As yet there were no land animals or plants, and for this the presumable reason is, that no dry land as yet existed. We are not left to make this inference solely from the absence of land animals and plants; in the arrangement of the primary (stratified) rocks, we have further evidence of it. That these rocks were formed in a generally horizontal position, we are as well assured as that they were formed at the bottom of seas. But they are always found greatly inclined in position, tilted up against the slopes of the granitic masses which are beneath them in geological order, though often shooting up to a higher point in the atmosphere. No doubt can be entertained that these granitic masses, forming our principal mountain ranges, have been protruded from below, or, at least, thrust much further up, _since_ the deposition of the primary rocks. The protrusion was what tilted up the primary rocks; and the inference is, of course, unavoidable, that these mountains have risen chiefly, at least, since the primary rocks were laid down. It is remarkable that, while the primary rocks thus incline towards granitic nuclei or axes, the strata higher in the series rest against these again, generally at a less inclination, or none at all, shewing that these strata were laid down after the swelling mountain eminences had, by their protrusion, tilted up the primary strata. And thus it may be said an era of local upthrowing of the primitive and (perhaps) central matter of our planet, is established as happening about the close of the primary strata, and beginning of the next ensuing system. It may be called the _Era of the Oldest Mountains_, or, more boldly, of the formation of the detached portions of dry land over the hitherto watery surface of the globe—an important part of the designs of Providence, for which the time was now apparently come. It may be remarked, that volcanic disturbances and protrusions of trap took place throughout the whole period of the deposition of the primary rocks; but they were upon a comparatively limited scale, and probably all took place under water. It was only now that the central granitic masses of the great mountain ranges were thrown up, carrying up with them broken edges of the primary strata; a process which seems to have had this difference from the other, that it was the effect of a more tremendous force exerted at a lower depth in the earth, and generally acting in lines pervading a considerable portion of the earth’s surface. We shall by-and-by see that the protrusion of some of the mountain ranges was not completed, or did not stop, at that period. There is no part of geological science more clear than that which refers to the ages of mountains. It is as certain that the Grampian mountains of Scotland are older than the Alps and Apennines, as it is that civilization had visited Italy, and had enabled her to subdue the world, while Scotland was the residence of “roving barbarians.” The Pyrenees,