Experimental investigation of the spirit manifestations, [electronic ...

ON THE MORALS OF CHRISTIANS. 265most part, in as much order as tlic drawers of a well-regulated cabinet.In general, they appear to have lived and died on or near thespots wherethey are now found; and as countless millions of these remains are oftenfound piled together, so as to form almost entire mountains, the periodsrequisite for their formation must have been immensely long, as wastaught in the preceding proposition.1355. "Eighthly. Still further confirmation of the same importantprinciple is found in the well-established fact, that there have been uponthe globe, previous to the existing races,not less than five distinct periodsof organized existence; that is, five great groups of animals and plants, socompletely independent that no species whatever is found in more thanone of them, have lived and successively passed away before the creationof the races that now occupy the surface. Other standard writers makethe number of these periods of existence as many as twelve.Comparativeanatomy testifies that so unlike in structure were these difi'erent groups,that they could not have coexisted in the same climate and othercircumstances.external1356. "Ninthly. In the earliest times in which animals and plantslived, the climate over the whole globe appears to have been as warm as,or even warmer than, it is now between the tropics. And the slow changefrom warmer to colder appears to have been the chief cause of the successivedestruction of the difi'erent races; and new ones were created, betteradapted to the altered condition of the globe ; and yet each group seemsto have occupied the globe through a period of great length ; so that wehave here another evidence of the vast cycles of duration that must haverolled away even since the earth became a habitable globe.1357. " Tenthly. There is no small reason to suppose that the globeunderwent numerous changes previous to the time when animals wereplaced upon it ; that, in fact, the time was when the whole matter of theearth was in a melted state, and not improbably also even in a gaseousstate.These points, indeed, are not as well established as the others thathave been mentioned ; but, if admitted, they give to the globe an incalculableantiquity.1358. " Eleventhly. It appears that the present condition of the earth'scrust and surface was of comparatively recent commencement ; otherwisethe steep flanks of mountains would have ceased to crumble down, andwide oceans would have been filled with alluvial deposits.1359. " Twelfthly. Among the thirty thousand species of animals andplants found in the rocks,* very few living species have been detectedand even these few occur in the most recent rocks, while in the secondary"* Two or three years since Professor Bronn described twenty-six thousand six hundredand seventy-eight species; and, upon an average, one thousand species are discoveredevery year. M. Ak-ide D'Orbigny, in 1850, stated the number of mollusks and radiatedanimals alone at seventeen thousand nine hundred and forty-seven species."