CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTORY.

Interest attached to the study of the PAST in natural as in human

history.-Fossils, or petrified remains of plants and animals,

the medals and records of Creation.-The unerring certainty of

the record. -Paleontology, or the Science of Extinct Life.-Its

scope and bearings, as founded on a knowledge of the present

life of the globe.-Its importance, abstract and practical.-

The task it has yet to accomplish,

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THE PRESENT.

Characteristics and classification of living plants and animals as

established by the Botanist and Zoologist: 1. Plant-Life.-Its

governing conditions in space.-Its typical forms and charac-

ters. Its primal plan and patterns.-Systematic arrangement

of its forms.-Their apparent functions.-Persistency of plan

in time past. 2. Animal Life.-Its distribution or governing

conditions in space. -Its typical forms and their functions.-

Its primal plan and patterns.-Higher and lower.-Systematic

arrangement of its forms.-Identity of plan and design in

time past. 3. Co-adaptation of plants and animals in one great

Life-Scheme,

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THE RECORD.

Chronology of geology, or the arrangement of the world's past into

Rock-formations and Life-periods.-Principles and methods of

this arrangement. Continuity of natural law. - Provisional

and negative state of geological knowledge as influencing our

comprehension of the successional order of organic being.—

Palæontology so based.-The problems it has to solve.-Its

progress and prospects,

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THE FAR PAST.

Characteristics and gradations of the PALEOZOIC or "Ancient Life"

period: 1. The Cambrian age-so-called "Dawn of Life." 2.

The Silurian age.-Erroneous notions respecting its physical

geography and life-relations.-Its vegetation, graptolites, corals,

star-fishes, shell-fish, and crustaceans.-Their specialties and

place in the scale of being. 3. The Devonian or Old Red Sand-

stone age. Physical features of the epoch.-Its plants, crus-

taceans, shell-fish, and fishes. 4. The Carboniferous age.-The

physical geography and climatal conditions of the period.-Its

forest-growths, coral-reefs, shell - beds, crustaceans, insects,

fishes, and reptiles. 5. The Permian or Lower New Red Sand-

stone age-so-called "close" of the Paleozoic cycle.-Imper-

fect interpretation and provisional nature of the Life-phases

and Life-periods of the geologist,

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THE MIDDLE PAST.

Characteristics and gradations of the MESOZOIC or "Middle Life"

period: 6. The Triassic or Upper New Red Sandstone age.—

Its foot-tracks, birds, and reptiles. 7. The Oolitic age.-Sea

and land of the epoch.-Its vegetation, lower marine life, shell-

fish, crustacea, insects, reptiles, and terrestrial mammals. 8.

The Cretaceous or Chalk age.-Physical geography of its seas

and shores.-Its lower marine life, foraminifera, sponges, star-

fishes, sea-urchins, shell-fish, fishes, reptiles, birds, and mam-

mals. Generalisations resulting from a review of the Mesozoic

cycle,

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THE RECENT.

Characteristics and gradations of the CAINOZOIC or "Recent Life"

period: 9. The Tertiary age.-Geography of the epoch.-Its

huge terrestrial mammals and recent forms of life.-Interme-

diate forms, and their relation to the fauna of existing areas.—

Extinctions during the so-called "Glacial" or "Drifts" period.

10. The Post-Tertiary or Current age.-General existing ar-

rangements of sea and land.-Existing forms and distribution

of life.-General and local extinctions.-Man, pre-historic and

historic.-Mutations of the human race,

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THE LAW.

General deductions arising from the discoveries of Palæontology.-

Origin and advent of life unknown to science.-Universality of

life in time and space.-Uniformity of type and plan through

all the geological life-periods.-Similarity of functions and life-

relations. Distribution in space.--External conditions never

uniform. Representatives of the great life-types in every

epoch. Gradation and progress.-The course and apparent

order of this progress.-Introduction of new forms.-Extinction

and creation of species.-Theories of variation and development.

-Geological epoch of man.-Time and progress. — Apparent

course of creation.-Life-phases of the Current epoch.-Causes

of local and general extinction.-Man as a sub-creative centre

and modifying agent.- Duration of species.-Time and term of

the human race.-Life aspects of the future.-Progression or

succession?-Onward and upward,

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CONCLUSION.

What has been aimed at.-The known and the unknown.-The field

in which we may all become fellow-workers.-The spirit in which

we should inquire,

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INTRODUCTORY

PALEONTOLOGY-ITS SCOPE AND BEARINGS