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those perforations which gave passage to the tube which connected the whole series of chambers together. The remains of this pipe are still perceptible, not, as in the recent nautilus, piercing the partitions near their centres, but at their edges, and lying close within the rounded back of the shell. The innermost cells, those penetralia to which the earthy sediment could not gain admittance, are filled with black calcareous spar, which must have percolated in solution with the water through the pores of the shell, and crystallized in its interior. The entire organism is greatly changed from its original condition, yet it is unaltered in all its more characteristic features. Its analogy is complete with the pearly nautilus which navigates the Indian Ocean, and it bears a still closer resemblance to the umbilicated nautilus, as witnesses one of the latter from the shores of New Zealand, which lies amicably in the same drawer to illustrate our best specimens from the rocks of Central New York. Still they are by no means identical, and in this as in other instances, the ancient fossil is connected with its modern representative by a series of perhaps a hundred more or less varying species.

The abundance of these relics is remarkable. In a block of three or four square feet may often be seen the remains of as many of these graceful shells. A mass from this very ledge, containing four nautili from four to ten inches in diameter, lies on the floor in that chilly apartment of the old State Hall at Albany, which, appropriated to the State collection of fossils, is consigned to dust and neglect; while the attention of visitors to the State Museum is mainly directed to the inspection of bullets from old battlefields, "horned frogs," rattlesnakes, and bead embroidered Indian leggins, and to the inscription of their valuable autographs in a register kept for that purpose, after the manner of hotels.

The disinterment of relics of such evident and unquestionable character from a ledge of the hardest rock, two hundred miles inland and nearly a thousand feet above the sea level, is a fact to fix the attention of the most careless observer. To the informed and thoughtful mind it connects with wonderful freshness and reality the two almost infinitely remote eras, that of the nautilus sailing gayly

66. -In sun and breeze,
On the new orented seas,"

in this very latitude, 43° North, 76° West, and that when the same shell is

broken out in the same place, from a ledge loosened by the severest frosts of winter.

In a museum of Egyptian relics but three thousand years old, we are surprised at the apparently close relation of the past with the present, as shown by furniture and garments bearing so great a resemblance to those now in use, and human remains not yet quite resolved into their elements. But what comparison bear the famous forty centuries invoked at the battle of the Pyramids to the cycles which have crept away since these courses of masonry were laid over this relic, and it was left

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for over to endure, Itself its monument?"

Two other varieties of nautili occur in the same layer. one a little species not larger than a half dollar, in which (as in the pearly nautilus) every whorl enfolds and entirely conceals those within it; another much larger, in which the successive volutions lie unobscured, merely in contact with each other, and ornamented along their outer edges with a series of knobs or bosses.

Equally abundant with the nautili, are some shells of a very peculiar form, quite unknown among living families, though every where common in the lower and older layers of the Great Cemetery. They are perhaps two inches in diameter, two feet long, tapering to a point, and divided by internal partitions into a succession of chambers or cells. At first sight they appear entirely unlike any thing else, but on close examination prove to have precisely the structure of a nautilus, differing only in being extended in a straight line instead of being coiled up.

We have remarked that these shells occur in so great abundance, that a square yard of the rock may be estimated to contain on an average not less than three, lying within a thin layer of but a few inches. At this estimate an acre of this cemetery must contain more than fourteen thousand of these stony skeletons, and more than nine millions are buried under each square mile.

The fact that the ocean bottom was so thickly strewed with these remains of animals which, being carnivorous and of wandering habits, could not have existed in very dense numbers at any moment, proves that their accumulation must have been the work of a very long period of time. It has occurred to us that a vague estimate of this period may be made.

If, in a district supporting a human population of a thousand persons, the or

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dinary annual mortality among whom would be perhaps twenty, we should find the burying ground to contain a thousand graves, it would be reasonable to conclude that half a century had elapsed while this average population had existed.

Now, before applying this reasoning to the old cemetery of the nautili, we need two facts by way of data; first the average density of their population, secondly, their average duration of life. We have little means of obtaining practical evidence of either. But, being large floating shellfish of a high grade of organization, and of carnivorous habits, they are not likely to have been very abundant; and if we assume that an average of ten may at once have been living on cach acre, or six thousand four hundred on each square mile, it will perhaps be a reasonable estimate. If we then suppose the usual longevity of a nautilus to have been ten years, it follows that to each acre of the cemetery at the sea-bottom there would be added one dead shell annually, so that more than fourteen thousand years would elapse before such an accumulation of them as we find in this rock could be formed.

