A glance at this table suffices to show that when we read Hugh Miller's graphic descriptions of the Old Red Sandstone of Scotland, with its numerous and wonderful fishes, we have before us a formation altogether distinct from that of Devonshire or the Eifel. But the one represents the shallow, and the other the deeper seas of the same period. We learn this by careful tracing of the beds to their junction with, corresponding series, and by the occasional occurrence of the characteristic fishes of the Scottish strata in the English and German beds. In like manner a geologist who explores the Gaspé sandstones or the New Brunswick shales has under his consideration a group of beds very dissimilar from that which he would have to study on the shores of Lake Erie. But here again identity of relations to the Silurian below and the carboniferous above, shows the contemporaneousness of the beds, and this is confirmed by the occurrence in both series of some of the same plants and shells and fishes. It will further be observed that it is in the middle that the greatest difference occurs. Sand and mud and pebble-banks were almost universal over our two great continental plateaus in the Older and Newer Devonian. But in the Middle there were in some places deeper waters with coral reefs, in others shallow flats and swamps rich in vegetation. Herein we see the greater variety and richness of the Devonian. Had we lived in that age, we should not have seen great continents like those that now exist, but we could have roamed over lovely islands with breezy hills and dense lowland jungles, and we could have sailed over blue coral seas, glowing below with all the fanciful forms and brilliant colours of polyp life, and filled with active and beautiful fishes. Especially did all these conditions culminate in the Middle Devonian, when what are now the continental areas of the northern hemisphere must have much resembled the present insular and oceanic regions of the South Pacific. Out of the rich and varied life of the Devonian I may select for illustration its corals, its crustaceans, its fishes, its plants, and its insects. [Illustration: Fig. 11.--CORALS, FISHES, AND CRUSTACEANS OF THE DEVONIAN In the foreground are Corals of the genera _Favosites_, _Michelina_, _Phillipsatrea_, _Zaphrentis_, _Blothrophyllum_, and _Syringopora_, and the seaweed Spirephyton; also Fishes of the genera _Cephalaspis_ and _Pterichthys_. Above are _Pterygotus_ and _Dinichtys_, with Fishes of the genera _Diplacanthus_, _Osteolepis_, _Holoptychius_, _Pteraspis_, _Coccosteus_, etc. The distant land had _Lepidodendra_, Pines and Tree-ferns.]