>,.'*

vY v- P*

EARTH
SCIENCES

THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

PRESENTED BY

PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND
MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID

EARTH

THE

ANCIENT WORLD.

•*

THE VEGETATION OF EKOLAKD DURING THE COAL PERIOD — Fage xii.

THE

ANCIENT WORLD;

OR,

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES OF CREATION.

BY

DfT. ANSTED, M.A., F.R.S., F.G.S.;

PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY IN KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON,
&C. &C.

I

LONDON:
JOHN VAN VOORST, PATERNOSTER.ROW.

M.TJCCC.XLVII.

LONDON :

Printed by S. & J. BENTLEY, WILSON, and FLEY,
Bangror House, Shoe Lane.

QE7//

PREFACE.

THE object of this Work is to communicate, in a
simple form, to the general reader, the chief results of
Geological Investigation. No detailed account of par-
ticular districts, — no minute statements with regard
to peculiarities of structure exhibited in various for-
mations, or in their fossil contents, — must, therefore, be
expected ; and, on the other hand, the reader will be
spared, as far as possible, the mere technicalities of
the Science, while being informed of the views de-
duced from the study of them.

The Author hopes, that if, in thus endeavouring to
communicate definite ideas concerning the Ancient
History of the Earth and its Inhabitants, he shall be
found not to express with perfect accuracy the whole
amount of what is known in every department of
Geological Science, his attempt may yet be received

M375114

Vlll PREFACE.

favourably, as a fair sketch of such history, at least in
its broad Outlines.

More than this he does not attempt; nor would
it be easy so carefully to digest all that is known,
and so to harmonise conflicting views, as to satisfy
every one on a subject which is still obscure in
many important points.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

PAGE
EXPLANATORY AND INTRODUCTORY . 1

THE FIRST OR ANCIENT EPOCH.

CHAPTER II.

THE PERIOD ANTECEDENT TO THE INTRODUCTION OF LIFE

— THE DEPOSIT OF NON-FOSSILIFEROUS ROCKS . . 15

CHAPTER III.

THE PERIOD OF THE EXISTENCE OF INVERTEBRATED ANI-
MALS AS THE MOST HIGHLY ORGANIZED INHABITANTS OF
THE SEA — THE SILURIAN ROCKS . , .23

CHAPTER IV.

THE INTRODUCTION OF FISHES, THE CHARACTERISTIC ANIMALS
OF THE SECOND FOSSILIFEROUS PERIOD — THE DEVONIAN
OR OLD RED SANDSTONE SYSTEM OF FORMATIONS . . 52

CHAPTER V.

THE APPEARANCE OF LAND AND THE INTRODUCTION OF LAND

VEGETABLES THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM 73

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER VI.

PAGE
THE CLOSE OF THE FIRST EPOCH OF CREATION — THE MAG-

NESIAN LIMESTONE, OR PERMIAN SYSTEM OF DEPOSITS . 103

THE SECOND, OR MIDDLE EPOCH.

CHAPTER VII.

THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE SECOND EPOCH : THE FORMA-
TION OF THE NEW RED SANDSTONE, OR TRIASSIC SERIES . 115

CHAPTER VIII.

THE MARINE REPTILES, AND OTHER ANIMALS CHARACTERISTIC

OF THE LIAS , . - . ' . 135

CHAPTER IX.

THE GIGANTIC LAND REPTILES, THE FLYING REPTILES, AND
OTHER ANIMALS CHARACTERISTIC OF THE OOLITIC AND
WEALDEN FORMATIONS . . . . 183

CHAPTER X. *

THE INHABITANTS OF THE EARTH DURING THE CRETACEOUS

PERIOD .... . 227

CHAPTER XI.

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING THE SECONDARY EPOCH

AND THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF ITS TERMINATION . . 254

CONTENTS. XI

THE THIED, OR MODERN EPOCH.

CHAPTER XII.

PAGE

THE INTRODUCTION OF LAND ANIMALS AND THE COMMENCE-
MENT OF THE TERTIARY PERIOD IN WESTERN EUROPE . 265

CHAPTER XIII.

THE CONDITION OF EUROPE AFTER THE OLDER TERTIARY BEDS
HAD BEEN DEPOSITED, BUT PREVIOUS TO THE HISTORIC
PERIOD . . . . ... 292

CHAPTER XIV.

THE CONDITION OF INDIA, AUSTRALIA, AND NEW ZEALAND

DURING THE TERTIARY PERIOD . 329

CHAPTER XV.

THE CONDITION OF SOUTH AMERICA DURING THE TERTIARY

PERIOD ....... 349

CHAPTER XVI.

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING THE RESULTS OF GEO-
LOGICAL INVESTIGATION . . , 380

DESCRIPTION OF THE FRONTISPIECE.

THE Frontispiece is intended to give an idea of what may pro-
bably have been the aspect of Vegetation in England during the
Coal period. The trees introduced are chiefly those living forms
which seem most analogous to extinct species. In the centre
is a tree fern, which was certainly a common and characteristic
plant. On the left is represented an ideal restoration of a Lepi-
dodendron (see p. 85); on the right in the distance are the tops of
Araucarias, coniferous trees nearly allied to which have been
found in the coal-measures. The remaining trees and plants
are inhabitants of Norfolk Island or Eastern Australia, but
seem to have had representatives in ancient times.

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

OP

CREATION.

CHAPTER I.

EXPLANATORY AND INTRODUCTORY.

LONG, — very long ago, — many ages before the
creation of Man, this world on which we dwell ex-
isted as the habitation of living beings, different
from those now tenanting its surface, or inhabiting
the ocean which covers so large a part of it ; but yet
sufficiently resembling them to admit of that degree
of comparison by which the general form, the pro-
portions, the peculiarities of structure, and even in
some cases the habits of these ancient dwellers upon
earth may be determined.

The history of the succession of these beings, in
that part of the world now occupied by the British
islands, happens to be traceable with remarkable
facility and certainty, presenting few breaks in the
succession, except those common to most parts of
the land hitherto examined. It is a history of anti-
quity which ought not to be neglected ; it possesses a
deep interest, although man does not figure among the
dramatis persona; and the history is clearly made out
by a chain of evidence, different indeed in kind from

* PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

that ordinarily resorted to for the establishment of
historical views, but not for that reason less satisfac-
tory or convincing. This history, too, is exceedingly
important in its bearing on the wants and occupations
of men ; and upon the particular order and nature of
the events it records have depended no inconsiderable
proportion of the many physical advantages possessed
by England over all the rest of the world.

The alternation of rich plains and hilly surface
which characterizes our country, and which are so
well adapted for cultivation — her valuable mineral
resources of coal, and of iron and other metals — her
insular position — her temperate climate — her capa-
bility of supplying almost all the wants of man ; — all
these must be ranked among the advantages derived
by England from happy peculiarities in the arrange-
ment and ordering of the materials which make up
her superficial crust of mineral matter ; and all are
conditions the causes of which may be investigated.
And if it is thought discreditable to an educated
person to be unacquainted with the 'history of the
people of his own country, it ought surely to be con-
sidered of importance that he should possess some
degree of knowledge also concerning this much wider
range of history, involving as it does an account of
the revolutions and changes on which so many im-
portant matters depend ; but yet how many people
do we meet, otherwise well educated, who look with
indifference, or even contempt, on this branch of
knowledge !

In spite of the deep interest of the subject and its
great importance, comparatively few are familiar even
with the general nature of the successive events

OF CREATION. O

which have modified the whole surface of the globe ;
and I shall be glad if, in the following pages, I
can give my readers a distinct appreciation of
what is actually known with certainty concerning
this new kind of history. In doing so I shall, I am
sure, be doing good service, not only to science, but
also to general literature; exhibiting a link little
thought of, and an analogy almost neglected ; and
causing Natural History to appear, as it really is, an
account of a succession of events, and not merely
the description of the habits and structure of certain
groups of animals and vegetables.

In thus undertaking to give an account of Nature
and of her operations, from the earliest records not only
of man but of Creation, I shall be somewhat in the con-
dition of an author proposing to communicate the his-
tory of an ancient people who have left monuments of
their existence in their ruined temples and mausoleums,
but whose language is very imperfectly understood,
and whose written documents are obscure and vague.

Now an historian in such a case would, doubtless,
think it necessary first of all to make his readers
aware of the kind of evidence he would have to
adduce in attestation of his statements and descrip-
tions ; and it is manifest that, if there is an absence of
the ordinary documentary evidence, it would be still
more requisite that the credibility of his narrative
should be supported by a constant and direct reference
to facts, either evident in themselves or admitting of
distinct proof.

There are not wanting instances, indeed, in which
conclusions perfectly satisfactory have been arrived
at, and histories prepared, without the existence of

B 2

4 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

any written documents whatever. The domestic
manners of the Egyptians have been clearly made out
by an examination of that picture-writing which has
been called hieroglyphic ; and in the same way the
careful observation and comparison of the figures
painted on vases or sarcophagi has thrown light
upon a similar subject of research, with regard not
only to the ancient Greeks, but even the Etruscans,
of whom at best we know very little, and abso-
lutely nothing by any direct historical documents.
The knowledge thus acquired indirectly is however
valuable, because it may generally be thoroughly
depended on; and if the facts so determined appear
at first sight few and unimportant, they are found
from time to time to possess an increasing value, and
they are the more credible as being for the most part
too unimportant in themselves to have been worth
while to falsify.

Now, in a way not much unlike that which must
be pursued in investigating this kind of history, it is
possible to make out an account of the successive
events that have taken place in various parts of the
world, not only before the earth was inhabited by
civilized men, but even when man had not yet been
created.

Since however, before attempting to give a history
of a people, it must be perfectly certain that the
people to be spoken of did once exist, so the reader
has a right to require that, before commencing, as I
propose to do, an account of the pre-adamite world,
it should be clearly shown that there exist for this
account the true materials of history ; and that there
is, in fact, that degree of order and system in the

OF CREATION . 0

arrangement of the different parts of the earth's crust,
without which there could be no connected or reason-
able account of events.

The proof of such a condition is, however, at hand,
and requires only that the very commonest appearances
of nature should be studied. No one can visit a chalk
or sand pit, or look for one moment at a stone quarry,
— no one can consider the appearances so commonly
presented by a sea-cliff, a cutting for a road, or a sink-
ing for a well, without being perfectly convinced that
the limestones, sandstones, and clays, of which a great
part of the earth's crust is made up, were not thrown
confusedly together, but are arranged in some degree of
order, lying upon one another in regular beds or strata.
A very little inquiry into the way in which these strata
rest upon one another, is amply sufficient to prove that
order does exist in the arrangement of the greater
proportion of the materials of the earth's crust ;
and the more strictly this inquiry is carried out, the
more convinced will the observer become of the great
fact, that there is a history to be learnt — a succession
of events to be described.

But it may be said, and with great reason, that the
mere fact of order in the arrangement of these super-
ficial materials proves nothing more than that they
were deposited in succession, and they might either
have been so placed at the first creation of the world,
or, since the whole bears marks of aqueous action and
of disturbance, that the successive beds may have ar-
ranged themselves as we find them during some great
deluge. But the possibility of this is contradicted
by appearances presented to the observer of nature at
every turn, and by the result of every investigation,

6 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

however superficial, when the actual structure of the
earth is laid open, whether in the quarry or the
sea-cliff.

There are, indeed, so many distinct facts that prove
both the nature of the deposits and the circumstances
of deposition to have been very different from either
a creation of the surface as it now exists, or the form-
ation of such a surface by a deluge, that it is more
easy to be confused with their number and variety,
than to resist the conclusion when the reason is fairly
appealed to. Among these facts we may perhaps se-
lect these three with advantage, as the most promi-
nent, viz. (1.) That a vast number of strata may be
discovered to rest on one another, and that they are
of very great thickness and extent, and exhibit great
variety both in the nature and condition of the mate-
rials of which each is made up ; (2.) That the beds
are found, in many cases, not lying regularly upon
one another, but showing by their direction and incli-
nation that one series has had time to harden, and
be disturbed in position, before another was placed
upon it ; and (3.) That almost throughout the whole
great and varied series of strata there are found the
remains of a number of animals of different kinds,
chiefly but not entirely of marine origin ; each group
of which presents in itself a history, and denotes a
peculiar condition, both of the depth of the water, and
the structure of the sea-bottom especially adapted for
it. The proper consideration of the three facts, or
rather classes of facts, thus alluded to, cannot fail to
satisfy any one that the strata of the earth's crust
were formed gradually and slowly, under various cir-
cumstances, and at different times. I do not mean,

OF CREATION. /

•

however, now to illustrate these facts at any length,
because, in truth, they would involve the whole subject
of Descriptive Geology, and would require the intro-
duction of details, and the use of technical language,
which it is my especial object to avoid. The reader
must either take for granted that there are such
facts, or he may satisfy himself concerning them by a
very slight amount of observation and investigation.

Although, however, the following pages may not
communicate any such argumentative proofs of the
truth of Geological conclusions as would be required to
convince those who are determined to doubt, yet ac-
tual observations will be presented to the notice of the
reader in order, and the conclusions which alone seem
rational will be narrated as history. My object in
alluding to the series of investigations on which the
science of Geology is founded, is rather to show how
far there are supposed to exist materials for descrip-
tion and history, than to enter into any discussion or
argument concerning these materials. It is enough
that I have alluded to the nature of the facts, and the
kind of observations required.

Taking it for granted, then, that there is something
in the structure of the earth which requires and ad-
mits of investigation, let us next see how far this in-
vestigation can be carried with reason, and how far
the structure of the globe is laid open for examination.
The reader must indeed be contented to take upon
trust the statements that will be made in this intro-
ductory chapter concerning Descriptive Geology, but
he may be assured that they are too well establish-
ed, and founded on too many observations, to be
shaken, or even questioned.

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

In the first place, then, there is the evidence of what
are called ' Geological sections;' offering sufficient proof
that the different strata of which the earth's crust is
composed are of certain limited extent and thickness,
and that they overlie one another in regular order.

Fig. I

This kind of evidence reaches indeed farther, and
proves very sufficiently that there is some character-
istic mark of each group of strata by which it
may be known and recognised ; so that the kind of
sandstone, limestone, or clay beds that may exist in
one part of the series, and the order in which they
succeed each other, is not so closely imitated in an-
other part, but that a distinction may generally be
drawn without much difficulty. Geological sections,
and the maps which should accompany them, prove
also in addition to this, that over large tracts of coun-
try, and even over whole continents, the same invari-
able order of arrangement of the strata may be traced ;
so that the Geologist is thus enabled to advance with
some confidence, and frame those generalizations with-
out which Geology could hardly exist as a science.

Besides this evidence, derived from the examination
of the mere mineral materials of which strata are com-
posed, there is however another, and a far more im-
portant means of acquiring a knowledge of the earth's
history, derived from the study of the animal and vege-
table remains that are found in almost every one of the

OF CREATION. if

whole series of strata which make up its crust. It is
these organic remains — called sometimes fossils* as
being, of all things that are dug out of the earth, those
of greatest interest to man in his efforts to penetrate
into the past, — that afford most clearly and distinctly
the information required concerning the history we
need; and it is from them, and from studying the lan-
guage they speak, that sound conclusions are arrived
at in matters of the most interesting detail, as well
as in the broadest generalities obtained in our history.

Fossils have sometimes been called the Medals of
Creation, and to a certain extent the simile is a
just one ; for as medals serve to mark either an
actual occurrence, or at least the view taken of a
supposed occurrence by contemporary authorities, so
fossils bear the impress of their date ; they mark the
condition of the earth at the time and place of their
deposit, and in so far therefore at least they are ma-
terials for history.

But fossils are much more than mere indications of
the history of the time to which they refer. They
themselves express the very language of nature ; they
bear actual, direct, and unquestionable testimony to
the course of nature ; and when properly considered,
and investigated with a view to those analogies which
the study of existing nature teaches, they exhibit
distinct proof of a long series of successive creations,
characterizing different epochs in the earth's progress.
They are also found to be, in a very distinct and
important sense, characteristic of formations; by which

* From the Latin fossilis, — that which may be dug out of the earth.
The word was originally used in English as synonymous with mineral,
but has gradually become limited to its present meaning.

B 3

10 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

it is meant that certain groups of species are chiefly
met with in rocks of one age, the various species of
each group being more rarely found in those of the
preceding and succeeding periods, but never met with
again in abundance. And this is not the less true
because a few of them, escaping it would seem as if
by some unusual powers of endurance, and stragglers
from the general herd, have continued to exist for a
long time, and through many subsequent periods.

From these two positions, both of which have
been satisfactorily proved in the progress of Geology,
— namely, that fossils are characteristic of formations,
and that in all the different parts of animal and
vegetable structure there is reference to every peculi-
arity of habit in the complete organized being; it
follows that the study of fossils becomes an impor-
tant and necessary branch of Geological research.

There are, however, two ways, by means of each
of which satisfactory conclusions have been arrived at
from the study of organic remains; and as, of these
two, one chiefly bears upon Geology, while the other has
reference quite as much to Natural History generally,
so both unite in laying the foundation, and building
the superstructure, of that general history of the
world which it is the true object of Geology to describe.

It is not difficult to explain the value of fossils in
each of these two respects. To the Geologist they
are of value, not only in the identification of strata
in different parts of the same district when the
mineral character of the beds is doubtful or variable,
but also in determining those groups of strata which
shall be either classed together as having something
in common, or separated as entirely distinct. Viewed

OF CREATION. 11

in this light, they become the groundwork of classifi-
cation ; and every successive observation proves that,
when properly and carefully made use of, they are
entirely to be depended on, as being not only the best,
but the only safe means of separating some strata, and
uniting others into groups. Such is their Geological
value : and their bearing upon Natural History is no
less real or important. They afford numerous links
in the great chain of organized beings ; they explain
difficulties otherwise inexplicable ; they suggest rea-
sons and causes for the most extraordinary variations
from the ordinary course of nature ; and they teach
us the important truth, that, throughout all time, there
has been a perfectly uniform plan pursued in the con-
struction of the world, and its adaptation for successive
races of beings ; but that this plan has admitted of
innumerable modifications in the manner of carrying it
out, all evidently adapted to changing circumstances.
In one word, it is by the proper interpretation of
fossils that a science has arisen, unlike any other in
its investigations ; nobler than any, except Astronomy,
in the object at which it aims ; and more interesting
than any, inasmuch as it combines every branch of
Natural History, commonly so called, with those in-
quiries into a former condition of existence which are
best calculated to attract the fancy and excite the
imagination. Removed, however, from the condition
which it long occupied, as an amusement for specu-
lative men who were contented to imagine for them-
selves theories of the earth, and propound them for
the astonishment, the admiration, or the contempt
of the world, Geology has now become the recep-
tacle of innumerable observations, carefully made and

12 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

accurately recorded ; and from this treasure-house of
facts there must soon be derived a theory that will com-
mand attention, and a knowledge of laws not less uni-
versal than the law of gravitation, or the theory of the
solar system. Meantime I propose- in the following
pages to arrange some of these facts in order, and
so present them to notice, that, while the main re-
sults which they prove are plainly set before the
reader, he need not be deterred from considering
them by any too minute reference to the details of the
facts themselves, or the circumstances under which
they have been discovered or observed.

But I must not proceed to the immediate subject
Avithout stating, in a very few words, the nature of
the arrangement that I shall follow in my descriptions.
In many cases the phenomena themselves, by a due con-
sideration of which groups of strata are distinguished,
will be stated and explained; but it will not always be
convenient to do this, and in such cases I would have
the reader recollect that I have not ventured to draw
a line of demarcation unless nature has distinctly in-
dicated it. These lines, however, are not all equally
evident. In the whole series of strata exhibited in
the British isles, there are, for instance, only two
groups so natural, so unquestionable, and so real, that
they render the task of classification easy and satis-
factory. One of these groups is again subdivided, and
this separation also is marked by a great change in
organic remains, so that we have three sets of beds,
which we may call respectively the Ancient, the Mid-
dle, and the Modern, and each of these we may con-
veniently look upon as denoting a lapse of time
which we may call an "Epoch"

OP CREATION. 13

The remaining subdivisions are often very strong-
ly, though not so completely indicated; and to these I
shall apply the name " Period" as also sufficiently
convenient. It will be found that the different epochs
and periods described are in most cases distinguished
by a commencement and a termination, often not the
less interesting that each exhibits an occasional pas-
sage, both by mineral structure and fossil remains, into
the beds of the next succeeding one.

In describing the groups of fossils, however, it will
be necessary, in order to avoid repetition, that we
should as far as possible confine our attention in each
case to some group of animals or vegetables whose
remains are most characteristic of the particular
period which they are assumed to illustrate ; and for
the sake of convenience we shall often perhaps seem
to neglect, or pass by with very slight mention, those
which are nevertheless widely distributed in the rocks
of the period under consideration. This might lead
to some confusion, and even to wrong conclusions, if
it were not understood beforehand that such apparent
neglect is not without a reason.

In order to remedy this evil in some measure, I
have here appended a tabular view of the various pe-
riods, in the order in which they will be treated, and
with particular reference to the forms of organic life
most strikingly exhibited in each. By glancing the
eye over this table, the reader, however little ac-
quainted with the details of Geology, will at least be
enabled to recognize the plan, and will thus enter on
the descriptions with some general notion of their
bearing on the whole range of creation.

14

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

1 1 1. The Modern Epoch.

TABULAR VIEW OF THE SUCCESSIVE GEOLOGICAL PERIODS.

10. The Period of the caverns and gravel; with
Carnivora, the Megaceros and other gigan-
tic ruminating animals, and the elephants
of Europe ; and of various gigantic animals
in Asia, America, Australia and New Zea-
land. (Newer Tertiary.')

9. The Period of various large animals of the
Middle Rhine valley, succeeded by that
of the mastodon and elephants in North
America, England, Northern Europe and
India. (Middk Tertiary.']

8. The Period of the pachyderms of the Paris
basin, and of the sub- tropical (?) fruits and
animals of the London and Hampshire
Basins. (Older Tertiary.)

7. The Periods of the Chalk and Greensand ;
during the deposit of which there was pro-
bably a deep sea, covering a large proportion
of the existing land.

6. The Periods of the gigantic land reptiles,
the flying reptiles, the gigantic crocodilian s,
and the first introduction of mammalian
animals. ( Wealden and Oolite.)

5. The Periods of the frog-like, bird-like, and
marine reptiles. (Lias and Trias.)

4. The Periods marked by the presence of vege-
tables and the first introduction of reptilian
animals. (Permian and Carboniferous.)

3. The Period of fishes. (Devonian.)
I. The Ancient Epoch.

2. The Period of invertebrated animals.

(Silurian.)

1. The Period antecedent to the introduction
of life.

II. The Middle Epoch.

OF CREATION. 15

THE FIRST OR ANCIENT EPOCH.

CHAPTER II.

THE PERIOD ANTECEDENT TO THE INTRODUCTION OF LIFE.
THE DEPOSIT OF NON-FOSSIL1FBROUS ROCKS.

JUDGING from the general appearance of the solar
system, and combining the result of astronomical ob-
servations on distant bodies in the universe with the
appearance presented by various rocks on the earth's
surface, it seems not unlikely that, at a very early
period of its history, our globe existed as an intensely
heated body in a fluid state, (the fluidity being the
result of igneous fusion,) and that it gradually cooled
at the surface, perhaps by exposure in space, con-
tracting in dimensions as it cooled and hardened.
In this manner, it may be, a succession of thin solid
crusts were formed, each in succession shrinking and
cracking, until at length, when a certain balance
was arrived at between the thickness of the crust,
the rate of cooling, and the amount of internal
heat, there would be left a rough uneven surface,
having many elevations and depressions, its tem-
perature being sufficiently reduced to allow of the ex-
istence of some such atmosphere as now surrounds
it, and also permit the permanent presence of water

16 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

in a fluid state reposing in the hollows, and form-
ing seas, lakes, and oceans. During the whole of this
time, and until the existence of water in the liquid
state, and the establishment of a sea, and perhaps long
afterwards, it is likely that there were no living beings
on the earth ; because, so far as we know, neither ani-
mal nor vegetable can exist, and perform its functions,
at the temperature of water actually boiling,* —
although, at a temperature not much short of that,
some small animalcules, and even some animals of
higher organization, would seem capable of enjoying
life. Thus, therefore, according to this view, — and
the reader will understand that it is merely offered
as the most probable explanation of certain appear-
ances observed, — the first period of the existence
of the earth as a planet was marked by a chaotic
state of igneous fusion, and characterised by fre-
quent disturbances of the surface consequent upon
cooling from such a state. Let us consider for a
moment what kind of rocks are exhibited to us when
we examine these earliest records of our globe, and
let us see also how far we are able to examine them.
In the first place, we often find, as the basis of all
other rocks in mountain chains, and throughout some
extensive tracts of country, a well-known rock called
granite; a rock whose structure is crystalline, and
which bears strong marks of having cooled slowly
from a state of intense heat. This rock is found in
all parts of the world, and sometimes in widely ex-

* This refers, of course, to the boiling temperature of water at the earth's
surface with the present atmosphere. There is no proof of any change in
the gaseous condition or pressure of the air, neither do we know what
would be the condition of the surface with a steam atmosphere.

OF CREATION. 17

tended masses. It generally exhibits its own charac-
teristic features with sufficient distinctness to leave no
doubt as to its nature; and it may be found in our own
island, as, for instance, in Cornwall, Wales, and Scot-
land ; and in other parts of Europe, as in the Scandi-
navian mountains, the Hartz, the range of mountains
separating Northern Germany from Bavaria and Bo-
hemia, in the Alps both of Switzerland and the Tyrol,
in the Pyrenees, and in the Carpathians. In Asia it
forms the centre of the Caucasus; it occupies a large
part of the Himalayan, Uralian, and Altai mountains ;
and is found also in Siberia. In Africa it appears
in Upper Egypt, in the Atlas mountains, and at
the Cape of Good Hope ; and it may be traced along
the Western part of the whole of the two Americas,
and appears again in the Southern islands and in
Australia.

A rock so universally extended might, almost for
that reason, be looked upon as the foundation and the
main solid frame- work of our globe. It must not be
lost sight of, however, that in many cases the granite
has been, if not formed, at least placed in its present
position, in a pasty or fluid state,'* long subsequent to
the early period of which we are now speaking ; and
thus, though we may safely consider the granite as
frequently the oldest rock, we should always remem-
ber that a material so widely extended and so im-
portant, may be elaborated and expelled from the
deep recesses of Nature's store-house at any time, and
even at the present day.

I shall not detain the reader any longer with an

* In either case the result of intense heat acting under enonnous
pressure.

18 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

account of the rocks which have been called "Primi-
tive" but shall quit this subject with a remark which,
from the manner in which I have spoken of granite,
may perhaps be necessary. It is this : that there are
many kinds of granite and granitic rock, some of them
very different from ordinary granite in appearance,
and that there are also many other so-called primitive
rocks very different in structure ; but these varieties
do not prevent the account I have given from being
sufficiently accurate for my purpose, and I trust the
reader will not suppose, when he has read through
this little volume, that he has learnt everything in
Geology.

Next in order to the crystalline rocks, and almost
as widely extended, there are two or three others, often
themselves crystalline, but bearing evident marks of
what is called " mechanical structure," or, in other
words, of having been deposited from water. These
may be described as gneiss, mica-schist, and clay-slate."""
If we imagine common granite coarsely pounded, and
thrown into a vessel of water, it will arrange itself
at the bottom of the vessel in a condition very
much like that of gneiss, which is indeed nothing
else than stratified granite. If the water in which
the pounded rock is thrown is moving along at a
slow rate, and that part of the granite called felspar
happens to be somewhat decomposed, as it often

* Under this name " clay-slate," I only mean here to include those
slates, whether of distinctly crystalline structure or not, which present no
marks of having contained fossils. That there are such, no Geologist will,
I suppose, doubt ; but when the name clay-slate is given, as it is some-
times, to fossiliferous beds, they ought to be referred at once to the period
indicated by the kind of fossils discovered.

OF CREATION. 19

is, then the felspar (which is so truly clay, that
it makes the best possible material for the use of
the potteries,) and the thin shining plates of mica
will be carried farther by the water than the lumps
of white quartz or flint sand, which with the other two
ingredients made up the granite ; and the two former
will be deposited in layers, which, by passing a galvanic
current through them, would in time become mica-
schist. If the mica were absent, or if the clay were
deposited without it, owing to any cause, then a simi-
lar galvanic current would turn the deposit into some-
thing like clay-slate. These three mechanically ar-
ranged rocks are found abundantly, surrounding and
overlying the granite, as if they had been formed
from its broken and rough edges, worn away by the
waters of the first ocean, and afterwards deposited
at the bottom of the sea. In these rocks we have
arrived at a second period, still unmarked by life,
although apparently better fitted for sustaining it ;
our earth being then not merely a chaotic mass of
cracked and burnt rock, but having had superim-
posed upon that mass extensive and thick layers of
various materials ; these contain in their composition
most of the elements, both gaseous and solid, by
certain combinations of which living animals and
vegetables were enabled to perform their functions,
and render inanimate matter available for their dif-
ferent wants.

