Page:Geology and Mineralogy considered with reference to Natural Theology, 1837, volume 1.djvu/86

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Every comparative anatomist is familiar with the beautiful examples of mechanical contrivance and compensations, which adapt each existing species of herbivore. and carnivora to its own peculiar place and state of life. Such contrivances began not with living species: the geologist demonstrates their prior existence in the extinct forms of the same genera which he discovers beneath the surface of the earth, and he claims for the Author of these fossil forms under which the first types of such mechanisms were embodied, the same high attributes of Wisdom and Goodness, the demonstration of which exalts and sanctifies the labours of science, in her investigation of the organizations of the living world.

the statements which have been made in the preceding chapters, it appears that five principal causes have been instrumental in producing the actual condition of the surface of our globe. First, The passage of the unstratified crystalline rocks, from a fluid to a solid state.—Secondly, The deposition of stratified rocks at the bottom of the ancient seas.—Thirdly, The elevation both of stratified and unstratified rocks from beneath the sea, at successive intervals, to form continents and islands.—Fourthly, Violent inundations; and the decomposing Power of atmospheric agents; producing partial destruction of these lands, and forming, from their detritus, extensive beds of gravel, sand, and clay.—Fifthly, Volcanic eruptions.

We shall, form a better estimate of the utility of the complex