This is a mere speculation, perhaps an extravagant one, founded on data assumed without much authority. But whatever allowance may be made for error, there remains evidence of a very long period during which this rock was being deposited, and even our largest estimate seems to be supported by arguments of a different character. For within this thin layer is comprehended all that remains of four or five very marked and conspicuous forms of life. Their whole period of existence seems to have left no other record than is contained in this foot of hardened sea-slime. They are not found above or below, they did not exist before its deposit commenced; they became extinct before it was completed. Now what duration may we allot to such a group of species?

Human observation has detected no appreciable change among the living forms of earth during the period of history. The mummied animals of Egypt are precisely identical with modern species. Except when exterminated by man, no species is known to have disappeared. We have no knowledge of the appearance, or extinction from natural causes, of a single form.

And though this is merely negative evidence of little value, inasmuch as accurate observations in natural history are but of modern date, there are natural records which prove a very protracted

duration for species of shellfish yet existing. When the Niagara poured over the bluff at Lewistown, its waters left layers of sand and clay filled with the shells which then inhabited its waters. Since that time, it has worn its slow way backwards, forming a ravine six or seven miles long, which at a reasonable estimate of the rapidity of its recession, must have occupied from one hundred to three hundred centuries. Yet the same shellfish, undistinguishable in any particular, inhabit the shores of Goat Island and Chippewa to-day! If they have been in the full vigor of existence for from ten to thirty thousand years, how long a period may we reasonably suppose to have comprehended the entire duration of these races of nautili and the deposition of that rocky sepulchre which entombs them all?

If such deductions in Geology lack the accuracy and numerical certainty which are found in the conclusions of its sister science of the stars, they are, at least, suggestive thoughts. The actual evidence of vast duration is ample, and the very indefiniteness and vagueness which hang around it, heighten the impression which it produces, of the majestic slowness with which the progress of earth's changes has gone on, and still goes on,

"While the stars burn, the moons increase,
And the great ages onward roll."

Yet other and stranger relics of life lie hidden in this layer. Rude black carbonaceous patches occur, which to the unpractised observer present no signs of interest. On these, however, the keen eye of such an explorer as Agassiz or Hall fastens instantly. The black spot shows an organic texture, in which the microscope_reveals the perfect structure of bone. Further search brings to light better specimens, showing bony plates united at their edges like a mosaic pavement, and marked on their surface with starlike tubercles. It is clearly a fragment of one of those strange fossil fishes described by Hugh Miller, which had their bones mainly external, and, like the tortoise, were clad in their own skeletons as in plate armor. The starlike markings identify it as a species of Asterolepis, a near relative to that which the author of "The Old Red Sandstone" found in the hills of Orkney, and which is the foundation of his volume, "The Footprints of the Creator." We have a bony plate found in this rock, once belonging to the lower jaw of one of these mailed crea tures, which must have rejoiced in an en

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tire length of four or five feet; while a fragment of a spine which grew on the back of another, nearly an inch broad, and showing little diminution in size in its length of four or five, indicates one of much greater size, at the sight of whose dark, shadowy form, as he swam about in the clear brine, the sailing nautili may have shrunk back into their shells, and sought the bottom, with as much dread as their modern successors before the shark of the Indian sea. These fragmentary relics are the only evidence we yet have of the forms to which they belonged. On a sea-bottom filling so slowly and imperceptibly, every articulation must have yielded to decay, and each bone fallen from its fellow, long before they were buried up in the sediment. It is therefore hardly to be expected, that future specimens should be met with, still retaining the natural connection of their parts, or the general outline of their form; though in other strata of different character, and more rapidly deposited, such fortunate instances are not uncommon.

We must, therefore, be content to restore these vanished forms from such scattered fragments as may remain, aided by such hints as we may glean from the structure of their nearest living analogues, and the more entire remains of similar species found in rocks which have kept their organic treasures in more perfect condition. Every day spent in searching this ledge, however, brings to light some additional scrap or fragment; now a spine, now a bony plate, now a few scales, or a tooth, all which, when united, like the fragments of a shivered statue, or the chips of a broken mosaic, may yet reproduce with considerable completeness the general form from which they were detached. In the hourly hope of such gradual discoveries, days of laborious exploration pass rapidly away.

