In the warm waters of the basin of the seas the first living beings which existed upon our globe appeared. Animal life commenced in the waters, in the primitive forms of zoophytes and mollusca, as we know, because zoophytes and mollusca, with the addition of a few articulates, composed the animal remains found in the transition strata which come after the primary formations. The first vegetables are found in the same transition strata, they are mosses, algæ, and ferns. When the earth had become somewhat cooler, phanerogamous vegetables appeared upon the continents. Numerous vegetable species were simultaneously created, for the flora of the secondary formations is extremely rich and varied. It was the same in the case of animals. So the zoophytes, mollusca, and fish which existed in the transition period succeeded reptiles, in the secondary formation, which inhabited both land and sea. At this period appeared those monstrous saurian reptiles, whose formidable shapes, and colossal dimensions fill us with surprise and almost with dismay. Then the gigantic mosasaurus ravaged the seas, the terrible ichthyosaurus spread terror among the inhabitants of the waters, and the gigantic iguanodon laid waste the forests. The secondary formation, which is filled with their remains, shows us that at that period reptiles held the first rank in creation. At a later date, the atmosphere having become purer, birds began to traverse the air. In the tertiary deposit we find the remains of several kinds of birds, and these remains, which do not exist in the earlier formations, sufficiently prove that it was in the tertiary period that birds made their first appearance upon the terrestrial globe. Still later, at a more advanced period of the tertiary epoch, mammifers appear upon the scene. We must observe that these animal species do not replace each other, that the one does not exclude the other. Several of the ancient animal species continue to exist after the appearance of entirely novel kinds. We might quote as instances whole groups of animals, such as the lingulæ (mollusca), the coral (zoophyte) among animals, and among vegetables, the algæ, ferns, and lycopodes, which appeared on our globe in the earliest period of the reign of organization, and have never ceased to exist. It was not until the last epoch in the history of the Earth, during the quaternary epoch, that man appeared, the highest product of living creation, the ultimate term of organic, intellectual, and moral progress, the crowning upon our earth of the visible edifice of nature. At present, man lives together with the animals which began to exist during the quaternary epoch, and a great number of other kinds of mammifers which were created during the tertiary epoch.