Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1873-07-22
MIEEsTeNES OF ANIMAL CREA-
ZION.

Prof. Rogers in his geological survey of
Virginia and Pennsylvania, estimated the
rocks in the Allegheny Noun aims, in which
are found the remains Of animals AID
plants, as being forty Thousand feet in
thickness. This immense mass CT sedi-
mentary rocs, formed mainly in the sea,
did uos all come into existence at one tire,
nor the prodigious quantity of fossils which
they contain. No one knows when the ele-
ments first began to Lisintegrste granite,
syenite sud other Crys slline mountains,
and rivers began to carry the debris
in mud clay and sand into lakes and oceans.
At tie time gneis and other strstified rocks
began to be formed, there probably was
neither vegetable nor animal life on tbs
planet. The oldes5 sedjmentary rocks fur
nish no evidence of cEga tic beings Of any
kind. The earth was old as large lump
Of slowly cooling minerals, before life had
beginning. The earlier animals were ap-
parently as devoid Of the senses of seeing,
hearing, tasting, Smelling, ard feeling, as
plants now are, and the WAYS and means
By which they slowly acquired these and
other important organs and functions,
have become an interesting study.
After countless generations of animals had
lived in perfect darkness, it was a wonder
frI revolution in life that gave one species
eyes, optic nerves, and the marvellous pow
er of vision. At this epoch, We erect
milestone on Tie highway travelled by the
animal creation, and proceed to inquire
whether before eyeless head invented its
coming eyes with their curious mechanism,
Invented the rctina and the nerve that joins
the eye 20 Tho sensoriun in the brain, and
above all, invented the whole sensibility to
light, that it might illuminate a dark
place, or whether all this con-
trivance had an outside contrver I?
We stand in the presence of a NV crea.
ton; was there Creator? Evolution and
its advocates say not; that eyes and seeing
came from primary egg or germ by nat
ural 2. Owth or development, and need no
first Cause or Creator. We pass on to an
other milestone in the animal kingdom, the
car for hearing sounds of all kinds. Here
we find not only peculiar auditory nerve
with brain adapted TO its functions, but
several small bones especially formed to as
sst in the mechanism of this new power.
Ma tbasn ourirY1o bppos fha nor Ir,,,r,
aud the whole apparatus, all invent them
selves? or was there at some unknown time
atruly wise Inventor?
We pass over without notes the three
great classes Of animals, RGdiatG, MOlluSca
and Articuldta, to reach the creation of the
first animal that had backbone. AT or
one HUNDRED thousand distinct species of
animals had lived perhaps millions
Of years on this planet, and filed
straLifad rocks for thousands
OF feet in thickness With their remains,
why should a fish with backbone be need
ed, IN addition to corals and clans that have
none? But if needed, who contrived the
soino-She first that had existenc3-With its
numerous little bones, all their processes
for the attachment of muscles for swinging
(Which 8 clam knows nothing about) with
a tube or opening in the center of each
bone for the passage Of a brain cord, and
its protection from harm? Agsssiz calls
this q new plan of creation-not an
evolution from an old system of life.
Did an ambitious bivalve take a notion
that it would be smsft thing TO cast off its
natural lowering Of stone, have cuticle of
scales, with four fms for oars, fiat tail for
rudder, ard a miracle of back bone made
mainly OF the phosphate of lime instead OF
the carbonate, as in an oyster shell, and so
by the mingled forces of ambition and wolf
ton establish the CREST class Of Vertebrate
with laughing, talking, crying man at its
head? Let Us set up another milestone
and continue to inquire who created crea-
ton? There are many animals with back
homes that do not suckle their young,
among which all birds, and nearly all ami
mails that swim under water, are conspicu-
GUS examples. Milk is substantially part
o. the blood of parent, separated by
gland to pass into the stomsch and blood |
vessels of offspring. The continuance is
most wonderful, involving two genera