influences. We must, on the contrary, see in it the realiza tion of a plan wisely designed, the work of a Supreme Intel ligence who created, at the beginning, each species of anı mal at the place, and for the place, which it inhabits. To each species has been assigned a limit which it has no disposition to overstep, so long as it remains in a wild state. Only those animals which have been subjected to the yoke of man, or whose subsistence is dependent on man's social habits, are exceptions to this rule.

446. As the human race has extended over the surface of the earth, man has more or less modified the animal population of different regions, either by exterminating certain species, or by introducing others with which he desires to be more intimately associated the domestic animals. Thus the dog is found wherever we know of the presence of man. The horse, originally from Asia, was introduced into America by the Spaniards; where it has thriven so well, that it is found wild, in innumerable herds, over the Pampas of South America, and the prairies of the West. In like manner, the domestic ox became wild in South America. Many less welcome animals have followed man in his peregrinations; as, for example, the rat and the mouse, as well as a multitude of insects, such as the house-fly, the cockroach, and others which are attached to certain species of plants, as the white butterfly, the Hessian fly, &c. The honey-bee, also, has been imported from Europe.

447. Among the species which have disappeared, under the influence of man, we may mention the Dodo, a peculiar species of bird which once inhabited the Mauritius, some remains of which are preserved in the British and Ashmolean Museums; also a large cetacean of the north, (Rytina Stelleri,) formerly inhabiting the coasts of Behring's Straits, and which has not been seen since 1768. According to all appearances, we must also count among these the

great stag, the skeleton and horns of which have been found buried in the peat-bogs of Ireland. There are also many species of animals whose numbers are daily diminishing, and whose extinction may be foreseen; as the Canada deer (Wapiti,) the Ibex of the Alps, the Lämmergeyer, the bison, the beaver, the wild turkey, &c.

448. Other causes may also contribute towards dispersing animals beyond their natural limits. Thus, the sea-weeds are carried about by marine currents, and are frequently met with far from shore, thronged with little crustaceans, which are in this manner transported to great distances from the place of their birth. The drift wood which the Gulf Stream floats from the Gulf of Mexico even to the western shores of Europe, is frequently perforated by the larvæ of insects, and may, probably, serve as depositories for the eggs of fishes, crustacea, and mollusks. It is possible, also, that aquatic birds may contribute in some measure to the diffusion of some species of fishes and mollusks, either by the eggs becoming attached to their feet, or by means of those which they evacuate undigested, after having transported them to considerable distances. Still, all these circumstances exercise but a very feeble influence upon the distribution of species in general; and each country, none the less, preserves its peculiar physiognomy, so far as its animals are concerned.

449. There is only one way to account for the distribution of animals as we find them, namely, to suppose that they are autochthonoi, that is to say, that they originated like plants, on the soil where they are found. In order to explain the particular distribution of many animals, we are even led to admit that they must have been created at several points o' the same zone; an inference which we must make from the distribution of aquatic animals, especially that of Fishes. If we examine the fishes of the different

rivers of the United States, peculiar species will be found in each basin, associated with others which are common to several basins. Thus, the Delaware River contains species not found in the Hudson. But, on the other hand, the pick. erel is found in both. Now, if all animals originated at one point, and from a single stock, the pickerel must have passed from the Delaware to the Hudson, or vice versa, which it could only have done by passing along the sea-shore, or by eaping over large spaces of terra firma; that is to say, in both cases it would be necessary to do violence to its organi zation. Now, such a supposition is in direct opposition to the immutability of the laws of Nature.

450. We shall hereafter see that the same laws of distribution are not limited to the actual creation only, but that they have also ruled the creations of former geological epochs, and that the fossil species have lived and died, most of them, at the place where their remains are found.

451. Even Man, although a cosmopolite, is subject, in a certain sense, to this law of limitation. While he is every where the one identical species, yet several races, marked by certain peculiarities of features, are recognized; such as the Caucasian, Mongolian, and African races, of which we are hereafter to speak. And it is not a little remarkable, that the abiding places of these several races correspond very nearly with some of the great zoological regions. Thus we have a northern race, comprising the Samoyedes in Asia, the Laplanders in Europe, and the Esquimaux in America, corresponding to the arctic fauna, (400,) and, like it, identical on the three continents, having for its southern limit the region of trees, (422.) In Africa, we have the Hottentot and Negro races, in the south and central portions respectively, while the people of northern Africa are a lied to their neighbors in Europe; just as we have seen to be the case with the zoological fauna in general.

(403.) The inhabitants of New Holland, like its animals are the most grotesque and uncouth of all races, (433.)

452. The same parallelism holds good elsewhere, though not always in so remarkable a degree. In America, especially, while the aboriginal race is as well distinguished from other races as is its flora, the minor divisions are not so decided. Indeed, the facilities, or we might sometimes rather say necessities, arising from the varied supplies of animal and vegetable, food in the several regions, might be expected to involve, with his corresponding customs and modes of life, a difference in the physical constitution of man, which would contribute to augment any primeval differences. It could not indeed, be expected, that a people constantly subjected to cold, like the people of the North, and living almost exclusively on fish, which is not to be obtained without great toil and peril, should present the same characteristics, either bodily or menta, as those who idly regale on the spontaneous bounties of tropical vegetation

CHAPTER FOURTEENTH

GEOLOGICAL SUCCESSION OF ANIMALS; OR, THEIR DISTRIBUTION IN TIME.

SECTION I.

STRUCTURE OF THE EARTH'S CRUst.

453. THE records of the Bible, as well as human tradition, teach us that man and the animals associated with him were created by the word of God; "the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is;" and this truth is confirmed by the revelations of science, which unequivocally indicate. the direct interventions of creative power.

454. But man and the animals which now surround him are not the only kinds which have had a being. The surface of our planet, ånterior to their appearance, was not a desert. There are, scattered through the crust of the earth, numerous animal and vegetable remains, which show that the earth had been repeatedly supplied with, and long inhabited by, animals and plants altogether different from those now living.

455. In general, their hard parts are the only relics of them which have been preserved, such as the skeleton and teeth of Vertebrates; the shells of the Mollusks and Radiata; the shields of the Crustaceans, and sometimes the wing-cases of Insects. Most frequently they have lost their original