Such formations, more or less metamorphosed, are very familiar, especially to the student of palaeozoic geology, and they often attain a vast thickness.

Geographical provinces and zones may have been as distinctly marked in the Palaeozoic epoch as at present, and those seemingly sudden appearances of new genera and species, which we ascribe to new creation, may be simple results of migration.

Turning to the Vertebrata, the only palaeozoic Elasmobranch Fish of which we have any complete knowledge is the Devonian and Carboniferous Pleuracanthus, which differs no more from existing Sharks than these do from one another.

The MolluscaIn what sense is the living Waldheimia less embryonic, or more specialised, than the palaeozoic Spirifer; or the existing Rhynchonelloe, Cranioe, Discinoe, Linguloe, than the Silurian species of the same genera?

But then, on careful consideration of the facts, the objection arises that the stalk, calyx, and arms of the palaeozoic Crinoid are exceedingly different from the corresponding organs of a larval Comatula; and it might with perfect justice be argued that Actinocrinus and Eucalyptocrinus, for example, depart to the full as widely, in one direction, from the stalked embryo of Comatula, as Comatula itself does in the other.

So, none of the Palaeozoic Sharks have shown themselves to be possessed of ossified vertebrae, while the majority of modern Sharks possess such vertebrae.

by observation and experiment upon the existing forms of life, the conclusion will inevitably present itself, that the Palaeozoic Mesozoic, and Cainozoic faunae and florae, taken together, bear somewhat the same proportion to the whole series of living beings which have occupied this globe, as the existing fauna and flora do to them.

I stated that "geographical provinces, or zones, may have been as distinctly marked in the Palaeozoic epoch as at present; and those seemingly sudden appearances of new genera and species which we ascribe to new creation, may be simple results of migration.

There is one division of the Amphibia which offers especially important evidence upon this point, inasmuch as it bridges over the gap between the Mesozoic and the Palaeozoic formations (often supposed to be of such prodigious magnitude), extending, as it does, from the bottom of the Carboniferous series to the top of the Trias, if not into the Lias.

To what point of the Palaeozoic epoch, then, must we, upon any rational estimate, relegate the origin of the Monotremata? The investigation of the occurrence of the classes and of the orders of the Sauropsida in time points in exactly the same direction.

How do similar reasonings apply to the other great change of lifethat which took place at the end of the Palaeozoic period?

[Footnote 7: Since this Address was read, Mr. Krefft has sent us news of the discovery in Australia of a freshwater fish of strangely Palaeozoic aspect, and apparently a Ganoid intermediate between Dipterus and Lepidosiren.

But now comes the further inquiry, Where was the highly differentiated Sauropsidan fauna of the Trias in Palaeozoic times?

The supposition that all these types were rapidly differentiated out of Lacertilia in the time represented by the passage from the Palaeozoic to the Mesozoic formation, appears to me to be hardly more credible, to say nothing of the indications of the existence of Dinosaurian forms in the Permian rocks which have already been obtained.

For my part, I entertain no sort of doubt that the Reptiles, Birds, and Mammals of the Trias are the direct descendants of Reptiles, Birds, and Mammals which existed in the latter part of the Palaeozoic epoch, but not in any area of the present dry land which has yet been explored by the geologist.

It may be said that the Carboniferous formations demonstrate the existence of a vast extent of dry land in the present dry-land area, and that the supposed terrestrial Palaeozoic Vertebrate Fauna ought to have left its remains in the Coal-measures, especially as there is now reason to believe that much of the coal was formed by the accumulation of spores and sporangia on dry land.

Into this great new continental area the Mammals, Birds, and Reptiles developed during the Palaeozoic epoch spread, and formed the great Triassic Arctogaeal province.

In the buttressed hollow of one of these palaeozoic cathedrals you are ashamed of your ribs, and blush for the exiguous pillars of bone on which your breathing structure reposes.

Over the great mineral belt which lies between the Sierra Nevada and the front range of the Rocky Mountains, and extends not only across the whole breadth of our territory, but far into Mexico, the surface was once underlain by a series of Palaeozoic sedimentary strata not less than twenty to thirty thousand feet in thickness; and beneath these, at the sides, and doubtless below, were Archæun rocks, also metamorphosed sediments.

MENCKEN, HENRY L. Notes on palaeozoic publicists.

SEE MENCKEN, H. L. Notes on palaeozoic publicists.

MENCKEN, HENRY L. Notes on palaeozoic publicists.

SEE MENCKEN, H. L. Notes on palaeozoic publicists.