by his contemporaries, but not re-examined. It may be safely stated, however, that that ancient record in which man is represented as the lastborn of creation, is opposed by no geologic fact; and that if, according to Chalmers, "the Mosaic writings do not fix the antiquity of the globe," they at least _do_ fix--making allowance, of course, for the varying estimates of the chronologer--"the antiquity of the human species." The great column of being, with its base set in the sea, and inscribed, like some old triumphal pillar, with many a strange form,--at once hieroglyphic and figure,--bears, as the ornately sculptured capital, which imparts beauty and finish to the whole, reasoning, responsible man. There is surely a very wonderful harmony manifested in the proportions of that nice sequence in which the invertebrates--the fishes, the reptiles, the birds, the marsupials, the placental mammals, and, last of all, man himself--are so exquisitely arranged. It reminds us of the fine figure employed by Dryden in his first Ode for St. Cecilia's Day,--a figure which, viewed in the light cast on it by the modern science of Palæontology, stands out in bolder relief than that in which it could have appeared to the poet himself:-- "From harmony, from heavenly harmony, This universal frame began; From harmony to harmony, Through all the compass of the notes it ran, The _diapason_ closing full in man." [Illustration: Fig. 77. ASAPHUS CAUDATUS. (_Silurian._)] [Illustration: Fig. 78. ORTHOCERAS LATERALE. (_Mountain Limestone._)] [Illustration: Fig. 79. SPIRIGERINA RETICULARIS. (_Old Red Sandstone._)] [Illustration: Fig. 80. A. MARGARITATUS. (_Lias._)] [Illustration: Fig. 81. A. BISULCATUS. (_Lias._)] [Illustration: Fig. 82. BELEMNITELLA MUCRONATA. (_Chalk._)] [Illustration: Fig. 83. BELEMNITES SULCATUS. (_Oolite._)]