Page:Geology and Mineralogy considered with reference to Natural Theology, 1837, volume 1.djvu/344

 340 and of the Power, which have presided over the entire construction of the material world.

We have seen that the first remains of Animal life yet noticed are marine, and as the existence of any kind of animals implies the prior, or at least the contemporaneous existence of Vegetables, to afford them sustenance, the presence of sea weeds in strata coeval with these most ancient animals, and their continuance onwards throughout all formations of marine origin, is a matter of a priori probability, which has been confirmed by the results of actual observation. M. Adolphe Brongniart, in his admirable History of Fossil Vegetables, has shown, that the existing submarine vegetation seems to admit of three great divisions which characterize, to a certain degree, the Plants of the frigid, temperate, and torrid zones; and that an analogous distribution of the fossil submerged Algæ appears to have placed in the lowest and most ancient formations, genera allied to those which now grow in regions of the greatest heat, whilst the forms of marine vegetation that succeed each other in the Secondary and Tertiary periods, seem to approximate nearer to those of our present climate, as they are respectively inclosed in strata of more recent formation.