this alone to have pursued a
process of inductive reasoning, which led to results far more accurate
than any attained by the moderns, until within a very few years. The
dogmatism which determined to find in every fossil aquatic remain a
proof of the particular Noachic deluge, and the timidity of those whose
researches had made them better informed, left the world wholly in the
dark as to the real inferences to be drawn from a study of the structure
of the earth; but what modern geologist could better express what are
now admitted opinions, than the words which the Roman poet puts in the
mouth of Pythagoras.

"Vidi ego, quod quondam fuerat solidissima tellus,
Esse Fretum. Vidi factas ex aequore terras:
Et procul a pelago conchae jacuere marinae;
Et vetus inventa est in montibus anchora summis.
Quodque fuit campus, vallem decursus aquarum
Fecit: et eluvie mons est deductus in aequor:
Eque paludosa siccis humus aret arenis;
Quaeque sitim tulerant, stagnata paludibus hument.
Hic fontes Natura novos emisit, at illie
Clausit: et antiquis concussa tremoribus orbis
Flumina prosiliunt; aut exaecata resident."

The order in which fossil remains are found to succeed each other in the
successive formations that are to be traced from the oldest rocks to the
diluvial deposit, are well illustrated in the words of a late
distinguished philosopher, whom we shall quote.

"In those strata which are deepest, and which must consequently
be supposed to be the earliest deposited, forms, even of
vegetable life, are rare; shells and vegetable remains are
found the next in order; the bones of fishes and oviparous
reptiles exist in the following class; the remains of birds,
with those of the same genera mentioned before, in the next
order; those of quadrupeds of extinct species in a still more
recent class; and it is only in the loose and slightly
consolidated strata of gravel and sand, and which are usually
called diluvial formations, that the remains of animals such as
now people the globe are found, with others of extinct species.
But in none of these formations, whether called secondary,
tertiary, or diluvial, have the remains of man, or any of his
works, been discovered: and whoever dwells upon this subject,
must be convinced that the present order of things, and the
comparatively recent existence of man as the m