One of the most remarkable facts with regard to
these ancient deposited rocks, is their extraordinary
thickness in some localities. It is not difficult to
understand, that at a time when the granite and
granitic rocks were newly formed, and presented

20 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

innumerable fractured edges in every direction, the
pounding action of moving water, especially if that
water was of a high temperature, might grind down
the exposed rock with extreme rapidity, and pro-
duce extensive deposits, rapidly filling up hollows
and depressions. But we can hardly suppose the ex-
istence of depressions so considerable as the thickness
of the gneiss and clay-slate would require ; and it is
far more reasonable to assume that a contraction of the
crust, the result of gradual cooling, produced a series
of wave-like motions in the earth's crust, alternately
elevating and depressing portions of the surface, and
sometimes producing a succession of elevations or de-
pressions on the same spot. However this may be, it
is certain that these old sedimentary rocks have been
not unfrequently altered so as to have become crys-
talline; and they are also very often cracked and
broken, the cracks being sometimes filled up with
rocks of a different kind, injected apparently in a
melted state, and sometimes with other materials,
also crystalline, and often containing a greater or less
proportion of metallic ore.

Thus do these lowest sedimentary strata, whose
vast antiquity is in many cases unquestionable, but
which sometimes, like the granite itself, have been
elaborated at later periods, occupy a definite place
among the rocks of which the earth's crust is made
up. They mark, it would appear, a strange and
dark passage from that state which we have con-
sidered chaotic, to a condition of more regular and
quiet deposit ; they are, however, with reference to
fossiliferous rocks, azoic, or lifeless; and they are also
as a class almost as widely spread, and as distinctly

OF CREATION. 21

universal, as the granitic rocks themselves. At the
end, therefore, of this our first period, we may suppose
that there existed a globe, whose surface exhibited al-
ternations of land and water; the land having in some
places as distinctly stratified an appearance as it has
at present, and the thick masses of strata resting on
huge bosses and peaks of granite and other igneous
rock : — but all was then bare and desolate; not a moss
nor a lichen covered the naked skeleton of the globe ;
not a sea-weed floated in the broad ocean ; not a
trace existed even of the least highly organized ani-
mal or vegetable ; everything was still, and with the
stillness of absolute death. The earth was indeed pre-
pared, and the fiat of creation had gone forth; but
there was as yet no inhabitant, and no being endowed
with life had been introduced to perform its part in
the great mystery of Creation.

It must, however, be distinctly understood that this
view is strictly hypothetical, and is, after all, only one
means of explaining certain phenomena. So far as it
is an illustration of facts that have been observed, it
has its value, and may be received provisionally ; but,
so far as it is merely a theory of the earth, it is worth
neither more nor less than other different theories,
many of which were proposed by cosmogonists of
ancient date, and some have been put forth in our
own time by persons who have as little ground for
theorizing. I have chosen in the present case to
present it as a sketch, embodying many facts and re-
sults of observation, although the cause of the absence
of fossils in metamorphic rocks, and of the other ap-
pearances that have been observed, may undoubtedly
have been very different.

22

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

It is not, indeed, till we advance one step further,
and consider the condition of the earth, by comparing
what we know of its inhabitants with our speculations
concerning the position of land then existing above
the water, that we can arrive at conclusions at all
satisfactory.

The additional facts made known by studying the
remains of animals and vegetables found in the vari-
ous rocks, give a new aspect even to the form of the
speculation ; and we shall soon perceive how far this
view of the earliest condition of the globe is probable,
when we study the first known results of creative
power in reference to organic beings.

OF CREATION. 23

CHAPTER III.

THE PERIOD'OF THE EXISTENCE OF INVERTEBRATED ANIMALS AS THE
MOST HIGHLY ORGANIZED INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. — THE SILU-
RIAN ROCKS.

WRAPPING round the igneous rocks of Cumberland
and the lake district, ranging over a considerable part
of the north-east of Ireland, occupying a large portion
of South Wales, and present almost everywhere in
North Wales, there are found a great number of sedi-
mentary rocks of various kinds, covering the gneiss,
mica schist, or clay slate, and covered up in South
Wales by a series of coarse red conglomerates or beds
of pudding-stone. These sedimentary rocks are ex-
panded sometimes to a thickness of many thousand
feet, and they form a remarkable and natural group,
which may be conveniently sub-divided into two
parts, the lower being by far the most considerable
in vertical thickness, but the upper containing a
greater number and variety of the fossil remains of
animals.

In the British Islands, and very generally in other
countries, this lower group of rocks consists of a gray-
ish-coloured sandy stone, often slaty or flaggy, and
containing much clayey matter, sometimes including
poor bands of limestone, and not unfrequently exhi-
biting, in the partings between two beds, a number of
imperfect remains of shells and other organic sub-

24 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

stances. From its frequently assuming the appear-
ance of clay slate, and being indistinguishable from
that rock except by the presence of fossils, it may be
supposed that the materials of which it is for the
most part formed were obtained from older, and
probably from igneous, rocks pounded still more
finely at the bottom of water, and forming fresh com-
binations, often marked by the presence of sand ob-
tained from the quartz of the granite, and also oc-
casionally distinguished by the presence of mica.

In those parts of England and Wales in which these
rocks have been discovered, they have been found to
exhibit indications of very extensive disturbance, and,
in some cases, seem to have been deposited alternately
with great masses of igneous rock poured out like lava
from a volcano, but erupted through the bed of the
ocean, and soon covered up with new deposits. Be-
sides disturbances of this kind, these same rocks have
in North Wales been subjected to so much squeezing,
under a great pressure from above, that they are twist-
ed into folds repeated several times, just as a number
of pieces of cloth might be thrown into wave-like folds
if squeezed by lateral pressure, with a heavy weight
resting upon the upper surface. No description, how-
ever, can at all do justice to the singular complica-
tion thus introduced into the huge masses of hard and
tough rock. In one place the strata are snapped
asunder and displaced, in another they are bent
nearly double like sheets of paper. Here the slaty
beds are contorted into the most strange and violent
curves; there, the opposite cliffs of a narrow glen
exhibit them torn asunder like fragments of soft wood
or semi-tenacious paste.

OF CREATION. 25

Nor should it be supposed that such appearances
are confined to the slaty and tough beds of this
particular period. They are as common in the older
schists, and in the gneiss, as in these strata, and they
appear again in the similar rocks of the next newer
period ; but there is this difference observable in the
case of England, namely, that the disturbances seem
either to have diminished in intensity, or to hlive
produced a smaller effect at each later time, while
they are nowhere more remarkable than in the case
of the lower silurian strata of North Wales and
Cumberland.*

In these ancient beds, so greatly altered by me-
chanical violence from their original condition, often
deposited amidst much disturbance, and presenting so
many analogies with the earlier and non-fossiliferous
stratified rocks, we find for the first time distinct
marks of the existence of beings endowed with life.

We naturally turn with considerable interest to
inquire concerning the nature of the inhabitants of
our globe, as exhibited by their remains in these
rocks ; and in doing so, we find, that, although the
conditions were, in some respects, very different, and
the animals often unlike existing species, there is yet
sufficient analogy to enable us to determine with con-
siderable certainty the nature of the groups of species
living in the sea at that early period.

The first thing that strikes the geological natural-
ist, in looking over the numerous fossils obtained from

* The evidence of great disturbance observable in these beds in the
British Islands does not extend to Russia and Scandinavia, where they
also occur. Here, and in other parts of the world, they have been less
disturbed, but their general character is the same.

C

26 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

the great series of the lower silurian rocks, is the ap-
parent want of fishes, and, indeed, of all vertebrated
animals. We find everywhere abundant proof that
these great thicknesses of mud and sand, with occa-
sional bands of imperfect limestone, were formed at
the bottom of water, and at various depths ; some,
in all probability, in shallow water near land, and
others in the deepest recesses of the ocean ; but no-
where throughout their wide spread in all parts
of the world have they yet yielded the smallest
fragment that could be referred to a fish. It is,
therefore, pretty clear, either that fishes had not then
been created, or that the conditions for their develop-
ment were so unfavourable that they were extreme-
ly rare, and formed no important group among the
inhabitants of the sea, in places where other organic
remains, often found in newer formations accompany-
ing fishes, are very abundant. The animals we do find
consist of certain sea- weeds, called Graptolites* the
habitation, probably, of compound creatures, •)* which
seem scarcely to deserve the name of animals ; of other
polyps of somewhat higher organization, building those
singular and lasting monuments, the coral-reefs ; of
animals removed yet another step in advance, and
called Crinoids J ,• and of a singular and extensive
group of crustacean animals, known by the name of
Trilobites.§ They also include a considerable group

* Graptolites, ypairroQ (graptos), written upon ; \iQoQ (lithos), a
stone — from their appearance.

-J- Allied to the recent family of Sertularida.

$ Crinoids, tcpivog (crinos), a lily ; eidog (eidos), resembling. Lily-
shaped animals.

§ Trilobites, three-lobed, so called from their shape.

OF CREATION.

27

of bivalve shells belonging to animals of low organiza-
tion, and allied to the Terebratula; of a few other
shells, both bivalve and univalve ; and, last of all, of
a number of the many-chambered shells of a carnivo-
rous animal * like the cuttle-fish,— a creature of high
and complicated organization among the Inverte-
brata, and which seems to have been introduced
among the very earliest of the species intended to
people the primaeval seas. All these animals must
have been to a certain extent contemporaneous ; and
it is worth while to remark, concerning them, that
they exhibit some instances of very imperfect, and
some of the most perfect, development of the great
kingdom of nature to which they belong. In the
older beds, at least until the termination of the first
great epoch, the silurian, there seem, indeed, only
to have been introduced successive modifications
and additional species of the invertebrated type ; and
not till its close did the fishes appear, as if preparing
the way for the next period, marked by the preva-
lence of these more highly organized beings.

As the animals of the newer differ so little from
those of the older portion of the first period, at least
in points which admit of general description, I shall
not describe them separately ; but, having already of-
fered a few remarks on the mineral structure of the
rocks, I shall proceed at once to explain in succession
those groups which are most interesting and characte-
ristic. In this way I hope to communicate something
like a distinct notion of the results of geological inves-
tigation with regard to the first inhabitants of the
earth, and not only show the general fact, that impor-

* OrthroceratiteS) and several allied forms.

c 2

28 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

tant changes must have since taken place in the con-
dition of the sea-bottom, but also explain the nature
of some of those changes.

According to the actual constitution of things, the
soft substance of the bodies of animals consists chiefly
of carbon in combination with gases (oxygen, hydro-
gen, and nitrogen) ; and the more solid parts, whether
forming a bony skeleton, or a yet harder external
case, or internal framework of stone, are composed of
salts of lime with little admixture of other material,
especially in the invertebrated animals. The presence
of carbon, lime, and these gases, therefore, in sufficient
abundance under favourable circumstances of tempe-
rature and in a condition to combine with other ele-
ments, is all that is required to enable animals once
created to carry on the functions of life.*

Of such substances, those existing in a gaseous
state were, no doubt, sufficiently abundant during
the earlier periods of the earth's development : car-
bon, of which so large a quantity is still given off in
volcanic districts in the form of carbonic acid gas,
must also have been abundant then ; and a sufficient
proportion of lime and silica is found in the compo-
sition of felspar — one of the most important and uni-
versal ingredients of granite — to supply the marine
animals with materials for their stony houses. It has,
indeed, been thought possible, though perhaps it is

* It is indeed true, that at present most of these inorganic materials
are first prepared by vegetables into a fit pabulum for the animal ; but it
seems by no means certain that the lower animals cannot themselves per-
form the required change. Even if this is not the case, there is sufficient
proof in some of the most ancient fossiliferous rocks, that large masses of
sea-weed existed as soon as any other organized substance.

OF CREATION.

29

Fig. 2

not very probable, that our atmosphere at its first
formation contained a larger supply of carbonic acid
gas than at present ; but such an assumption is not
at all necessary to account for the first secretion of
carbonate of lime required to form the habitations
and the skeletons of the original inhabitants of our
globe.

Among the most simply organized
of the silurian species, and amongst
those found in the beds of oldest
date, are the fossils called Grapto-
lites, which seem to have been the
horny skeletons of animals not un-
like those which are often met with
on the coral and sea-weeds of our
own coast. They were formed, like
these, by a vast multitude of indi-
vidual polyps attached to a tough
central mass, the whole constituting
a kind of compound animal, in which
each individual works to increase the
general mass, and is affected by that
which affects this mass ; but each,
also, has a separate existence, being
provided with a stomach and arms,
to obtain and digest food, and capa-
ble of being injured or destroyed without the func-
tions of the complete body being at all interfered with.

Polyps, as animals of this low organization are
called, appear to have been among the first of created
beings, and are also those which have been changed
least since the period of their original introduction up
to the present time. Their extreme simplicity of

SERTULARIAN
CORALLINE.
(Graptolite.)

30 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

structure would, probably, enable them to live
through many changes, since they could adapt them-
selves to altered conditions of temperature and posi-
tion, at times when almost every other animal was de-
stroyed; and, accordingly, in the species of them
found fossil, there is far less difference from existing
nature than is the case with any other creatures.
These little corallines, and the larger and more im-
portant group of true corals, as they commenced ex-
istence so early, seem also to have been comprised
within a very limited number of natural families, and
some particular species probably extend completely
through the whole number of beds of the first great
epoch.

Amongst the earlier forms are those of the genera
Aulopora (3) and Catenipora (4, 5), all belonging
Fig. 3 to the group of lowest

organization among co-
ralline bodies, and hav-
ing the most solid stony
or horny framework.
They are radiated and
star-like in their struc-
ture, have no true in-
SIMPLK FLOWER-LIKE CORALLINE. testinal canal, and in
(Aulopora). many, though by no

means all the species, the animal is capable of locomo-
tion. The species figured 3 is common in rocks of the
older palaeozoic period, and is closely analogous, in
many respects, to species yet inhabiting tropical and
southern seas. The chain coral (4, 5) offers another
and a beautiful example of this peculiar structure, and
being a fossil exceedingly common in some silurian

OF CREATION. 31

localities, is well adapted to illustrate the habits of
the group.

The little animals Fi9- 4 *V- 5

in these cases secreted
and built up their
stone house, they ad-
ded compartment to
compartment, erect-
ing in succession one

Story after another, CHAIN CORAL. (Catenipora.)

and they continued at this work month after month,
year after year, century after century, until at length
they were replaced by others like them, when the
depth had changed in which they could most con-
veniently live, or when, owing to some cause, their
labours were brought to a close, and they disap-
peared from amongst existing forms.

During every successive period from this their first
appearance in the infancy of the world to the present
day, animals of the polyp kind have been perpetually
adding to the solid matter of our globe, by these sin-
gular buildings of stone. These little creatures are
enabled to separate from the sea-water a proportion
of carbonate of lime, and they do this although the
quantity present is so minute as to be almost inappre-
ciable by the most careful chemical analysis. The
most common species are known to be unable to exist
at a greater depth than twenty or thirty fathoms ;
but there are many instances in the southern seas of
corals forming part of extensive reefs existing at a
much greater depth, and they are also sometimes ele-
vated high in the air. Great changes of level must,
therefore, have occurred ; and these are perhaps still

32 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

going on ; and by similar changes we must account
for the presence of lofty masses of solid rock exhibit-
ing the remains of the ancient coral polyp in the old
rocks.

The prodigious extent of the combined and uninter-
mitting labours of these little world-architects must
be witnessed, in order to be adequately conceived or
realised. They have built up four hundred miles of
barrier reef on the shores of New Caledonia ; and on
the north-east coast of Australia their labours extend
for one thousand miles in length ; and these reefs may
average, perhaps, a quarter of a mile in breadth, and
one hundred and fifty feet in depth, and they have
been built amidst the waves of the ocean, and in defi-
ance of its fiercest storms. The Geologist, in contem-
plating these stupendous operations, learns to appre-
ciate the circumstances by which were deposited in
ancient times, and under other conditions than those
which now characterise our climate, those mountain
masses of limestone, for the most part entirely co-
ralline, which abound in many parts of our native
island. The most abundant remains of corals in these
masses are similar in their general nature to living
species, but indicate animals very distinct from those
living polyps which are now actively engaged in form-
ing similar deposits on the undulating and half-sub-
merged crust of the earth washed by the Indian and
Pacific oceans. The limestones, which form a part
even of the oldest formations, offer distinct proof, by
their organic remains, that they are due to the secre-
tions of gelatinous polyps, the species of which perish-
ed before those that formed the newer strata were
created ; and, as these polyps of the older period have

OF CREATION. 33

been superseded by those of the present day, so these,
in all probability, are destined to give way in their
turn to new forms of essentially analogous animals, to
which, in time to come, the same great office will be
assigned, — to clothe with fertile limestone future rising
continents.*

The polyps thus collecting calcareous matter in
large quantities, and building vast masses of solid lime-
stone, secrete their stony skeletons on the outside of
their soft bodies. If, however, we suppose the
animals supported on a stem, and that, instead of
depositing the earthy particles externally, they are
placed in regular shape and order in the substance of
the polyp itself, and fill up the stem, the cup-shaped
body, and the arms or feelers that surround the
mouth, there would result an animal of a very diffe-
rent kind, not capable of associating with others of its
species to form a compact mass, but possessing a
separate and distinct existence, and building a kind
of stone plant, of which the roots, the trunk, the
branches, and the smaller twigs are each made up
of a number of separate and detached particles. A
skeleton of this kind, however curious it may seem, was
possessed by a vast number of distinct species of
animals living in the early seas, and such forms were
continued through the whole of the first and second
epochs, gradually, however, diminishing in number,
and at present scarcely presenting an adequate repre-
sentative in two or three comparatively small and unim-
portant species of what are called Crinoidal animals.

The very name which is given to these animals is
illustrative of their curious structure and the ar-

* Owen's Lectures on the Invertebrata, p. 93.

c 5

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

rangement of their hard parts. They are called
Encrinites, or Crinoidal animals, because many of
them exhibit the appearance of a cup-shaped flower,
opening on the top of a stalk ; this flower-like shape
being comparatively simple in many species, while
in others there is a complication in the number of
branches stretching out from the principal stalk, and
in the multitude of arms and fingers projecting from
the aperture of the mouth, which seems quite unri-
valled in complexity in any other animal, whether
recent or extinct.

A remarkable form of these crinoids existed during
Fig. 6 Fig. 7 the silurian period, and

served, as it were, to
introduce these pretty
and curious examples
of organization.

The figure (7) exhi-
bits the structure of the

SILURIAN CRINOIDS. (Cystidea*) stony case in one Spe-

cies ; and the annexed figure (6), shows the step by
which this ancient family, apparently the first in-
troduced, passed on to the higher organization of the
modern star- fish. The animal was without arms, and
was inclosed within stony plates, whose number was
sometimes indefinite, but an orifice was left in the
central part of the upper surface (m) for the mouth ;
an adjacent orifice (a) was provided, from which the
undigested parts of the food could be ejected ; and also
a third, at no great distance (o), for the expulsion of
the eggs. The mouth was provided with a proboscis,
moveable and covered with small plates ; while the

* 6, Caryocrinus ornatus. 7, Caryocystites granatum.

OF CREATION.

35

orifice o was covered with a little five or six-sided
pyramid, made up of as many little valves. The
whole stony case, which, in some instances (Spharo-
nites), resembles a little green orange, was supported
on a very slender stalk, which, however, is rarely
preserved. In the more advanced form (6), the
mouth and proboscis are still present, but there were
a number of arms projecting from the summit around
the mouth ; and the orifices do not exist, since the
eggs were carried out at the openings for the arms.
The fossils exhibiting this singular structure are by no
means common ; but they afford so beautiful a transi-
tion from lower to higher forms, and are so little
known, that a notice of them cannot fail to be inte-
resting. Fragments of encrinites, more resembling
the modern types, are common in some of the rocks
of the older period, and are much like fossils of the
same family found in the upper members of this group
of rocks.

The encrinites, although so nearly like the coral
polyps in some points of structure, and in the simpli-
city of their organization, belong, however, to a much
higher group, and exhibit important resemblances to
the star-fishes ; and just as they are the least orga-
nized of the star-fishes, and as the coral polyps are
the lowest of that group of Zoophytes which possess
no trace of nervous filament, so among the Crustace-
ans of the earliest period (a great natural group, in-
cluding the crabs, the lobsters, &c.) we find nearly a
similar peculiarity ; the species most commonly found
in the older rocks exhibiting very simple structure,
although developed to a great extent in point of num-
ber at one time, and only dying out towards the

86

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

close of the first epoch. These animals are called
TriloUtes. (See figures 8, 9, 10.)

The trilobites, of which there is a consider-

Fig. 9

able number of
distinct generic
forms in the
older rocks, were
provided with a
large semicircu-
lar or crescent-
shaped shield,
completely de-
fending the head;
their body was
in like manner
secured from the
attack of an ene-
TRILOBITES.* my by a number

of plates or segments moving readily upon one
another, like the horny plates of a shrimp ; and
the tail was armed with a similar series. The ani-
mal seems not to have had antennae, and to have
possessed short and rudimentary legs ; but on the
head were placed a pair of large conical projections
covered with eyes, by the help of which any ap-
proaching danger might be seen ; and the power of
rolling itself into a ball (see figure 10), which it pos-
sessed in common with the wood-louse and the chiton,
enabled this creature, no doubt, to escape the attack
of many of its enemies. It is not very easy either to
make out the habits of an animal of such singular

* 8, Homalonotus armatus. 9, Trinucleus Caractaci. 10, Calymenc
Blumenbachii.

OF CREATION.

37

organization and of which only the hard external
coat is preserved, or speculate with regard to its food
and its method of obtaining it. From the absence of
antennae, however, and the want of powerful extre-
mities, as well as from the manner in which these
fossils are found,* the different species probably
lived for the most part in shallow water, not buried
in mud, but floating near the surface with their under
side uppermost, feeding on the minute and perhaps
microscopic animalcules that usually abound in such
localities. There are several natural groups, marked
by differences somewhat considerable, but the number
of species is not great.

The most remarkable point with regard to these
trilobites is the presence of the large compound eyes
with which they were provided. These eyes appear
to be constructed on the same principle as those of the
dragon-fly and other insects : they are ranged round
about three-fourths of two conical projections rising
one from each side of the head, and they are so
placed that the animal, without moving from the spot
in which it might be, could see in all directions around
it. It appears, from this perfect and complicated con-
trivance, that, at the earliest period of the introduction
of animals, the general conditions of light and the
atmosphere could not have differed in any important
degree from those which now obtain.

Together with the graptolites, the corals, the en-
crinites, and the trilobites, there seem to have existed
as contemporaries, two, or perhaps three, very re-
markable tribes belonging to the great natural group

* They seem to have been very gregarious, living by thousands in a
single locality, and often heaped upon one another.

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

of Mollusca — a division of the animal kingdom readily
distinguished from those which we have already had
occasion to refer to, by the possession of a much more
distinct nervous centre, and conducting the naturalist
by slow and successive steps to that more complicated
structure met with in the vertebrated animals, of which
the fishes form the least highly organized group.

The Mollusca, as at present understood, are divided
into six classes : some, as the Barnacles (Cmimo-
PODA *), fix themselves when young to the surface
of various sub-marine bodies, and having no organs
connected with the higher senses, and being unable to
change their position, are content to cast out at in-
tervals their ciliated (or hair-like) arms, which form
a net of Nature's own contrivance, and entrap such
passing prey as suits their appetite. Others, equally
incapable of locomotion, but furnished with arms of
different construction, catch their food by similar
efforts : these are called BRACHIOPODA.")* The Tu-
NICATA,J inclosed in tough leathery bags, are firmly
rooted to the rocks, or, collected into singular com-
pound masses, float about at the mercy of the waves.
The CONCHIFERA § inhabit bivalve shells ; the PTERO-
PODA || swim in myriads through the sea supported on
two fleshy fins, and some of them inclosed in delicate
fragile shells; while the GASTEROPODA,H defended in
most cases by a shelly covering, creep upon a broad

* KippoQ (cirrkos), a curled lock of hair ; Troda (poda), feet.

•f* "Bpa^iwv (hrachion), an arm ; Troda (poda), feet.

J Tunicatus, clad in a tunic or inclosing membrane.

§ Concha^ a shell ; fero^ to carry.

|| Hrepov (pteron), a wing ; iro^a (poda), feet.

"U YaffTrjp (gaster), the belly ; Troda (poda), feet.

OF CREATION. 39

and fleshy ventral disc, and endowed with this loco-
motive apparatus, exhibit senses of proportionate per-
fection. Lastly, the CEPHALOPODA,* the most active
and highly organized of this large and important di-
vision of animated nature, are furnished with both
eyes and ears, and armed with formidable means of
destroying prey, so that they are thus enabled to
become tyrants of the deep, and gradually conduct to
the most exalted type of animal existence.^

Of these classes of Mollusca, most of them seem
to have been introduced at the very commencement
of the existence of our globe : but two groups have
since then greatly diminished in number and relative
importance, although each is still represented in our
own seas : these are the Brachiopoda^ and the Ce-
phalopoda. The Conchifera and Gasteropoda, or
ordinary bivalve and univalve molluscs, seem to
have been at first either totally absent or extremely
rare ; and, although they afterwards increased, they
do not seem to have taken the place of the Brachi-
opoda till after the close of the second great epoch ;
while the Cirrhopoda and Tunicata may indeed have
existed, but have left no remains of their existence
in the ancient rocks.

The Brachiopoda were unquestionably the chief
and almost the only representatives in the primseval
seas of that large class of animals inhabiting bivalve
shells, which were then scantily distributed, but now
perform an important part in the great world of
waters. They exhibit, however, an internal organi-

* K£0a\7j (cepltale), the head ; TroSa (poda), feet.
•f* Rymer Jones's Animal Kingdom3 p. 352.

40 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

zation extremely simple compared with that of the
other bivalves, together with a complexity in the
structure of the shell, and in the contrivances for
keeping the two valves partly asunder, which are
quite peculiar to them. The shell, too, is generally
laminated, or even fibrous in its texture : numerous
long hairs seem to have passed, in some cases, from
the plates, while in others they passed through
the plates of which the shell is made up. Nothing
can well be imagined more varied than the contri-
vances by which the ancient species of this group
were enabled to obtain existence.

The two valves of brachiopodous shells are not con-
nected by any hinge ; but the lower valve was either
directly fastened to a rock or some marine substance,
or a bundle of fibres or hairs passed through one valve
from the other, and were collected into a pedicle or
foot- stalk, by which the animal could attach itself at
will. Two arms, or tentaculae, were wound in a
spiral within the shell when at rest, but were capa-
ble of being expanded in search of food ; and these
being covered with cilia — those peculiar hair-like ap-
pendages frequently met with in animals of imperfect
organization — powerful currents were produced in the
surrounding water, which being directed towards the
mouth as a focus, would hurry into that aperture
whatever nutritive particles might chance to be in the
vicinity/"" The food of these creatures consisted
probably of the minutely divided and decomposed
particles of dead animals of various kinds floating
about in the seas ; and different species seem to have
been enabled to live at various depths, varying from a

* Rymer Jones's Animal Kingdom, p. 365.

OP CREATION.

41

few fathoms to the deepest abysses at which any ap-
pearance of life is met with. Fi n

The annexed figure (11) represents a
common and characteristic silurian spe-
cies, of the kind afterwards most com-
mon ; while the figures 12, 13, serve to
illustrate the very remarkable internal
partition, separating the interior of the
shell into several parts in the case represented, and
in other instances affording very singular modifications
of this curious principle of structure. All the shells of
animals of this group have projecting plates of shell,
more or less prominent, passing up from the centre of
the larger or upper valve. (See fig. 12.)

OR-

Fig. 12

Fig. 13

PENTAMERUS.

The Pteropoda of the silurian formations were
probably numerous and powerful, attaining a far
larger size than they have done at any subsequent
period. Several species of a genus (Creseis) still
represented by some small Mediterranean species
have been determined from some of silurian rocks ;

42 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

but of the habits of the animal we are not able to
speak with any certainty. It is not unlikely, how-
ever, that they were exceedingly carnivorous, and
supplied the place of the common tribes of univalve
shells of after times.* They seem, also, to have
preceded, in some measure, the cephalopods, and
may, therefore, have performed the same part as the
animals of this fierce and powerful group.

Of the true Cephalopoda there are several genera
described from the rocks of the oldest period, and
they differ chiefly in the shape of the singular many-
chambered habitation, which is, in fact, the only
part left by which we can identify these animals.
They all bore a much greater resemblance to the
nautilus than the cuttle-fish, and in this respect
seem to exhibit the same peculiarity that has been
already so often alluded to, namely, the usual intro-
duction of groups of species possessing the lower
organization of their tribe in the earliest formed
strata of the earth.

The Nautilus (see fig. 52), the lowest existing type
of the Cephalopoda, (which, however, it will be re-
membered, form the highest division of the Mollusca,)
exhibits a great advance in the construction of the
organs of animal life, by which it is readily dis-
tinguished from the ordinary inhabitants of univalve
shells. In the first place, this animal has a true

* The Gasteropoda themselves were not unrepresented in the seas of
the earlier epoch, although they do not appear in the lowest rocks of all.
There are at present sixty-three silurian species known — a number
scarcely exceeding that of the Orthoceratites from the beds of the same
age ; while in the proportion of individuals whose fragments are found
there is no comparison, the latter being far more numerous.

