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Whence the Fishes of Lake Superior?

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From this luminous and fruitful principle, the most decided advance in the philosophy of methodical investigation which has been made since the time of Cuvier, Mr. Agassiz confidently and with great reason expects to introduce improvements in the systematic arrangements of all the classes of animals. It is, indeed, but seeking how the Creator has arranged his creatures, in his successive creations along the periods of time as indicated by geological data, "when they were made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth"; it is seeking how He now arranges the successive steps in each particular act of creation,-"how in continuance the members are fashioned" from the shapeless embryo into the most perfect of animals.

The fishes of Lake Superior are examined with reference to the question of origin. Were they created at some point in the Eastern Continent, and have they gradually spread to this continent and reached this lake, while their progenitors and their lineal descendants have completely died out in the old continent? Or, were they created where they are found? Were they gradually shaped by elementary forces, or at once by some Intelligent Being, who, having formed the lake, formed creatures specifically and precisely adapted to all the circumstances in which he had placed the lake? Are they the work of chance, circumstances, and physical forces? Or, were they made by One who had created and controlled the forces, who formed the circumstances, and then made creatures suited to the circumstances and forces?

With these questions, and others like these, before him, Mr. Agassiz goes into a minute examination of the families of fishes which have representatives in the great lakes. We regret that our space will not allow us to follow him in these investigations. They are full of interest, even for the unscientific. We cannot, however, withhold some facts which are curious in themselves, and also as throwing light upon the processes in his own mind by which he has been led to his comprehensive views of the philosophy of arrangement.

"The first sight I had of a stuffed skin of that fish [Lepidosteus] in the Museum of Carlsruhe, when a medical student in the University of Heidelberg, in 1826, convinced me that this genus stood alone in the class of fishes; and that we could not,

by any possibility, associate it with any of the types of living fishes, nor succeed in finding, among living types, any one to associate fairly with it. It was a fact, at once deeply impressed upon my mind, that it stands isolated among all living beings." - pp. 259, 260.

This early impression led him gradually to his peculiar views respecting classification, and has been a guide to him in appreciating degrees of relationship, and in avoiding fanciful attempts to classify without a previous full knowledge of the beings to be classified, gathered from an examination of the different parts and periods of creation. Under this guidance he was led to observe the differences in the classes of fishes in the early geological ages, and how widely they differ from most fishes now existing.

The opportunity afforded him by Cuvier, of studying the skeleton of a gar-pike, showed him "that these fishes have reptilian characters." The fishes formed after the creation of reptiles had less and less of this character, until it disappeared entirely, and the gar-fish alone remains. to remind us of the fishes of this ancient type. The study of a specimen preserved in alcohol, in the British Museum, showed him still more fully the reptilian character of the gar-fish, as evidenced by its internal structure.

"One step further was made during this excursion, when, at Niagara, a living specimen of Lepidosteus was caught for me, and to my great delight, as well as to my utter astonishment, I saw this fish moving its head upon the neck freely, right and left and upwards, as a Saurian, and as no other fish in creation does...

"Investigations into the embryonic growth of recent fishes have led me to the discovery that the changes which they undergo agree, in many respects, in a very remarkable manner, with the differences which we notice between the fossils of different ages...... This fact, so simple in itself, and apparently so natural, is of the utmost importance in the history of animal life. It has gradually led me to more extensive views, and to the conviction that embryonic investigations might throw as much light upon the successive development of the animal kingdom during the suc cessive geological periods, as upon the physiological development of individual animals; and, indeed, I can now show, through all classes of the animal kingdom, that the oldest representatives of any family agree closely with the embryonic stages of the

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Created for the Lake.

35

higher types of the living representatives of the same families; or, in other words, that the order of succession of animals, through all classes and families, agrees, in a most astonishing measure, with the degrees of development of young animals of the present age." pp. 261, 262.

A full and minute examination of the fishes of Lake Superior leads him to the conclusion, that, although the way is entirely open between the lakes, there are many types in Lake Superior which are found in none of the other lakes, and many in the others which are not found in that. Coming to the examination of particulars :

"All the fresh-water fishes of the district under examination are peculiar to that district, and occur nowhere else in any other part of the world. . . . . .

"Such facts have an important bearing upon the history of creation, and it would be very unphilosophical to adhere to any view respecting its plan, which would not embrace these facts, and grant them their full meaning. If we face the fundamental question which is at the bottom of this particular distribution of animals, and ask ourselves, where have all these fishes been created, there can be but one answer given which will not be in conflict and direct contradiction with the facts themselves, and the laws that regulate animal life. The fishes, and all other freshwater animals of the region of the great lakes, must have been created where they live. . . . .

