sis that most fossils are mere archetypes--mere plans or
models--of existences to be, the archetypal dung proves rather a
stumbling-block, and the English clergyman waxes exceedingly wroth
against the geologists. "We cannot," he says, "believe in such things
as coprolites. They are only a curious form of matter commanded by Him
who has made the flower to assume all shapes as well as all hues. He who
would not allow so much as a tool to be lifted up on the stones that
composed his altar, would certainly not allow the _work_ of animals to
compose his creation, much less, then, their dung. The geological
assertion that the Creator of this world formed it in some parts of
coprolites savors very much of Satan or Beelzebub, the god of dung.
Geologists could scarcely have made a more unfortunate self-refuting
assertion than this." I question, however, whether the clergyman does
well to be angry with the geologists here. That fossils are mere models
and archetypes, is _his_ hypothesis, not theirs; and so it is he himself
who is answerable, not they, for what he deems the impiety of the
archetypal dung. His next statement is of a kind suited somewhat to
astonish the practical geologist. "_It is the constant language of
geologists_," he says, in giving the result of their discoveries, "_that
no young have been found!!!_ while the larger fossils have been detected
isolated, or in the company of others, all differing in kind."
"Archetypal resemblances of ova have been found, and such things as
_moths_; but these are distinct and perfect in their kind. The
occurrence of the young, which are imperfect, is a fact which has not
been, and never can be, established; _therefore it never can be proved
that this world has had a longer existence than six thousand years_." It
is "the constant language of geologists" that "no young have been found"
in the fossil state. Amazing assertion! "Therefore it never can be
proved that this world has had a longer existence than six thousand
years." Astonishing inference! There is not a tyro in geology who ever
looked over a set of fossils, or ever spent an hour in exploring a
fossiliferous deposit, who does not know that the remains of organisms
in every stage of growth may be found lying side by side in the same
bed,--that almost every museum contains its series of molluscs,
crustaceans, fishes, and corals, formed to illustrate species in their
various stages of growth,--that, in especial, among the ammo