Most hasty and superficial is this glance through the wonders of the old red sandstone. On the economic uses of this formation, as _tile-stones_ and _paving-stones_, we need not dwell; apart from this, these singular inhabitants of the seas of past ages, the mud of which, elevated and hardened, has become solid rock, tell us stories of that long since ancient time to which no poetry could do justice. Carried away from the present into those remote eras, our minds revel in the realization of scenery and inhabitants, of which now we possess only the fossil pictures. At the British Museum, we gaze with feelings approaching to repulsion on the stiff and unnatural forms of Egyptian mummies, but with what feelings of profound wonder do we look on these small fishes, so numerous that the relics of them, found in the Orkneys, may be carried away by cartloads! No number of creations can exhaust God, for in Him all fulness dwelleth. The God in whom we now live, and move, and have our being, is the same God who gave to these pre-Adamite fish their marvellous structures, minutely but fearfully and wonderfully made, and who, when their joy of life and functions of life had ceased, consigned them to a calm and peaceful grave. He is the same God who now upholds all things by the word of his power, and whom we desire to honour by the attentive and reverent perusal of his manifold works. _We_ are tautologists; we say and do the same thing over and over again. God never repeats himself: each successive creation—and how many, extending through countless ages, does geology disclose!—only reveals some new aspect of wisdom, love, and beneficence. To the mind that cannot repose in God, we say, Study God, in his works and in his word; yea, come back to this remote sandstone era and ask of the “fishes, and they shall declare unto thee” the might and majesty, the skill and contrivance of the Almighty; and though you and I were not there, nor had Adam yet trod this blessed earth,— “Think not, though men were none, That heaven could want spectators, God want praise; Millions of spiritual creatures walked the earth, And these with ceaseless praise His works beheld.” CHAPTER VI. THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. “As for the earth, out of it cometh bread, and under it is turned up as it were fire.”—JOB.