"It cannot be rational to suppose that they were created in some other part of the world, and were transferred to this continent, to die away in the region where they are supposed to have originated, and to multiply in the region where they are found. There is no reason why we should not take the present evidence in their distribution as the natural fact respecting their origin, and that they are, and were from the beginning, best suited for the country where they are now found." pp. 375, 376.

Then, as to the peculiarities in animals nearly related to each other and yet different: —

"There are lakes of small extent and of most uniform features, in which two or three species of trout occur together, each with peculiar habits; one more migratory, running up rivers during the spawning season, etc., while the other will never enter running waters, and will spawn in quiet places near the shore; one will hunt after its prey, while the other will wait for it in ambuscade; one will feed upon fish, the other upon insects. . . . . .

"Now I ask, where is there, within the natural geographical

limits of distribution of Salmonidæ, a discriminating power between the physical elements under which they live, which could have introduced those differences? A discriminating power which, allotting to all certain characters, should have modified others to such an extent as to produce apparently different types under the same modification of the general plan of structure. Why should there be, at the same time, under the same circumstances, under the same geographical distribution, white-fishes with the habits of trout, spawning like them in the fall, growing their young like them during winter, if there were not an infinitely wise, supreme Power, if there were not a personal God, who, having first designed, created the universe, and modelled our solar system, called successively, at different epochs, such animals into existence under the different circumstances prevailing over various parts of the globe, as would suit best this general plan, according to which man was at last to be placed at the head of creation?"- pp. 329, 330.

We would gladly exhibit to our readers how Mr. Agassiz set himself at work to state, to study, and, as far as he could, to solve, the great problems which presented themselves upon a survey of Lake Superior.

To the first of these, how Lake Superior came to have the shape it now has, he finds, in the directions of the several systems of trap-dykes a complete solution, and traces even the smaller lines in the boundary of the lake to the influence of these plutonic formations. The the ory is ingenious and satisfactory, and, so far as we know, original.

There is but a single other subject which we can find room to notice. It is the origin suggested by Mr. Agassiz for the copper of Lake Superior. He believes it to be wholly plutonic, and that the larger masses were thrown up in a molten state, in a region whose centre was somewhere near Point Keewenaw. The character of the ores agrees with this theory; the oxides being near that point, and the sulphurets and carbonates more distant.

But we are doing great injustice to these comprehensive and original views, and still more to the lofty philosophical spirit in which they are discussed, by setting down only the conclusions to which he was led. It is like bringing away here and there a block from the capitals of the pillars of the Parthenon, in order to give an idea of the magnificence of the structure as it came from the hands of Phidias. The marbles are intelligible

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Bakewell on a Future Life.

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to those only who have seen the temple, or who have such knowledge of the principles on which it was built that they could restore it if it were in ruins. The few such as these last will have already seen the volume upon Lake Superior. To all others we warmly recommend it.

G. B. E.

ART. III. BAKEWELL ON A FUTURE LIFE.*

NEXT to the being and providence of God, the question which has more profoundly moved the heart of man than any other is that which relates to the immortality of the soul. Nor is it to be wondered at. To man it is a question of absolutely infinite moment, including in itself all that can most deeply agitate the affections, the conscience, the hopes, or the fears. Is the friend, the parent, the child, who is gone, lost out of existence, dead to live no more ? As our feet slip on the crumbling brink of the grave, are we sliding into the bottomless gulf of annihilation? Or is that which we call death but the translation of the spirit to a higher form of life?

Our faith in a future state of existence depends on the revelations of Christ. To these we owe our assured confidence in the reality of the immortal life.

But on a subject of such interest the mind seeks all possible confirmations of its faith. The constantly recurring physical phenomena of death, and the bereavements and afflictions to which we are subject, make it impossible for the question to become obsolete. It has the same fresh and absorbing interest for the parent who now lays a child away in the tomb, as it had for Cicero or Plato. And the Christian, if he needs it less, hardly less than the philosopher of old is impelled to seek for all that can sustain his faith, in the human soul, in nature, and in the order of Providence.

The progress of modern science has brought up the

* Natural Evidence of a Future Life, derived from the Properties and Actions of Animate and Inanimate Matter. A Contribution to Natural Theology, designed as a Sequel to the Bridgewater Treatises. By FREDERICK C. BAKEWELL. Second Edition. London. 1840.

VOL. XLIX. —4TH S. VOL. XIV. NO. I.

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