s
common in the mountain-limestone of Ireland as are those of the living
Sharks on any beach where our fishermen boil them for the sake of their
oil, and yet the Sharks appear under different generic and specific
forms in each geological age.

But without multiplying examples, which might be adduced _ad infinitum_,
to show permanence of type combined with repeated changes of species,
suffice it to say, that, while the general features in the framework of
the organic world and the materials of which that framework is
built, though quite as subject to the influence of physical external
circumstances as any so-called specific-features, have remained
perfectly intact from the beginning of Creation till now, so that not
the smallest difference is to be discerned in these respects between the
oldest representatives of the oldest types in the oldest Silurian rocks
and their successors through all the geological ages up to the present
day, the species have been different in each epoch. It is surely a fair
question to ask the advocates of the transmutation theory, whether they
attribute to physical laws the discernment that would lead them to
change the specific features, but to respect all those characters by
which the higher structural combinations of the Animal Kingdom are
preserved without alteration,--in other words, to maintain the organic
plan, while constantly diversifying the mode of expressing it. If so, it
would perhaps be as well to call them by another name, since they show
all the comprehensive wisdom of an intelligent Creator. Until they can
tell us why certain features of animals and plants are permanent under
conditions which, according to their view, have power to change certain
other features no more perishable or transient in themselves, the
supporters of the development theory will have failed to substantiate
their peculiar scientific doctrine.

But this discussion has led us far away from our starting point, and
interrupted our walk along the Silurian beach; let us return to gather a
few specimens there, and compare them with the more familiar ones of our
own shores. I have said that the beach was a shelving one, and covered
of course with shoal waters; but as I have no desire to mislead my
readers, or to present truths as generally accepted which are still
subject to dispute, I would state here that the parallel ridges across
the State of New York, considered by some geologists as the successive
shores o