raised granite summits to the clouds. An upheaval, a submergence, and another upheaval constitute the last three chapters of the history. Who can contemplate this identity of agencies, this persistence of plan and perfection of results, without being impressed that One Intelligence has planned the scheme and guided the blind forces from the beginning to the accomplishment of the long-anticipated end?

CHAPTER XXVIII.

METHOD IN THE HISTORY OF LIFE.

NATURE has always issued her bulletins. It is a most

interesting fact in the history of the animal creation that Nature advertised her plans in the very earliest creative acts. In our study of the relics of the primeval ages we do not find the grand and fundamental purposes of Infinite Wisdom unfolding themselves by degrees as type after type of organic life made its advent upon our planet. It is quite true that the full development of Nature's schemes can only be apprehended in the ultimate results, and that, with our highest wisdom, we are continually surprised at the wealth of resources exposed in the unfolding of a simple plan. But Nature had her plans, and these were mature in the very beginning. All possible contingencies being foreseen, no amendments or modifications. have been necessitated by the growth of successive populations and the march of human improvement. The outlines of Nature's grand methods were announced in her initial creative efforts. It was thus in the plan of continental development; it was thus in the plan of the animal creation. It is only in the infinite flexibility of her plans, and in the inexhaustible richness of their filling up, that Nature transcends all the possibilities of human expectation.

To the geologist no fact is more familiar or more patent than the simultaneous introduction upon the earth of three of the four fundamental plans of animal structure which in the following ages were to sport into the infinite variety

of individual forms that diversify the surface of the earth at the present day. Saying nothing about the solitary Eozoön, which stands inscrutable, isolated, and mysterious in the remote ages of Eozoic Time, like a desolate islet in the midst of a dark, and trackless, and tempest-beaten sea, we find that upon the very threshold of Paleozoic Time representatives of Radiates, Molluscs, and Articulates burst into multifarious being almost simultaneously. So nearly simultaneous was the appearance of each of these types, that all hypothesis of their genealogical succession is rationally precluded. The doctrine of development finds great discountenance in the very first of the facts from. which such a doctrine ought to derive its support. Later in the history of the world Vertebrates made their advent, and thus were laid the four corner-stones on which Nature has built the superstructure of the animal creation. Among all the multitudes of organic forms which have been disentombed from the cemeteries of the solid rocks, we have found none which were not conformed to one of the four fundamental types announced in the beginning. Here is no caprice, here is no chance, but the constancy, and order, and persistence of intelligence, foresight, and fixed purpose.

When this grand procession of organic forms was marshaling for its movement through time, the Supreme Intelligence sent it forward in four columns, in each of which was dominant one of the four ideas of structure. But as Nature did not range her four columns in linear order, but set them abreast of each other, so she was equally far from bringing forward the subordinate divisions of each column. or plan in any thing like a fixed progressive succession. Neither the highest and most exalted forms, nor the lowest and most humble, were ordained to take absolute precedence. In the sub-kingdom of Radiates the type was