search of coal where Geology infallibly teaches that none exist, or can exist, if devoted to some rational exercise might be productive of much good The vegetation which was converted into bituminous coal was of a peculiar character, and there are now but few living representatives of any of the species found in the coal measures. Among the most numerous is a tribe of plants in New Zealand. But to resume the consideration of the fossil plants of the coal series, at least one-half are ferns, and of those organizations of vegetable life, which now form four-fifths of the flora of our era, not one was in existence during the coal series. These are exceedingly interesting investigations. I know not how others may feel, but if the alternative were presented to me to enjoy the privilege of making these investigations, only on condition of having the prisoner's allowance-bread and water, or to enjoy wealth and luxury without any taste for these pursuits, I should rejoicingly take the bread and water, and consider it a vast estate. At the time that coal was formed, the atmosphere was probably incapable of supporting life, in any extended form. There is no trace of a bird, animal, or reptile, in this period. Liebig informs us that a piece of wood placed in the boiler of a steam engine, and subjected for a length of time to the great pressure and intense heat that belong to that vessel, was converted into bituminous coal, and it is reasonable to infer that these portions of our planet, that now possess coal, were subjecte to agencies analogous to these. But though the land was barren of animal life, there was abundance of it in the sea at this period. The immense Saurian fish first appear in this series, forerunners of that tribe of land reptiles to which they were allied. Sharks were also abundant at this period. We now approach the remarkable reptiles of the land which were of such an extraordinary character that Geologists have named this the reptile period. Immediately preceding their introduction, the earth was subjected to much turbulence. Granitic rocks were pulverized and deposited in the form of sand and gravel, over the coal measures, by the action of water. Over this magnesian limestone was deposited, and new agencies were brought into play, for, in connection with carbonate of lime, we find, for the first time, carbonate of magnesia. What ever the agency was, it extended over a very large part of the earth, nearly all of Europe, a part of Asia, and a considerable portion of our continent being involved in the change, Vegetation disappeared, the sea encroached upon the land, and covered large portions with its waste of waters, depositing the masses of sand and gravel of which we have spoken. Portions of the new born land escaped SERIES IV.-VOL. VI. *89 the encroachments of the sea, and stood out upon the waste of waters, as islands do now. After this deposition of the magnesian limestone violent disturbances commenced, and were exhibited between the 1stand 2nd Epochs. The igneous force was intense and those who were fortunate enough to hear Prof. Silliman's lecture, two years ago, in this Hall, on volcanic phenomena, are prepared to appreciate the forces of igneous action. The examinations of this subject, made by Prof. Dana of New Haven, and Mr. Hopkins, of England, leave but little, if any thing more to be elucidated on the phenomena of upheaval and the cooling of the earth's surface, which produced changes that now form a prominent part of Physical Geography, and are closely connected with man's highest earthly interests. During the violent commotions of this period, immense masses of coal were driven from their natural beds, up through the new red sand stone, and were thus brought to the surface. The previous disturbances were accompanied with a general destruction of all the animal and vegetable life of the globe, and in the magnesian limestone we find the former animals and vegetables, replaced by a new order of each division totally diferent from the former. We have reached in the order of creation, the age of reptiles, and a remarkable period it is. The vast multitudes of life that had flourished throughout the first epoch were either extinct, or materially modified in their character. The new red sandstone formation marks a period of changes over nearly the whole of this continent, England and the continent of Europe, and considerable portions of Asia and Australia. The Reptilia, which form a conspicuous part of the wonders of this period, commenced towards the close of the magnesian limestone deposit, but were very abaundant during the change which produced the new sandstone. The fish of this time were very remarkable in many respects, but we have not time to dwell upon them. Two of the reptiles of this period, however, deserve particular notice, for in them we find the first traces of those organizations, which in a later period, were to belong to birds, and carniverous land animals. The first of these great reptiles is the Rhyncosaurus, and ages before a bird was introduced upon the earth, this enormous serpent presents himself before us, with the beak of a bird, in lieu of the skull of a lizard, and there was an entire absence of teeth. This is certainly a very singular and unexpected place in Natural History, to meet the first attempt at the development of birds. But we have a living representative of this anomaly in the Ornithoryncus of Australia, which combines the organizations of serpent, bird, and animal. Mr. Darwin, in his voyage of a Naturalist, states that he saw a number of these paradoxical ani mals swimming, and was fortunate enough to secure one that was shot by his companion. But the thread of life certainly takes a singular turn, when we find the first development of bird life on the neck of an enormous serpent. As the Rhyncosaurus gives the first trace of bird organization, the Dicynodon, another enormous serpent of the same period, presents us with the first trace of terrestrial carniverous life on our globe. In connection with these serpents, various foot prints are found in the sand stone, and in the absence of fossils, these foot prints are crypts of the deepest interest. Among the most famous of these early printers, who preceded Faust and Guttemberg, was a reptile called, by Prof. Owen, the Labyrnthedon, an animal as large as a Rhinoceros, and singularly constructed in his organs of locomotion. The records of this sandstone are curious:-"The ripple mark, the worm track, the scratching of a small worm on the sand and even the impression of the rain drop, so distinct as to indicate the direction of the wind at the time of the shower, these and the footprints of the bird are all stereotyped" on the leaf upon which this chapter of Natural History was written. The written records of the new red sand-stone are among the most interesting of all the crypts of the Geological periods. It was in this new red sand-stone, that an American Geologist obtained a signal triumph. In it are