stones; well, bring them next week, and we will do our best to name them for you!” Next week, after the lecture, up came one, and then another, and then a third, and so on; and diving their hands down into the old orthodox agricultural pocket, brought out a variety of specimens, some of them very good indeed, which had been “picked up” by them in the course of their labour, and which, supposed to be “_rather kūrŭss_,” had been carefully conveyed home. When these matters were given a “local habitation and a name,” the delight of many was most gratifying. Now, all this is only just the application of M. Cousin’s words in relation to physical geography: “Give me the map of a country, its configuration, its climate, its waters, its winds, and all its physical geography; give me its natural productions, its flora and fauna, and I pledge myself to tell you _à priori_ what the inhabitants of that country will be, and what place that country will take in history, not accidentally, but necessarily; not at a particular epoch, but at all periods of time; in a word, the thought that country is formed to represent.” These remarks furnish us with a clue. Each formation has its own peculiar and characteristic fossils, and these fossils are arranged with as much care, and preserved as uninjured, as if they had been arranged for a first-class museum. But before proceeding on this fossiliferous tour, we may anticipate a question that may possibly be asked on the threshold of our inquiries, and into which we propose going fully in the sequel of this volume. It may be asked, “Were not these fossils placed in the rocks by the Deluge?” To this, at present, we answer, that so partial and limited was the character of the Deluge, being confined to just so much of the earth as was inhabited by man, and so brief was its duration, compared with the vast geological epochs we shall have to consider, that we do not believe we have one single fossil that can be referred to the Noachian deluge; and before we close, we trust it will have been made evident to every careful reader that fossils, as records of Noah’s flood, are an impossibility; and that the vast antiquity of the globe, taken into connexion with the prevalence of death on a most extensive scale, ages and ages previous to the creation of man, can alone account for our innumerable treasures of the “deep places of the earth.” [Illustration: 1 ]