Thus we learn that, to a great extent, fiction is dependent upon truth for its creations; and we see that when we come to investigate any wide-spread popular superstition, although much distorted by the medium of error through which it has passed, it is frequently founded upon some fragmentary truth. There are floating in the minds of men certain ideas which are not the result of any associations drawn from things around; we reckon them amongst the mysteries of our being. May they not be the truths of a former world, of which we receive the dim outshadowing in the present, like the faint lights of a distant Pharos, seen through the mists of the wide ocean? Man treads upon the wreck of antiquity. In times which are so long past, that the years between them cannot be numbered by the aids of our science, geology teaches us that forms of life existed perfectly fitted for the conditions of the period. These performed their offices in the great work; they passed away, and others succeeded to carry on the process of building a world for man. The past preaches to the present, and from its marvellous discourses we venture to infer something of the yet unveiled future. The forces which have worked still labour: the phenomena which they have produced will be repeated. Ages on ages slowly pass away, And nature marks their progress by decay. The plant which decks the mountain with its bloom, Finds in the earth, ere long, a damp dark tomb: And man, earth’s monarch, howe’er great and brave-- Toils on--to find at last a silent grave. The chosen labours of his teeming mind Fade by the light, and crumble ’neath the wind; And e’en the hills, whose tops appear to shroud Their granite peaks deep in the vapoury cloud, Worn by tempests--wasted by the rains, Sink slowly down to fill wide ocean’s plains. The ocean’s breast new lands again display, And life and beauty drink the light of day: The powers which work at great creation’s wheel, Will from the wrecks of matter still reveal New forms of wondrous beauty--which will rise Pure as the flame of love’s young sacrifice, Beaming with all the pristine hues of youth, Robed by the day, and crowned by holy truth. FOOTNOTES: [231] _Preliminary Discourse_; Sir J. F. W. Herschel. Lardner’s Cabinet Cyclopædia. [232] _Geological Researches_; by Sir Henry De la Beche, C.B. (_Degradation of Mountains_, p. 167.) _Geological Manual_, p. 184. _Principles of Geology_; by Sir Charles Lyell, 7th Edition, p. 150, 686. _On the Denudation of South Wales, and the adjacent countries of England_; by Professor Andrew Ramsay; Memoirs of the Geological Survey and Museum of Practical Geology, vol. i. p. 297. [233] Fownes, _On the Existence of Phosphoric Acid in Rocks of Igneous Origin_; Phil. Trans. 1844, p. 53. Nesbitt, _Quarterly Journal of the Chemical Society_.