It has been thought proper to remove to this place certain notes relating to controverted points, in order that the perusal of the text may not be disturbed with petty and, as I believe, temporary cavils. For more abundant answers to objections of every kind, general reference is made to Explanations; a Sequel to Vestiges, &c.

NOTE A, p. 6.

The six-feet reflector, erected by the Earl of Rosse, near Cork, and first brought into operation in the latter part of 1844, resolved a great number of the nebulæ which had resisted other instruments of inferior power. Upon this, it has been rashly assumed, in some quarters, that all the celestial objects, usually called nebulæ, were proved to be clusters of stars, rendered cloudlike only by the vast distance at which they were placed. The truth appears to be, that the nebulæ now resolved were of that class which were always considered as liable to be ascertained as astral systems; while another class of objects, described in pp. 7 and 8 of the text, remained unaffected by these observations. See Explanations, pp. 8—13.

While the cartilaginous fishes which now exist reach lower down in the scale of organization than the osseous, and while their imperfect vertebral structure, heterocercal tails, and other peculiarities, indicate a general inferiority, some of them present characters in the nervous and reproductive systems, which the osseous fishes do not possess.

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 incandescent 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 devolved; 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 character, and the powerful nature of the evidence which these materials afford, are calculated to excite our admiration, and the result must be allowed to exalt the dignity of science, as a product of man's industry and his reason.

If there is anything more than another impressed on our minds by the course of the geological history, it is, that the same laws and conditions of nature now apparent to us have existed throughout the whole time, though the operation of some of these laws may now be less conspicuous than in the early ages, from some of the conditions having come to a settlement and a close. That seas have flowed and ebbed, and winds disturbed their surfaces, in the time of the secondary rocks, we have proof on the yet preserved surfaces of the sands which constituted margins of the seas in those days.

The human race is known to consist of numerous nations, displaying considerable differences of external form and colour, and speaking in general different languages. This has been the case since the commencement of written record. It is also ascertained that the external peculiarities of particular nations do not change rapidly. While a people remain upon one geographical area, and under the influence of one set of conditions, they always exhibit a tendency to persistency of type, insomuch that a subordinate admixture of various type is usually obliterated in a few generations. Numerous as the varieties are, they have all been found classifiable under five leading ones: — 1. The Caucasian, or Indo-European, which extends from India into Europe and Northern Africa; 2. The Mongolian, which occupies Northern and Eastern Asia; 3. The Malayan, which extends from the Ultra-Gangetic Peninsula into the numerous islands of the South Seas and Pacific; 4. The Negro, chiefly confined to Africa; 5. The aboriginal American. Each of these is distinguished by certain general features of so marked a kind, as to suggest to many inquirers, that they have had distinct or independent origins. Of these peculiarities, colour is the most conspicuous: the Caucasians are generally white, the Mongolians yellow, the Negroes black, and the Americans red. The opposition of two of these in particular, white and black, is so striking, that of them, at least, it seems almost necessary to suppose separate origins.

Thus ends a book, composed in solitude, and almost without the cognizance of a single fellowbeing, as solely as possible for the purpose of improving the knowledge of mankind, and through that medium, their happiness. For reasons best to be appreciated by myself, my name is retained in its original obscurity, and, in all probability, will never be generally known. I do not expect that any word of praise which the work may elicit shall ever be responded to by me; or that any word of censure shall ever be parried or deprecated. Sine me—I may say so far more truly than did the lorn exile of the Euxine—it goes forth to take its chance of instant oblivion, or of a long and active course of usefulness in the world. Neither contingency can be of any importance to me, beyond the regret or the satisfaction which may be imparted by my sense of a lost or a realized benefit to my fellow-creatures. The book, as far as I am aware, is the first attempt to connect the natural sciences into a history of creation, and thence to eliminate a view of nature as one grand system of causation. As a first effort towards a task so much above ordinary aspirations, it must necessarily be in some measure crude and unsatisfactory, even overlooking errors of detail justly attributable to my defective knowledge.

We advance to a new chapter in this marvellous history—the era of the Old Red Sandstone System. This term is applied to a series of strata, of enormous thickness in the whole mass, largely developed in Herefordshire, Shropshire, Worcestershire, and South Wales; also in the counties of Fife, Forfar, Moray, Cromarty, and Caithness; and in Russia and North America, if not in many other parts of the world. The particular strata forming the system are somewhat different in different countries; but there is a general character to the extent of these being a mixture of flagstones, marly rocks, and sandstones, usually of a laminous structure, with conglomerates. In the conglomerates, of great extent and thickness, which form, in at least one district, the basis or leading feature of the system, inclosing water-worn fragments of quartz, and other rocks, we have evidence of the seas of that period having been subjected to a violent and long-continued agitation, probably from volcanic causes. The upper members of the series bear the appearance of having been deposited in comparatively tranquil seas. The English specimens of this system show a remarkable freedom from those disturbances which result in the interjection of trap; and they are thus defective in mineral ores. In some parts of England the old red sandstone system has been stated as 10,000 feet in thickness.