p of the several orders of fishes across
the scale, and the periods, so far as has yet been determined, of their
first occurrence in creation.

[14] Some of these _dragons_ of the Secondary ages were of very
considerable size. The wings of a Pterodactyle of the Chalk, in the
possession of Mr. Bowerbank, must have had a spread of about eighteen
feet; those of a recently discovered Pterodactyle of the Greensand, a
spread of not less than twenty-seven feet. The _Lammer-geyer_ of the
Alps has an extent of wing of but from ten to eleven feet; while that of
the great Condor of the Andes, the largest of flying birds, does not
exceed twelve feet.

[15] _a_, Palaeotherium magnum. _b_, Palaeotherium minus. _c_,
Anoplotherium commune.

[16] It will be seen that there is no attempt made in this lecture to
represent the great Palaeozoic division as characterized _throughout its
entire extent_ by a luxuriant flora. It is, on the contrary, expressly
stated here, that the "plants of its earlier and terminal formations
(_i.e._ those of the Silurian, Old Red, and Permian Systems) were _few
and small_," and that "it was _only during the protracted eons of the
carboniferous period that they received their amazing development,
unequalled in any previous or succeeding time_." Being thus express in
my limitation, I think I have just cause of complaint against any one
who represents me us unfairly laboring, in this very composition, to
make it be believed that the _whole_ Palaeozoic period was characterized
by a gorgeous flora; and as thus sophistically generalizing in the first
instance, in order to make a fallacious use of the generalization in the
second, with the intention of misleading non-geologic readers. Such,
however, as may be seen from the following extracts from the
"Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Science at Philadelphia," is the
charge preferred against me by a citizen of the United States.

"Mr. William Parker Foulke asked the attention of the Society to a
lecture by Mr. Hugh Miller, recently republished in the United States
under the title of 'The Two Records, Mosaic and Geological,' and made
some remarks upon the importance of maintaining a careful scrutiny of
the logic of the natural sciences.... Mr. Miller teaches that, in the
attempt to reconcile the two 'records,' there are only three periods to
be accounted for by the geologist, viz. 'the period of _plants_; the
period of _great sea monsters and creeping things_