vestigations had eventually a powerful effect in
dispelling the illusion which had long prevailed concerning the absence
of analogy between the ancient and modern state of our planet. A close
comparison of the recent and fossil species and the inferences drawn in
regard to their habits, accustomed the geologist to contemplate the
earth as having been at successive periods the dwelling-place of animals
and plants of different races, some terrestrial, and others
aquatic--some fitted to live in seas, others in the waters of lakes and
rivers. By the consideration of these topics, the mind was slowly and
insensibly withdrawn from imaginary pictures of catastrophes and chaotic
confusion, such as haunted the imagination of the early cosmogonists.
Numerous proofs were discovered of the tranquil deposition of
sedimentary matter, and the slow development of organic life. If many
writers, and Cuvier himself in the number, still continued to maintain,
that "the thread of induction was broken,"[121] yet, in reasoning by the
strict rules of induction from recent to fossil species, they in a great
measure disclaimed the dogma which in theory they professed. The
adoption of the same generic, and, in some cases, even of the same
specific, names for the exuviae of fossil animals and their living
analogues, was an important step towards familiarizing the mind with the
idea of the identity and unity of the system in distant eras. It was an
acknowledgment, as it were, that part at least of the ancient memorials
of nature were written in a living language. The growing importance,
then, of the natural history of organic remains may be pointed out as
the characteristic feature of the progress of the science during the
present century. This branch of knowledge has already become an
instrument of great utility in geological classification, and is
continuing daily to unfold new data for grand and enlarged views
respecting the former changes of the earth.

When we compare the result of observations in the last fifty years with
those of the three preceding centuries, we cannot but look forward with
the most sanguine expectations to the degree of excellence to which
geology may be carried, even by the labors of the present generation.
Never, perhaps, did any science, with the exception of astronomy,
unfold, in an equally brief period, so many novel and unexpected truths,
and overturn so many preconceived opinions. The senses had for ages
declared th