OF CREATION.

43

internal skeleton, and a perfect symmetry throughout
the animal and vital organs. The muscular system
also forms a larger proportion of the body ; the nerv-
ous centres, concentrated in the head, have received a
marked increase of bulk ; the organs of the external
senses are much more perfectly developed, and the re-
spiratory tube has received an enormous development,
and assists in propelling the cephalopod through the
sea. The organs of locomotion and prehension are
now arranged round the aperture of the mouth, which
besides these possesses jaws working like the beak of
a bird, and a strong spiny tongue. The organs of
locomotion and prehension are, however, exceedingly
simple and very numerous, differing in this respect
from the more highly organized cuttle-fish.

Lastly, in the shell we see a marked approach to
a higher form of animal existence than is exhibited
in other univalve shells. In the few animals in-
closed in shells that are able to swim, we find
the shell of very diminutive size, of simple form
and structure, and of an extremely light and delicate
texture. In the nautilus, on the other hand, we
find a large, powerful, and complicated shell, com-
posed of a number of separate compartments or
air-chambers, all of them together forming a float,
and enabling the strong and muscular occupant to
rise at will to the surface of the water, or sink down
into the depths of the ocean in search of the food of
which it no doubt requires an abundant supply.

It is probable that the nautilus and its shell
together are somewhat, though very little, heavier
than water, when the animal has retired completely
within its habitation. When, however, it expands

44

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

14

itself and exposes a large surface beyond the aperture
of the shell, and at the same time produces a slight
vacuum in the last chamber, its specific gravity be-
comes on the other hand a little less than that of wa-
ter, and it rises rapidly to the surface. It may also be
the case that the curious tube, or siphuncle, that runs
through all the chambers, assists in some way in
thus adjusting the balance of the animal ; although,
from the appearance of this tube, coated with a thin
calcareous deposit, it seems unlikely that its dilata-
tion or contraction could produce any useful effect.*
Contemporaneous with the various groups of animals
Figs. already described, there seem to

have been introduced in the primae-
val seas a large number of species
very closely allied to the nautilus,
but provided with floats or cham-
bered shells not coiled into a spiral
as is the case with the recent ana-
logue, but either straight or very
slightly curved ; and from their re-
semblance to a horn, called by natu-
ralists Orthoceras^- (or straight horn),
Cyrtoceras or (bent horn), &c. The
animals inhabiting these shells must
no doubt have been very closely
allied to the recent nautilus ; but
nothing is known of them except
the fragments of their habitations,
which exhibit great variety of form
ORTHOCERATITES. and some rather incomprehensible

* Owen's Lectures on Comp. Anat., p. 327 et seq.

t Op9o£ (orthos), straight ; Kvproc; (cyrtus), curved ; and KtpciQ (ceras),

horn.

OF CREATION. 45

peculiarities of structure. Some of them appear to
have been of great length and exceedingly slender ;
and the shell is often thin, although in that case the
walls of separation between each two successive
chambers are generally close together. The sides of
the shell are often deeply ribbed or grooved, some-
times in the direction of its length, and sometimes
across. A few of the species had their shells short and
greatly swelled, having almost the shape of a pear ;
some again came rapidly to a pointed termination ;
and some were so nearly cylindrical, that it is difficult
to suppose that they ever commenced at a point, and
were increased by regular gradations. All these va-
rieties of form are met with in the oldest rocks ; and
the large and important group of Orthoceratites,
apparently the first, as it is the simplest form of
the multilocular shell, seems to have attained its
greatest development very early, and then was gra-
dually replaced by other groups of Cephalopoda; until,
towards the close of the first epoch, these animals
had died out entirely, and were replaced by the
nautilus, and yet more remarkably by the ammo-
nites, which then appeared for the first time.

We have now gone through the description of the
inhabitants of the seas during the earliest period at
which the Geologist is enabled to trace the existence
of living beings upon the earth. Let us, before con-
cluding, briefly reconsider the results of geological
investigation with regard to these ancient strata.
In the first place, it is interesting to remark, that,
among the groups exhibiting the lowest amount of or-
ganization, there are a few corallines, and a larger num-
ber of the stony corals. There are also several species

46 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

of crinoids (lily-shaped polyps), individually abun-
dant ; and although there appear to be one or two
species of the more highly organized Radiata (such as
the star-fish), we very rarely find remains of other radi-
ated animals than encrinites in the old rocks, although
numerous higher forms afterwards became exceed-
ingly abundant. Of the crustaceans again we obtain
no fragments of true crabs or lobsters, or other com-
mon and known forms, but instead of them a group,
long since extinct, not more likely to be preserved
than the former, and, although for a time evidently
very common, not continued into the middle one of
the three great periods.

The absence or rarity of the common bivalve and
univalve shells in these rocks is also a point of very
considerable interest. A few species of the family
represented by the common cockle (Cardium), and a
few also of the scallop tribe (Pecten, Avicula), both of
which groups are remarkable among the shell-bearing
animals for their locomotive powers, and the extent
to which they adapt themselves to changing cir-
cumstances, are among the chief of the bivalves ; and
a number of species nearly allied to the carnivorous
Buccinum, or whelk, represented in like manner the
univalves. But although the genera now common
were then so rare, their place was evidently supplied
by two other groups now nearly lost sight of; and of
these the vast number of shells allied to Terebratula,
and the abundance of Orthoceratites, form the most
striking and valuable examples.

Quite at the close of the period we are considering,
a few small fishes, apparently allied to the shark
tribe, were also introduced as typical forms of what

OF CREATION. 47

should afterwards abound. Although, however, these
fishes were introduced towards the close but before
the termination of the period of the Invertebrata, it is
important to remember that almost all the great
natural divisions of the Invertebrata began at once
and together to perform their work on earth ; so that
there is no appearance of any regular order of progres-
sion by which the encrinite succeeded the coral polyp,
the trilobite the encrinite, the terebratula the tri-
lobite, or the orthoceratite the brachiopod. All these
seem to have been truly contemporaneous, and they
were doubtless introduced as the group best fitted to
perform the functions of their existence during the
conditions, whatever they may have been, under which
the world existed in their time. And so little in many
points do the differences of their organization seem to
require important changes in the temperature and
atmospheric condition of the earth, so similar are the
living species most nearly allied to them in all pecu-
liarities of which we can fairly judge, that, however
we may be inclined to conjecture and speculate on
the probability of a higher and more uniform tempe-
rature, a more widely extended sea receiving similar
deposits and containing similar species, or an atmo-
sphere more highly charged with carbonic acid gas
than at present, — these speculations must be kept
within bounds, since the facts justify no more than the
admission of their bare possibility.

The mere absence of certain groups or of certain
species and genera afterwards common, is not the
only point on which the naturalist dwells in con-
sidering the possible conditions of the ancient sea.
It is much more important, and much more interest-

48 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

ing, to observe that these species were not only
absent, but that their place was supplied by other
groups of animals analogous to them, having similar
habits, but not identical in specific character.

Thus the place of the less highly organized of the
common shell-fish, such as the muscles, the oyster
tribe, and the like, was properly filled by numerous
and varied forms allied to Terebratula (a lower group) ;
while the numerous groups of flesh-eating Gasteropo-
da (the Murex, the cone, the volute, the cowry,
and many others) were equally well represented by
innumerable orthoceratites (animals of higher organi-
zation), which then swarmed in the seas.

No doubt the appearance of these ancient seas
would have appeared strange to the eyes of the
naturalist, could an inhabitant of the world in its
present state have become acquainted with the
mysteries of the ocean's deep abysses at that time.
With something of resemblance in the reefs and
islands of coral rising gradually to the water's edge,
as the coral polyp toiled and laboured from day to
day and from year to year, there would yet be much
more of difference both in the shallows and depths of
the ocean. The former sometimes with a sandy, but
more frequently a muddy bottom, would be peopled
with countless myriads of those unsightly animals,
the trilobites, swimming near the surface of the water
with their backs downwards, looking out constantly,
and sinking at the slightest approach of danger from
beneath; while the remains of successive generations of
these creatures, mixed with mud and sand, would rapid-
ly form beds sometimes of great extent. From amongst
such beds, or attached to the solid rock, would be

OF CREATION. 49

seen, rising or leaning over on their short and slen-
der stems, the simple forms of the crinoids or stone-
flowers, more beautiful, perhaps, and more picturesque
than the sea-anemones of our own coast, even when
these latter are seen in all their beauty, and with
their tendrils and fibres widely expanded and bril-
liantly coloured. The crinoids, wanting indeed the
colour, but of far more elegant form, would some of
them be seen spreading out their arms and fingers in
search of prey, while others closed entirely their cup-
like envelope, — giving a variety and life to the sea
bottom, in spite of the cold, hard, stony frame- work
of the animal, scarcely concealed by a living coat of
leathery integument.

Besides these, and sometimes attached to them,
every hard fragment of rock, and every hard surface
at the bottom of the sea, at all moderate depths,
would doubtless be overgrown with some one or other
of the numerous family of Brachiopoda (Trilobites,
Sec.), which we know to have been abundant. A
few of the Conchifera (Pectens, &c.), with their bi-
valve shells, might also be seen flitting about in the
water, moving by jerks produced by the sudden shut-
ting of their valves, but an infinite number and va-
riety of other animals, swimming with much greater
freedom and elegance, and of far greater size, then
crowded the ocean, rising and sinking at pleasure,
and with great facility. Some of these were of form-
idable dimensions, exhibiting a strange spear-like tail
projecting downwards, and terminating above in a
more or less powerful and sack-like body, moving
with infinite rapidity in every direction ; while
others, short and almost globular, were perhaps less

50 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

active, and sought their food in the little bays and
inlets.

But there were then no fishes : these Cephalopoda
were the lords and tyrants of that creation ; they were
the most numerous, the most highly organized, the
least defended by stony or scaly armour, and the
most powerful. Their long shell was probably not
meant to shelter them from danger, and their whole
appearance and character indicates that they were
the attackers — not the attacked, and, like other
powerful animals, were unprovided with defensive
weapons, their vigour, strength, and activity answer-
ing this purpose sufficiently.

It is not for us to calculate how often our globe per-
formed its annual course in the heavens between the
commencement and the close of the long period which
we have been considering in this chapter. We may
conjecture, indeed, from the evidence before us in the
fossil remains, and the order and condition in which
they occur, that these revolutions must be counted
rather by tens of thousands than by units ; for during
this lapse of time, whatever it may have been, many
thousand feet of deposits were formed in various
parts of the bottom of the sea, and each succeeding
deposit, though only of a few inches, is provided
with its own written story, its sacred memoranda,
assuring us of the regularity and order that obtained,
and of the perfect uniformity of plan. The changes
that took place during this time were gradual and
successive ; the world of water was then being pre-
pared, slowly but surely, for the reception of more
highly organized beings, and, at length, although
there is little appearance of physical alteration, the

OF CREATION. 51

increasing abundance of these animals marks the com-
mencement of a new period.

It is interesting to contemplate the probable con-
ditions of the earth's surface and its physical features,
as made known to us by these fossil remains ; but in
doing so, we ought to bear in mind constantly the
true nature and value of the evidence. So far as it
is positive — so far as we have only to make out the
meaning of what we see — this is not difficult or
doubtful ; but when we begin to draw general con-
clusions, and speak of the absence of whole groups,
because we do not discover any indications of their
existence, we are reasoning from our own view of
what, in all probability, and according to analogy,
occurred, and not from positive data. Still, as the
circle of our knowledge expands, and these conclu-
sions, being tried by the test of experience, are found
still correct, they do assume more and more the cha-
racter of true generalisations, and become at length
admitted as truths. I have here, and elsewhere in
these pages, endeavoured to give fairly the result of
all the evidence at present obtained on the subject,
and have usually intimated the existence of a doubt
where the amount of evidence seemed to me insuffi-
cient.

52 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

CHAPTER IV.

THE INTRODUCTION OF FISHES, THE CHARACTERISTIC ANIMALS OF
THE SECOND FOSSILIFEROUS PERIOD. — THE DEVONIAN OR OLD
RED SANDSTONE SYSTEM OF FORMATIONS.

IT would seem that, during the whole period of the
deposit of those many thousand feet of strata which
make up the silurian series in Wales, Cumberland,
and other parts of the world, there was no contem-
poraneous formation going on in the district now oc-
cupied by Scotland, or in that which at present forms
the south-western counties of Cornwall and Devon-
shire in England. Further south, however, the silu-
rian rocks are met with again, as in Brittany ; and, as
I have already mentioned, they exist in great abund-
ance in various parts of Scandinavia, but owing to
some cause, probably because those portions of the
earth were then elevated above the level of the sea,
and so were not capable of receiving any extensive
additions, there does not appear to be in the British
islands any regular and complete passage from the
slates and sandy beds of the older and non-fossili-
ferous period, to similar deposits immediately resting
upon them. In Belgium, Russia, and Germany, such
a continuity may be traced.

The existence of a break in the continuity of strata
occurring thus early, and extending over an important
geological period, but evidently local and confined to a
small district, is a phenomenon well worthy of remark,

OF CREATION. 53

and one which, when understood, will perhaps clear
up many difficulties which have sometimes puzzled
Geologists; but, before offering this explanation, it
should be understood distinctly what is meant by
calling an event of this kind a break in the continuity
of strata or groups of strata.

If the animated beings who inhabit the different
parts of the earth and sea had been at all times the
same ; if it were an indifferent thing to the marine
animals whether they dwelt in shallow water, near
shore, — in the deeper water of bays and other shel-
tered places, — in the open sea, near the surface, and
where exposed to the constant action of the tides and
currents, — or in the great depths of the ocean, far re-
moved from land; and if species, thus cosmopolitan in
their habits, had been introduced at the first creation
of animals on the earth, and had succeeded one another
in the regular order of nature, generation after gene-
ration repeating the same species; then, indeed, it
would have been difficult, and often impossible, to
determine whether the various strata lying over one
another in any given spot were formed by continuous
deposits, or with intervals between them of sufficient
magnitude to allow of the interpolation of other beds
in other places. But these conditions do not obtain
in nature. It is well known to the naturalist, that,
although some animals are much more capable of
adapting themselves to changing circumstances than
others, all species are more or less limited in their
range, and that, in a vast proportion of cases, they are
very strictly limited; a change of a few yards in the
depth of the water, an alteration in the nature of the
sea bottom or in the degree of exposure to tidal action,

54 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

being quite enough to produce, at the present clay, a
marked difference in the appearance of the group of
inhabitants of adjacent districts, which difference is
perfectly appreciable at the first glance by one accus-
tomed to observe with any degree of accuracy.

The general nature of the animal remains is not
the only means possessed by the Naturalist, or made
use of by the Geologist, to determine the circum-
stances under which submarine deposits may have
taken place. There is now a chain of observations
extending over the whole series of known strata ;
and, regard being had to the present advanced state
of knowledge of the existing species of animals, it has
been distinctly proved, that the more carefully and
strictly these observations are compared and brought
to bear upon one another, the more manifest is it, that,
ever since the first introduction of animals upon earth,
there have been successive creations of species similar
to one another, but not identical, — -performing often
the same office, but perfectly distinguishable, — and in-
volving a constant introduction of new species, al-
though never, not even in a single instance, involving
the repetition of a species that has once died out.

The statement of this fact, namely, that species,
like individuals, have a certain limited term of exist-
ence, has already been made indirectly in the preced-
ing chapter ; and I have there described a number of
animals very much unlike any that now exist, although
not without such resemblances as indicate the posses-
sion of analogous habits, and exhibit proof of unity of
design running through creation, and connecting even
the most ancient species with those yet surviving ; but
I did not there speak concerning that peculiar sue-

OF CREATION. 55

cession of animals which the pursuit of Geology has
proved to exist. It should, however, be clearly un-
derstood, that, in making use of this term " succes-
sion," I have no intention of assuming a gradual mo-
dification of species in the way of the development of
a higher organization, as if animals originally created
imperfect were subsequently, and by manifest grada-
tion, at length enabled to perform functions of a higher
kind ; for this is by no means the case, so far as the
observations of Geologists have hitherto been able to
determine. The order of nature seems rather to be a
succession of this kind ; namely, that first of all, as we
have seen in the last chapter, representatives were in-
troduced of each of the principal natural subdivisions
of the invertebrated animals, combining many typical
characteristics subsequently kept separate, and that
the species thus originally introduced were gradually
displaced by others in which distinctness of typi-
cal character was more marked. Some animals, as
the coral polyps, remained stationary in point of
development ; others, as the encrinites, lasted for a
long time, but at length were partly superseded by
higher types of the group, performing offices which
required greater powers of locomotion; others, again,
as the brachiopods, exhibited almost immediately the
greatest abundance, variety, and extent of their de-
velopment, and were only superseded, after a long
interval, by the higher conchifers, which at first were
sparingly introduced ; while, again, others, (and those
the most important in every respect,) such as the
Cephalopoda, at once assumed an importance which
hardly increased, although it varied, for a long period,
and at length actually became less ; these animals

56 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

being ultimately succeeded by a group (the gastero-
pods) of much lower organization, although admirably
fitted for the work they had to perform. We shall
see hereafter that the course of development of the
fishes and reptiles was very similar to this ; so that
there is no evidence of these animals having gradually
passed into one another, or of any such order of suc-
cession having been a part of the plan adopted by the
great Director of the universe.*

Since it is the fact, that, according to some general
law, species of animals are introduced, last only for
a limited period, and are then succeeded by others
performing the same office, it will readily be seen that
in any group of strata the absence of a certain number

* I have dwelt the more earnestly on this subject, because there ap-
pears to be a strong tendency in the minds of many persons to conclude,
that since the Invertebrata appear to have been first introduced, and to
have been in course of time succeeded by the vertebrated animals in
something of the order of their organization, there was a succession and
a gradual development of higher types of existence in a certain order of
creation. So far as Geology in its present state affords evidence on this
subject, the" facts seem decidedly opposed to any such view ; and I make
this statement the more unhesitatingly, because I find that it perfectly
accords with the conclusions arrived at by one of the most philosophical of
living naturalists, who brings to a close his investigation concerning the
extinct Reptiles in the following manner : —

" Thus, though a general progress may be discerned, the interruptions
and faults, to use a geological phrase, negative the notion that the pro-
gression has been the result of self-developing energies adequate to a
transmutation of specific characters ; but, on the contrary, support the
conclusion, that the modifications of osteological structure which charac-
terise the extinct reptiles, were originally impressed upon them at their
creation, and have been neither derived from improvement of a lower, nor
lost by progressive development into a higher type." — Professor Owen's
Report on British Fossil Reptiles ; Report of Eleventh Meeting of the British
Association at Plymouth, 1842, p. 202.

OP CREATION. 57

of species common in beds of an older formation, and
the presence in that group of other species which are
analogous, would lead the naturalist to conclude either
that a great change had taken place suddenly in the
depth or relative position of the sea bottom receiving
deposits, or else that a period had elapsed between
the deposit of the lower or older beds and those which
overlie them, and that this period was longer or
shorter according to the amount of difference in the
species examined. And this brings us to the sub-
ject referred to at the commencement of the present
chapter, viz. the existence of a break in' the continuity
of strata observed in the case of the rocks of the
second period in Scotland and Devonshire.

With regard to these localities, however, the evi-
dence requires a yet more detailed statement. In
North Britain, the beds resting on and wrapping round
the gneiss, the mica schist, and other old rocks, con-
sist, for the most part, of coarse conglomerate or pud-
ding-stone, evidently made up of the broken fragments
of the old granitic rocks, rolled and tossed about for
ages in a troubled sea, the hardest stones being round-
ed into bullet-shaped pebbles by their long and inces-
sant attrition against one another. These coarse,
gravelly masses are not, however, universal ; and on
the north-eastern coast and in the Orkneys they are
often replaced by more regular strata of hard, dark-
coloured, bituminous schists, abounding with the fossil
remains of fishes.

On the frontier of Wales, a deposit, in many re-
spects very similar to the conglomerate of Scotland,
and expanded to an equal and enormous thickness, is
found to cover up, by regular gradation, the newest

D 5

58 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

strata of the Silurian period; and from this deposit
are obtained occasionally the fossil remains of fishes of
the same species as those found in Scotland.

Lastly, in Devonshire and Cornwall, between the
granite of Dartmoor and a series of black strata of
the same geological age as the carboniferous beds
which elsewhere overlie the conglomerate of Hereford-
shire and Scotland, there is a large series of sandy
and slaty rocks, containing numerous fossil shells and
other organic remains ; and these appear, on exami-
nation, to possess a character intermediate between
that of the silurian and that of the newer or carbo-
niferous series.

Now it will be readily admitted, that a sea in which
the coarse, gravelly conglomerates of Herefordshire and
Scotland were being deposited, would be hardly likely
to contain the remains of delicate shells and the ske-
letons of polyps and encrinites, because, even if the
animals could have lived in such a sea, their hard
parts would be ground and pounded into ten thousand
atoms as soon as they were exposed to the rough
beating of the shingles ; while, on the other hand, the
clayey and sandy bottom of the more southern sea
might readily preserve such remains as were left by
animals of this kind. It would not, therefore, be sin-
gular that we should find a number of fossils in the
devonian beds very different from those in Scotland,
even if they were being formed at the same time; and
the evidence of contemporaneity offered, by comparing
the fossils with those of beds whose position in the se-
ries was known, would be sufficient to establish the
position of the group in question. In this way the
devonian strata were discovered to be of the same

OF CREATION. 59

date as the old red sandstone ; a view which has since
been verified beyond the possibility of question by
the discovery, in Kussia, of two series — one resem-
bling our old red sandstone conglomerate, and the
other our devonian gritty and 'slaty beds — both evi-
dently belonging to one period — both fossiliferous, and
each containing fossils, by which the identity of these
rocks with the beds of our own country, both in De-
vonshire and Scotland, is placed beyond doubt.

In Belgium, and in other parts of Europe, the pas-
sage from the silurian rocks to those of newer date is
perfectly unbroken ; and even in Wales it is not easy,
nor is it always possible, to distinguish so accurately
between the two as to state where the lower series
terminates, and which is to be considered the lowest
member of the overlying group.

The line of demarcation between these strata be-
ing thus slightly marked in some places, the naturalist
is enabled to trace the gradual transition of the ani-
mals characteristic of the one into those of the other
series ; but in the corals, the encrinites, the trilobites,
and even in the shells, this is often difficult, al-
though there is on the whole a considerable dif-
ference in the general appearance of a group of the
fossil remains of Invertebrata taken from the upper
and lower series of strata. An example of this dif-
ference is seen in the annexed figure of a remark-
able bivalve shell (16, 17), not uncommon in some of
the rocks of the period we are now considering, but
altogether confined to that period. The peculiar form
and magnitude of the hinge teeth (fig. 17), and the
beauty of the shell, render it worthy of notice.

But, although the differences of this kind are not

60

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

such as need detain us here, there is another change
of a far more striking character. I mean the intro-

Fig. 16 Fig. 17

MEGALODON.

duction and speedy increase of the great natural class
of fishes, whose remains are comparatively rare even
in the uppermost silurian rocks, but which become ex-
tremely abundant in those beds immediately superja-
cerit. The description of these fishes will be the chief
subject of the remaining part of the present chapter.

Fig. 18 Fig. 19

Ctenoid Scale — PERCH. Cycloid Scale — EXTINCT SALMON.

(Osinerdides Lewesienses.)

All the fishes at present known to exist in the waters
which cover our globe may, with comparatively few
exceptions, be grouped naturally and properly in two
divisions, the one containing those species whose scales

OF CREATION. 61

are jagged on the outer edge like the scales of the
perch (fig. 18), and the other those whose scales are
smooth and simple at the margin, like the scales of a
herring or salmon (fig. 19). To the peculiarities thus
alluded to, might be added many others derived from
the minute anatomy of the fishes.

20 Fig. 21

Ganoid Scale — BONY PIKE. Placoid Scale— EXTINCT RAY.

(Lepidosteus.) (Spinacorhinus polyspondylus.}

The exceptions to this arrangement are comprised
within a few natural families, of which the sturgeon,
the Siluridse or cat-fish, the bony pike of the North
American lakes (fig. 20), and some others, form one
group ; and the saw-fish, the rays (fig. 21), and the
sharks another. These two groups were naturally
looked on as of comparatively small importance,
so long as only the existing species of fishes were
known, for they contain, with the exception of the
sharks and rays, but very few species, and these are
neither abundant nor widely spread.

When, however, it was discovered by M. Agassiz,
on looking carefully at the numerous species of fish
whose fragments are found fossil in the older rocks,
that all these, without a single exception, belonged to
one or the other of the two groups alluded to, it be-
came necessary to reconsider the subject of the classi-
fication of fishes, and learn, if possible, the nature and

62 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

extent of the difference that existed between those of
the earlier seas and the present time.

The result of this, and the conclusions arrived at
by a careful and minute study of the natural history
and anatomy of fishes, has been lately laid before the
public by M. Agassiz, a naturalist whose great acute-
ness of observation and knowledge of the structure
of fishes, have long been well known to the scientific
world, and were appreciated by Cuvier, who left in
his hands the papers he had himself accumulated on
the subject of Ichthyology.

According to M. Agassiz, fishes may be collected
into four natural orders, two of which have been alrea-
dy mentioned as including most of the recent fishes,
while each of the other two groups, so rarely met
with at present, contains species representatives of an-
other order, equally important and well marked, and
in former times represented almost to the exclusion
of any species of the two orders now so abundant.
The first of the two groups, that of which the stur-
geon and the bony pike are characteristic, is called
GANOID ; while the other, containing the sharks and
rays, is known as the PLACOID order *. Of these, the
Placoid seems to have been the first introduced, but
the Ganoid was that which attained its greatest de-
velopment in the ancient seas.-)-

* Ganoid, from the Greek yavoQ (ganos\ splendour ; the scales of these
fishes being generally coated with polished enamel, and often exhibiting
a very brilliant lustre. Placoid, from 7r\a£ (plaai), a plate or slab; be-
cause the skin of the animals of this order is irregularly covered with
plates, studded often with enamel. (See figures 20, 21.)

•f The remaining two groups are called respectively Ctenoid (itrevof,
ctenos, a comb) and Cycloid ( KVK\O£, cyclos, a circle), from the shape and
structure of the scale. (See figures 18, 19.)

OF CREATION. 63

The tribe of existing Placoid fishes most resem-
bling those whose remains are found fossil, is that of
which the sharks are the well-known representative.
These powerful and rapacious animals, which are at
this day the tyrants of the deep, seem to have been,
when first introduced, of small size, and were accom-
panied by some few species of the next or Ganoid
order. Only nine species of these shark-like mon-
sters have yet been determined with certainty from
the silurian and devonian rocks ; and of these, two
only are from the former.

It is chiefly the Ganoid fishes whose remains are
handed down to us in the old red sandstone and other
rocks of that period. Sixty distinct species of these
fish have been mentioned, and almost all of them are
known from British specimens. Most of them are
remarkable for exhibiting strange peculiarities of
shape, approximating them in some intances to the
structure of the lower order of animals, combined with
some apparent affinities to the class of reptiles.

The most remarkable group of these fishes con-
tains several genera, three of which will require spe-
cial notice. They are the Cephalaspis (or buckler-
headed, fig. 22), the Pterichthys (or wing fish, fig.
23), and the Coccosteus* (fig. 24), so called from the
berry-like tubercles with which its bony scales are
covered.

The most extraordinary part of the first of these
fishes, " the buckler- headed," is the head from which

* All these names are derived from the Greek. They are thus ob-
tained : — Cephalaspis, KE<£aA?) (cephale}, a head ; curing (aspis), a shield or
buckler. 2. Pterichthys, Trrepov (pteron), a wing; i^flvQ (ichthys}^ a fish.
3. Coccosteus, KOKKOQ (coccos), a berry; ocrrtov (osteon\ a bone.

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

its name is taken. This has been compared* to the
Fig. 22 crescent- shaped blade of a

saddler's cutting-knife, the
body forming the handle.
It is extremely broad and
flat, extending on each side
considerably beyond the
body, and the bones appear
to have been firmly sol-
dered together, so as to
form one shield, the whole
head thus being apparently
covered by a single plate
of enamelled bone, and when
seen detached from the
body hardly to be distin-
guished from the head of a
trilobite. The body com-
pared with this singular head
appears extremely diminu-
tive ; the back is arched,
and gradually recedes in elevation towards the tail,
which is of moderate length ; the fins are few in num-
ber, and not very powerful, but appear to have posses-
sed a bony ray in front, the rest of the fin being more
fibrous. The whole body was covered with scales,
which varied in shape in different parts, and seem to
have been disposed in series. This fish never seems
to have attained a large size ; the best preserved spe-
cimen having a length of only seven inches, with a
breadth of three inches between the points of the

* The Old Red Sandstone ; or, New Walks in an Old Field, by Hugh
Miller, p. 138.

BUCKLER-HEADED FISH.
( Cephalaspis.)

