147 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS RESPECTING THE ORIGIN OF THE ANIMATED TRIBES. Thus concludes the wondrous chapter of the earth’s history which is told by geology. It takes up our globe at the period when its original incan descent state had nearly ceased ; conducts it through what we have every reason to believe were vast, or at least very considerable, spaces of time, in the course of which many superficial changes took place, and vegetable and animal life was gradually developed; and drops it just at the point when man was apparently about to enter on the scene. The compilation of such a history, from materials of so extraordinary a cha racter, and the powerful nature of the evidence H 2
