itself in the light of an exalting intellectual exercise; or, combining both these qualities, does it lead to sounder and more ennobling views of our relationship to God and Creation? If it does neither, it is no true science, and stands unworthy to be ranked with the legitimate subjects of intellectual research. Luckily, however, it does all, and recommends itself, as it were, instinctively to the inquiring and reflective mind. Guided by its deductions, the identification of rock formations, which was formerly in a great measure a matter of hap-hazard, is now a certainty. Fifty years ago the miner and engineer had little to direct them in their researches, save the very variable tints of colour, the structure, or other external aspects of rock-masses. Now, however, a fossil branch, a tooth, or a few scattered fishscales, will enable them to identify with certainty strata in distant localities, and so save years of unnecessary toil and thousands of useless expenditure. There is, for instance, in Britain a red sandstone beneath, and a red sandstone above, our most valuable coal-fields- so like in many respects, that which is which mere mineral characteristics cannot always determine. Shall we ignorantly dig through the one for that mineral fuel which never lies beneath it; or shall we, mistaking the other, maintain that it is folly to pierce through its strata? Where the mere mineralogist stands perplexed, the paleontologist proceeds in the confidence of certainty, from the detection of a Holoptychian fish-scale which stamps the existence of the Old Red, or the discovery of a tiny Palæoniscus which is equally decisive of the New. Exalted as may be the task of solving the physical and vital problems of the globe, the duty of turning to account its mineral and metallic treasures is not less worthy or important. Science acquires fresh power and position when combined with practice; Philosophy new dignity when ministering to Humanity.

Again, a science that opens up so much of the Past, that reveals so many new forms of life and organisation, cannot fail to have an exalting effect as a purely intellectual exercise. The anatomical reasonings-the skill required to reconstruct such scattered fragments-the detection of means to an end—all this, and much more that must readily suggest itself to the thinking mind, cannot fail to stamp Palæontology as one of the highest themes that can engage enlightened intelligence. Nor is the new light which its deductions have thrown on other branches of natural science among the least of its claims to general attention. The revivifying, as it were, of so many extinct forms of existence has given a new significance to the science of Life; and henceforth no view of the vegetable or animal kingdoms can lay claim to a truly scientific character that does not embody the discoveries of the paleontologist. In fact, so inseparably woven into ONE GREAT SYSTEM are all fossil forms with those now existing, that we cannot treat of the one without considering the other; and can never hope to arrive at a knowledge of Creative Law by any method which, however accurate as regards the one, is not equally careful and accurate as regards the other. Furthermore, connected as the whole phases of external nature are into one beautiful Cosmos, the mind that remains in ignorance of their history can form but a very imperfect, if not an altogether erroneous, notion of its own relationship and connection therewith. For, while the scope of human duty is circumscribed by our relations to external nature, by our relations to our fellow-men, and by our relations to God, a knowledge of these relations as manifested in the great scheme of Creation is altogether indispensable. In the eloquent language of our motto-" So long as we are ignorant of these things, the perfect development of the human mind cannot be hoped for or even conceived. With

out this knowledge, the immortal spirit of man cannot attain to a consciousness of its own dignity, or of the rank which it occupies in Creation." Still more: if existing nature furnishes the theologian with irrefragable proofs of unity of plan and design throughout Creation—if his conceptions of Deity are enlarged and his reverence increased by the study of these adaptations—much more must they be exalted when he finds the same harmonies of design and the same unity of plan running through untold ages, and spreading and ramifying through forms so numerous and varied that, varied and rife as existing Life may be, it constitutes but the merest fraction of the Life that has been, and of the forms that have passed away.

Such is the nature and scope of Palæontology-a science whose function is to extract from the sandstones, and limestones, and clays of the stratified crust, the petrified remains of plants and animals, and from these remains to reconstruct the forms to which they belonged, so as to arrive at some intelligible conception of the Life that formerly tenanted the land and peopled the waters. These sandstones, and limestones, and clays, in all their various repetitions, are but the sediments of pre-existing lakes and estuaries and seas; and the fossils they imbed will be more or less perfectly preserved, just as they were deposited in the areas where they lived and grew, or were drifted from a distance in detached and scattered fragments -according as they were rapidly enveloped from further decay, or exposed to the wasting influences of the air and water— and, above all, according to the preservative character of the stratum that contains them. Their imperfection, and the difficulty of reading aright their characters, is greatly increased by the fact that they are for the most part the chance findings of the quarryman and miner, and extracted

in chips and fragments even more fragmentary than when originally imbedded. Notwithstanding these obstructions, and the hopelessness of ever obtaining in a fossil state the colours and softer parts that give beauty and outline to animal forms in spite of the fact that the corresponding portions of structures found to-day may not be turned up even for years to come—and in face of the toil and expense which the study unavoidably entails-substantial progress has been made in Palæontology, and these fragmentary remains of Past Life been reconstructed so as to take intelligible rank and position in the great categories of existing Vitality. Founding on the uniformity of natural law and persistency in the main structural characteristics of plants and animals throughout all time, the Palæontologist, strong in his faith and hopeful of the result, proceeds to his arduous task, and resuscitates as it were the Life of former epochs— clothing the land with verdure and beauty, and peopling the waters with their varied and appropriate forms. Lifting the veil from the Past, he displays the terraqueous aspects of the globe at the successive stages of its history; even as now, through the combined labours of the geographer, the botanist, and the zoologist, we are enabled to present a panorama of existing lands and seas with all their exuberant and varied vitality.

THE PRESENT.

ITS FLORA, FAUNA, AND THEIR CO-ADAPTATIONS.

BEFORE we can rightly compare the Past Life, of which these relics give evidence, with that which now peoples the globe, we must glance at the conditions under which plants and animals at present exist, and know something of their nature and the functions they have to perform. We can only reason respecting the Past from our knowledge of the the Present; and the more intimate our acquaintance with the various phases of existing nature, the sounder our deductions relating to those that have long since passed away. We say the various phases of existing nature, for the plants and animals that people the surface of any given latitude may differ altogether in character from those entombed in the strata beneath, and the organisms in the several formations below may now find their nearest analogues in the flora and fauna of distant and diversified regions. If we are familiar, however, with the general conditions under which plants and animals now live and flourish, and if we can establish a relationship between those existing and those long since extinct, then we can recall the conditions under which the latter grew and flourished, and map out the geography and climate of the primeval world, as the geographer now maps out the areas of sea and land, and depicts the various races of life—the belts of sterility and exuberance-and the creative centres