OP CREATION. 65

crescent-shaped buckler. It has been supposed by
Professor Agassiz that the singular shape of the head
served as a sort of defence to this animal in case of
attack ; and one can readily imagine that the soft sub-
stance of the orthoceratites, probably the largest and
most formidable of its enemies, would be injured by
any attempt to swallow so singular and knife-like an
animal as the one before us.

Like many, and indeed most of the species belong-
ing to the Ganoid order of fishes, and common in
the older rocks, the bones of the head, and the scales
of this strange monster, were composed internally of
a comparatively soft bone, but each was coated with
a thick and solid plate of enamel, of extreme hard-
ness, and almost incapable of injury by any ordinary
amount of violence. The detached scales, the buckler-
head, and sometimes the complete outline of the ani-
mal, have thus been able to resist destruction, and
are found in sandy rocks, composed of such coarse
fragments that their accumulation would seem to
have been accompanied with violence sufficient to
have crushed to powder almost any remains of organ-
ized matter, and from which, indeed, we never obtain
any fragments of shells or other easily injured sub-
stances. The remains of this fish have been found
in Herefordshire and many parts of Wales, as well
as in Scotland, and lately also in Russia; but the ani-
mal was strictly confined to the period of the old red
sandstone, though it is not easy to guess what may
have been its habits, in what depth of water it pre-
ferred to live, or in what way it obtained its food.

The Pterichthys (fig. 23) is even more strikingly
different from any existing species of animal than the

66

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

singular monster we have just been considering. Re-
verting to the graphic description of Mr. Miller, we
find it compared to the figure of a man, rudely drawn,

Fig. 23

HORNED WING-FISH. (Pterichthys cornutus.')

the head cut off by the shoulders, the arms spread at
full length as in the attitude of swimming, the body
rather long than otherwise, and narrowing from the
chest downwards, one of the legs cut away at the hip-
joint, and the other, as if to preserve the balance, placed
directly under the centre of the figure, which it seems
to support.* Something of this appearance is indeed
presented in the fossil remains of these creatures, once

* Miller, ante cz7., p. 49.

OF CREATION. 67

the tenants of the sea in our own latitude ; but we are
now able to describe with more minuteness, if not so
vividly, the real nature of the animal. It was of small
size, not more than a few inches or a foot in length ;
its head and body were defended by strong plates of
bone coated with enamel ; and its shape and propor-
tions were singularly unlike those of ordinary fishes ;
the head being small, and the body much flattened, but
swelling out immediately at the junction of the head
and neck, and gradually tapering thence towards the
•tail. From the junction of the head and body there
extended that pair of singular paddles or wings from
which the genus has been named, and which have been
supposed to answer the same purpose as the horns of
the crescent-shaped shield of the Cephalaspis, and
defend the animal from the attacks of its soft-mouthed
enemies. Besides these paddles, which were hard and
pointed, and nearly as long as the body, at least some
species of Pterichthys seem to have been provided
with another smaller pair, extending from the part
where the body is attached to the tail ; and it is
thought that this second pair of wings may be the
remains of anal fins, the other pair representing the
pectoral fins. The body, like the head, was certainly
covered on the upper side by hard plates accurately
fitting one another ; but the lower part both of the
head and body was probably defended by tough skin,
capable of distension, and enabling the creature to
swallow prey of large size. The position of the
mouth is not known with certainty, but it may have
been formed by a transverse slit, covered by thick
fleshy lips, situated round the edge of the plate which
defended the head ; this position, and the absence of

68 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

teeth, readily accounting for the difficulty there is in
discovering remains of it in imperfect specimens. The
eyes and the apertures of the nostrils were probably
extremely small, and placed on the edge of the broad
plate, the only indication of the head hitherto met
with. The tail was not long, but seems to have been
thick and conical, and covered with scales, overlapping
each other like the tiles on the roof of a house.

The departure from the general form of most fishes
in this animal is so remarkable, that when first dis-
covered, it was looked upon by some naturalists as
an insect, by others as a crustacean, and by others
again it was thought to be connected with reptiles,
owing to the singular resemblance of one small species
to the shell of a tortoise. Strange as it undoubtedly
is, however, in all respects, this genus forms one of an
extinct natural family of fishes, and it is allied to the
other genera of its class by the genus Coccosteus,
which at one time was thought still more anomalous.

Fig. 24

COCCOSTEUS.

The Coccosteus (fig. 24) is entirely without the wing-
like projections which characterise the Pterichthys, and
while when seen as in ordinary specimens, lying on
its back and crushed, it appears to bear no resemblance
to any fish or other animal either recent or extinct,
it was not in reality much unlike many well-known

OF CREATION. 69

fishes in its general outline, although so oddly coated
with large broad plates, which were studded with
enamel, instead of scales.

The head of the Coccosteus was large, broad, and
high, nearly circular in shape, covered by several
plates, and attached to the body by a very small arti-
culating surface, resembling in this the insects, and
departing widely from the fishes. The jaws are large
in proportion, and armed with very strong pointed
teeth, the mouth opened as in the cod and other
well-known fishes, and no doubt rendered the animal
sufficiently formidable ; and the lower part of the head
seems to have been covered with a tough membrane,
capable of distension, and enabling the animal to swal-
low very large bodies. The upper part of the body
was chiefly covered by one large plate, and the lower
part by four plates of rather curious shape. The tail
was large, and much longer than the body, and was
provided with two small fins. The detached plates,
more especially those which covered the body, are
frequently found fossil in certain localities of the old
red sandstone.*

The fishes just described form together one of

* Besides the Cephalaspis, Pterichthys, and Coccosteus, there is a fourth
genus belonging to this group, which bears, however, so near a resemblance
to the Pterichthys as not to require a separate description in this place.

Caithness and the Orkneys, Croraarty and Lethen Bar, Gamrie and
Dura Den in Fifeshire, are all well-known localities for old red sandstone
fish. Some species, exceedingly rare in other places, are met with in
Forfarshire, and in general the different groups are distributed in
special localities. The remains of fishes referable to the same species
occur also in Herefordshire, and have been found in Russia, where, in-
deed, fragments belonging to one animal of this kind (Chelonichthys, or
Turtle-fish) are of gigantic size.

70 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

several groups characteristic of the period we are
now considering. But another group also, containing
four genera, is worthy of notice, as contrasting
strongly with the Cephalaspides (as the former are
called); and, instead of being clothed with large
plates, these are recognised by the extremely mi-
nute scales with which the fish belonging to it are
covered. These scales give to the skin an appear-
ance very strikingly resembling that of shagreen.

The size of the fishes thus brought together is ge-
nerally small, and their shape is squat and awkward,
the head being large, and the body dwindling away
to a very small tail : they have, however, large teeth,
and must have been powerful, if not very rapid fishes.
Their fins offer some peculiarities, being formed of a
multitude of delicate-jointed rays, generally termi-
nated by one very powerful ray or spine, sometimes
simply planted in the flesh, sometimes articulated to
bone. Both this group and the former are entirely
confined to the first epoch, and almost entirely to the
particular period of the old red sandstone.

Another group of these ancient fishes (Dipterians*)
is remarkable for the great magnitude to which the
fins were developed, and the fact that in all of
them the fins on the back and below the tail are
double. The jaws of these animals were provided
with sharp-pointed teeth ; the head was inclosed as
if in a box of cartilage, coated with enamel ; and the
scales of the body are in some species so large as not
to have required more than about half a dozen to
reach from head to tail (Glyptolepis). This, however,

* Aig (<Zzs), twice ; Trrtpov (joferow), a fin : double-finned.

OF CREATION. 7l

was by no means a general character, and the pre-
sence of prominent spines supporting and defending
the fins is probably more essential. The annexed
figure (25) represents one genus in which these
spines are beautifully exhibited in connexion with
very minute although perfectly ganoid scales. It is
probable, that almost if not all the fishes of this
family of dipterians were more rapid swimmers
and more voracious than those of the former two
families. They are all, however, of small size.

Fig. 25

SPINE-FINNED FISH. (Chirucantitus.)

Besides these there is another family, chiefly de-
veloped in the latter part of the period, and attain-
ing a larger size. One of the members of this group
has been named Holoptychius^ and is confined to the
devonian period. Its head was small compared with
the size of the body, whose proportions were so robust
and its covering of large rounded deeply-wrinkled
scales on so grand a scale as almost to deserve being
called gigantic. The actual dimensions of the body
in one complete specimen measure thirty inches by
upwards of twelve. The jaws were of bone, coated

* From oXog (holos\ the whole, TrrDx?) (ptyche), a wrinkle or fold. The
whole surface of the scales being covered with deeply marked wrinkles.

72 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

with naked enamel ; a row of thickly-set pointed
teeth fringed the lips, and within this row was another
whose bulk was at least twenty times as great. The
other genus (Megaliclitliys) was perhaps more strik-
ingly characteristic of the next succeeding period,
during which the carboniferous limestone and coal
were being deposited, and it may therefore be as well
to postpone for the present any description of it.

On the whole, it appears, then, that this second
period is at least as remarkable for the number and
variety of the remains of fishes found in the beds
which represent it as the former was for the frag-
ments of corals, shells, and other animals of infe-
rior organization. There seems at present no reason-
able way of accounting for this but by supposing, that,
until a certain time, commencing in England with
the mud-stones of the silurian rocks, fishes had not
been introduced upon the earth, and that when intro-
duced they were at first few, and afterwards increased
both in number and variety. The fact, however, that
among the forms of these animals first met with we
have several representatives of the tribe of sharks,
and also of some of the bony fishes of singular com-
plexity of organization, * is a sufficient answer to any
idea that might be entertained of a gradual advance
towards perfection of structure, even if we did not
see in the order of their introduction ample reason to
disprove any such notion. The singular family con-
taining the Pterichthys and Coccosteus, now that it
has been fully examined, exhibits also no approach in
structure and but little analogy to the lower tribe
of Invertebrata.

* Agassiz, Monographic des Poissons Fossiles du Vieux Ores Rouge,
p. 32.

OF CREATION 73

CHAPTER V.

THE APPEARANCE OF LAND AND THE INTRODUCTION OF LAND
VEGETABLES. — THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM.

THE period of the silurian rocks and the old red
sandstone may then be considered to include the
muddy and sandy beds which have now become
changed into imperfect slates in Devonshire and the
northern part of Europe — the coarse pudding-stones
of Herefordshire, Scotland, and Russia — the mud-
stones and muddy limestones of ancient Siluria — the
slates of Wales and Cumberland, and the nume-
rous and varied strata of the same age in other parts
of the world. It thus presents, on the whole, a vast
natural group of strata, possessing considerable uni-
formity of character, and not difficult to recognise;
and although often infinitely varied in appearance,
even in the same locality, it more properly deserves
to be called a universal formation than any other that
has come under the notice of Geologists.

This uniformity of character is worthy of notice,
because, after the conclusion of the period in question,
a great change seems to have taken place in almost
all parts of the world.

One result of this change is seen in the prepon-
derance of carbonate of lime over every other form
of submarine deposit during this next period, and in
the sudden and remarkable abundance of vegetable

/ * PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

fossils, indicating not only the presence of land, but
the existence of a luxuriant and quasi tropical vege-
tation, permitting the accumulation of thick and wide-
ly-spread beds of coal, which occupy basin-shaped de-
pressions in the limestones and sandstones, and which,
although more especially abundant in the central
parts of North America and in our own island, are
recognized also in eastern Europe, on the Donetz ; in
various parts of Asia ; and in eastern Australia and
Van Diemen's Land.

It must not be supposed, however, that any con-
siderable proportion of the rocks of this, which is
generally known as the carboniferous, or coal-bearing
period, is actually made up of the remains of vegetable
matter. The first of the series of strata thus de-
posited seems to have been, in most parts of the world,
a solid compact limestone, almost the whole of which
is sometimes the result of the labours of the coral
insect; and although there are also beds of limestone
in the more ancient part of the first great series
evidently formed by these little animals, yet these
bear no proportion whatever, either in extent of sur-
face or in thickness, to the coralline limestones of
the newer period we are about to describe. In the
British Islands it would appear that the most con-
siderable masses of limestone were formed immedi-
ately after the deposit of the old red sandstone and
devonian rocks had been completed; but we have
distinct evidence in the gradual diminution in the size
of the pebbles, and at length the alternation of lime-
stone with fine marine gravel, that there was neither
a sudden change nor a break in the continuity of
depositions. It is probable, therefore, that, at the

OF CREATION. 75

time thus indicated, there may have existed in our
latitudes a shallow sea bottom, well adapted in some
places for the foundation of coral reefs, and probably
resembling the shallows upon which similar circlets
of coral islands have been built in the Pacific Ocean.
Upon such banks, and on a sinking continent, the
coral animals of the ancient seas seem gradually but
steadily to have reared their eternal monuments of
labour, and thus there grew up in the course of ages
those numerous and often detached, but always simi-
lar limestones, which may be traced very readily both
in the British Islands and in other parts of the world.
In our own country they extend from South Wales
and the neighbourhood of Bristol northwards, bear-
ing a little to the east, and although often cover-
ed up by newer beds, they still form the predo-
minating rocks in the counties of Derbyshire, Lan-
cashire, Yorkshire, Durham, and Northumberland.
To the west the same rock recurs, possessing all its
most striking features ; and though only exposed in
certain limited districts, yet it exists over the greater
part of Ireland, although there, as in many parts of
England, it is frequently covered up or replaced by a
coarse sandy grit, unlike the old red sandstone, and
generally known amongst Geologists as the millstone
grit.

Whilst the coral limestones were thus being built
up in the seas which then covered our island, there
seems to have been a tract of land extending to the
west, ranging both north and south from England,
and also from the western coast of what is now
Ireland. In evidence of this, we find that the lowest
beds of the carboniferous period in the north-west of

E 2

76 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

Yorkshire, in Devonshire, and also in some parts of
Ireland, abound with the remains of land vegetables ;
and, although there is no doubt that many of these
may have been drifted by marine currents, there is, at
all events, great probability of the distance from land
not having been great.

It is worth noticing also, with regard to this point,
that the carboniferous limestones, or corresponding
beds of the same age, skirt the old rocks of Cumber-
land, and are deposited in hollows in the devonian
rocks of Devonshire and Cornwall; and it is likely
that these very rocks themselves, as we know them
to have been hardened and prepared for such expo-
sure, formed the actual dry land of the period, and
that upon them grew the trees and shrubs whose
remains are met with in the limestones near them.
However this may be, the existence of adjacent land
at this time is sufficiently proved; and we may pro-
ceed to consider the circumstances of the deposit of
the coarse grit and finer sandstones, the upper mem-
bers of which were the receptacles of the great masses
of vegetable remains now changed into the mineral
we call coal.

It is not improbable, or contrary to what we have
reason to think the usual order of nature at present
in those parts of the world where coral formations
are in progress, that the building up of extensive
reefs, of great thickness and extent, should be suc-
ceeded by a change in the level of the neighbouring
sea bottom. In the case of the carboniferous rocks,
this change probably involved the depression of a
large tract of land, of whose general form and even
direction we are quite ignorant; nor can we even

OF CREATION.

77

assert positively, with regard to this land, whether it
consisted of numerous small detached islands, or of
an archipelago with a few large islands, such as we
now have off the eastern coast of Asia. But this
depression was most likely succeeded by elevation;
and in whatever direction the new land appeared,
there are distinct indications of the deposit of very
thick and extensive beds of sandstone and grit hav-
ing preceded those muddy and fine sandy beds in
which the vegetable remains were chiefly preserved,
and which handed them down in vast abundance to
the later days of our earth's history.

These unfossiliferous sandstones are chiefly exhi-
bited in the northern, though they are not absent in
the southern part of the great expanse of the carbo-
niferous rocks in England ; and they also cover almost
the whole of the mountain limestone of Ireland.
Some parts of the middle of England exhibit no traces
of them ; and the condition of the south Staffordshire
coal-fields, where the limestone is also absent, and the
coal-measures rest immediately on the old rock, offers
ample proof of the partial character of the deposit,
even if the very nature of coral reefs and islands did
not render probable the occasional absence of one
member of the series. It is, however, worthy of no-
tice, that in this middle district, where sometimes the
mountain limestone and sometimes the coarser grits
are absent, we find a thin but very well-marked band
of pale blue limestone, not coralline, but of distinctly
fresh-water origin, belonging to the upper and newer
beds of the coal-measures, and appearing at intervals
over an area whose extreme points are nearly a hun-
dred miles apart.

78 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

Those parts of the great carboniferous series which
generally include the beds of coal consist of muddy
and sandy beds, alternating with one another and with
the coal itself. Some of them would appear to be of
fresh-water and some of marine origin ; and they
abound, for the most part, with remains of the leaves
of ferns and fern-like trees, together with the crushed
trunks of these and other trees, whose substance may
have contributed to form the great accumulations of
bituminised and other vegetable carbon obtained from
these strata, and well known under the name of coal.

It is not easy to communicate such an idea of beds
of coal as shall enable the reader to understand clearly
the nature of the circumstances under which they may
have been deposited, and the time required for this
purpose. The actual total thickness of the different
beds in England varies considerably in different dis-
tricts, but appears to amount, in the Lancashire coal-
field, to as much as 150 feet. In North America there
is a coal-field of vast extent, in which there appears at
least as great a thickness of workable coal as in any
part of England ; while in Belgium and France the
thickness is often much less considerable, although the
beds thicken again still further to the east.

But this account of the thickness of the beds gives
a very imperfect notion of the quantity of vegetable
matter required to form them ; and, on the other hand,
the rate of increase of vegetables, and the quantity an-
nually brought down by some of the great rivers, both
of the eastern and western continents, is beyond all
measure greater than is the case in our drier and colder
climates. The trees which, in many cases, contributed
largely to the formation of the coal, seem to have

OF CREATION.

79

been almost entirely succulent, and capable of being
squeezed into a small compass during partial decom-
position. This squeezing process must have been con-
ducted on a grand scale, both during and after the
formation of separate beds, and each bed in succession
was probably soon covered up by muddy and sandy
accumulations, now alternating with the coal in the
form of shale and grit-stone. Sometimes trunks of
trees caught in the mud would be retained in a slant-
ing or nearly vertical position, while the sands were
accumulating round them ; sometimes the whole would
be quietly buried, and soon cease to exhibit any exter-
nal marks of vegetable origin.*

To relate at full length the different processes,
and the gradual superposition of one bed upon an-
other, by which at length, and by slow degrees, the
whole group of the coal-measures was completed,
would involve far too much complication of detail to be
described in a few pages ; and when it is remembered
that the woody fibre, when deposited, had to be after-
wards completely changed, and the whole character of
the vegetable modified, before it could be reduced to
the bituminous, brittle, almost crystalline mineral now
dug out of the earth for fuel, it will rather seem ques-
tionable whether the origin of coal was certainly and
necessarily vegetable, than reasonable to doubt the
importance of the change that has taken place, and

* There can be no reasonable doubt, judging from the analogy of exist-
ing vegetation, that some beds of coal may have been derived from the
mass of vegetable matter present at one time on the surface and submerged
suddenly. It is only necessary to refer to the accounts of vegetation in
some of the extremely moist warm islands in the southern hemisphere,
where the ground is occasionally covered with eight or ten feet of de-
caying vegetable matter at one time, to be satisfied that this is at least
possible.

80 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

the existence of extraordinary means to produce that
change. Nothing, however, is more certain than that
all coal was once vegetable ; for in most cases woody
structure may be detected under the microscope, and
this, if not in the coal in its ordinary state, at least in
the burnt ashes which remain after it has been ex-
posed to the action of heat, and has lost its bitumi-
nous and semi-crystalline character. This has been
too well and too frequently proved by actual experi-
ment, to require more than the mere statement of the
fact.

The principal vegetable remains, the study of which
conducts the botanical fossilist to a knowledge of the
trees and 'shrubs that clothed the land during this
period, are not met with in the substance of the coal
itself, but in the shales and sandstones so abundantly
mixed with the coal. These beds have received, and
occasionally retained, the fragments that have been
deposited in them ; and from such fragments, consist-
ing of leaves and small branches, portions of the larger
branches, or even the entire trunk, and occasionally,
also, internal casts or markings of the surface of the
fruits of various trees, conclusions have been arrived
at and analogies drawn expressing the relation they
bear to existing plants. Now if, in all cases, the solid
substance of the trunks and the perfect outline of the
leaves and fruits had been preserved, the botanist
might fairly have been expected to explain the general
character of the vegetation thus exemplified ; but un-
fortunately this is not the case. In most instances,
even those which seem most favourable, it is only the
cast of the tree in sandstone, the impression made by
the outside or inside of the bark, and a little of the

OF CREATION. 81

substance of the bark turned into coal, that re-
mains; and the shape even of the trunk has been often
completely lost by crushing ; thus showing, indeed,
one peculiarity indicative of the great natural group
of trees to which the fossils belonged (the Monocoty-
ledons, or Endogens), but at the same time almost
precluding the possibility of comparison with the few
recent plants of the same tribe which appear to resem-
ble them in general form or structure.

Still, in spite of the difficulties with which the
subject is surrounded, and in spite of the perplexing
confusion which might well alarm the botanist only
acquainted with the ordinary marks of distinction ex-
hibited by plants, a great deal has been done towards
determining the general nature of the flora of the
islands of the carboniferous period. It is remarkable,
that, in the first place, this flora is found to be, to a
great extent, uniform in all parts of the globe from
which carboniferous fossils have been obtained ; *
and, in the next place, that, if we wish to compare this
ancient flora with those which bear resemblance to it
at present, either in the general preponderance of par-
ticular plants, or in the total absence of others, we must
leave entirely the northern latitudes and the north-
ern hemisphere, and transport ourselves to the islands
in the neighbourhood of our antipodes, where New
Zealand and the southern part of Australia, together
with an innumerable multitude of small islands, form
almost the only land that now exists in the vast area
between the tropic of Capricorn and the South pole.

* Namely, the whole of western, northern, and eastern Europe, North
America from Alabama to Melville Island, various districts in Asia, eastern
Australia, and Van Diemen's Land, and (probably) the Asiatic islands.

82

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

But although in such distant parts of the world
we really have a somewhat similar group of plants
to that of the coal-measures, and the dark-tinted
ferns do now, as they once did in the northern hemi-
sphere, take the place of our cheerful grasses, and even
grow in rank luxuriance into forest trees, being as-
sociated with palms and some peculiar pines, there
is probably after all but little true resemblance; nor
can the Geologist feel satisfied that the condition of
things was the same formerly in England as it is now
in the islands of the southern sea. One of the most
remarkable peculiarities of the coal fossils certainly is,
however, the singular preponderance of the tribe of
ferns already alluded to, and the great variety of form
in which plants of this kind are developed. Of these
forms, the annexed figures (26, 27) represent two that

Fig. 26

Fig. 27

PECOPTERIS.

ODONTOPTERIS.

are common and highly characteristic. They are found
sometimes in isolated fragments, in sand or shale, but
are sometimes so very abundant, that the whole mass

OF CREATION.

83

seems to have been formed rapidly in association with
such vegetable remains.

Besides these two forms, there are, however,
many others ; as, for instance, the SpJienopteris (fig.
28), and the Neuropteris* (29) ; both of them com-
mon, and, in all probability, belonging to the group
of arborescent ferns, and growing in wild luxuriance
on stems of greater or less altitude. Some notion

Fig. 28 Fig. 29

SPHENOPTERIS. NEUROPTERIS.

may be formed of the peculiar character of such
vegetation by referring to the frontispiece at the be-
ginning of this volume, where it has been endea-
voured, by combining existing and analogous forms
with some restored forms of extinct plants, to com-
municate a notion, however vague, of the flora of
the coal period.

Besides the arborescent ferns, then growing to a
great size, I might also notice the gigantic propor-
tions of other plants, whose modern representatives

* These names are all derived from the peculiar form of the leaf and
its venation, in combination with the Greek word TrrtpiQ (pteris), a fern.
The derivatives are respectively TTEKW (peco), to comb; odovg gen. odov-
TOQ (odontos), a tooth; G§I\V gen. crtyqvoQ (spAe«os),awedge; and vtvpov
(neuron), a nerve.

84 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

are uniformly small ; but, as the resemblance in this
case is simply one of general form, and the great ma-
jority of other trees seem to possess no living type
to which they can be referred, it is by no means
impossible that these also may be completely lost.
One example of them is seen in a plant, fragments
of which are extremely common in the coal-measures,
and which has been called Calamite* (fig. 30).

The remains of calamites consist of jointed frag-
ments, which were originally cylindrical, but are now
Fig. 30 almost always crushed arid flattened.
They resemble very closely, in gene-
ral appearance, the common jointed
reed growing in marshes, and called
Equisetum, or mare^s tail ; but, in-
stead of being confined to a small
size, they would seem to have formed
trees having a stem sometimes more
CALAMITE. than a foot in diameter, and jointed
branches and leaves of similar gigantic proportions.
They were evidently soft and succulent, and very
easily crushed. They seem to have grown in great
multitudes near the place where the coal is now
accumulated ; and, though often broken, they seldom
bear marks of having been transported from a dis-
tance.

The calamites, although common fossils in the coal-
measures in all places where those rocks appear, are
by no means so abundantly present as the fronds or
leaves of ferns ; and these latter seem, as has been al-
ready observed, to have belonged to that tribe of ferns,
species of which grow to a great height and on a lofty

* KaXttjuo£ (calamof), a reed.

OF CREATION. 85

trunk, forming what are called tree ferns, well known
in the Australian islands and colonies, and met with
also in other countries where the conditions of vege-
tation are equally favourable for these plants.

There is nothing in the appearance of such leaves
or their structure which distinguishes them very espe-
cially from the ferns of a later period or of the pre-
sent day. Their great preponderance over all other
fossils in the shales, proves how large a proportion they
occupied of the whole flora, or at least of that portion
capable of preservation ; and the presence, also, of
stems and trunks, marked with scars like those ob-
served on modern tree ferns, shows that, like these,
they attained a very large size, and grew in a very
similar manner.

Two well-marked genera of lofty forest trees are
almost the only other plants which appear, from their
great abundance, to have contributed in large propor-
tion to the solid matter of the coal. Of these, one,
called by Geologists Lepidodendron* (see frontispiece,)
seems to have risen to a great height from the ground,
and to have given off branches at a very acute angle.
The whole stem was covered with scars, or marks of
the places from which leaves had fallen, and the leaves
or fronds themselves seem to have been borne in long
rows, arranged in a different manner from that ob-
served in existing trees. The most probable account
of this tree is, that it bore a considerable resemblance
in some respects to a particular group of pines, but
that it exhibited in other matters, and those too of
great importance in classification, analogies with the

, gen. Xe7ri£o£ (lepidos)^ a scale; dtvdpov (dendron\ a tree : the
trunk of this tree being marked along its whole length with scales or scars.

86

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

singular club-mosses (£ycopodiace<e), so close as al-
most to justify the opinion of its having formed a
connecting link between these two very different natu-
ral tribes of plants.

Another genus, the iSigillaria* (fig. 31), must, if
recent observations are correct, be considered as the
stem of the tree of which the so-called Stigmaria-^
was only the root. It was even more abundant, and
a still more important element in the formation of
coal, than the Lepidodendron. The stems of Sigilla-
rise exhibit no internal woody structure, having been

SIGILLARIA. — Trunk and Roots.

for the most part either hollow or succulent, and easily
crushed, but they were evidently provided with a cen-
tral woody axis, and also with an outer coating of bark,
the latter often turned into coal, and sometimes be-
ing nearly an inch in thickness. The whole of the
trunk is elegantly fluted, and there is a single row of
small scars, the remains of leaves, at regular distances

* From the Latin sigillum, a seal, or the impression made by it ; the
trunk of the tree appearing to have been stamped with a pattern in regu-
lar rows along the direction of its length.

t Srty/ia (stigma), a mark. The fossil was called Stigmaria, from the
regular and deep marks or brands impressed on the supposed stem or root.

OF CREATION. 87

on each fluting. It is pretty clear that the leaves at-
tached at these scars were connected through the bark
with the central woody axis.

The fossils that have received the name Stigmaria,
and which have heen supposed to be roots belonging to
Sigillaria, are in some places so extremely abundant in
the shales lying under coal seams, that in South Wales
they seem almost invariably to form a kind of floor on
which the coal rests. In this case the slender fibres
proceeding from the large roots are completely matted
together, and form an entangled mass, traversing the
bed in every direction. Like the Sigillaria trunk, these
roots appear to have consisted of a tough bark inclosing
a woody centre, the interval being filled with succulent
matter. The plants thus described probably belonged
to an extinct family, intermediate in character between
the cone-bearing plants or pines and the Cycadsese,
and they probably resembled the Zamia, although ex-
panded into a lofty forest tree, and giving off branches
as well as leaves.

But while such is the nearest approach that we can
make to a description of their appearance, it must not
be imagined that we have arrived at any very certain
conclusions with regard to these vegetables. They
appear to depart so widely from those which are now
common in any part of the world, that we can only
suggest what may perhaps have been similar, and dare
not assert positively the existence of analogies, except
that there is little doubt that in endeavouring to
picture to ourselves the condition of the land during
the deposit of the coal, we must rather look to the
southern antipodal islands, and especially to New Zea-
land, for these analogies, than to other parts of the

88 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

world where vegetation, although even more luxu-
riant, belongs to a different type.

