mations, will be made a subject of distinct
inquiry, it will here suffice to state, that the
proofs of method and design in the adaptation of
these extinct forms of organization to the varied
circumstances and conditions of the earth’s progressive
stages of advancement, are similar to
those we trace in the structure of living animal
and vegetable bodies ; in each case, we argue
that the existence of contrivances, adapted to
produce definite and useful ends, implies the
anterior existence and agency of creative intelligence.
C h a p t e r IX.
Strata o f the Tertiary Series.
T h e Tertiary Series introduces a system of new
phenomena, presenting formations in which the
remains of animal and vegetable life approach
gradually nearer to species of our own epoch.
The most striking feature of these formations
consists in the repeated alternations of marine
deposits, with those of fresh water (see PI. 1 ,
sect. 25, 26, 27, 28).
We are indebted to Cuvier and Brogniart, for
the first detailed account of the nature and
relations of a very important portion of the
tertiary strata, in their inestimable history of the
deposits above the chalk near Paris. For a
short time, these were supposed to be peculiar
to that neighbourhood ; further observation has
discovered them to be parts of a great series of
general formations, extending largely over the
whole world, and affording evidences of, at least,
four distinct periods, in their order of succession,
indicated by changes in the nature of the organic
remains that are imbedded in them.*
Throughout all these periods, there seems to
have been a continually increasing provision for
the diffusion of animal life, and we have certain
evidence of the character and numbers of the
* In Vol. II. of his Principles of Geology, Mr. Lyell has
given an interesting map, showing the extent of the surface of
Europe, which has been covered by water since the commencement
of the deposition of the tertiary strata.
M. Boue, also, has published an instructive map, representing
the manner in which central Europe was once divided into a
series of separate basins, each maintaining, for a long time, the
condition of a fresh-water lake ; those which were subject to occasional
irruptions of the sea, would, for a while, admit of the
deposition of marine remains; the subsequent exclusion of the
sea, and return to the condition of a fresh-water lake, would allow
the same region to become the receptacle of the exuviee of animals
inhabiting fresh water.—Synoptische Darstellung der Erd-
rinde. Hanau, 1827. The same map, on a larger scale, appears
in the second series of the Transactions of the Linnean Society of
Normandy.
In the Annals of Philosophy, 1823, the Rev. W. D. Conybeare
published an admirable memoir, illustrative of a similar geological
map of Europe.