chapter in paleontology, we believe is, that the earliest specimens of organization are as perfect as the latest, each after its kind; and that, in these morning-days of existence, nature at once stamped, with her plastic hand, her lineaments of beauty and adaptation on everything she made. There is nothing omitted to be afterward supplied-nothing formed defective in a single part or organ that requires to be corrected. The first discoveries in geology at once speak conclusively of a plan or course of creation derived from the beginning--a power, not delegated, but linked forever with the first intelligent cause-a world, through all its changes, continually presided over and ruled by Him who made it.

VEGETABLE REMAINS were long wanting, and sought for in vain, to complete during this period the picture of the ancient world, as described in the pages of revelation. Geology, indeed, had everywhere sternly held back the required evidence, and animals were announced to be the first of living things. This, though contrary to all analogy with regard to the conditions of animal subsistence, was generally received as a well established dogma; and the earliest book of history was laid aside, or its statements in these circumstances regarded as irrelevant. Vegetable remains, however, have been detected in the oldest fossiliferous group of rocks, and this apparent discrepancy has been forevermore disproved. Fucoid plants are found in great abundance in the transition series of Scandinavia as well as in the silurian strata of our own island. That they are not more widely distributed is satisfactorily accounted for by experiments which show that some species of plants entirely disappear in water. A productive flora, therefore, may have existed from the earliest period, but, unable to resist decomposition, all traces thereof have long disappeared from the tablets of the earth.

Nay, so abundant in some quarters of the globe has vegetable matter been at this period, that there are traces of beds, approximating to coal, entirely composed of it, and the rocks inclosing these beds so charged with bitumen and carbon as to be used as fuel. "The silurian strata of the Scandinavian peninsula and the Island of Bornholm, contain," says Professor Forchhammer, "in

their oldest parts, large beds of aluminous slate, which is used in a great number of manufactories for making alum; and this aluminous slate has the great advantage over those slates of the carboniferous system of Germany and a part of France, that it contains the sufficient quantity of potash which is required to make alum." It is well known that potash constitutes an ingredient in most vegetable bodies; and that when a plant is burned there remains a skeleton of this substance. Hence, possibly, the origin of the potash in the alum slate. But the argument does not rest upon inference. The same authority relates, that in Bornholm and in Scania, the southernmost part of Sweden, this slate contains a great number of impressions of a fucoidal plant, of which Liebmann has given minute botanical descriptions. Then, pursuing his interesting tale of this first flora of creation, he says," According to Professor Keilhau, Professor Boek, and M. Esmark, the same ceramites occurs frequently in the aluminous silurian slate of Southern Norway. Recently M. Hisinger has figured an imperfect specimen of it from Berg, in the province of Ostergothland, in Sweden. Thus this fucus appears to be characteristic of the alum slate of Scandinavia: and I can scarcely doubt that the most characteristic properties of the alum slate, as depending upon its carbon, its sulphur, and its potash, are derived from the great quantity of sea-weed which has been mixed up with the clay, and whose carbonaceous matter so affects the whole rock, that the slate is used as fuel for boiling the aluminous liquor, and burning lime; and in some parts of the province of Westergothland in Sweden, even small courses of true coal occur. There can hardly remain any doubt that this coal is derived from sea-weeds, of which fossil parts have been found, for not the slightest trace of land plants has ever been discovered."

These are instructive facts, yet greatly to be extended, when, we question not, the land will also contribute of its flora to complete our knowledge of the most ancient fossiliferous strata.But recently, bands of true coal have been discovered completely inclosed in this group of rocks near Oporto, the town of which stands on a ridge of granite, four or five miles wide, with micaslate and gneiss resting on both sides. To the eastward, these again are overlaid by sedimentary rocks, chiefly clayslate; which,

commencing on the coast about thirty miles north of Oporto, run down and cross the Douro, about sixteen miles above that town.To the south of Vallango, the strata overlie a deposit of anthracite in several beds, some of them from four to six feet thick.This coal is now worked in several pits, and principally sent to Oporto. Along with it are beds of red sandstone and black carbonaceous slates, with vegetable impressions too indistinct to be determined, but strongly resembling ferns of the coal measures. In the shales above this coal Mr. Sharpe, the discoverer, found many fossils, as orthides, trilobites, and graptolites, most of them new species, but others well known in the lower silurian rocks of Northern Europe. It would thus appear that the coal deposits of Oporto are included in the silurian formation, and are far below the usual level of the coal.