And there is, after all, nothing improbable in the
notion, that, at the period of the deposit of the coal-
measures, the northern hemisphere in our latitudes
was for the most part occupied by a great ocean, stud-
ded over with numerous islands, some of larger, some
of smaller size ; open water reaching from this archi-
pelago quite to the arctic circle. Innumerable islands
and reefs may have been there planted and destroyed,
while some few, undergoing depression at a slow rate,
became before their final disappearance the receptacle
of those sandy and muddy banks among which the
vegetable matter was embedded. Numerous inlets
may have indented the coast line of the larger islands,
and have received into them rivers or mountain
streams, loaded with the fragments of trees and other
vegetables brought down during the rainy season.

The whole of the interior of the islands may have
been clothed with thick forest, the dark verdure of
which would only be interrupted by the bright green
of the swamps in the hollows, or the brown tint of
the fern covering some districts near the coasts. The
forest would have been formed by a mixture of seve-
ral different trees. We should see there, for instance,
the lofty and widely-spreading Lepidodendron, its deli-
cate, feathery, arid moss-like fronds clothing in rich
luxuriance branches and stems, which are built up,
like the trunk of the tree-fern, by successive leaf-
stalks that have one after another dropped away,
giving by their decay additional height to the stem,
which might at length be mistaken for that of a
gigantic pine.

OF CREATION. 89

There also should we find the Sigillaria, its tapering
and elegant form sustained on a large and firm basis,
enormous matted roots almost as large as the trunk
itself being given off in every direction, and shooting
out their fibres far into the sand and clay in search of
moisture. The stem of this tree would appear like a
fluted column, rising simply and gracefully without
branches to a great height, and then spreading out a
magnificent head of leaves like a noble palm tree.
Other trees more or less resembling palms, and others
like existing firs, also abounded, giving a richness and
variety to the scene ; while one gigantic species, strik-
ingly resembling the Altingia, or Norfolk Island pine,
might be seen towering a hundred feet or more above
the rest of the forest, and exhibiting tier after tier of
branches richly clothed with its peculiar pointed and
pear-like leaves, the branches gradually diminishing in
size as they approach the apex of a lofty pyramid of
vegetation.

Tree ferns also in abundance might there be recog-
nized, occupying a prominent place in the physiognomy
of vegetation, and dotted at intervals over the dis-
tant plains and valleys, the intermediate spaces being
clothed with low vegetation of more humble plants
of the same kind. These we may imagine exhibiting
their rich crests of numerous fronds, each many feet
in length, and produced in such quantity as to rival
even the palm trees in beauty. Besides all these, other
lofty trees of that day, whose stems and branches
are now called Calamites, existed chiefly in the midst
of swamps, and bore their singular branches and
leaves aloft with strange and monotonous uniformity.
All these trees, and many others that might be associ-

90 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

ated with them, were perhaps girt round with innu-
merable creepers and parasitic plants, climbing to the
topmost branches of the most lofty amongst them,
and enlivening by the bright and vivid colours of
their flowers the dark and gloomy character of the
great masses of vegetation.

Forests like these (and I have in this description
confined myself to a strict analogy, and have very
cautiously abstained from transgressing the bounds of
probability) are at the present day remarkable even
in islands of large size, for their death-like silence,
and for the almost total absence of living beings. A
few birds and insects seem to form almost the whole
population. In many cases no quadruped exists over
extensive districts ; and it is manifest that most of such
islands have depended upon migrations for their in-
habitants, so that they offer no guide whatever to the
naturalist, when he wishes to determine from them
the indigenous animals or vegetables of the district.

If, however, this is the case with the islands of the
Polynesian archipelago, it cannot be doubted that the
fragments of organic matter carried down into the
mud and sand to form coal, and deposited in the creeks
and at the mouths of rivers in ancient times, must
be looked upon as offering still less evidence with re-
spect to terrestrial animals ; and what evidence exists
on this subject is almost confined to about half a
dozen isolated specimens of organic remains.

The conditions and contents of the newer forma-
tions of the secondary epoch, render it also proba-
ble that land animals, if existing at all, were yet more
rare in the older period than afterwards, since, in
the few localities where fresh-water fossils are found

OF CREATION. 91

under similar circumstances in newer beds, (as in the
oolites and wealden,) the remains of land reptiles,
and even of mammals, have been discovered.

All that can be made out from the fresh-water
limestones and other beds of the coal-measures is,
that at this period a few insects were in existence,
and were associated with some» very minute crusta-
ceans (the annexed diagram will give an idea of one
of these) and several shell-fish. No fragment of a
quadruped, bird, or reptile has, however, yet been
obtained from any of the Fig. 32

carboniferous strata in
any part of the world, al-
though there are not want-
ing in some of the sand-
stones associated with
the coal of North Ame-
rica distinct indications
of foot-prints referred
to birds and perhaps
reptiles.

The inhabitants of the CVPRKLLA.

-> . i , . n The smaller figure is of the natural

sea during the carbonife- size.

rous period are, as might be expected, much more
clearly made out than those of the land; and their
remains are in many cases very abundant, and suffi-
ciently distinctive to enable us to determine the mo-
difications and changes that had taken place since
the deposition of the first fossiliferous bed.

And, first, with regard to the corals, we find in-
deed new species, but the differences are small and
unimportant. The encrinites, so similar to the coral
animal in some respects, had also been replaced by

92 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

new species, the forms having become on the whole
more complicated. Higher groups, too, of radiated
animals were introduced, and the sea-urchin and the
star-fish, although rare, were not unknown in the
sea. Trilobites still remained, and herded together
chiefly in shoal water near the muddy and sandy bot-
toms ; and some other small crustaceous animals are
known from imperfect fragments of them occasionally
found fossil.

But the shells of molluscous animals are too abun-
dant, too varied, and too widely distributed in the
rocks of the carboniferous period, to be passed over
without some careful notice. Those of Brachiopoda
(e. g. Spirifer, Productus, and Terebratula*) chiefly
preponderate, although not so much so as in the
older rocks, while the cephalopods, also very abun-
dant, are developed in new forms, many of them being
intermediate in their structure between the nautilus
and the ammonite, and others retaining the simple
form of the orthoceratite.

The Productus (fig. 34) is a very remarkable and
interesting shell, although the exact nature of the
animal inhabitant has not yet been satisfactorily made
out. The shell is of a very fibrous texture, and a

* Spirifer, Latin, spire-bearing ; so called because a coil of carbonate of
lime, useful probably in keeping the shell partly open, is not unfrequently
seen in the shells of this genus. An analogous contrivance is met with
in most members of the order of Brachiopoda in some shape or other.

Productus, prolonged, or drawn out in length; one valve of the shell
being in most species prolonged beyond the other, and often to a great
extent.

Terelratula, from terebratus, pierced; one valve being pierced at the apex,
to admit of the passage of a fibrous bundle proceeding from the other valve,
serving to attach the animal to some hard substance, as a stone or rock.

OF CREATION.

93

number of fine tubular or hair-like appendages are, in
many cases, attached to it, sometimes passing through
the fibrous shell, but at other times only extending
from the line of junction of the two valves, which are
not connected by any hinge, and which were pro-

Fig. 33 Fig. 34

SPIRIFER.

PRODUCTUS.

bably at once united and fastened to some solid body
by this contrivance. As in the other brachiopods,
there appears here also to have been a mechanical
contrivance for keeping the valves partly asunder;
and it would seem, that, at least in some species, the
shell was very thin, and readily adapted itself to the
shape of the stone on which the animal had fastened
itself. The fossil shells of the productus are ex-
tremely abundant throughout the carboniferous lime-
stone, and are found in a limestone overlying the
coal-measures ; but they are rarely found in the
millstone grit or the coal-measures themselves, the
circumstances of the deposit being probably unfa-
vourable for the existence of such animals.

The singular spire of the Spirifer (fig. 33), often
well preserved and generally occupying a consider-
able portion of the interior of the shell, is character-
istic of the genus, and alluded to in its name. The

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

Fig. 35

shells of this group are not by any means strictly
confined in locality or limited in its range, and, with
the exception of the terebratula, they are perhaps
the most widely distributed of the fossils of the first
epoch. Several species pass likewise into the lower
beds of the middle epoch ; and it is not unlikely that
some of the species referred to terebratula, and now
living, may ultimately be recognized as spirifers.
The species of terebratula of the mountain limestone
(fig. 35) are not very strongly
marked, and some of them
are capable of misleading the
young fossilist by their great re-
semblance to shells of a much
newer period. The species
figured admits of a singular
extent of variety of form.

There are many other bi-
valve shells of the carbonife-
rous limestone, and some of
them are of considerable in-
TEREBRATULA HASTATA. terest, but I cannot here venture
upon any detailed account of them. On the whole,
there is a manifest approach to the existing type, al-
though many genera at that time existed, all the spe-
cies of which have since vanished, and a much greater
number of new genera have been since introduced.

Of univalve shells there are several which seem to
have been either chiefly or entirely confined to the
rocks of the carboniferous period. The name Belle-
ropJion * (fig. 36, 37) has been given to one genus

* Betteroplion, a Greek narte of a person supposed to have lived in
the heroic age. As applied to the fossil, this name is entirely fanciful.

OF CREATION.

95

of doubtful affinity, which has been referred in suc-
cession to various groups of Mollusca, and even to

Fig. 36 Fig. 38 Fig. 37

Fig. 39

BELLEROPHOX. MURCHISONIA. BELLEROPHON.
the Pteropoda, known to occur in the silurian rocks.
The great thickness of the shell, its structure and
mode of growth, and the kind of shells associ-
ated with it, render it more likely, perhaps, that the
animal belonged to the
Gasteropoda, and was not
far removed from the
limpet.*

The Cirrus^ a flat
shell, composed of a num-
ber of whorls, and often
attaining an enormous EUOMPHALUS.

size, seems to have inhabited the same muddy bot-
toms near shore ; and the EuompJialus j (fig. 39) pro-
bably resembled it in habit.

* De Koninck, Animaux Fossiles de la Belgique, p. 334.
t Cirrus, a curl ; so called from the form of the shell.
| Euompkalus, — iv (eu), elegant ; ofKftaXoQ (omplialus), a boss : so called
from the well-marked and distinct proportions of the shell.

96 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

But the cephalopodous inhabitants of the seas
during the carboniferous period were still the most
important and the most numerous of the molluscous
animals ; and they included not only the straight
shells of orthoceratites, but a large number of spirally
twisted species, bearing a somewhat different relation
to the nautilus. The most important are called
Goniatites* (fig. 40). The nature of the difference here
Fig. 40 exhibited, and its influence

on the habits of the animal,
will be considered in a fu-
ture chapter, when speaking
of the Ammonites, fossils
of a yet newer period.

It has been already men-
tioned that the fishes, which,
during the devonian pe-
GONIATITE. ri0(j were for the most part

of small size, and could not have been extremely
formidable or powerful, were gradually advancing in
development towards the latter part of the period,
and that several new forms, of strange aspect and
gigantic size, were then introduced. These seem to
have attained their maximum of size and strength
during the carboniferous epoch.

Two great natural families of fishes, one of them
entirely, and the other almost extinct, seem to have
occupied at this time the place of the great marine
reptiles which succeeded and displaced them. These
two families are nearly allied to each other, and pre-

* Goniatitcs, jofWQ (gonos), an angle ; from the angular markings
made by the intersection of the walls of the chambers and the outer shell.
(See cut.)

OF CREATION.

97

sent many remarkable and close analogies to the true
saurians or reptiles, and for this reason the one first
determined was named Sauroid,* The sauroid or
reptilian fishes, although met with throughout in the
rocks of the secondary epoch, and often very abun-
dant, nowhere attain so great a magnitude, or offer
such perfect types of their development, as in the
earlier seas, whose inhabitants we are now consi-
dering.

So intimate is the resemblance, and so nearly per-
fect the passage between fishes and reptiles through
these sauroid fishes, that very little is wanting to
complete our knowledge of the numerous extinct
forms, in spite of the rarity of existing species with
which to compare them.'f It will, however, be
better to confine our attention chiefly to the one or
two genera most remarkable and most characteristic,
in order to obtain an idea of the peculiarities which
distinguished the ancient fishes from their living type.

The MegaUchthy8\ (fig. 41), as its name imports,
was an animal of large size, and seems also to have
been of great strength. Its head was large, and the
gape of the jaws enormous ; the jaws themselves pow-
erful, and provided with a range of most formidable
teeth, of which some of enormous size projected far
beyond the rest, as is the case with the crocodile. The

* 2aupo£ (sauros), a lizard; ufiwv (eidon), resembling: from the
strong saurian or reptilian analogies exhibited, chiefly in the teeth.

t The existing sauroid fishes consist of seven species only, five of them
belonging to the genus Lepidosteus, or bony pike, which are sufficiently com-
mon in the great American rivers ; and two species of Polypterus, one
from the Nile, and the other from the Niger. The scale of one species of
Lepidosteus is figured in page 61, fig. 20.

J MtyaXrj, (megale), great ; i\QvQ (ichthys), a fish.

F

98 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

dimensions to which the animal must have attained
may be imagined, when it is known that these teeth
have been found measuring four inches in length,

Fig.ll

JAW AND TEETH OF GIGANTIC SAUROID FISH.
( Megalichfhys.)

and nearly two inches broad at the base, a size rarely
if ever met with even in the largest reptiles. The
body, covered with scales of corresponding magni-
tude (sometimes five inches in diameter), was well
shaped for swimming, being formed upon a robust
bony skeleton, and provided with an extremely large
and powerful tail, enabling it to advance with extreme
rapidity. It must have been eminently carnivorous,
and capable of pursuing and taking almost any living
creature among its contemporaries.*

The HoloptycJiius^ a genus nearly allied in many
respects to the sauroids, seems to have differed from
that family in some important points of structure.
The specimen best known of this fish is about thirty
inches long without the tail, and exhibits the most

* Although unquestionably a fish of large size, and, compared with
other fishes of the ganoid order, truly gigantic, it was by no means so with
reference to many existing tribes. The ganoid fishes, however, were
generally small or of moderate dimensions.

t 'OXof (Mos\ entire, complete ; and Trrvxn (ptyche), a wrinkle, or
fold : the fish's scales being entirely covered with wrinkled markings.

OF CREATION. 99

singular and robust proportions. Although the head
is small, the naked jaws (covered with enamel in-
stead of skin) are lined with a double row of for-
midable teeth, the outer ones being thickly set and
fringing the enamelled edges of the mouth, but the
inner ones wider apart, and at least twenty times the
size of the others. The scales on the body of this
fish, and the bones, are so like what is seen in rep-
tiles, that they were, when first discovered, supposed
to belong to some large saurian ; and the scales might
indeed have served for the defensive armour of a
crocodile five times as large as the fish. Not less than
five species of this remarkable genus have been already
determined from the beds of the old red sandstone
period, and eight from the carboniferous rocks, all of
them exhibiting more or less distinctly the peculiarly
massive and robust character of the family.

But the great reptilian fish were not the only in-
habitants of the sea during this period, nor were they
even the only ones of large size and possessed of
great strength and voracity. Not less than sixty
species belonging to various genera, all nearly al-
lied to the shark tribe and some of them of very
large proportions, are indicated by the remains of
teeth discovered in various localities in the lime-
stones, sandstones, and shales of the carboniferous
series ; and thirty-three species have been deter-
mined from fragments of fins and detached vertebrae
from the same beds. Now, as there are no more
than seven species of shark-like animals determined
from the fossils of the old red sandstone, even in-
cluding two which may be identical with some of the
other five, it seems that a great and important

F 2

100 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

change had taken place in the introduction of a large
number of species of this class, which was very imper-
fectly represented at first, but which continued im-
portant for a very long time, and still forms a group
peforming a distinct part in the economy of creation.

Fragments of placoid fishes, whose remains, al-
though consisting only of teeth and bony fins, are
thus abundant in species, are in some places very
common.'5'5' They were not, like those of the former
class (the ganoids), securely encased in enamelled
armour, but were covered at intervals with small
detached plates, which could scarcely serve the
purpose of defence. It is probable that this was
little needed, and that the animal depended chiefly
on its extreme swiftness of motion both to obtain its
prey and escape from its enemies ; while the perfect
apparatus of teeth (the commonest fossil remains of
these fishes) indicates beyond doubt its ordinary-
habits ; and the bony rays (also very frequently met
with) attest the provision that was made to enable
the animal to turn itself on its back and seize its
prey when overtaken, with a rapidity and precision of
which we are scarcely able perhaps to form an idea.

The numerous rays, or bony spines, called Icthy-
odorulites,^ so often found fossil in these and newer
strata, seem to be identical with the bony spine
with which the Port Jackson shark is provided,

* Among the most remarkable localities are several in the carboniferous
limestone of Bristol, and others in the same rock in the neighbourhood of
Armagh.

•j* \\BvQ (ichthys}, a fish ; fiopv (doru\ a spear ; Xi0og (lithos), a stone :
these fossils being spear-like projections from the back and belly of a
shark-like fish, supporting fins, and serving probably also as weapons.

OP CREATION. 101

and which being moveable, and attached to a fin,
enables the animal to turn itself readily on its back
while swimming. These spines are variously marked
according to the species or genus to which they
belong. They will be described at greater length in
a future chapter when treating of lias fossils.

See then the great and striking change that had
supervened towards the close of this carboniferous
period. The corals and the encrinites remained
with little alteration of general form ; the trilobites
were nearly extinct, and seem but scantily replaced
by other crustaceans ; the Brachiopoda had assumed
new forms, which some of them retained long after-
wards, and which are even handed down to the
present day; * the ordinary bivalve and univalve
shells were gradually increasing ; and the prevailing
Cephalopoda, retaining up to this period the elon-
gated straight form of orthoceratites, were also de-
veloped in the spiral form seen in goniatites, and
afterwards continued in ammonites, — a form better
fitted perhaps for the altered conditions of the sea and
the greater stir of life that was about to succeed.
But the fishes present the newest and the most
striking appearances. The minute, but probably fierce
and voracious species, which first marked the intro-
duction of this class of animals, had been succeeded
by a comparatively clumsy and awkward race, coarse
feeders, of small size, and indifferent swimmers, but
covered either with strong plaited armour or with
fine coats of mail, and apparently very abundantly
distributed. These lasted for a time, but then gave

* Some Terebratulae of the carboniferous period are exceedingly like
oolitic species, and some of them closely resemble species still existing.

102 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

way to the advance of other and higher groups. In-
numerable sharks of all sizes, and perhaps of many
forms, rapid and powerful swimmers, fiercely and insa-
tiably carnivorous, were associated with huge mon-
strous fishes, more resembling reptiles than any of
their own class at the present day, and incredibly
powerful and voracious. The fishes at this time had
attained, it would seem, their maximum of develop-
ment in point of vigour, and in some respects (though
in some respects only, and by analogy) in struc-
ture ; and it is not a little interesting to find, that,
at this point, so far as we can tell, the true rep-
tiles were actually introduced (the remains of that
class being indicated in the coal-measures, and ac-
tually found in the magnesian limestone associated
with carboniferous species of fishes).

The reptiles thus appearing were not, however,
members of that group through which the passage
from sauroid fishes to true saurians takes place, but
belonged to a higher form, and to a complicated type
of that form. It seems clear, therefore, that, while
progression and a general advance in point of organiza-
tion is in one sense a method observed by nature,
still there is not such a regular gradation that an
animal of lower organization can be supposed to be
employed as the agent in introducing a higher group ;
this view, however plausible, not being borne out by
observation, but, on the other hand, being distinctly
contradicted by the results of geological and palseon-
tological investigation.

OF CREATION. 103

CHAPTER VI.

THE CLOSE OF THE FIRST EPOCH OF CREATION. — THE MAGNESIAN
LIMESTONE, OR PERMIAN SYSTEM OF DEPOSITS.

AFTER the coal-measures had been deposited in
the creeks and at the mouths of rivers, and probably
very near the land anciently existing, a great change
seems to have taken place in the northern hemis-
phere in the relative level of the land and sea bottom,
so that a quantity of coarse gravelly matter, appa-
rently the debris of some sandy or granitic rock, was
more or less abundantly deposited. This sand some-
times reposes conformably and evenly on the upper
coal grits, which pass into it : at other times the
upper surface of these latter beds has previously un-
dergone much wearing and grinding away, and occa-
sionally the lower beds, originally horizontal, have
been tilted up at various angles to the horizon, and
the upper ones removed before the newer sandstones
were placed upon them.

Notwithstanding the turmoil and agitation which
marks this movement in some districts, it is yet cer-
tain that the disturbances began by small and com-
paratively unimportant changes of elevation, occurring
at intervals and at distant points, so that the general
aspect of submarine life, as known by the fossils found
embedded, was scarcely so far altered as to require
the introduction of any distinct groups.

104 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

With regard to our own country, the principal
deposits subsequent to the carboniferous rocks fringe
these rocks both on the western and eastern sides.
They pass in some cases by regular transition from
the coal-measures, occasionally containing similar fossil
vegetable and animal remains, and rarely indicating
the lapse of any long period corresponding to a con-
siderable break in the continuity of the successive
strata.

Overlying the coarse sandy beds which rest upon
the coal-measures, there is next met with a limestone,
(the magnesian limestone,) which differs considerably
from most of the ordinary limestones in its general
appearance, and which, in the possession of a variable
proportion of carbonate of magnesia, mixed with its
carbonate of lime, seems to have required either a
totally different condition of deposition from any with
which we are acquainted, or a subsequent change only
seen at present in recent volcanic districts, and then
on a small scale. This limestone, however, contains
fossils, and among them a few corals and shells ; and
there are also found in it fragments and sometimes
complete skeletons of fishes, which seem to have been
tolerably abundant in the seas, since whole beds are
charged with animal bitumen, probably derived from
their decomposition, and in these beds the skeletons
and other indications of the fishes are more than usu-
ally plentiful. But the most remarkable phenomenon
of the magnesian limestone and contemporaneous
strata is the presence in them of distinct reptilian
remains, at least five species of which have already
been made out.

Over various parts of the continent of Europe, as

OF CREATION. 105

in our own island, the coal-measures are more or less
covered up with beds, consisting of this coarse grit
overlaid by clay and limestone, the clay being often
remarkably bituminous, and the limestone generally
exhibiting the chemical peculiarity already alluded to,
containing a certain proportion of carbonate of mag-
nesia, mixed with the carbonate of lime. In the
east of Europe, however, and more especially in
Russia, this series is exhibited in its greatest complete-
ness. It is there found occupying a hollow or trough-
like depression in the carboniferous strata, and is said
to extend for a distance of nearly seven hundred miles
from north to south, arid for four hundred miles be-
tween the Ural chain and the river Volga, in the
ancient kingdom of Permia, now included within the
vast compass of the Russian empire. In this tract con-
glomerates and grit-stones, with magnesian and other
limestones, make up the series, and contain fossils iden-
tical with those common in Durham and the neigh-
bourhood of Bristol. Over the whole of Europe,
therefore, similar causes seem to have acted in produc-
ing this series of magnesian strata at the close of the
carboniferous period; and a dreary waste of sandy un-
productive beds seems to mark the disappearance of
land clothed with vegetation, and the gradual deep-
ening of the sea, which at first received rolled and
pounded fragments of rock, carried out to a distance
in the form of sand, until afterwards, the land dimi-
nishing and disappearing, even this small supply
ceased, and scarcely any deposit or any fragment of
organic existence was retained, in consequence of the
absence of material in which it could be buried and
preserved.

F 5

106 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

The nature of the remains of fishes found in the
magnesian limestone rocks indicates also a diminu-
tion in the size of the prevailing species, perhaps
arising from the gradual diminution and increasing
distance of the land, and the deepening of the sea
in the district where such remains occur.

The reptilian fishes remain indeed, but they also
become small : those of the shark tribe are few, and
exhibit some peculiarities of structure, but are com-
paratively unimportant ; and the rest were chiefly the
bad and slow swimmers, or bottom fish, living on offal
and on the invertebrated groups.

But a time of much greater change was approach-
ing— a time of disturbance, which should shake to
their foundations all the solid and massive rocks that
had been then deposited ; and of subterranean move-
ments, which in their course should break asunder the
hardest and the strongest among these rocks ; crush-
ing and grinding into small fragments whole strata that
had become compact and closely consolidated, and
crumpling into complicated folds the toughest and
most unyielding beds, as if they had been layers of
some soft material carelessly squeezed in the grasp
of a powerful hand.

It is indeed impossible for words to express the
complication of disturbance, or the amount of confu-
sion, that has been produced in some districts by forces
acting on the solid crust of the globe, between the
close of what we have called the first epoch, and the
commencement of the second ; and yet all this was done
with a certain degree of order, and doubtless occupied
a long period of time. Volcanic eruptions have taken
place in some districts, and their effect is seen in tor-

OF CREATION. 107

rents of ancient lava, heaps of erupted ashes, and rocks
chemically changed by the intrusion of heated vapours
charged with gases. In others, enormous cracks
extending for many hundred yards, or even for miles
together, may be traced in the more brittle rocks ; and
the rocks themselves have been burnt as in a furnace
by the boiling and bubbling mass of molten lava
which has been poured from beneath into such wide
fissures. Sometimes extensive tracts, where the rocks
are thinner and tougher, have exhibited these cracks
in systems of hundreds in number parallel to one ano-
ther ; while here and there the intense fiery action
from beneath has thrown up the surface into blisters
and domes, which are often fractured at the top, and
thus reveal the history of their elevation. Still more
frequently, also, the irresistible subterranean force has
snapped asunder the strata, as a violent blow would
pierce through a few folds of paper, and one side of
the broken bed has been lifted high in the air, or has
sunk into a deep hollow beneath. And if, as hap-
pened occasionally, the force was not sufficiently ener-
getic to break up in this way the whole group of over-
lying matter, it might yet effect a no less striking
result, raising up the strata upon a line or on a point,
and producing a saddle-shaped or a dome-like eleva-
tion, according to the circumstances of the case.

All these effects, and all of them on the grandest scale,
were produced in some way or other upon many of the
old rocks towards the close of the first epoch of crea-
tion ; and every Geologist, familiar with the structure of
our own island, could readily point to abundant exam-
ples of each particular disturbance above alluded to.
Every coal-field is so split asunder and broken into

108 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

small fragments by what are called ' faults,' (cracks
and consequent disturbances of the strata,) that they
alone might be appealed to as sufficient proof; and, in-
deed, the very appearance of the smaller coal-fields of
the middle of England, lifted as they are far above
the great expanse of the new red sandstone, is due
solely to these under-ground movements, which have
borne to the surface portions of the carboniferous and
lower strata, that would otherwise have been hidden.
It is not unlikely that much of the general contour
of the high ground of England and many parts of
northern Europe was originally marked out during the
restless disturbances of this interval of violence. The
districts occupied by the mountain limestone and the
olde? rocks, at least, have probably in later times been
disturbed only by movements affecting the general
level of large tracts ; and there cannot be a question as
to the intensity and continuance of the forces acting
beneath the surface at that time having been then
much greater than any that have since affected that
portion of the earth's crust exposed for investigation
in our own island.

These remarks apply chiefly to the physical geo-
graphy and geology of England, but they also de-
scribe with very little modification a large propor-
tion of all those tracts in which the carboniferous
and older rocks appear. Exceptions, it is true, are
not wanting; and a very interesting one is met with in
Russia, where various rocks of this first epoch stretch
over a vast extent of country, and seem to have
been little disturbed, except by exceedingly slow move-
ments of elevation, since they were originally deposited.
We shall find hereafter, that, on the one hand, similar

OP CREATION. 109

elevatory movements and corresponding depressions
were continued incessantly at intervals to a very recent
period, (and, indeed, there is evidence that they have
not yet ceased in our own latitudes in Europe,) while,
on the other hand, very few instances are known of
extensive dislocation affecting the beds newer than the
magnesian limestone in the British islands, at any
period except that one marked by the commencement
of the tertiary series of deposits.

There are no means whatever by which we can at
present determine how long a time elapsed between the
conclusion of the first great series of deposits in Eng-
land and the commencement of the next ; nor is it
for us to assert that the wild and chaotic confusion
resulting in all those violent dislocations of the hardest
strata, which we so readily observe, was in any way
inconsistent with the existence of life in many other
parts of the world, now, perhaps, covered with hun-
dreds of fathoms of salt water. But I would not
dwell on this possibility, for I wish only to speak of
what is known ; nor can it be necessary to wander
into the field of conjecture or romance, in order to
obtain a striking picture of a former state of existence
which shall exhibit all the charm of novelty, both in
the outline and colouring*. Without any such con-
jectures, of one thing at least we are certain: that
during this interval, whatever it may have been, and
however it may have been occupied in various parts of
the world, every species of animal, and almost every
vegetable, seems to have been replaced by some new
one, not differing much perhaps from the former, or
performing another office, but yet different, — exhibiting
an instance of the rich variety of nature, and an effect

110 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

of that law of universal dissolution which appears to
influence species, as well as individuals, allotting to
each its appointed time, and causing each to pass
through the different phases of imperfect development,
full growth and vigour, and then gradual but certain
decay and death.