No rock in New York with which we are acquainted, contains within a narrow space a more striking collection of relics, than is found in this thin ledge of limestone imbedded between its barren slates, and few pleasanter days are within our memory, than those spent in its examination. Much labór is necessary to force open the grasp in which its contents are held, and no little patience and care are afterwards required to chisel away the enveloping stone from each fossil, or to reunite its fragments into a perfect whole. Not one in five is extricated in a condition approaching completeness. But the difficulty enhances the interest, and the relic is not the worse for showing some

effects of its long burial and rough disinterment. As one would not choose his penny of Alfred, or medal of Vespasian, quite free from the rust and corrosion of ages, untarnished and perfect as a new dollar, no more would we have our shell, preserved in its rocky sarcophagus from the early epochs of time, as bright and fresh as one dredged up last year off the coast of Amboyna. We love them somewhat as Desdemona did Othello, "for the perils they have passed;" and a reasonable crack or scar out of their symmetrical forms, does not diminish their value in our eyes. They lie in our cabinet drawers by the half dozen, some almost perfect, some sadly dilapidated, some in fragments,-casts of separate chambers, thin pieces of striated shell, little coils which were once the central beginnings of large nautili, black plates of bone, broken spines; in short, scraps of ancient mortality of all sizes and degrees of incompleteness. Every one has its reminiscence of the day, the spot, the associate with whom we labored. As we look them over on some stormy, snowy; drifting February day, the time and place of their discovery recur vividly to memory. It is again June: there is the high grassy brow of the hill,-the deep valley, with its winding stream far below,-the opposite slope, a mile in gradual ascent, patched with forest, grainfield, and meadow, the broad, wooded lowland, spreading away from the mouth of the valley, like the sea from the entrance of a bay, to the far, sharp horizon, where show dimly, through fifty miles of atmosphere, a few serrated peaks, which lie in the wilderness of Hamilton county. In the middle distance spreads the long gleaming Oneida, recalling to mind the forest-tales of Cooper, legends of woodland exploration a hundred years ago, and the history of the campaigns of Brant and St. Leger. We again seem to sit hammering at the ledge, to hear the clink of the crowbar, and the dull report of the blast shaking up the rock, and summoning us to look eagerly for new revelations among the shattered masses.

The momentary reverie fades,--we are standing at our window, specimen in hand, clouds of drift obscuring the dreary snowfields before us; but we mentally resolve, as soon as the earth is green and the skies are mild, again to draw from their dusty winter corner, hammer and basket, sledge and drill, and to ransack with new zeal this wonderful repository of the primal ages.

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COMTE'S PHILOSOPHY.

The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte; Freely Translated and Condensed by HARRIET MARTINEAU. 2 vols.

IT

T is some ten or twelve years since entering the bookstore of Wiley & Putnam, in Broadway, we took from the shelves four large and dingy volumes, printed in French, and bound with coarse, rose-colored paper, purporting to be a treatise on the entire circle of the sciences. The first page we opened upon contained a statement of the imperfections of analytical geometry, and we said, "Here is a conceited fellow, who believes himself capable of reforming the mathematics." But on reading further, we discovered that he was an earnest partisan of mathematics, carrying his respect for them, indeed, so far as to assert, when he came to speak of the progress of their astronomical applications, that "the heavens declare the glory"-not of God, as the good old Bible says, but "of Hipparchus, Kepler, and Newton." An audacious thinker, at any rate, we thought to ourselves, and strove to penetrate a little deeper into his book. Repulsed at first by the novelty and boldness of his remarks, we were at the same time held fast by a certain assurance of movement, as he passed along the dizzy heights of the most adventurous speculation; we were convinced that no ordinary thinker held us in his hands; and when, towards the close of the work, we came full-face upon the announcement of a wholly new science, for which all other sciences were but preparatives-the Science of society-the fact jumped in too nicely with the tenor of our own previous researches and hopes, to allow any dictates of economy to hinder us from becoming the owner of those shabby-looking volumes.

We read them, not with avidity, because they were written quite too much in "the dry-light," as Bacon calls it, for that, and yet with a deep though forced attention. It seemed, from the very outset, that the author was no ordinary thinker, his great instrument of a mind moving with the regularity, though by no means the velocity of a machine, and impressing one, as it drew him along, with a feeling that he might be supposed to have when caught up by the gearing of some monster corn-mill or cotton factory. No pleasant episodes of the imagination adorned the way; no scintillations of fancy sparkled like fire-flies around it;

no gentle play of the affections warmed it, and no beacons of hope illuminated the bleak distance. A stern and relentless Intellect, marching remorselessly along its path, was treading down our dearest hopes, and crushing out the noblest and sweetest sensibilities, and, in the midst of all our reluctance and horror, dragging us with it to its infernal goal.

As we became more familiar with our supposed demon, however, we found that he was not altogether so bad as he seemed; a silver lining of humanity was now and then turned from out the folds of his dark frown; he was clearly very much in earnest, and had an unquestionable love for the truth. IIe spoke ill of nobody, threatened nobody, and pursued his own silent and impassive way, among the stars, and through the depths of the earth, and amid the busy haunts of men, intent only on his purpose, which, the more it was pondered, appeared to be more and more dignified, noble and benevolent. We finally dismissed all fears of our guide, and honestly set to work to discover what he was at. When we add, that those volumes were the "Positive Philosophy" of Comte, a most original, profound. and comprehensive philosopher, the intelligent reader of this day will need no further explanation of our experience.

