remains of a very very peculiar type of animals, almos unknown to the former ages, as well as to

Fig. 167.

the present period. They are little chambered shells, known to geologists under the name of Nummulites, from their coin-like appearance, and form very extensive layers of rocks, (Fig. 167.)

490. But what is more important in a philosophical point of view is, that aquatic animals are no longer predominant in Creation. The great marine or amphibian reptiles give place to numerous mammals of great size; for which reason, we have called this age the Reign of Mammals. Here are also found the first distinct remains of fresh-water animals.

491. The lower stage of this formation is particularly characterized by great Pachyderms, among which we may mention the Paleotherium and Anoplotherium, which have acquired such celebrity from the researches of Cuvier. These animals, among others, abound in the Tertiary formations of the neighborhood of Paris. The Paleotheriums, of

which several species are known, are the most common; they resemble, (Fig. 168,) in some respects, the Tapirs, while the Anoplotheriums are more slender animals, (Fig. 169.) On this continent are found the remains of a most extraordinary animal of gigantic size, the Basilosaurus, a true cetacean. Finally, in these stages, the earliest remains of Monkeys have been detected.

492. The fauna of the upper stage of the Tertiary formation approaches yet more nearly to that of the present epoch. Besides the Pachyderms, that were also predominant in the lower stage, we find numbers of carnivorous animals, some of them much surpassing in size the lions and tigers of our day. We meet also gigantic Edentata, and Rodents of great size.

493. The distribution of the Tertiary fossils also reveals to us the important fact, that, in this epoch, animals of the same species were circumscribed in much narrower limits than before. The earth's surface, highly diversified by mountains and valleys, was divided into numerous basins, which, like the Gulf of Mexico, or the Mediterranean of this day, contained species not found elsewhere. Such was the basin of Paris, that of London, and, on this continent, that of South Carolina.

494. In this limitation of certain types within certain bounds, we distinctly observe another approach to the present condition of things, in the fact that groups of animals which occur only in particular regions are found to have already existed in the same regions during the Tertiary epoch. Thus the Edentata are the predominant animals in the fossil fauna of Brazil as well as in its present fauna; and Marsupials were formerly as numerous in New Holland as they now are, though in general of much larger size.

495. THE MODERN EPOCH. Reign of Man.—The Present epoch succeeds to, but is not a continuation of, the Tertiary age. These two epochs are separated by a great geological event, traces of which we see every where around us The climate of the northern hemisphere, which had been, during the Tertiary epoch, considerably warmer than now, so as to allow of the growth of palm-trees in the temperate zone of our time, became much colder at the end of this period, causing the polar glaciers to advance south, much beyond

their previous limits. It was this ice, either floating like icebergs, or, as there is still more reason to believe, moving along the ground, like the glaciers of the present day, that, in its movement towards the South, rounded and polished the hardest rocks, and deposited the numerous detached fragments brought from distant localities, which we find every where scattered about upon the soil, and which are known under the name of erratics, boulders, or grayheads. This phase of the earth's history has been called, by geologists, the Glacial or Drift period.

496. After the ice that carried the erratics had melted away, the surface of North America and the North of Europe was covered by the sea, in consequence of the general subsidence of the continents. It is not until this period that we find, in the deposits known as the diluvial or pleistocene formation, incontestable traces of the species of animals now living.

497. It seems, from the latest researches of Geologists, that the animals belonging to this period are exclusively marine; for, as the northern part of both continents was covered to a great depth with water, and only the summits of the mountains were elevated above it, as islands, there was no place in our latitudes where land or fresh-water animals could exist. They appeared therefore at a later period, after the water had again retreated; and as, from the nature of their organization, it is impossible that they should have migrated from other countries, we must conclude that they were created at a more recent period than our marine animals.

498. Among these land animals which then made their appearance, there were representatives of all the genera and species now living around us, and besides these, many types now extinct, some of them of a gigantic size, such as the Mastodon, the remains of which are found in the upper

most strata of the earth's surface, and probably the very last large animal which became extinct before the creation of man.

499. It is necessary, therefore, to distinguish two periods in the history of the animals now living; one in which the marine animals were created, and a second, during which the land and fresh-water animals made their at their head MAN.†

appearance, and

CONCLUSIONS.

500. From the above sketch it is evident that there is a manifest progress in the succession of beings on the surface

*The above diagram is a likeness of the splendid specimen disinterred at Newburg, N. Y., now in the possession of Dr. J. C. Warren, in Boston; the most complete skeleton which has ever been discovered. It stands nearly twelve feet in height, the tusks are fourteen feet in length, and nearly every bone is present, in a state of preservation truly wonderful.

The former of these phases is indicated in the frontispiece, by a narrow circle, inserted between the upper stage of the Tertiary formation and the Reign of Man properly so called.

of the earth. This progress consists in an increasing simi larity to the living fauna, and among the Vertebrates, espe cially, in their increasing resemblance to Man.

501. But this connection is not the consequence of a direct lineage between the faunas of different ages. There is nothing like parental descent connecting them. The Fishes of the Palæozoic age are in no respect the ancestors of the Reptiles of the Secondary age, nor does Man descend from the Mammals which preceded him in the Tertiary age. The link by which they are connected is of a higher and immaterial nature; and their connection is to be sought in the view of the Creator himself, whose aim, in forming the earth, in allowing it to undergo the successive changes which Geology has pointed out, and in creating successively all the different types of animals which have passed away, was to introduce Man upon the surface of our globe. Man is the end towards which all the animal creation has tended, from the first appearance of the first Palæozoic Fishes.

502. In the beginning His plan was formed, and from it He has never swerved in any particular. The same Being who, in view of man's moral wants, provided and declared, thousands of years in advance, that "the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head," laid up also for him in the bowels of the earth those vast stores of granite, marble, coal, salt, and the various metals, the products of its several revolutions; and thus was an inexhaustible provision made for his necessities, and for the development of his genius, ages in anticipation of his appearance.

503. To study, in this view, the succession of animals in time, and their distribution in space, is, therefore, to become acquainted with the ideas of God himself. Now, if the succession of created beings on the surface of the globe is the realization of an infinitely wise plan, it follows that there