Little as the transition from the rocks of the older
to those of the secondary period is marked by mineral
changes in the strata, this total difference in the nature
of the organic remains is far too important to be
passed by without notice. Both the upper part of
the magnesian limestone series, and the strata that
are superimposed, consist of sands often loosely aggre-
gated, but sometimes hardened into stone by the infil-
tration of oxide of iron or some other cementing
medium. Neither of these beds is prolific in fossils,
but each contains a few; and this is the case as
well in England as on the Continent, where the
development is much more remarkable, and where the
beds contain many more fossils. The difference be-
tween the organic remains of the two beds is, however,
total, and in fishes is carried even into a point of struc-
ture which seems to be connected, though in an obscure
way, with the whole organization of the class.* The
vegetation, too, of the newer period is distinct ; and
the introduction of reptilian animals in great abund-

* In the fishes met with in the older rocks the vertebral column is in-
variably continued to the extremity of the tail (fig. 42) ; and the upper lobe
of the tail-fin, into which the back-bone extends, is larger than the other.
In the rocks of the secondary period, the vertebral column does not extend
into the tail, but the tail-fin is generally unsymmetrical, the upper lobe
being the largest. In more modern fishes the tail-fin is perfectly symme-
trical in every respect (fig. 43).

OF CREATION.

Ill

ance, and of large size, offers a characteristic of consi-
derable interest.

I have been the more anxious to mark the exist-
ence of this break in the general continuity of the
various strata, because, unlike that occurring after the
deposit of the chalk, it is by no means distinctly visible
to every one, nor is it altogether understood even by
many Geologists. It is, however, almost equally im-
portant with respect to the great standard of com-
parison, that of organic life, and its conditions have
been worked out carefully, although they have only
lately been so satisfactorily proved as to admit of
confident and direct assertion. One reason of this
may perhaps be, that of the disturbances ultimately
so effective we see in some cases the first small com-
mencement, and are enabled to trace the gradual
change in the general character of the deposits, and
perceive the mineral structure of the beds insensibly
adapted to the new state of things. Another reason
undoubtedly is, that the changes produced on the
older rocks after the deposit of the carboniferous sys-

Fiff. 42

Fig. 43

HETEROCERCAL TAIL.
(Platysomus.)

HOMOCERCAL TAIL.

(Pristipoma.)

112 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

tern, are very much hidden and covered up, in conse-
quence of their long exposure to aqueous action, and
perhaps also to the atmosphere, during the countless
ages that have elapsed since the commencement of
the secondary epoch of creation.

We pass on now from the consideration of this
chapter in the world's history. We have seen, first
of all, how the earth lay buried in the dark obscu-
rity of its early state, when the only rocks of mechanical
origin consisted of huge masses of decomposed and
pounded granite, broken into fragments by the disrup-
tion of the first thin shell of solid matter; and in these
deposits no evidence has yet been obtained of any
created thing having existed, either animal or vegetable.
We have traced the history from this time through the
period when a few worms crawled on the mud and sand
of the newly-made shores of the ocean, when to these
were added other lower forms of animal existence,
and when marine vegetables first contributed to the
subsistence of its inhabitants. We have watched the
appearance of its denizens, as they, one after another,
or in groups, present themselves, and have seen how
different were these from the present tenants of the
sea, and yet how like them, and how evidently and
admirably adapted to perform the part assigned them ;
and we have thus gazed upon the first doubtful and
misty appearance of light and life, as they have be-
come visible in the morning of creation by slow de-
grees, and through a long twilight. Trilobites, bra-
chiopods, shell-fish of various kinds, are seen to abound;
and the cuttle-fish, or creatures nearly allied and not
so highly organized, reign for a time undisputed lord
of the sea. At length their reign terminated ; other

OP CREATION. 113

animals, of higher and more complicated functions,
succeeded, and the waters, after a long preparation,
became fit for the presence of fishes. These, at first of
small size and comparatively powerless, soon increased
rapidly, both in number and dimensions, and, encased
in their impenetrable armour, seem to have delighted
in the troubled ocean where the coarse conglomerate
of the old red sandstone was being accumulated;
and for a long while these less perfect species of
the class were predominant. In time, however,
other fishes sprung up, the old ones were displaced,
and a new, vigorous, and powerful group of animals
came into the field, endowed with exuberant life, and
darting with speed and with almost irresistible force
through the water. Land, also, richly clothed with
vegetation, even to the water's edge, contributed to
support this abundant flow of life ; and some few land
animals of high organization appear to have been
associated with the insects and the fresh-water ani-
mals whose remains have been preserved. But few,
indeed, were the tenants of the land, so far as we can
judge, when compared with those of the ocean ; and
while we have in so many parts of the world a rich
supply of the vegetable remains of that period, there
are only to be quoted the fragments of a scorpion, one
or two foot-marks, and such like indications that
nature was not inactive, though the conditions for
preserving any terrestrial animal remains were so
eminently unfavourable, that there is only just suffi-
cient evidence to satisfy us of the fact.

The conditions of aqueous deposit were, however,
more advantageous, so far as marine animals were con-
cerned ; and during this period, and especially towards

114 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

its close, we find that the fishes assumed their maxi-
mum of development, at least in the placoid and
ganoid orders, for at this time the reptilian fishes and
sharks were both numerous and powerful, while very
soon afterwards the whole tribe of fishes was repre-
sented by animals of smaller dimensions, of different
habit, and comparatively powerless. It is very in-
teresting in this case to watch the progress of the
transition. The fishes in the carboniferous rocks,
include many large shark-like and reptilian groups.
In the sandstone above the coal, and in the magnesian
limestone, are many nearly allied fishes, although of
much smaller size, but all the more advanced types
seem to fail. In the same newer beds, however, ap-
pear true reptiles, not indeed of large size, but of
complicated dentition, and the representatives of a
high group ; while, as we shall hereafter find, in the
beds of the secondary period the reptiles at first
exhibit high analogies and then pass off into a mag-
nificent series, including true representatives both of
the earlier sauroid fishes and the later aquatic mam-
mals. On the other hand, the fishes there exhibit a
lower form of higher groups, afterwards continued and
advanced to the most complicated types, but only
attaining a gigantic size in rocks of far newer date.
The bearing of these points on the general question
of development we shall have occasion afterwards to
allude to.

OP CREATION. 115

THE SECOND OR MIDDLE EPOCH.

CHAPTER VII.

THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE SECOND EPOCH : — THE FORMATION
OF THE NEW RED SANDSTONE, OR TRIASSIC SERIES.

OVER a large part of the known world, the close
of the first epoch, marked by great subsidences of
land, by the swallowing up of continents and islands
into the sea, and by accompanying violent disloca-
tions of the stratified crust of the globe, was of neces-
sity accompanied by the re-distribution of these frac-
tured materials of strata ; and, owing no doubt to the
great amount of trituration, the beds thus formed
contain but few remains of organic beings. These,
however, indicate the commencement of the new era.

The presence of the new red sandstone, a forma-
tion consisting of sand and marl with rare local in-
terpolations of limestone, characterises this epoch ;
and, after this, until towards the close of the secondary
or middle period, we find few intermediate beds over
the whole of America ; * and the same is the case
with regard to the greater part of Asia and Australia,
as far as Geologists have yet been able to determine.

In England we have this chapter of the history

* There is, indeed, one magnificent exception in the Richmond
oolitic coal-field of Virginia, U. S., where the beds of coal are of vast
extent, and rival those of the true carboniferous period.

116 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

much more fully developed. The new red sandstone
itself, it is true, consists of little more than loose
sand and mud, deposited, perhaps rapidly, from the
fractured rocks of the earlier period. It is, there-
fore, very poor in fossils, and exhibits but few of these
hieroglyphics whose language we can interpret ; and,
although richer in this respect than England, the
whole continent of Europe is marked by a similar
comparative rarity of organic remains in the beds.
But afterwards, it would appear that, the subsidence
not having been complete, there remained in our la-
titudes a number of islands, forming an archipelago
not unfavourable to the existence of many races of
animals and vegetables, especially those capable of
supporting life in spite of constant oscillations and
changes of condition of the surface.

We have seen that, even up to the very close of
the earlier epoch, there is no distinct and unques-
tionable evidence of the nature and position of the
land on which grew the vast forests from which coal
was elaborated. Here and there it has seemed that
the trees of which we find fragments must have grown
on the spot where broken trunks are now apparently
attached to their roots, the roots and trunks being
buried together in the very soil from which they ob-
tained their nourishment. But these instances are
rare and exceptional ; and although we may be
certain that the land was not far off, yet its exact
position, and whether it was a continent or an island,
or a group of islands, whether it extended south-
wards or northwards, whether it occupied what is
now the Atlantic Ocean, or was shaped like Europe,
and represented the two north-eastern continents, we

OF CREATION. 117

cannot satisfactorily determine. Perhaps the most
probable opinion is, that an extensive archipelago,
like that near the eastern shores of Asia, was the
remnant of a sinking tract throughout a great part
of the north temperate zone ; that portions of that
tract, now forming parts of England and central Eu-
rope, remained thus for a long time in shallow water,
the recipients of many deposits ; but that during this
time the other tracts were too deeply submerged and
too far from land to receive such additions.

Whatever the cause may have been, the result, so
far as concerned the inhabitants both of sea and land,
was sufficiently remarkable. Between the close of
the older epoch and the commencement of this, which
we call the middle, every species, both of animal and
vegetable, seems to have been, almost without excep-
tion, changed. All the older forms have disappeared ;
all the modifications up to that time introduced have
vanished ; many even of the larger groups are so
greatly altered, and have become so rare, that they
also have nearly died out, either from the lapse of
time or change of condition ; and we have thus a
new creation, — a new world, as it seems, supplying
the gap produced by the mighty change, whatever
it may have been, which closed one epoch of the
earth's history and commenced a second.

But next in importance to the fact that this change
has taken place to so great an extent, is a fact no
less certain, that some species of one of the principal
groups of the higher animals — the reptiles — were
unquestionably introduced before the change took
place ; and this dawn of reptilian existence, ob-
servable in the magnesian limestone, gradually opens

118

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

Fig. 44

out into the broadest and fullest development of these
singular animals, without exhibiting any marks of
interruption, and as if there had been little or no
disturbing action. Thus we have a link connecting
the chain of beings, and uniting two conditions so
dissimilar that whole families of fishes and inver-
tebrated animals were unable to endure them; and
this link moreover is one of great
importance, and, as it might have
seemed to us, the one least likely
to be selected for this purpose.
It may ultimately be found to
have reference to the permanent
elevation above the water of some
portion of the land, while the
sea bottom was undergoing great
change of level.

The seas of the new red sand-
stone period were not favourable
to the development of the coral
animal, but numerous radiated
animals existed, of which the most
interesting is that known to fossil-
collectors by the name of the lily
encrinite (fig. 44).

This animal was one of a sin-
gular group already described (see
p. 34), inclosed within a stony
STONE LILY. habitation, and planted upon a
(Encrinites moniliformis.) stony but moveable column nearly
cylindrical, and attached at its
base to the solid rock. From the pouch, which is
divided into five parts, as many pairs of smaller

OF CREATION. 119

columns proceed, and each of these ten columns
immediately splits itself into two, so that there are
twenty moveable arms of no great length imme-
diately above the body, each of them being pro-
vided with a number of fingers made up of similar
small stony columns admitting of considerable mo-
tion, by means of which food could be obtained
and conveyed at once to the stomach of the animal.
It is calculated that nearly thirty thousand separate
pieces of stone exist in the skeleton of this singular
creature.

Among the shell-fish of this period, which is a
kind of transition from the earliest to the next suc-
ceeding one, there are few species that require very
special notice, although the whole group taken to-
gether is interesting, as showing an approximation
in general character to that of existing seas, without
any of the species being
identical, and with little
approach even to exist-
ing genera. Among the
cuttle-fish, and especially
those animals of the group
defended by shelly cover-
ings, and resembling the
nautilus, there is a curious
example forming a link CERATITB.

between the goniatite of the mountain limestone,
and the ammonite of the secondary period. This
shell is known as the Ceratite (fig. 45), and will be
alluded to again in describing the shells of the next
group of deposits.

The fishes of the period we are now considering.

120 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

while they differ from those of earlier date in one
point already alluded to, are not unlike them in some
respects. The difference consists in the non-pro-
longation of the back-bone or vertebral column of the
fish into the upper part of the tail-fin, a condition
that obtains with regard to all known species, without
exception, obtained from the older rocks ; while the
termination of the vertebral column before the tail-fin
commences characterises those of newer date. With
the exception of this difference, of which it is not
easy to conjecture the exact meaning, there was con-
siderable analogy and much general resemblance of
structure.

We may consider the fishes of these rocks as form-
ing three principal groups. First, those with power-
ful crushing teeth in the palate, comprising animals
which were probably for the most part slow swim-
mers, and feeders on the encrinites, crustaceans, and
shell-fish, in the shoals and near shore ; — secondly,
those with sharp teeth, of small size, encased like the
former in boxes of bone coated with enamel, — the
representatives in fact of the sauroid fish, which
played so important a part in the more ancient
seas ; — and, thirdly, the great and voracious tribe of
sharks, coated merely with tough skin, dotted over
with points of enamel, and swimming rapidly and
freely in the open seas in search of prey.

There is nothing of importance in the earlier forms of
the two latter groups, and they will be more properly
considered when we come to the description of the in-
habitants of the sea during the deposit of the newer
rocks. Of the peculiar apparatus provided for the for-
mer, the annexed wood-cut (46) will give some idea. It

OF CREATION. 121

represents the upper jaw of one species, with nipping
teeth in front, small grinding teeth on the sides, and
large crushing teeth in the palate. The form of this
fish is not known.

Fig. 46

PLACODUS.
(Lower Jaw and Teeth.)

It would certainly be premature, in the existing
state of our knowledge of fossils, to assume the ab-
sence or even the great rarity of reptiles during the
earliest epoch of the earth's history, merely because
we have hitherto only found in the last formed rocks
of that epoch a few traces of reptilian existence.
These indeed are sufficient to indicate the presence
of a highly organized group of such animals, although
they are too few and imperfect to give us much
idea of their habits, their relative importance, or the
extent of their distribution. But, judging from analogy
and from the extreme prevalence of a group of fishes
organized like reptiles, and performing the part after-
wards taken by several species of this latter class, it is
hardly too much to assume, that the time of greatest
development of the reptilian fishes preceded that in
which the true reptiles themselves abounded. At
any rate, it is quite certain that while the remains

G

122 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

of reptiles are so rare in the older rocks, only a very
few instances of them having as yet been met with,
we no sooner enter on the examination of the new
red sandstone, than we find indications of the exis-
tence of several remarkable forms. These soon in-
crease so rapidly, that by far the most striking and
characteristic organic remains of the next succeed-
ing period are reptilian, proving that such animals
were then at least, if they had not been before, among
the most important of the inhabitants of the sea.

It is not an unusual thing, in examining sandstone
rocks, to find indications not only of an ancient sea
bottom, but also of that intermediate space between
the reach of the highest tides and low water which
formed the actual sea-shore, and was exposed alter-
nately to be trodden on and indented by various
animals moving over the damp sand, and to the in-
fluence of the waves of the sea. Among the more
common indications of this state are the ripple-marks
often seen on sandstone, and many irregularities of
surface, apparently produced by the passage of worms,
crabs, star-fishes, &c.

Of all the ancient lines of sea-coast that have yet been
introduced to our notice, there is none more interesting
than that of the new red sandstone sea, for we find
there not only marks of worms and the ripple of
the water, but almost every other marking that can
be imagined likely to have been made under such
circumstances; and among these are distinct traces of
the passage of numerous four-footed animals of many
different kinds. Every one will remember the asto-
nishment which Robinson Crusoe is represented to
have felt at the sight of a human foot-print on the

OF CREATION. 123

island which he thought deserted ; and scarcely less
surprising or interesting was the first discovery of
these indications of animal existence in a rock so
barren of fossils as the new red sandstone, and in
a formation in which, till then, there had been no
suspicion of the existence of any animals more highly
organized than fishes.

Nothing, however, can be more certain, than that
such foot-prints do occur ; and although very little
is to be determined from the mere form of the
extremity, still even that little is of the greatest
possible interest, when, as in the case before us, it is
nearly the whole extent of our information. It is
especially interesting to find that the foot-marks
exhibit indications of some animals entirely different
from those whose actual remains occur in the bed,
and of some which present only faint and distant
analogies with modern species, but which are yet
made out by studying the peculiarities indicated in
the rarest and most interesting of the fossils.

Of all the reptiles at present found on the earth,
the frogs, both in their young state as tadpoles,
and in many peculiarities of structure, seem to form
the nearest connecting link with the fishes; and
since there are few distinct analogies between re-
cent species of reptiles and either birds or quadru-
peds, the whole order REPTILIA now forms an imperfect
and isolated group, better adapted, it has been sug-
gested, for a planet in an earlier stage of its exis-
tence, than for one peopled as our earth is at present.

The secondary, or middle period of the earth's
history, however, as made known to us by the study
of fossils, may be looked upon as the age during

G 2

24 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

which reptiles preponderated, and we shall find,
amongst the organic remains of this period, a great
number of forms tending to give considerable insight
into the plan of creation, with reference to this im-
portant department of zoology.

Among the links thus supplied, the fossils of the
new red sandstone exhibit two animals, each offering
some curious anomalies of structure, each somewhat
highly organized, and while in many remarkable
points of structure resembling one another, each pre-
senting at the same time certain characters which
connect the great class of reptiles, on one hand with
birds, by a very unexpected route, and on the other
with quadrupeds in a manner no less singular.

Both these animals seem to belong to the lizard
tribe of reptiles, and one of them, the remains of
which have been found in England, is called Rhyncho-
saurus* while the other, obtained from the Cape of
Good Hope, has received the name of Dicynodon.-\-

The Rhyncliosaurus is known by the skull and se-
veral bones of the extremities, all of which were found
some years ago in the Grinsill quarries, near Warwick.
Impressions of the foot-prints of a small animal, pro-
bably an individual of the same species,were also
found on some slabs of sandstone in the same quarry.

The skull of the Ehynchosaur differs essentially

* 'Pwy%ag (rhynchos~), a beak ; traumas (sawros), a lizard.

•f* At? (dis\ twice; xwobovg (cynodous), canine teeth, (having two canine
ieeth.) I have ventured to assume that the beds in which the Dicynodon
remains are found are of the triassic period. The evidence of super-
position, as far as it goes, seems to support the probability of this
view, and is certainly in no point opposed to it, while the peculiarities of
structure of these remarkable reptilian remains have suggested such a posi-
tion as the most probable one. (See Geol. Trans., 2nd ser., vol. vii. p. 53.)

OF CREATION. 125

from that of any other known lizard, recent or ex-
tinct, resembling rather the beak of a bird, or that
of the hawkVbill turtle, than the head of a lizard,
and this resemblance is increased by the absence of
teeth. The bones of the jaw (see fig. 47) converge
towards the front of the mouth, and form there a
curved bony mandible, probably encased by a horny
sheath.

Fig. 47

RHYNCHOSAURUS.
(Side View of the Skull.)

The bones of the extremities, found with this skull,
indicate the terrestrial habits of the animal, and ex-
hibit resemblances to the land reptiles of a later
period, while the vertebrae present some interesting
deviations from the lizard type.

The Dicynodon, with the same type of skull as the
Rhynchosaur, and in other respects more nearly re-
sembling this reptile than any other known animal, ex-
hibits, however, very singular modifications, pointing
in one direction towards the poisonous serpents, in
another to the carnivorous quadrupeds, in a third to the
tortoises and turtles, and in a fourth to the crocodiles
and lizards. The lower jaw exhibits no trace of
teeth, but presents a smooth and even edge. The
upper jaw is short, strong, and truncated, having

126 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

at the back part two deep conical sockets, whence
projected a pair of long and powerful, slightly curved
and sharp-pointed tusks, directed downwards and
slightly inwards. There is no mark whatever of any

Fig. 48

DlCYNODON.

(Side View of the Skull.)

other kind of teeth, but it is probable that the ani-
mal used these tusks both as offensive and defensive
weapons, and that its habits were carnivorous. The
bones of the trunk and extremities have not yet
been examined, but, from the structure of the ver-
tebrae it is probable that the Dicynodon was at least
partly aquatic.

Besides the foot-prints of small animals, probably
like those little Lacertians already described, and
many others which bear strong resemblance to those
of tortoises and turtles, there are yet other impres-
sions in many parts of the new red sandstone, some
of them of very singular appearance. Among these
are two groups, one apparently of birds, often of
gigantic proportions, and the other exhibiting a foot-

OF CREATION.

127

print like an expanded hand, also very large in some
cases, and belonging to an animal of which it was
for a long time impossible even to guess the true
nature. The marks of birds have been found chiefly
in America,* but are abundant and very strongly
marked; so that, although no other indications what-
ever of these animals have yet been brought to light,
it is impossible not to admit that they must then
have existed.

The large five-toed foot-marks impressed on seve-
ral beds of marly sandstone in
various parts of England and Eu-
rope, more especially in Cheshire,
in the tongue of land between the
Mersey and the Dee, and at Hild-
burghausen in Saxony, bear so
singular a resemblance to the hu-
man hand, that the unknown ani-
mal, to whose march over the an-
cient sea-shore they are owing,
was long designated as the Chiro-
iherium.^ The dimensions of
these marks are various, J but
the prints of the hind feet are al-
ways much larger than those of the fore feet, in
some cases four times as large, while the distance be-
tween the impressions of the fore and hind foot is

* It is only very recently that markings of the same kind have been
observed, by Mr. Cunningham, on the surface of slabs in the new red
sandstone quarries of Storton, near Liverpool.

t Xs/£ (che.ir\ hand ; dypav (therion), a wild beast.

J In some of the specimens most remarkable for size, the length of the
larger impression is upwards of twelve inches, the smaller one being about
four inches long.

FOOTMARKS.
( Chirotherium.)

128 PICTUKESQUE SKETCHES

often not more than an inch or two, even in the larger
specimens, thus indicating a very great inequality in
the length as well as magnitude of the two extremi-
ties. Beyond the facts thus made known by the
form and proportions, and the relative as well as
actual size of the foot-prints, there was no evidence
whatever for a long time concerning the animal that
had produced them.

At length, however, teeth and other bones were also
discovered in the quarries of new red sandstone, and
these were referred by their first discoverer to sup-
posed crocodilian animals of considerable size. The
more careful examination of these and other fossils
by Professor Owen has greatly tended to throw
light on the singular footsteps of the so-called
Chirotherium^ since they prove the existence of a
reptilian genus, several species of which have been
already determined, and which would seem to have
possessed extremities capable of impressing those
foot-marks, and certainly inhabiting the sea-shore in
the place and at the time of their formation : this
animal is now called Labyrinthodon*

The result of the investigations terminating in
the establishment of this genus seems to be, that
the animals referred to it were intimately related to
the salamander and the frog, belonging to the same
order of Batrachian reptiles. But they exhibited
peculiarities of structure connecting this tribe with
the crocodiles, although the modifications of the jaws
and palate, the arrangement of the teeth, and the
disproportionate size of the hinder extremities, point

* Aafiugnfas (labyrintlius), a labyrinth ; obavs (odous\ a tooth: so called
from the complex or labyrinthine structure of a section of the tooth, as seen
under the microscope.

OP CREATION. 129

to the frog as the nearest analogue by many strik-
ing anatomical peculiarities.

The Labyrinthodon must indeed be placed at the
head of the Batrachian order ; for, in dimensions and
in general organization, it was far the most important
animal of the whole group. The upper surface of the
skull was broad, and flattened like that of the alli-

Fig. 50

LABYRINTHODON.
(Left Side of Lower Jaw with Teeth.)

gator, and its outer surface was deeply sculptured. The
jaws were powerful, and armed with sharp teeth, the
number of which was very great (probably upwards
of a hundred on each side of each jaw). The teeth
diminished in size towards both ends, but especially
towards the muzzle, where, however, there were also
much larger teeth, like tusks, reminding one in this
arrangement of what is seen in the crocodiles.

The skin in at least one species seems to have been
covered with bony plates. The mode of respiration,
and hence, probably, the shape and use of the ribs,
offered a still further approximation to the higher
reptiles ; but still, in many essential points, the Ba-
trachian character is clearly to be traced, while the
shape and general structure of the vertebrae points
rather to the lower organization of fishes.

But the extremities offer the most interesting sub-
ject for consideration. They are partly crocodilian,

G 5

130 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

and partly Batrachian. Some idea may be formed,
both of their dimensions and of the general dimensions
of the body, from the fact, that one fragment of a
lower jaw, between nine and ten inches in length,
corresponds to the same part in a crocodile six or
seven feet long ; while fragments of bones of the
hinder extremity, probably belonging to an animal of
the same species, if not to the same individual, are
as large as those of a crocodile thirty feet long. If
these bones really belonged to the same individual,
the hinder extremities, however disproportionate ac-
cording to the type of crocodilian structure, would
not be excessive if they belonged to an animal having
frog-like proportions. The actual size and shape,
and the general appearance of the animal, are, how-
ever, still doubtful.

The evidence with regard to the animal of the
footsteps (the Chirotherium) stands thus. We find
in the new red sandstone certain foot-prints indi-
cating a creature remarkable for the disproportionate
magnitude of its hinder extremities, and also for the
very singular shape of the foot. In beds of the same
age, and in the same quarries, almost the only fossil
bones found are those of a Batrachian or frog-like
reptile (Labyrinthodon), whose dimensions and pro-
portions were sufficient, it would seem, to allow of its
making foot-marks corresponding with these in the
most essential character. It can hardly be considered
unreasonable to conclude that the Chirotherium and
the Labyrinthodon are one and the same animal.

The reptiles of the new red sandstone, besides
those already enumerated, comprise another croco-
dilian genus; and if we may judge from foot-prints,

OF CREATION. 131

they also include several turtles of various dimen-
sions. These were probably the inhabitants of islands
in a sea in which considerable deposits of mud and
sand were constantly forming, and rapidly accumulat-
ing over the edges of the dislocated strata of older
date. Perhaps, too, at this time there were occa-
sional but considerable outbursts of volcanic matter
from beneath the sea, helping to elaborate those re-
markable beds of gypsum and rock-salt abundant in
our own country in the beds of this age. During the
whole of the deposits there would appear to have
existed a tract of land to the east of England, chiefly
between France and Germany ; and this must have
been somewhat extensive. From it were obtained
many fragments of trees and plants, although rarely
in sufficient abundance to form even thin seams of
coal. The plants were unlike those of the car-
boniferous period, and they belong chiefly to the
tribe of which the Zamia is now an important and
characteristic type.

We may then imagine a wide, low, sandy tract by
the sea-side, the hills and cliffs of limestone which
still rise boldly on the shores of the Avon, and in
Derbyshire and Yorkshire, having then been recently
elevated and forming a fringe to the coast line. In
some places, as in parts of Cheshire, between the Dee
and the Mersey, in some parts of Warwickshire, and
elsewhere where foot-prints have been left, slight
oscillations of level were probably going on, and the
line of coast was occasionally shifting. The sandy
flats thus laid bare, and not reached by the ordinary
level of high water, were of course traversed by the
ancient animals of that period ; but only a few faint

132 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

records of them have been handed down for our obser-
vation, owing to the unfavourable nature of the sand-
stone for preserving organic remains. Amongst these,
however, we are able to enumerate turtles and tor-
toises, a little lizard having a bird-like beak and
probably bird's feet, birds themselves, some larger
than an ostrich, others as small as our smaller wa-
ders ; and in some parts of the world large reptiles
with powerful tusks, not surpassed in the extent
of their departure from the ordinary structure of
reptiles by any known aberrant forms of that strange
and varied tribe.

Amongst the most striking of these objects, at
least on our own shores, would be the numerous
and gigantic labyrinthodons. We may imagine one
of these animals, as large as a rhinoceros, pacing lei-
surely over the sands, leaving deep imprints of its
heavy elephantine hind foot, strangely contrasting
with the diminutive step of its short fore extremities.
Another, a smaller variety, provided like the kan-
garoo, not only with powerful hind legs but also with
a strong tail, also leaves its impress stamped upon the
sand, although itself, perhaps, soon fell a victim to the
voracity of its larger congener.* These and others
of their kind, passing over the sands and marking
there the form of their expanded feet, marched on-
wards in their CQurse, fulfilled their part in nature,
and then disappeared for ever from the earth, leaving,
it would seem, in some cases, no fragment of bone, and
no other indication of their shape or size than this
obscure intimation of their existence.

* In some cases we find, corresponding to a set of foot-marks, a con-
tinuous furrow, presumed to be the impression of a tail dragged along the
sand by the animal while walking.

