n them reveal the same organic character, though, of course,
we find the land Reptiles only where there happen to have been marshes,
the aquatic Saurians wherever large estuaries or bays gave them an
opportunity of coming in near shore, so that their bones were preserved
in the accumulations of mud or clay constantly collecting in such
localities,--the Crustacea, Shells, or Sea-Urchins on the old
sea-beaches, the Corals in the neighborhood of coral reefs, and so on.
In short, the distribution of animals then as now was in accordance with
their nature and habits, and we shall seek vainly for them in the
localities where they did not belong.

But when I say that the character of the Jurassic animals is the same, I
mean, that, wherever a Jurassic sea-shore occurs, be it in France,
Germany, England, or elsewhere throughout the world, the Shells,
Crustacea, or other animals found upon it have a special character, and
are not to be confounded by any one thoroughly acquainted with these
fossils with the Shells or Crustacea of any preceding or subsequent
time,--that, where a Jurassic marsh exists, the land Reptiles inhabiting
it are Jurassic, and neither Triassic nor Cretaceous,--that a Jurassic
coral reef is built of Corals belonging as distinctly to the Jurassic
creation as the Corals on the Florida reefs belong to the present
creation,--that, where some Jurassic bay or inlet is disclosed to us
with the Fishes anciently inhabiting it, they are as characteristic of
their time as are the Fishes of Massachusetts Bay now.

And not only so, but, while this unity of creation prevails throughout
the entire epoch as a whole, there is the same variety of geographical
distribution, the same circumscription of faunae within distinct
zooelogical provinces, as at the present time. The Fishes of
Massachusetts Bay are not the same as those of Chesapeake Bay, nor those
of Chesapeake Bay the same as those of Pamlico Sound, nor those of
Pamlico Sound the same as those of the Florida coast. This division of
the surface of the earth into given areas within which certain
combinations of animals and plants are confined is not peculiar to the
present creation, but has prevailed in all times, though with
ever-increasing diversity, as the surface of the earth itself assumed a
greater variety of climatic conditions. D'Orbigny and others were
mistaken in assuming that faunal differences have been introduced only
in the last geological epochs. Besides