We cannot overvalue the theoretic importance of these discoveries, which do not indeed bring to light any exuberant variety of the vegetable tribes, such as the earth afterward threw out of her affluent bosom. But they mark sufficiently the period when plants, according to the geological reading of the history, first make their appearance on these lithological pages: fucoids and algæ are there in abundance, to give the vegetable portion of the narrative, as trilobites and molluscs form unquestionably the predominating features of the animal department. The coal-beds of Oporto-should their position turn out to be truly definedshow the dawning of a terrestrial flora, not sparingly but luxuriantly developed: and thus the silurian period may be regarded throughout as sufficiently characterized by well-marked types of vegetation, more doubtful in the higher forms, but determinate in the acotyledonous and cryptogamic tribes which prevail indifferently from the lower to the upper beds of the system. Nor do we require to overstrain the statement, by questioning nature or revelation as to the species, genera, orders, and classes of vegetables referred to in their respective pages. They are coincident as to the great truth itself, that PLANTS did exist in the earliest "days" of the earth's history. As a science, nothing is taught in the Sacred Record. None of the technicalities of physical inquiry are employed. But a beautiful progression, and elimination of one thing after another, are intimated. The light is

separated from the darkness. A firmament is set in the midst of the waters. The first plant that burst from the soil had thus every element provided which its nature and habits required-the light, to which it turns and ever yearns after-the air, in which to perform its respiratory functions-the water, from which to secrete the juices of circulation-and a dry land, out of which to elaborate materials for its structure. This is a Wisdom which is above all philosophy, instructing in the elements and principles of things, long before botanical arrangements were dreamed of, or "bushy dell" there was, where

hoary-headed frosts

Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose."

The silurian group of rocks is very widely extended, as in Britain, France, Russia, the north-west of Asia; in South Africa, North and South America, the Falkland Islands, and Australia. The most ancient physical features of the Old World can almost be recalled, as we thus trace the outline of the deposit, marking out, by its geographical distribution, the primary islands and mountain peaks of the aboriginal land. How changed the very face of things-continuity between states and kingdoms where seas now roll-and all the great continents occupying the sites over which the waters held unbounded sway!

CHAPTER IV.

THE DEVONIAN SYSTEM, OR OLD RED SANDSTONE.

A GEOLOGIST requires not, like the tourist, to be told of the various conflicting roads that run among the mountains, in what precise course he is to wend his way. He will follow his own pathways, roads of nature's forming, guided by the strike and lie of the rocks rather than by the beaten tracks of every-day life. But come whither he will-through Glentilt, Glenericht, Glenbeg, and the Spittal, Glenisla, and Clova,-or along the Dee, the heights of Glentanner, and penetrating to the sources of the Esks-sure we are, when he reaches by any of those passes the frontiers of the Grampians, he will pause and gaze wistfully, thoughtfully, admiringly, ere he descends, upon the magnificent prospect that stretches before him, unrivaled by any on the terraqueous globe. The GRAN-PEN, celticé, the shelvy or precipitous summit, Romanized into Grampius, has its own inner charms, peaceful rock-girt valleys where princes dwell, and happy as Rasselas ever trod.And escaped from these, what an outer world beneath, fertile,. abundant, replete with everything that can charm the eye or interest the student. Looming in the far distance, the Lammermuirs, of silurian origin, can just be descried as a dark-blue line on the verge of the horizon; the Ochils and Lomonds, of carboniferous age, repose like islets on the pendant sky; while, in the foreground of the picture, there is the most charming variety of woodland, meadow, farmstead, town, and mansion, all as I now gaze upon them in their autumn coloring, invested with a Claud-like mellowness that speaks with a moral yet romantic sympathy to the heart. The round tower of Brechin, the moldering walls of Edzell, the frowning battlements of Glammis, the worn-out and now verdant ramparts of Dunsinane, have each their crowds