The Past and Present Life of the Globe; being a sketch, in outline, of the World's Life-system

Front matter

THE WOELn^bWE-SYSTEM '* Tho investigation of nature teaches us to recognise the omnipotence, tlie perfection, and tlie inscrutable wisdom of an infinitely higher Being, in his works aud actions So long as we are ignorant of these things, the perfect development of the human mind cannot he hoped for, or even conceived. Without this know ledge the immortal spirit of man cannot attain to a consciousness of its own dignity, or of the rank which it occupies in creation." — Liebig's Familiar Letten on Chemistry. THE PAST AND PRESENT LIFE OF1 THE GLOBE BEING A SKETCH IK OUTLINE OF THE WOELD'S LIFE-SYSTEM BY DAVID PAGE, F.G.S. ACTHOK OF " INTRODDCIOR7 AND ADVANCED TEST-BOOKS OF GEOLOGY ' " HANDBOOK OF GEOLOGICAL, TERMS, " ETO. WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON MDCCCLXI TO WILLIAM MILLEK, ESQ. IN PLEASANT REMEMBRANCE OF HOURS AND EVENINGS OF DISCUSSION: OUR THEME — THE THEME OF THE FOLLOWING PACES.

PKEFAC E. The object of the following Chapters is to present a sketch in outline of the "World's Life-System — tracing from the earliest organisms in the stratified crust to the forms that now adorn and people its surface. The aim has been to link the remote to the recent — the living to the extinct — that the general reader may be enabled to form some intelligible conception of the whole as a great and continuously-evolving scheme of vegetable and animal existences. There is no attempt whatever to teach anatomical details or point out specific distinctions — the volume being intended not as a Handbook of Palæontology, but simply as a readable sketch for the information of those who have neither the time nor the preliminary training to avail themselves of works of higher scientific pretensions.

And yet the reader will find in these pages a reliable resume' of the science, as founded on the most recent discoveries, and a treatment of its bearings from a higher stand-point than can be conveniently taken by the mere text-books and manuals of Geology. At a time