One overwhelming consideration with us, in the discussion of this question, is the position which MAN occupies, and the part he now plays on the theater of creation. The beasts and quadrupeds of the earth do not appear to have been formed so early as the carboniferous epoch. Had they existed at the period it is impossible to say what effects would have resulted from their graminivorous propensities in modifying the amount of the vegetable exuviæ. But man has appeared, modifying, changing, controlling everything—the earth and all its stores under his dominion—and all submissive to his will. He has little influence, indeed, over the more solid departments or structure of the globe—the form of its continents—the direction of its oceanic currents—the rise of islands and depression of land—the movements of the earthquake, and fiery torrents of the volcano; but over all its living products, especially its vegetable and terrestrial animal tribes, his influence is immense—increasingly incalculable. And, the geologist says, had this new denizen left the earth to itself, and nature to her own arrangements—were there no tilling, draining, and reaping—were the jungle and the wilderness to be still uninvaded—the marsh and the lagoon to welter in their dreary desolation—a vast coal deposit would be preparing in all the great lakes and seas of the globe. These postulates and conditions, however, can no longer be granted. Every day and every season they are all curtailed and limited in their influences. Man cuts down the forest, and applies it in its green, woody state to his own use.—The waste is reclaimed. The desert he makes his habitation; a place of beauty and civilization. The moral triumphs over the material, the spiritual over the earthy, and his charter-right is to subdue all things to himself. Thus the geologist cannot, if he would, forget or overlook the remarkable human epoch in which his own lot has been cast. As regards the future, there is a new element to which a due place must be assigned in his speculations; and all the great revolutions, and after-phases of our globe, he must henceforth read and interpret in the REVEALED destiny of his own race.