ments of nature apparently from near their beginning to the
present time. It is upon the commencement and progress of life under
these circumstances that the author of the _Vestiges of Creation_ has
put forth some of his most startling and controversial propositions; but
before noticing them it will be useful to prepare the way by shortly
describing the gradations of organic existences, following the same
order as observed in the rock series, by beginning with the lowest or
humblest forms of organization.

RISE AND PROGRESS OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS.

The interior of the earth reveals wonders not less impressive than those
of the skies. We have seen in the last section how the crust of our
globe is composed of successive layers or tiers of strata, rising
upward, terrace upon terrace, till we reach the present vegetable mould
or superficial platform of animated existence. In the aggregate these
formations or systems, marking the several epochs in nature's
development, may extend to a depth, as Dr. BUCKLAND conjectures, of ten
or fifteen miles below the surface, and each may be considered a vast
cemetery or graveyard, entombing the remains of ages long anterior to
human creation. We, in fact, live upon a pile of worlds, and
anticipating the future from past records and from changes still
manifest from the shallowing soundings of neighbouring seas, it is not
improbable that the existing scene of bustle may have heaped upon it as
many superincumbent masses as the lowest of the rocks enclosing the
vestiges of life.

If not with a kind of awe, it must have certainly been with intense
curiosity that the first investigators of fossilology looked upon the
earliest forms of animated being of which we have any traces as existing
upon this globe. These first denizens, however, seem to have been of a
simple structure and humble order, not fit to play high class
characters. No land animals are found among them, none which could
breathe the atmosphere, none but tenants of the water, and even animals
so high in the scale as fish were wanting. In popular language, the
earliest fossils are corals and shellfish.

But to make the subject generally intelligible it will be necessary
first to define the orders of the animal kingdom. CUVIER was the first
to give a philosophical view of the animal world in reference to the
plan on which each animal is constructed. According to him there are
four forms on which animals have been modelled, and