OF CREATION. 133

It is strange that in a thin bed of fine clay, occur-
ring between two masses of sandstone, we should thus
have convincing but unexpected evidence preserved
concerning some of the earth1 s inhabitants at this
early period. The ripple mark, the worm track, the
scratching^ of a small crab on the sand, and even
the impression of the rain drop, so distinct as to indi-
cate the direction of the wind at the time of the
shower, these, and the foot-prints of the bird and the
reptile, are all stereotyped, and offer an evidence
which no argument can gainsay, no prejudice resist,
concerning the natural history of a very ancient period
of the earth's history. But the waves that made
that ripple mark have long ceased to wash those
shores, — for ages has the surface then exposed been
concealed under great thicknesses of strata, — the
worm and the crab have left no solid fragment to
speak to their form or structure, — the bird has left no
bone that has yet been discovered, — the fragments of
the reptile are small, imperfect, and extremely rare.
Still enough is known to determine the fact, and that
fact is the more interesting and valuable from the
very circumstances under which it is presented.

The result of an examination of the actual fossils of
the new red sandstone of England offers little that
is positive or definite, but when combined with these
imprints found on the ancient shores, and with the
fossils of beds of the same age on the Continent, it
becomes more satisfactory. We may with great rea-
son assume the existence of land, and can even partly
trace its ancient boundary not far from the western
coast of our island; but in what direction it extended,
how far it reached, what was its nature, whether it was

134 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

a continent or an island, or a succession of islands, and
such like queries, are not at present capable of being
answered. Neither do we learn much more definitely
the general character of the animals and vegetables
that were indigenous. A few fragments of fossil
wood found in England are evidence of the fact that
the land was partly clothed with large pine-like trees ;
and a few casts of shells show that its shores were
peopled with some species of mollusca. Elsewhere,
when the conditions have been more favourable for the
deposition and preservation of organic remains, as in
some districts on the Continent, we find still a com-
parative poverty. Plants, indeed, abound, and ex-
hibit characters unlike those of the coal period ; a bed
of limestone (the Muschelkalk) contains numerous
shells, and the remains of fishes and reptiles ; but,
on the whole, the general features remain obscure.
It would almost seem that at this time, and in most
districts which we can examine, there had been a
destruction of the previous species, and that a suffi-
cient time had not yet elapsed for the newly in-
troduced groups to spread over the earth and seas.
However this may be, we cannot doubt the fact
that there had been great and sudden changes,
whether these were or were not connected with
an interruption of the order of succession, and with
the termination of one geological period, and the
commencement of a second. The new red sandstone
affords material for a distinct chapter in the earth's
history, and though it is certainly a chapter containing
less detail and fewer points for minute description
than many others, it does not fail to suggest impor-
tant generalisations.

OF CREATION. 135

CHAPTER VIII.

THE MARINE REPTILES, AND OTHER ANIMALS CHARACTERISTIC
OP THE LIAS.

THE deposit of sand and marly beds, which must
have been steadily continued for a long time over ex-
tensive tracts at the commencement of the secondary
period, seems to have gradually changed to a finer,
more calcareous, and less sandy mud thrown down
from suspension in water, perhaps after it had
been carried for some distance by marine currents.
This deposit of mud was local, since, so far as we
can tell by examining the tracts now above water,
it was almost confined to a part of England and a
narrow tract in the middle of Europe, though it has
been thought traceable in the middle of Asia, and is
possibly represented in a small part of South America.
The bed is sometimes more or less sandy or calcare-
ous ; but we know of few contemporaneous deposits ;
and where the muddy beds do not appear, there is
often nothing intermediate between the new red
sandstone and the newest beds of the middle epoch.

The most distinct beds of passage between the
new red sandstone and this next superior stratum,
(which is called Has,) are certain deposits at Aust
Cliff', at the mouth of the Severn, where there is a
thin bed absolutely made up of organic remains.
There are also others on the continent of Europe, in

136 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

the south of Belgium, near Luxemburg. In these
cases the first and most important indications of change
are seen in the increased proportion of argillaceous
matter, accompanied often by carbonate of lime. The
character of a calcareous clay, sometimes passing into
a muddy limestone, may be traced in most of the
varieties of this formation.

The lias * is everywhere singularly rich in the
remains of organic existence ; these remains extend-
ing through almost all the tribes of marine animals,
and including, though rarely, fragments of wood and
other vegetable bodies. No conclusion, indeed, can
be drawn as to the nearness or distance of the
land whence these fragments floated, for they are
often covered with marine animals ; but since, as
will be seen, it is not unlikely that many of the
monsters of the deep at this time repaired to the
shallows, or even to the shore, to deposit their eggs,
we may, perhaps, be allowed to conjecture that
the land was not far distant from the spots now occu-
pied by these strata.

The muddy liassic beds deposited after the sand-
stones described in the previous chapter, although
they contained a considerable proportion of carbonate
of lime, were not in a condition favourable for the
development of coralline existence, and the remains of
such animals are accordingly rare. This is not the
case, however, with the closely allied group of Zoo-
phytes known as the Crinoidea ; for they, on the
other hand, were singularly abundant, and were mani-
festly an important group, perhaps assisting to clear the

* So named probably from the appearance of the bed in riband-like
layers of different colours observed in some parts of England.

OF CREATION. 137

seas of an undue proportion of the minuter particles
of decaying animal matter. The most singular of
all these is the Pentacrinite, an animal so complicated
that the number of separate pieces of stone of which
its singular skeleton is made up has been calculated
to amount to not less than one hundred and fifty
thousand. Like the other encrinites (see fig. 44, p.
118), it was provided with a long and powerful
but moveable column, made up of a vast multitude
of lozenge-shaped pieces (see fig. 51), each marked
with a curious set of fil 52

indentations, and each
pierced with a cen
tral aperture (52,) by
means of which a com-
munication was kept
up during life, enabling
the animal probably
toattach itself to some /T PBNTACBINITB.

(Detached Piece and Section of the Stem.)

marine substance, or a

floating log of wood. In the Pentacrinite the stem
(51, 52) was five-sided, and the body was partly
defended by a small cup formed of regular plates
rising from the column, and partly inclosed by a
multitude of very minute and angular plates fixed
on a tough membranous pouch terminating with an
extensile proboscis. The body was surrounded also
by an incredible multitude of branching arms, form-
ing a complicated stony net-work, intended to inter-
cept and convey to the stomach the particles of
food fit for the animal, which were floating in the
water within reach. Many specimens of this fossil
are often found together, attached, it would seem, to

138 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

what was once the under surface of decayed wood
drifting through the water.

Several varieties of star-fishes, and some curious
forms not unlike certain recent crustaceans, were
among the common tenants of the lias ; and they
were accompanied by a large number of animals
inhabiting shells of various kinds, most of them
very different from those known at present. Among
these are both bivalves and univalves, the former
including a good number of the Brachiopoda al-
ready referred to, and belonging to groups, such as
Terebratula, still represented. The univalves, besides
a considerable number having near relations with
those of existing seas, include also a very large and
important group, highly characteristic of the secondary
period, and now absolutely extinct. I allude to the
so-called Ammonites, the nearest analogue of which
is the Nautilus, an animal most of whose peculiari-
ties of structure are now known, although much has
still to be learnt with regard to its habits. This
animal (the nautilus) is almost our only guide in
working out the various interesting points con-
nected with the extinct but nearly allied group of
which the ammonite is in some respects the most
perfect type.

Reference has already been made, in speaking of
the extinct forms of an earlier period, to the peculiar
groups of cephalopodous animals whose remains are
met with in the older rocks. Of these animals there
are two \vell-marked groups represented at the pre-
sent day, the one by the nautilus, and the other by
the cuttle-fish. Of these, the former (see fig. 53) in-
habits a univalve shell, divided into compartments by

OP CREATION. 139

a kind of internal framework ; but the latter is unpro-
vided with any external defence, and only has an
imperfect skeleton, known Fig. 53

in the common cuttle-
fish as the bone. Of these
two groups the former was
abundantly present in the
ancient seas, as we know
by the fragments that
remain of its solid stony NAUTILUS.

habitation. The latter may or may not have been
equally abundant, since from the nature of the case
its remains could not be so frequently or so well
preserved ; but we know that various species referri-
ble to it existed throughout the secondary period, and
that one genus at least, now extinct, was then ex-
tremely common.

The nautilus is a remarkable and a very interest-
ing genus, belonging to the most highly organized,
not only of shell-bearing animals, but of all Inverte-
brata, and even exceeding some of the fishes in this
respect.

It is one of the group of Cephalopoda,* or ani-
mals whose organs of locomotion are attached im-
mediately around and upon the rim of the mouth or
head. The fore part of the body forms a strong and
wide sheath, each side of which produces a group of
conical processes pierced with openings, through which
prehensile organs or feelers are, at the will of the
animal, projected or retracted. The sheath forming
the base of these organs, which are used both for
locomotion and prehension, is also a pouch, in which is

* See ante, p. 42, and p. 95.

140 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

contained the mouth and the eyes ; and is, in fact,
the head, containing what may be regarded as a
true brain. The rest of the animal is immediately
contiguous, and includes the stomach and other or-
gans ; and all the soft parts are inclosed in what
is called a mantle or sac, a thick muscular skin,
which keeps them together in their places and
enables them to act in concert, but offers no defence
against an external enemy.

The animal of the nautilus, thus constructed, hav-
ing considerable powers of locomotion and a complex
organization, was inclosed in a stony habitation some-
what resembling many common univalve shells. But
such an appendage adds considerably to the specific
gravity of the whole mass which, even without it, could
hardly be lighter than water ; and with it, unless by
some special contrivance, would for ever remain at the
bottom of the sea. The contrivance is a very sim-
ple one, and consists merely in a provision by which,
as the animal grows in size, it from time to time
builds off a cup-shaped wall upon the soft rounded
surface of the hinder part of the body, leaving as
it goes a space behind it, which is occupied only by
air or some gaseous substance, and acts as a float.

Proceeding in this way, and building a succession
of these walls, there is ultimately formed what is
called a chambered shell ; and all the chambers but
the outer one, (that containing the animal,) being filled
with air, are in a condition to support the body
and shell in the water without sinking. A commu-
nication is kept up between the sac inclosing the heart
(the pericardium) and the various chambers by a tube
passing through all the walls in succession ; and it

OF CREATION. 141

has been supposed, although it is by no means
proved, that this tube permits of a change being
effected in the specific gravity of the animal, by
forcing in a small quantity of fluid in addition to
that which the tube generally contains.

The nautilus is a genus which has been almost
universally distributed both in time and space, having
been introduced at a very early period, existing ap-
parently in all parts of the ancient seas, and continued
in some shape or other even up to the present day.
The Cephalopoda, as a group, are, however, chiefly
characteristic of the first and middle epochs ; and one
form was greatly developed during the early portion
of the period we are now considering. The genus
Ammonites, the one here alluded to, may therefore
be properly described when speaking of the lias
fauna. There are, however, certain subdivisions of
the genus as it now stands, which appear confined
to beds of a certain age ; and the annexed figure
represents a group peculiar to the older part of
the secondary epoch.

In the true ammonite the Fi9- 54

shell is spiral, and coiled on
itself in one plane, the whorls
at least touching, and not un-
frequently enclosing one an-
other. It differs from the nau-
tilus in several respects, namely,
(1) in the substance of the shell
itself, which is generally, though
not invariably, much thinner AMMONITE OF THE LIAS.
than in the latter genus ; (2) in (Group FalciferL>
the form of the aperture and the relative proportion

142 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

of the last or outer chamber ; (3) in being frequently
covered with numerous bosses, tubercles, ribs, and
other projections, which greatly ornament the shell,
and of whose use we shall presently speak; (4) in the
nature of the wall of separation between each two
adjacent chambers ; and (5) in the position of the
siphuncle or tube communicating with the various
chambers.

The shell of the ammonite is usually thin, the
outer chamber extends for about two-thirds or more
of an entire whorl, affording a considerable space for
the animal to inhabit ; and the external aperture is
often provided with very singular projections, or is
swelled out, affording, in all probability, a means
of attachment, by which the animal was safely in-
closed within its shell. But as this part seems to
have been generally thin and fragile, it is rarely
preserved in ordinary specimens.

To make up, perhaps, for the thinness of the
shell, and to give additional strength without greatly
increasing the weight, most of the different species of
ammonites are ribbed and covered with tubercles,
which, if we look upon the shell simply as a mecha-
nical contrivance for defending a soft animal, and
consisting of a continuous arch coiled round itself,
served the purposes of transverse arches and domes.
The external surface was greatly strengthened by
such an arrangement, and the nature of the strength
thus communicated it is not difficult to understand.
The introduction of the ribs, which were distributed over
the surface of the shell transversely, corresponds to
the introduction of fluted metal instead of a plane sur-
face, often made use of in machinery when it is wished

OF CREATION. 143

to combine the greatest resisting power with the
smallest weight of material. Additional strength is
also gained by the bosses or elevations of part of
the ribbed surface into dome-shaped tubercles ; for
these, like the vaultings in architecture, give strength
to the surface to be supported, and are therefore
usually placed at those parts of the external shell
beneath which there is no immediate support from
the internal walls which separate the chambers from
one another.

It is, however, chiefly in the arrange- pig. 55
ment and construction of these walls of s

separation (fig. 55), that mechanical con-
trivance seems carried to its height in the
shell of the ammonite ; but here, also,
the contrivance is exceedingly simple,
and merely consists in causing the extre- SEPTUM

P ., ii i ,1 , or Chamber-wall

mities of the walls, where they meet Of an
the shell, to deviate into a variety of AMMONITE.
ramifications and undulating lines. This is singularly
shewn in the progressive change by which the Nauti-
lus (fig. 53, p. 139), where these lines of intersection are
nearly straight, is succeeded by the Clymenia, where
they are decidedly curved ; then by the Goniatite (fig.
40. p. 96), where they become angular ; then again by
the Ceratite (fig. 45, p. 119), where they are rounded
and exhibit a tendency to undulations; and lastly by
the Ammonite, in many species of which * the sinuous
windings of these sutures, at their union with the
external shell, are singularly complicated and beau-

* See figs. 102, 104, where are represented closely allied forms, in
which the nature of the intersection does not diifer from that observed in
the most typical ammonites.

144 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

tiful, adorning it with a succession of most graceful
forms, resembling festoons of foliage and elegant em-
broidery ; so that when, as is often the case, these
thin septa are converted into iron pyrites, their
edges appear like golden filigrane-work, meandering
amid the pellucid spar that fills the chambers of the
shell.*

The mechanical advantage of this contrivance is
considerable, and arises from there being many more
points supported in the case of a wall of this kind,
than by a plane surface, the cause of which will
readily be seen in the wood-cut annexed (fig. 55).
The main object of the empty chambers in all
animals that possess them, is to serve as floats buoy-
ing up the animal and its shell, and reducing the
specific gravity of the whole mass to that of water ;
and the vacant space in the shell, answering the
purpose of a float, must be divided into closed
compartments, because it is built at successive
times as the animal grows and requires additional
support.

The position of the siphuncle — as the tube running
through the whole series of chambers is called — is
another and not unimportant peculiarity in the am-
monite. In the case of the nautilus this tube is of
tolerably large size — often thicker than a quill — and
it passes through the middle of the septa or walls into
the pericardium of the animal. In the ammonite (fig. 5 5,
s) it is often exceedingly small, and always situated
quite on the outside of the shell. Whatever may be
the use of the siphuncle in the nautilus, and that use
is by no means clearly determined, there is no proof

* Buckland's Bridg. Tr., vol. i. p. 347.

OF CREATION. 145

that it could have assisted to raise or sink the animal
in the water in the case of the ammonite.

The cephalopods we have hitherto considered
form a group differing from the common cuttle-
fish in some important anatomical characters, and
having an external shell into which they could retire.
They also differed in the absence of any defensive
contrivance like that possessed by the cuttle-fish,
which is known to emit an inky fluid in order to es-
cape from its enemies. It is probable that all those
species provided with chambered shells belonged, like
the nautilus, to the less highly organized division of
the Cephalopoda, the animals of this group, as is the
case with the other shell-clad mollusca, being gene-
rally too well protected to need any means of tem-
porary concealment. They were doubtless able to
shelter themselves completely within their houses of
stone ; and it is not unlikely that the very act of
retirement into its shell would tend to sink the ani-
mal, by diminishing the quantity of surface exposed
to the water.

But there exists another group of cephalopods
besides those provided with shells, and comprising
animals of higher organization ; obeying in this re-
spect the law which I have already had occasion
to notice, that animals having defensive armour are,
on the whole, not so high in the scale of beings as
those which resemble them in other points of struc-
ture, but whose bodies are naked and apparently
more exposed to danger.

That division of the Cephalopoda which approxi-
mates most nearly to the Vertebrata comprises se-
veral families, of one of which the common cuttle-

H

146 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

fish is an example. Another form, still more re-
markable, is met with in a fossil state, and includes
a vast number of species strictly confined, like the
true ammonites, to the secondary period. It is
known by the name of Belemnites, * and is a most
characteristic and abundant genus.

The cuttle-fish has been already described as pos-
sessing a kind of calcareous skeleton, so ingenious-
ly contrived, (being formed of numerous stages of
thin calcareous plates, kept apart from one another
by the interposition of millions of microscopic pillars,)
as to serve as a float instead of impeding the motions
of the animal. Rendered in this way as light as the
water in which it dwells, the animal moves rapidly
along, either backwards by forcing water through a
tube, or forwards by the aid of a long pair of flat,
broad tentacles, projecting beyond the eight arms
which surround its head. At the approach of danger
it is enabled to sink suddenly ; and at the same time
it throws out, from a singular receptacle called an
ink-bag, a quantity of dark-coloured fluid, in the
obscurity caused by which it is better able to es-
cape from its enemies.

The belemnite has been long known as a solid
calcareous fossil, of a conical shape, more or less
elongated ; and it was also known, that, while the
pointed end of this fossil was solid, the other ex-
tremity enclosed a number of plates like watch-
glasses, fitting into a conical hollow. Specimens too
had been found, especially in the lias, where a consi-
derable portion of thin horny sheath extended beyond
the ordinary termination of the shell, and beyond the

* BsXs^vav (belcmnon), a dart.

OF CREATION. 147

conical receptacle of the plates. The belemnite, in
fact, was known to consist of a chambered shell,
like the Orthoceratite, contained in another shell of
curious structure, and had been supposed to belong
to an animal like the nautilus.

The first evidence by which any direct light was
thrown on the nature of the animal provided with
this shell, was detected by Dr. Buckland and M.
Agassiz, who examined some specimens of belem-
nite, in which a fossil ink-bag, and the duct or pen
by which the ink was shot out into the water, was
preserved in the outer chamber of the shell. It must
be remembered that the ink-bag has not been
found in any specimen of ammonite or nautilus,
and is apparently a necessary adjunct to the naked
cephalopods of high organization ; so that, on this
discovery of its presence in the belemnite, it became
probable that the shell had been internal, and that
the animal belonged to the group of more highly
organized Cephalopoda, and not that in which the
nautilus and ammonite were classed.

After this discovery of the ink-bag, it seemed
that little more could be expected in the way of de-
termining the habit of the belemnite, till it was
also made out from specimens in foreign beds that
the animal must have extended considerably beyond
the shell. Fortunately, however, in some specimens
recently obtained,* not only the ink-bag, but the
muscular mantle, the head, and its crown of arms,

* These specimens are from the Oxford clay, and the animal and its
shell will be again alluded to and figured when treating of the fossils of
the Oolitic period. It is referred to here as being a common lias fossil,
and as one of the early and most remarkable associates of the ammonite.

H 2

148 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

are all preserved in connexion with the belemnitic
shell, while one specimen exhibits the large eyes and
the funnel of the animal, and the remains of two
fins, in addition to the shell and the ink-bag. We
are thus furnished with distinct proof of the true
nature and analogies of this singular creature, and we
learn from ocular evidence that it combined the cha-
racters at present divided between three distinct
genera. It possessed a calcareous, internal, cham-
bered shell, like the Sepia ; it was provided with a
formidable apparatus of hooks upon the arms, charac-
teristic of the modern genus Onychoteuthis (the most
powerful and rapacious of the cuttle-fish tribe, and
the one provided with the most singularly powerful
and complicated contrivances to ensure the destruc-
tion of its prey) ; and, thirdly, it had the peculiar at-
tachment of the fins, in a position a little in advance
of the middle of the body, seen in the Sepiola.

The belemnite, having the advantage of a dense
but well-balanced internal shell, must have exercised
the power of swimming backwards and forwards with
great vigour and precision. Its position no doubt was
generally vertical ; it would rise swiftly and stealthily
to fix its claws in the belly of a fish, and then perhaps
as swiftly dart down to the bottom and devour it.
On the approach of danger, it could suddenly shoot
out its black inky fluid, and hide itself from an
enemy; and whether we consider the large dimensions
it attained, its muscular energy, its singular contri-
vance of hooks in connexion with powerful suckers,
its powers of locomotion or its facility of concealment,
it must have been the most formidable and preda-
ceous animal of its class, and has probably never

OF CREATION. 149

been excelled in strength or vigour by any of the
Invertebrata.

The ammonites and belemnites are both so charac-
teristic of the lias, and so remarkable in themselves,
that they claimed some detailed description in an
account of the various groups of animals of that
period, no longer existing upon the earth. They
seem to have chiefly abounded, or at any rate are
most commonly preserved, in those beds of the se-
condary epoch which indicate a moderately deep
sea with a muddy bottom, and their remains are
then so abundant, as to form in some cases complete
strata of themselves. They may indeed be said to
equal in number the Orthoceratite remains in the
older rocks ; but the ammonites were in reality the
representatives of these straight but external shells,
the belemnites being superadded and of higher organ-
ization.

Besides the fragments of shells, and other remains
of invertebrated animals already described, we find
also in the lias a very abundant supply of Ichthy-
olites,* or fossil remains of fishes of various kinds,
the most abundant of them belonging either to a
peculiar family of sharks, or to tribes character-
ised by their coating of enamelled scale and bone,
and the entire absence of true skin. Of the former of
these fishes we only find the teeth and the remains
of peculiar spines •(• (Ichthyodorulites, fig. 56) which
had been attached beneath the skin in the flesh; so
that there are no very certain grounds by which

(iclithys), a fish ; \iQog (lithos, unde lite), a stone. The ter-
mination lite is constantly made use of in Geology to indicate a fossil body.
f See ante, p. 100.

150 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

we can deduce the details of structure, or even
the form of the species, and the general dimen-
sions to which it attained. But the spines just

alluded to are
very interesting
fossils, and re-
quire further de-
scription, since
remains of this
kind are exceed-
ingly numerous
and varied, and
ICTHYODORULITE. theiruseis known

to us from the

examination of a shark confined at present to the seas
which wash the shores of Australia.

In this animal, which is called the " Port Jackson
Shark," the general form of the tribe to which it
belongs, the position of the mouth on the under side
of the body, the habit of extreme voracity, &c., are
all retained ; and in order, as it would seem, that
it may possess an unusual facility in turning itself in
the water to take its prey, (which can only be done
when the mouth is uppermost, and the body there-
fore inverted) there is added to the ordinary appa-
ratus of fins, a moveable one on the back, of con-
siderable dimensions, worked by a spine — a kind of
mast — which is inserted simply, but deeply, through
the skin into the flesh, and is elevated when neces-
sary by a muscular effort. When this spine is ele-
vated, it lifts with it the fin, and instantly begins
to act, assisting and rendering more rapid the turn-
ing of the whole fish. It is a curious fact, that the

OF CREATION. 151

structure of these spines, as seen under the micros-
cope, is hardly to be distinguished from that of teeth ;
and in this way, an almost anomalous contrivance,
introduced, doubtless, for a special purpose, is found
to resemble a totally different organ, adapted for pur-
poses altogether distinct and peculiar. The spines
may also have served as defensive weapons, but are
not likely to have anything to do with ordinary loco-
motion. They produce a sudden and considerable
impulse corresponding to the great muscular energy
of these creatures, and prevent the delay that would
necessarily arise if the animal had to check its motion
through the water while pursuing and when in the
act of capturing its prey. Spines on the backs of
sharks are not confined to one genus, but seem to
have been common appendages to the dorsal fins of
most of the ancient species. Being hard, indestruc-
tible, and readily detached after death, they have
often been preserved in a fossil state ; and from their
variable markings, deep furrows, and hooked teeth,
we are able to determine a large number of species of
these long extinct animals. Unfortunately, since the
teeth — almost the only other hard part of sharks —
are not found directly associated with the spines, we
may probably often describe and name the same
species twice over, especially when the specimens
are from the same strata, since we are not in a
condition to determine the relation that may have
existed between the two kinds of organic remains.
The sharks of the lias attained a large size, and
were exceedingly abundant and voracious.

The other fishes of the lias, most remarkable for
their number or peculiarity of form, are of much

152 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

smaller size, and belonging to another order. They
are also so completely enclosed in coats of mail,
that their perfect form is handed down as frequently
as the teeth and spines of the others. A fish called
Dapedius,* from the regular manner in which the
large scales are arranged, like a paved surface, on
the back, is exceedingly common in the lias in
some parts of England, and must have been very
abundant. It had a wide, flat, and broad body,
covered with large, regular, and nearly square scales,
coated with enamel, and a regularly formed tail,
of which the scales were oblong ; but one of its most
striking peculiarities consisted in the form of the
bones of the head, the jaws being short, and the
lower one broad, and almost as high as long, while its
fore part was depressed towards the middle, to re-
ceive the upper jaw. These and the other bones of
the mouth, and the whole of the palate, were thickly
covered with many successive rows of teeth, gra-
dually becoming smaller as they receded within the
cavity of the mouth. All the external bones of the
head were thickly coated with hard and bright ena-
mel strongly marked with granulations. These bones
were quite naked, neither flesh nor skin being needed
for a surface so defended.

Besides a large number of species of this and
a closely allied genus (Tetragonolepis^}, there were
many others also provided with enamelled scales, and
a good number of representatives of the family of
sauroid fish, although the latter did not attain the

* AaTTfcW (dapedon), a pavement.

*f* From the shape of the scales : <nr^a,yuvas (tetragonos) , quadrangular;
(/.epis), a scale.

OF CREATION.

153

magnitude or importance that they possessed in the
more ancient seas. The Pachycormus^ however,
of which there are at least nine species found in
England (chiefly at Whitby), must in some cases
have been a most formidable animal for it grew to
a considerable size, and was provided with power-
ful rows of sharp teeth; while the Lepidotus^ belong-
ing to another group, was represented by ten lias
species, and a still greater number of oolitic ones,
and, although not so large as the Pachycormus, was
doubtless an important fish. A restored representa-
tion of the latter genus is given in the next chapter.

Among the other lias fishes, there were one or two
very remarkable Rays, one of them supposed to have
possessed some curious analogies with the sharks:
these are of moderately large size, but, as might be
expected with an animal whose skeleton is so soft,
the remains are extremely rare, but the knowledge of
their existence is a very interesting point. The form
of the scale of this fish is represented in fig. 21, p. 61.

On the whole, it does not appear, either from the
general character of the lias invertebrate animals
(such as the encrinites, the crustaceans and the
molluscs) or from the fishes, that this deposit took
place in deep water. We might conclude rather,
both from the general character, and also from the
nature of the bed, and the vast abundance of fossils
in particular spots, that it was a rapidly forming
shoal, or mud-bank, or perhaps a great bay like the
Yellow Sea, with land at no great distance, the resort
of a vast number of such animals as commonly inhabit

* Ho^y; (pachys), thick ; xo^og (kormos\ a block or stump : from
the clumsy appearance of the fish.

H 5

154 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

localities of that kind, and also of the predatory and
voracious races that pursue and devour them. Let
us turn now to the consideration of the animals of
higher organization, and endeavour to learn from their
remains, so far as they are handed down for our in-
vestigation, how far they will help us to determine
the problem of the true nature of the lias fauna.

Reptiles, as they exist at present, are convenient-
ly grouped into five principal subdivisions, character-
ised respectively by the crocodiles, the lizards, the
tortoises and turtles, the serpents, and the frogs.
Among these, there are none which are so organized
that the open sea can be called their chief habitation,
none are provided with any apparatus by which they
can support themselves in the air like birds, and none
exhibit a distinct connecting link with the quadru-
peds, by the possession of such locomotive organs
as raise them above the ground in any proportion
to their absolute magnitude. The whole number
of species of these animals now known is also not
very considerable, and they can hardly be said to
perform a part of great importance in the eco-
nomy of the globe.* We have already stated, in
the account of the palseozoic period, that interesting

* Animals of this kind appear to be chiefly abundant, and to attain the
largest dimensions, in those hot districts, chiefly intertropical, where the
banks of large rivers are occasionally overflowed, and where extensive
tracts not much raised above the sea level are sometimes clothed with rich
vegetation, sometimes consist of bare hard clay, and sometimes of soft mud.
The larger crocodiles and alligators especially inhabit the muddy districts :
in the rainy season they appear and range about, preying on the various
animals that approach the water ; but in the hot dry season they retire,
and become so coated with hardened mud, as even to escape being seen
by the traveller.

OF CREATION. 155

examples of these animals had already been intro-
duced amongst the inhabitants of our globe, and that
the lacertian type — that exhibited in the lizards of
the present day — had been selected, with certain modi-
fications, as the model of structure. We also found
that not only was this lizard type continued with
a very remarkable bird-like modification during the
triassic or new red sandstone period, but that it was
then also represented by a curious and gigantic group
of animals, whose analogies point rather to the frog
and salamander than to any other existing reptiles,
although some species attained the dimensions of the
crocodile, and exhibited also points of affinity to that
higher group.