It was a momentous discovery for us,this of a new and really great thinker,of a man who discussed with consummate familiarity and ease, many of the highest problems of science; and we naturally turned to the Records to see what the world had made of him,-to ascertain his whereabouts, as well as to compare our secluded estimate of his rank, with that of the accredited standards of opinion and criticism. Alas! we searched in vain for any notice of him. The reviews of France and England, though noisy enough in their praises and dispraises of the little tadpoles of literature, had no word for him; the learned societies the world over, eager as they always are to rescue their insignificance from utter oblivion, by blazoning the name of whoever has won imperishable glory in deciphering the wrappages on an old mummy, or discovering a nation in Africa one degree nearer the monkey than any before known, were unconscious of his name; and, in private circles, few persons whom we met had ever heard, or, if they had

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heard, knew any thing definite of, the star which had risen with quite portentous light upon our small horizon. At last, however, we did find in the Edinburgh Review of 1838-sixteen years after Comte's first book was published, and eight after the completion of the last-a notice of the Positive Philosophy, said to be written by Sir David Brewster, which showed plainly enough that Sir David had failed to get even a glimpse of the peculiarity of the system. When Whewell, too, published his "Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences," it was evident that he had read Comte, but was either afraid or not honest enough to own it; and the first public recognition of him, of any importance, we found in the Logic of Mills, who borrows largely from him, but without the meanness of concealment. Indeed, no attempt, as we are aware, has yet been made towards an elaborate and impartial judgment of Comte, save in a series of able articles published in the Methodist Quarterly Review of this city, where the writer, disagreeing with many of his conclusions, frankly and admiringly confesses his merits. Morell's "Philosophy of the Nineteenth Century," has a superficial account of Comte's system, and Professor De Saisset has written something about him, in the Revue des Deux Mondes, which we have not seen.

This uniform neglect of Comte, during the quarter of a century in which he had been laboriously working out his views, struck us as strange, particularly as contemporary literature and science contained not a few direct appropriations of his labors. We tried to account for it, on one or more of three several suppositions: either that his works were intrinsically unworthy of study, or that their departures from the accepted and reigning opinions were so flagrant as to excite a silent contempt for them, or that the range and comprehensiveness of their topics lifted them quite above the ordinary apprehensions and intellectual sympathies of the age.

But, on reflection, we soon saw that neither of these solutions could be entirely satisfactory. It was obvious, at a glance, that those works were worthy of study, as their masterly originality and power, their logical coherence, their dignity of manner, and the importance of the results at which they aimed, abundantly proved. A rational and consistent classification of the sciences, on the basis of nature, and the construction of a new science, destined to take its place as the queen and crowning glory of all other sci

ences, even if they had been unskilfully accomplished, were attempts that deserved the most serious attention. It was no disposition, then, we were persuaded, to pooh-pooh Comte out of sight, which had left him to obscurity. Nor was it, again, the offensive nature of his conclusions; for, hostile as these were to existing prejudices and creeds, they were still no more so than the systems of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, whose speculations have gone the circuit of the globe. If he was atheistical, they were pantheistical; and we had yet to learn that the one was more acceptable to orthodoxy than the other. Meanwhile, it was to be observed, that the theories of Comte, though profound and comprehensive, and marked by great logical severity, were not difficult of apprehension. They could scarcely be called abstruse; they contained no neologisms, did not abound in hard words, while in their general aims they were addressed to what is said to be a prevailing characteristic of the present era,-its physical or materializing tendency. There was, then, more reason, or at least as much reason, why Comte should have been well known, as Cousin, Hegel, or Kant.

In the end, two considerations occurred to us, as better explanatory of the little attention he had received. The first was, the acknowledged indisposition of scientific men to enter into large or general views, absorbed as they are in the study of details, and distrustful as they are of all applications of the inductive method, save the most elementary and simple. The habit of petty analysis, which has been so "victorious" in physics, has finally succeeded in conquering its masters, so that your natural philosopher is quite as much afraid of deserting it, for higher and synthetic generalizations, as a slave is to rise against his keeper. He looks upon the

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theorizer," consequently, as a monster, and is glad to get quit of him as soon as possible. Comte could expect no hospitality from this class. But among those capable of general views, a second reason for the neglect of him, was, that the reigning science could not, in consistency with its own principles, deny the validity of his method, while to admit his conclusions, was to fly directly into the face of the reigning theology. Thus there was a double allegiance to be maintained: one of consistency, and the other of respectability; and we can readily understand why it was thought best, in the dilemma, to say as little as need be about Comte's inferences, lest the secret sympathy of

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