itation for reptiles,
birds, and mammals, as such groves are at the present day; yet we see
none of the last of these classes and hardly any traces of the two first
at that period of the earth. Where the iguanodon lived the elephant
might have lived, but there was no elephant at that time. The sea of the
Lower Silurian era was capable of supporting fish, but no fish existed.
It hence forcibly appears that theatres of life must have remained
unserviceable, or in the possession of a tenantry inferior to what might
have enjoyed them, for many ages: there surely would have been no such
waste allowed in a system where Omnipotence was working upon the plan
of minute attention to specialities. The fact seems to denote that the
actual procedure of the peopling of the earth was one of a natural kind,
requiring a long space of time for its evolution. In this supposition
the long existence of land without land animals, and more particularly
without the noblest classes and orders, is only analogous to the fact,
not nearly enough present to the minds of a civilized people, that to
this day the bulk of the earth is a waste as far as man is concerned.

"Another startling objection is in the infinite local variation of
organic forms. Did the vegetable and animal kingdoms consist of a
definite number of species adapted to peculiarities of soil and climate,
and universally distributed, the fact would be in harmony with the
idea of special exertion. But the truth is that various regions exhibit
variations altogether without apparent end or purpose. Professor Henslow
enumerates forty-five distinct flowers or sets of plants upon the
surface of the earth, notwithstanding that many of these would be
equally suitable elsewhere. The animals of different continents are
equally various, few species being the same in any two, though the
general character may conform. The inference at present drawn from this
fact is that there must have been, to use the language of the Rev. Dr.
Pye Smith, 'separate and original creations, perhaps at different and
respectively distinct epochs.' It seems hardly conceivable that rational
men should give an adherence to such a doctrine when we think of what it
involves. In the single fact that it necessitates a special fiat of the
inconceivable Author of this sand-cloud of worlds to produce the flora
of St. Helena, we read its more than sufficient condemnation. It surely
harmonizes far better with our general ideas of n