found the first traces of birds on our globe, and these were not in fossil remains, but in foot-prints upon the rock, as distinct as the snipe marks his footprints on the borders of our marshes. When Professor Hitchcock announced his discovery in the red sandstone of the Connecticut valley, he was assailed with a shower of ridicule, by European and Ameriican Geologists, but he has lived to see his discoveries recognized by every Geological authority. But greater rewards attended Professor Hitchcock's investigations-in this new red sand-stone, he saw the first written records of Meteorology. There he saw indelibly recorded where the rain-drops of a shower left their prints, and the slants of some of them reveal the movement of the wind at the time of the rain. In addition to this, Professor Barrett, of Middletown, Connecticut, traced the mud-tracks made by the sun, ages before man was made, and in the same stone, Professor Barrett found the unmistakable marks of the freezing of water, in the ancient puddles of this tertiary period. The crystalizations of the ice are marked upon the edges of the red sand-stone basin, by the ice itself. Was not Shakespear correct in announcing that there are sermons in stones? The succeeding deposit is called the lias, and it is exceedingly rich in fossils. We can only refer to a few of the most prominent. The Nautilus, the Ammonite, and the Belemnite, all require more attention than we can bestow on them now. Among the marine Saurians of this period, are the Plesioaurus, first dug from the lias of Syme Regis, by Miss. Anning. No animal nor bird now known, possessad such a neck as this saurian. Its cervical vertebra consisted of from thirty to forty pieces. This reptile had great powers of destruction, and though adapted to the sea, was capable of some movement on the land. The Ichthyosaurus was a contemparary of the Plesisaurus, and a much more formidable animal.— He was of great size, and his movement in the water was more rapid than the fight of birds, or the movement of the steam engine. We know almost as much, through the crypts of the lias, of the anatomy and physiology of these animals, as though we had the dead monsters before us in their green state. To the lias, succeeds the oolitic period, in which the earth gradually assumes a condition for the better support of life. Even in the environs of the equartor, the Geologist finds indubitable evidences of an ultra-tropical climate, and over all the land, tropical temperature was diffused. As we ascend in the fossiliferous strata, the greater is the resemblance between fossils of distant countries, and even of remote zones. This seems palpably to show, that the source of the temperature of that period, was a body different from the sun. All our knowledge of solar heat, is connected with its diversifying influence. The source of the high temperature in Geological periods, of the region now known as Liberia, is withdrawn from all earthly influences. We know nothing of it.. During the prevalence of this high temperature, the sea abounded with carniverous monsters, and the land wes filled with the strangest forms of life that ever occupied the attention of the Naturalist. The Megalosaur, the Iguanodon, and the Pterodactyle were among the strange monsters of this period. The Iguanodon was from forty to seventy feet in length, and measured fourteen feet in circumference.He was a Reptile. The Pterodactyle was a winged lizard of extraordinary powers. His wings opened from eight to nine feet across according to Mr. Bownbank. He was capable of almost all known forms of progression, and Dr. Buckland, after describing him, says: "thus like Milton's fiend qualified for all services, and all elements, the creature was a fit companion for the kindred reptiles that swarined in the seas, or crawled on the shores of a turbulent planet." "The fiend, O'er bog, or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare, And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies." Even in the enlarged horizon of Cuvier, he declares this would be the strangest form to meet on the earth, among all the monsters he had examined. These huge and destructive reptiles began to disappear during the close of the oolitic period, and but few of their fossils are found in the succeeding formation-the cretaceous. The cretaceous period scarcely belongs to our subject, except as a blank leaf in reference to new forms of life. It is enough to say that the forms that appear in the cretaceous period, show that life is gradually progressing into that higher organization, towards which every thing has been tending from the earliest period of our planet. Up to the close of the cretaceous period, neither mammalia nor birds are found. This terminates the second grand epoch of Geologists. The third Geological period introduces land animals, in what is called the tertiary period. This period was ushered in by violent commotions, and disruptions which altered the face of nature. A large portion of Europe was submerged in this period; the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Carpathian mountains, composed of vast masses of mummulite fossil remains, peered over the waste of waters as islands, and upon the marine mud foundations of London and Paris, were deposited immense fossil remains of the new order of anima.s and vegetables. These were not in existence, when the seas swarmed with its monstrous saurians, and the land with its enormous reptiles, they had given way for the new order, and this new order having performed its appointed offices had in its turn given way. This tertiary period abounded with animals related to those that were hereafter to be surrendered to the lord of creation. Monkeys, birds, opossums, squirrels, raccoons, foxes, wolves, &c., were abund ant, but in all this animal life there was not one of the ruminant kind. Their types were found but nothing more. He, for whose uses the ruminant animals were designed, was not yet created, and neither ox, camel, sheep, goat or deer existed in the olden tertiary period.—— Carniverous and herbivorous animals of a high order of organization had taken the place of the reptiles, and the earth was gradually ap proximating towards the highest types of animal and vegetable life. It would be of great interest, if time would permit, to pause and examine the changes that are marked on the face of the globe, which speak a language that cannot be misunderstood. This tertiary period opened the dawning glories of the earth, for it reaches up to the time when man, made after the image of his maker, with his accompanying animals and vegetables, was introduced upon this changeful planet, that had been gradually fitted for his abode. At this period the Dinotherium, with a body twenty feet in length, and nearly ten feet in heighth, with enormous tusks fixed in the under jaw for digging succulent food, inhabited the water, as the Hippopotamus does now, He was a companion of the Palaeotharium, and of the Elephant. The |
