It has been a favorite theory with many persons of a philosophic turn of mind that all organic forms were created upon the earth not by mere chance or hap-hazard, nor by what have been called by the early geologists “freaks of nature,” but, on the contrary, with some definite intent on the part of the Creator, and perhaps for the welfare of mankind. Some of these far-sighted thinkers have advanced their views so far as to maintain that even obscure animal and vegetable forms may have some indirect or distant effect upon the well-being of man. We all must admit that it is indeed a beautiful hypothesis, even if it be contested by stern and savage arguments. But if we indulge in this manner of reasoning, there seems to be hardly a limit in natural philosophy in which we may not seek for evidence. Can we not include the subject of our treatise among those things which are supposed to have some influence upon the moulding of human character? Certainly its geological age, its origin, the beauties and wonders of its physical properties, and their application to art and science as well as to the wants of society, furnish evidence to sustain an inference. But how can a cold, inanimate object like a gem influence the condition or expansion of the human intellect? the rigid materialist may say. The gems, he will maintain, apply only to the superficial wants of man, and directly tend to degrade rather than elevate our natural morals; that they are articles of commerce, and that commerce debases our natural instincts. On the contrary, we may say that the beautiful in nature of whatever degree is calculated to assist in the development of mental culture; and without these beautiful lessons and examples constantly spread out before us, man would always have remained in a state of utter barbarism. As we look back upon the history of life, how many of the triumphs of human architecture may be traced to the suggestions arising from the observance of the varied forms of nature! Nearly all of the beauties of the Gothic or Grecian styles may be found existing in the fossil relics of by-gone ages or even in the multiple forms of existing vegetation. What grand deductions Newton derived from his studies of the glories of the opal and the iridescent gleams of the soap-bubble! Let us follow our theme a little longer. In reviewing the fragmentary remains of the early periods of the earth’s history, the observer will admit that there has been a marked progress in even vegetable life as well as in the animal. For in the primitive ages we find the non-flowering plants were more numerous than the flowering species. Therefore, in contemplating the precedence of succession of animal and vegetable life, the thought naturally occurs to us that perhaps the most delicate and beautiful of all our flowers elate from recent geological periods.