But the new red sandstone, or rather the shelly
limestone occurring in the middle of the sandy beds
of that formation on the Continent, also contains
some fragments, not only of teeth but of bones, which
indicate very distinctly the presence of a crocodilian
animal, whose extremities, being reduced almost to
the condition of paddles, could not have allowed the
creature to walk about readily on land. It was,
doubtless, an aquatic form ; but, as the crocodile of
the Ganges and some of the alligators of the pre-
sent day are also aquatic, there is in this no abso-
lute departure from a known and recognized rep-
tilian habit.

It still remains to be seen how far this Notho-
saurus, * as it is called, a spurious kind of saurian,
was related to the crocodiles, and whether it formed
a passage into a group differently characterised, and
so constructed as to live almost exclusively in the

* Na$3j (nothos)) illegitimate, or spurious ; truu^; (scmros), a lizard.

156 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

sea, obtaining there only the means of subsist-
ence.

Such a group as this existed at the time of the
deposit of the lias, and is there represented by two
genera perfectly distinct from one another, each ex-
hibiting several well-marked species, and both pre-
sent in most extraordinary abundance. The per-
fect skeletons of various species belonging to each
genus have been occasionally found embedded in
the rock, and other specimens have been obtained
in all degrees of preservation ; so that it is clear
that the animals must have lived long and multiplied
greatly in the seas which covered a great part of
what is now land in the northern hemisphere, shortly
after the completion of the deposit of the new red
sandstone.

The most essential character in these animals, is
that they were exclusively marine in their habits ;
not merely taking refuge in the water occasionally,
like most of the crocodiles, or seeking their prey
there, and then, when gorged, coming ashore to sleep
in the marshes and jungle ; but adapted in all re-
spects to make use of the sea as their permanent
habitation, and only resorting to land from time to
time, probably to deposit their eggs, which would after-
wards be hatched by the sun.* They formed a dis-
tinct group, having the same relation to other reptiles
that the animals of the whale tribe bear to other
mammals ; exhibiting in all essential points the struc-
ture of their order, but yet having this structure so

* It is not indeed certain that these animals were oviparous, but this
must be considered the most probable conclusion, at least without better
evidence to the contrary than has yet been presented.

OF CREATION. 157

adapted as to permit the animal to live in a different
element. We shall see presently the kind of modifi-
cations made use of for this purpose.

The PLESIOSAURUS*" is the name given to the one
of these animals we shall first describe. The name
is applied in consequence of its offering in many
points strong analogies with the other reptiles ;
but these are not sufficiently close to prevent it from
exhibiting a form most strange and anomalous, and
a structure equally remarkable, and differing consi-
derably from that of any other animal.

Fig. 57

RESTORED OUTLINE OF PLESIOSAURUS.

The most striking and manifest peculiarity in the
Plesiosaurus consists in the enormous length of the
neck, which, in some species, not only exceeds in ab-
solute dimensions, but also in its proportion to the size
of the animal, that of the longest-necked quadruped
or bird. But the perfect mobility of this neck, of
which we may form an idea by the number of joints
it possesses, was no less remarkable. The giraffe,
the longest -necked quadruped we are acquainted with,
has only seven vertebrse of the neck, not differing
in this respect from the other mammals ; the swan,
the longest-necked bird, has twenty- three : but the

* Tlx»<r;av (plesion)^ near or resembling ; o-ixvgo; (sawros), a reptile.

158 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

Plesiosaur is known, from some admirably preserved
specimens, to have had upwards of thirty, and perhaps
as many as forty. In its proportions, the neck in one
species measures four times the length of the head,
and actually exceeds the entire length of the body
and tail. It was apparently thick and muscular
near the body, but gradually became slender towards
the head, which was small, and sometimes singular-
ly disproportioned in size to the other parts of the
animal.

The head thus reduced in size exhibits, how-
ever, rather a high type of organization. It offers
some of the peculiarities which characterise the li-
zard, especially in the wide interspaces left between
the bones; in the existence of a strong crest along
the middle of the skull, indicating that the jaws
were worked as in lizards and not as in crocodiles ;
in the structure of the lower jaw ; and in the ab-
sence of a cross ridge on the fore part of the skull. But
in its general form, in the strength and size of the
bones of the face and jaws, in the rugged outer sur-
face of the bones, and in the sockets for the teeth,
there is a distinct and well-marked approximation
to the crocodile.

In the size and position of the breathing-holes, or
external nostrils, we find, however, a marked and
interesting difference from all existing reptiles, and
a strong analogy to the corresponding part in animals
allied to the whale, offering a beautiful example of
adaptation of structure presented in very different
animals, but producing similar results and supplying
similar exigences. These apertures are placed near
the highest part of the head, where they would enable

OF CREATION.

159

the animal most readily to breathe, without exposing
anything more than the apertures themselves above
the water, corresponding admirably with the marine
habits of the animal, as indicated by the structure of
its extremities.

The jaws of the Plesiosaur are strong and rather
spoon-shaped ; they were provided with a large num-
ber of teeth — probably not less than a hundred —
which were conical, slender, long, and pointed, slight-
ly bent inwards, and deeply grooved. These teeth
had long fangs, and were planted in separate sockets,
as in the crocodile. They could also be repeatedly
and indefinitely renewed. It is probable that the
animal could, like some serpents, swallow prey ac-
tually larger than the size of its head, the bones being
so little attached that the cavity of the mouth could
become greatly dilated by a violent effort. There
can be no doubt that the habits of the animal were
strictly carnivorous.

The long neck, gra-
dually swelling as it
receded from the head,
and provided with false
ribs, passed perhaps al-
most insensibly into the
body, which, though
of small size, is ex-
ceedingly compact and
strongly put together.
The back-bone, from
the neck to the com-
mencement of the tail,
includes from about

Fig. 53

VERTEBRAE OF PLESIOSAURUS.

160 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

twenty-five to thirty vertebrae (fig. 58), which, like
those of the neck, present to each other nearly flat
surfaces ; and the tail, which was of moderate length
but very powerful, had an additional twenty-five, also
flattened in a similar way. All the vertebrae had
strong and large processes or projecting plates of
bone for the attachment of muscles (see fig. 58).

The trunk and extremities of this singular animal
present many points of interest, especially with re-
gard to contrivances introduced to meet the wants of
a marine reptilian animal.

The ribs of vertebrate animals are, properly speak-
ing, appendages to the vertebrae, one pair being usual-
ly developed from each vertebra, to approach or meet
on the under side of the animal. The Plesiosaurus,
however, was provided with sets of bones, each set
consisting of seven, which connected these free ex-
tremities, rendering them very strong, but also al-
lowing a considerable amount of play, since the
connecting bones could slide upon one another. This
contrivance admitted of much greater expansion of
the lungs than is common in reptiles.

The portion of the body corresponding to the
breast-bone, and connecting the fore extremities with
the vertebral column, is strong but not complicated,
and appears better adapted for allowing free mo-
tion in the paddles, and so propelling the animal
through the water, than for supporting the weight of
the body on land. Nearly the same may be said
of the pelvis, which supports the hind extremity,
and which exhibits about a corresponding degree
of strength. There is also a beautiful contrivance
enabling the animal to make use of its extremities

OP CREATION. 161

to some purpose even on land, and in this respect
the Plesiosaur was indeed much better provided than
the seal.

The extremities themselves do not differ very
greatly from those of some of the cetaceans, but
they were longer, more tapering, and seem to have
possessed greater flexibility. There are stout and
moderately long bones corresponding to the shoulder
and thigh bone, a couple of short and flat bones which
represent the bones of the fore-arm and the lower part
of the leg, and then a succession of bones, oblong and
flattened, and extending to some distance, which were
enclosed entirely within the skin during the life of
the animal, and which formed the solid part of the
paddle.

There are several very distinct varieties of form
in the different species of Plesiosaurus, and amongst
them are some in which the head is far larger in
proportion, the neck shorter and thicker, and the
body more expanded. Others again are remarkable
for the large dimensions of the paddles ; and others
for different modifications of structure, but all agree
sufficiently in the principal character^, and teach us
with equal distinctness what were the general habits
of the animal. The specimens indicate also very
different sizes; but, since in all reptiles the limit of
growth is much less strongly determined, and the
increase much greater, than in more highly organized
animals, it will be sufficient to state that the largest
complete specimen yet found is about eighteen feet
in length, but that there are fragments of indivi-
duals which would seem to have been nearly twice as
large.

162 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

The Plesiosaurus was highly carnivorous in its ha-
bits, and no doubt fed indiscriminately on whatever
came within reach, whether living or dead. Its
powers of locomotion in the water were great, and
its strength must have been formidable; but it had
an enemy in the Ichthyosaurus* from which there
was probably little chance of escape. We have
good reason to suppose that it could move about on
shore, and it probably did so with greater facility
than the seal or walrus ; but it is not likely that it
resorted frequently to the land, since the sea appears
to have been its more congenial habitat.

The animal just mentioned as the fierce and pow-
erful enemy of the Plesiosaurus, which was itself a
voracious reptile attaining a length of from ten to
thirty feet, belongs unquestionably to a most re-
markable and anomalous genus, but departed, per-
haps, much less considerably than the other from
the present external form of marine animals. With
the exception of a larger head, and paddles some-
what more developed, it was not very unlike the
porpoise in its appearance, but it was a true reptile,
adapted for constant residence in the sea, and in
that respect claims comparison as being the ancient
analogue and representative of the great existing
tribe of marine mammalia, of which the whale is
perhaps the best known type,

The head of the Ichthyosaurus was in all cases
large compared with the general proportions of the
body, and in general form it resembled that of the
dolphin, the chief part of its magnitude consisting of
a greatly elongated snout, like that of some of the

(icldliys], a fish ; faults (saurus), a reptile.

OF CREATION.

163

aquatic crocodiles of the present day. The jaws
are long, comparatively slender, and tapering to the
extremity. Along their whole length on both sides

Fig. 59

ICHTHYOSAURUS.
(Side View of the Skull.)

there is a continuous row of conical teeth of large
size, not inserted in separate sockets, but placed in a
kind of trough cut in the jaw, and merely separated
from one another by a ridge of bone. These teeth
were constantly removed and replaced by new ones
during the whole life of the animal.

The structure of the lower jaw indicates a mecha-
nical contrivance of some interest, intimately con-
nected with the wants and habits of the animal.
The jaws themselves are, as we have seen, long and
slender. The teeth show that the animal was fierce
and voracious, and analogy teaches us that in such
cases the jaws must close suddenly on their prey with
a snap, in order to ensure a proper hold being ob-
tained. But a slender lower jaw, however strong,
would be very easily broken when brought in con-
tact with hard bodies, such as the solid enamelled
plates enclosing some of the fish of the liassic period.
By a complicated apparatus of several pieces of bone,

164

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

arranged so as to distribute in some measure the ne-
cessary shock arising from the convulsive jerk made
while the animal was in the act of seizing its prey,
we have this purpose effected in several of the exist-
ing reptiles ; but something more than this seems to
have been needed by the Icthyosaur, since it exhibits
an example of cross bracing, adding greatly to the
effective strength without increasing the weight. By
simply introducing a change of direction in the grain,
as it is called, or fibre of the bone, this purpose is
accomplished, so that the animal was enabled to
snap with safety at the hardest and most solid sub-
stance that came within its reach. The jaws of some
specimens must have been upwards of six feet in
length.

The most remarkable peculiarities in the head of
this fish-reptile besides the jaws are the size and
structure of the eye, the smallness of the brain, the
separation of the different bones of which the skull is
made up, and the position of the nostrils.

The orbital cavities which contained the eyes are
of immense size, their circumference including several
distinct bones (see fig. 59), and provided with plates
of bone partly covering the eye, and overlapping one
another so as to leave a variable aperture for the
pupil. There are instances in which these orbits
are eighteen inches across, or, in other words, so
large, that it would require a string of nearly five
feet long to surround the cavity of the eye.

The eyes were placed far back on the head and
behind the snout, with the nostrils or breathing holes
just in front, so that each time that the animal came
to the surface to breathe, the eyes and nostrils, but

OF CREATION. 165

no other parts of the head or body, would be brought
into the air. There can be no question that a
voracious animal like the Ichthyosaur, obliged from
time to time to appear above water, and perhaps
occasionally to come on shore, required an extraor-
dinary provision, enabling it not only to see, but to
see distinctly, everything passing around it. It was
thus provided with a peculiar apparatus, enabling it to
adapt its vision not only to shallow but to deep water,
and not only to water but to air. This apparatus
effected its purpose by permitting a change of shape
of the pupil of the eye, according as circumstances
required ; the pupil dilating at great depths, where
but little light is transmitted, the shape flattening
to allow of distant vision on shore, and the whole
eye pushed forwards to enable its owner to sec
objects close at hand, thus affording every variety
of action to this important organ. The bony
scales which enclosed and defended the soft ball of
the eye most resemble what is seen in the golden
eagle and some other birds of prey, and may be
best understood by a comparison with the scales of
the artichoke. The structure is characteristic of
reptiles rather than of fishes, and amongst reptiles
is most remarkably shewn in the lizard tribe.

The head was connected immediately with the body
in the Ichthyosaur, the neck being scarcely percep-
tible, as is the case with fishes and whales. The
back-bone, which is thus almost directly attached to
the skull, is made up of about fifty double concave
vertebrae (fig. 60), exceedingly unlike those of any land
animal, but nearly resembling the corresponding parts
of fishes, though at the same time clearly distinguish-

166

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES.

able. It may be necessary to remind the reader,
that in quadrupeds generally, and in birds, these
vertebrae not only present flat surfaces to one another,
but are more or less firmly con-
nected by the interlocking of pro-
jecting bones or processes. In the
reptiles generally there is a recess
on one side of each surface, consist-
ing of a cup-shaped Jiollow into
which a corresponding ball of the
adjacent vertebra fits and works.
In the Plesiosaurus, as I have al-
ready described, this is absent, and
the bones present simple, flat, or
very slightly doubly concave sur-
faces to each other; but in the
Ichthyosaurus and in fishes the
two cup-shaped hollows are deep
and strongly marked (figs. 60, 61), so that there was
considerable interspace between the centre of two
Fig. 61 adjacent vertebrae. This interspace is
filled with fluid in the case of fishes
and the Ichthyosaur, allowing of those
minute but incessant and very impor-
tant lateral motions by which the fish,
supported and floating in the water
without effort, moves itself readily in
every direction. In this respect, therefore, the
Ichthyosaur had the advantage of all reptiles, for,
being an inhabitant of the sea, it was provided with
the same power of ready motion and great flexibility
as the fishes themselves.

But still this strange monster was a reptile. To

ICHTHYOSAURUS.
(Vertebra.)

OF CREATION. 167

the vertebrse thus constructed were attached not only
true ribs, but a continued series of them along the
whole length of the body, enclosing the great cavities
of the heart, abdomen, &c., with a perfect vaulting
of elastic bone. Across the chest these ribs are con-
nected by intermediate bones, each set consisting of
five, overlapping each other as in the Plesiosaur,
and doubtless performing a similar office.* But in
the Ichthyosaurus the breast-bone to which these
ribs were attached presents some peculiarities ex-
ceedingly remarkable and characteristic.

In the whale tribe the breast-bone is developed
so as to enclose the complicated apparatus of lung
necessary for air-breathing warm-blooded animals,
having a complete circulation ; but in the true ma-
rine reptiles this is by no means the case, and we
find that, although this apparatus of the breast-bone
is present, it is so in order that it may form a support
and a point of resistance to the fore-paddles of the
animal.

In this respect again there is another curious
analogy between the Ichthyosaur and the Duck-
billed Platypus or Ornithorhynchm of Australia,
one of the most anomalous of living animals, which
seems to require the same kind of contrivance, and
possesses it in a nearly similar manner. •(•

* Nineteen pairs of ribs have been found thus connected in one speci-
men of Ichthyosaurus from Lyme Regis.

t The bones which correspond to the shoulder bone are articulated to
a short and stout scapula (shoulder blade) like that of birds ; the fore
part of this is fixed both to the clavicle (or collar-bone), and to the bone
corresponding with the breast bone, while the other receives the extremity
of the humerus (shoulder bone) , and is also attached to another bone pro-
ceeding from the blade-bone, and in man merely forming a projecting sur-

168 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

The hinder extremities, although strong, do not
exhibit any special contrivance, and were not at-
tached with unusual strength to the back-bone and
the sacrum, so that it appears that the habits and
necessities connecting this creature with the fishes
have been here chiefly considered. The hinder ex-
tremities are also usually smaller than the others. In
serpents we have a similar arrangement ; but in that
case the extremities are merely rudimentary, and are
of no use to the animal in locomotion.

The paddles or fins by which the Ichthyosaurus
made its way throu'gh the water are very curious
and interesting, for they are perhaps more perfect
modifications of the true fish structure to the habits
of an animal occasionally coming on shore, than any
that can be referred to in nature. They at the same
time exhibit the true reptilian structure of the
animal, and thus show us how perfectly and yet how
simply the legs of a quadruped and the fins of a fish
are still formed according to a similar law of develop-
ment, although intended for such different purposes,
and presenting such very different appearances.

We have already considered the peculiar apparatus
by which the paddles are made to rest upon the
back-bone by means of a sternum or breast-bone
affording a resisting power, but not connected with
the ribs. It remains now to consider the form and
structure of the fin or paddle itself.

face upon it. These latter bones again also articulate with the breast-
bone, so that there is a double attachment, rendering the whole more secure,
and providing a resisting surface, against which the extremities may safely
press with the whole weight of the animal, without these parts yielding
inwards and pressing against the soft muscular masses.

OF CREATION.

169

The shoulder-bone, already alluded to, works upon
a kind of blade-bone, but is not
fitted into a deep socket. Its
form somewhat resembles that
of the corresponding bone in
birds; and this bone, as well
as the two which represent
the fore-arm, are distinct, but
very short and broad in pro-
portion to their length, espe-
cially the two latter, which
are often nearly round, and
sometimes broader than they
are long. Then come a num-
ber of small round bones, which
represent those of the wrist,
and complete two ill-defined
rows. After them succeed a
multitude of little bones (see
figure), arranged in distinct
rows and fitting one another,
but not exhibiting any mark
of that division into fingers,
which may be traced in the
skeleton even of the most aquatic of the mammalia.
The bones increase in number as they diminish in
size, to the termination of the paddle. They form
from three to six series, and are so dovetailed toge-
ther as to constitute an uniformly resisting framework,
acting as a simple oar.

Such was the skeleton of this fin, or paddle, as
made known by various examples, some of them
quite perfect ; but we are fortunately in a condition to

ICHTHYOSAURUS.
(Restored Paddle.)

170 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

tell yet more of its structure, and thence deduce
more clearly the habits of the animal. In one speci-
men of the paddle (fig. 62), obtained from Barrow-
upon-Soar, in Leicestershire, not only the bones, but
the actual outlines of the extremity of the fin, are
clearly defined, and are found to exhibit the impres-
sion of a number of rays extending downwards and
forking off towards the end. It is clear, from the
extreme rarity of their preservation, that these rays
were not bony, and they were probably either cartila-
ginous, or formed of that albuminous horn-like tissue,
of which the marginal rays of the shark's fin consist.
The fore part of the fin was terminated by a small
unbroken and well-defined line, probably only a thick-
ening of the skin; and the dimensions of the soft part,
compared with the skeleton, show that the total length
of the extremity would be about half as much again
as that of its bony and solid portion.

The tail of the Ichthyosaurus was of great length,
the number of vertebrae extending beyond the hinder
extremities being very much greater than half the
whole number possessed by the animal. At about
the 30th vertebra from the pelvis there have been
observed, in most of the more perfect specimens, dis-
tinct marks of a fracture, this portion of the tail being
generally bent off at an angle. -At the same point,
too, there is generally a slight displacement of a few
of the bones. This, however, is not all. At the
point thus indicated a modification of the form of
the vertebra has been observed, so that the rest
(forming the tail) have a somewhat oblong shape,
just the reverse of what is known to occur in the
whale, where these bones are a little flattened. Now

OF CREATION. 1 71

in the whales there is a powerful horizontal tail, by
the beating of which up and down against the water,
the animal is enabled at once to sink or raise itself in
the water with extreme rapidity and force ; but the
only indication of such a tail in the skeleton consists
of this slight flattening in a horizontal direction.
From the position and regularity of appearance of the
fractured tail of the Ichthyosaurus, and from the shape
of the vertebrse, it has been concluded that this animal
was provided with a long vertical tail, like that of
fishes*; and, as we know that it was amply provided
with paddles which would enable it to rise or sink
very readily, such a tail would be of the greatest
possible utility in producing rapid motion through
the water — a power possessed to an almost incredible
extent by some of the larger and more voracious fishes,
such as the shark, and one which in them transcends
any locomotive power that man has yet been able
to attain, exceeding even that which birds possess in
their familiar element the air. It should not be for-
gotten that a powerful vertical tail would be almost
necessary to the Ichthyosaurus to enable it to turn with
precision and rapidity, so that its elongated head
should be able to make a sudden and sure seizure
of the anticipated prey.

Having now mentioned successively the most strik-
ing peculiarities of each part of the skeleton of this
animal, and having even drawn conclusions with

* After the death of the animal the vertebral column would very soon
tend to fall asunder, owing to the absence of connecting processes, and the
deep interspaces filled with fluid that existed between each pair of verte-
brae. The mere weight of a vertical tail falling on one side would thus
drag with it a portion of the bony series, and produce the dislocation so
often observed.

i 2

172 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

regard to such parts as the cartilaginous fins of the
paddle, and the position and shape of the tail, or
rather tail-fin, the reader will naturally conclude that
the subject is exhausted, and that it remains only to
sum up into a general view these various details. But
the case is not so. We have seen that in this bed'of
fine mud, the bodies of animals were deposited and
preserved so completely, that the skeletons, after the
soft parts had decayed, retained their relative position,
exhibiting all the important points of structure. Cir-
cumstances, however, sometimes occurred by which
individuals, overtaken perhaps by sudden destruction,
have been at once embedded, a perfect cast being
formed of every part, internal as well as external, so
that the skin, the contents of the stomach, its propor-
tional magnitude and other details, may be learnt
by careful study of the specimens thus embalmed and
handed down to us. But, before dwelling upon these
obscure and minute points, there are others to be men-
tioned scarcely less curious, resulting from the conti-
nued resort of great families of these monsters to par-
ticular spots. Possibly these spots may have been
good feeding-ground, and favourable for the deve-
lopment of the larger mollusca and fishes, or the pre-
sence of shallows and neighbouring land may have
been especially advantageous for breeding; but, at
any rate, it is certain that we find, here and there,
localities where vast multitudes of pellets of an oval
shape and various size are accumulated. These pellets
often contain fragments of bone, teeth, or fish scales,
and are now recognized as being beyond question the
fossilized dung of the great marine reptiles. They
are spoken of by Geologists under the name of Co-

OF CREATION.

173

prolites,* or dung-stones (fig. 63). From the exami-
nation of these fossils it is easy to determine the
nature of the food of the animals and 'some other
points ; and when, as happened occasionally, the ani-
mal was killed while the process of p. 63
digestion was going on, the stomach
and intestines being partly filled with
half digested food, and exhibiting the
coprolites actually in situ, we can
make out with certainty, not only
the true nature of the food, but the
proportionate size of the stomach,
and the length and nature of the
intestinal canal.

Within the cavity of the ribs
of an extinct animal, the palaeon-
tologist thus finds recorded in in-
delible characters some of those hie-
roglyphics upon which he founds his history. He
learns, that of this animal, manifestly well adapt-
ed for the most predaceous habits, the stomach formed
a pouch of prodigious size, extending through nearly
the entire cavity of the body. It was therefore of a
capacity well proportioned to the powerful jaws and
teeth which were admirably and beautifully con-
trived to supply its wants. With this enormous
stomach, there was, however, very little room for a
corresponding intestinal canal, and it is interesting to
find the shape of the coprolites distinctly showing
that this part of the animal economy in the Ichthyo-
saurus, as in the most voracious of the existing fishes,

* KoTrpoc (copras), dung ; \i9oc (lithos), a stone. There are strata,
many square miles in extent, almost made np of these fossils.

COPROLITE.

174 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

consisted of a flattened tube, twisted into a spiral or
corkscrew form, and reduced to the smallest possible
dimensions.

Judging from the existing reptiles, and the gigan-
tic sauroid fishes of the older period, it might per-
haps have been anticipated that the marine saurians,
of which the Ichthyosaurus is one of the most import-
ant genera, should be provided with hard bony plates,
or scutes, as they are called, at once enclosing and
defending the animal. The absence of such scutes
among the fossils of the lias, which has not only
retained and handed down all the hard parts in great
abundance and perfection, but exhibits even some of
the softer portions of the body, would alone render
this questionable. But the doubt has been completely
justified by the discovery of actual portions of the un-
defended skin, which, preserving the analogy with the
cetaceans, appears to have been naked, of considerable
thickness, and covered with minute folds and wrinkles
on the belly, instead of scales.

Fig. 64

ICHTHYOSAURUS.
(Restored Outline.)

On the whole, then, the Ichthyosaurus may be de-
scribed as an air-breathing reptile, which sometimes
attained a length of thirty to forty feet, which was co-
vered like a whale with smooth, naked, thick skin, and

OF CREATION. 175

whose place of ordinary habitation was the open sea.
Its head was large and somewhat like that of the
dolphin, but its general form, no less than the par-
ticular contrivances of the jaws and teeth, were truly
crocodilian. Associated with this crocodilian head,
we find enormous eagle-like eyes, carefully defended
and made admirably efficient by an apparatus of bony
scales, permitting distant vision in the air, near the sur-
face of the water, and in the dim abysses of the ocean.
The body of this creature was perfectly flexible and
fish-like, but, instead of fins, it had two pair of very
powerful paddles, permitting of the utmost freedom
of motion in swimming, and forming not inconvenient
limbs to assist in locomotion on land. A large and
efficient vertical tail completed this strange mixture
of fish, reptile, and whale, and, though no living
representative exists not merely of its genus, but even
of the great natural order to which it belongs, it once
played no unimportant part in extensive tracts of
ocean, which soon after the commencement of the
secondary period covered that part of the northern
hemisphere now occupied by the continent and islands
of Europe.

Towards the close of the deposit of the great mass
of red sandstone and marl which immediately rests
on the palaeozoic rocks, these beds seem to have gra-
dually changed their character, the marl prepon-
derating and becoming more calcareous. Although
sandy and calcareous mud was still deposited uni-
formly, abundantly, and very widely, we have in the
beds of mud thus preserved no distinct indications of
the vicinity of land, for the fragments of wood that
occur are almost invariably covered with marine

176 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

animals, proving that they had floated or been drifted
far out to sea. The change in the sea-bottom, and the
lapse of time, accompanied by the upheaval or sink-
ing of land, produced the effect of destroying many
old species, while other new ones entered the field.
These exhibited an undoubted approximation to the
animals of a later period, and include some very
curious star -fishes, several crustaceans, and a large
number of mollusca or shell-fish, both bivalve and uni-
valve, all having analogies with existing species, though
all specifically different. Of these the most remark-
able in their departure from the existing type are
the Pentacrinite, the Terebratulse among bivalve shells,
and the ammonite and belemnite among the univalves.
The fishes and the reptiles exhibit still more promi-
nently the differences that then existed.

If we wish to pass in review the various groups
most characteristic of this singular period, concerning
whose natural history we have so many and such dis-
tinct facts recorded, we must imagine a wide tract
of open sea, into which a quantity of fine sediment
of calcareous mud was in some way carried and depo-
sited.""5' From the distant land whence this mud was
washed came also occasionally trunks of trees con-
veyed by marine or river currents. Attached to them,
and also occasionally fastened to sea-weeds or other
floating bodies, would appear in large clusters — (like
the bunches of barnacles sometimes suspended from a
ship's bottom) — the singular pentacrinites, their long
stony column fringed thickly with branches of articu-
lated stone, with a stony coat of mail surrounding the

* Such a deposit is probably now going on in the Yellow Sea, off the
coasts of China.

OF CREATION. 177

pouch or stomach, and a similar but more delicate de-
fence covering the extensile proboscis. With innumer-
able arms widely extended in a complicated fringe, this
strange mass of living stone expanded itself, and drew
within its cold embrace the floating bodies on which it
fed. One might fancy that some marine Briareus,
looking on the strife and carnage of this great rep-
tilian period, whose horrors might well have had the
fabled effect attributed to the snakes of Medusa's
head, had suddenly become petrified, retaining how-
ever its vital powers, and, with its complicated skele-
ton, continued to perform its office by cleansing the
sea of an accumulation of decaying animal matter.

But while the Pentacrinite was thus the floating
scavenger of that period, the bottom of the sea, al-
though not covered with encrinites and corals, was
well provided with other animals performing the same
part in nature. The great beds of Gryphea — the oys-
ters of their day — are sufficient proof of this, and the
Terebratulse and Spirifers tell the same tale. Among
the invertebrate animals, however, the ammonite and
the belemnite were undoubtedly the most remarkable,
and, at least in certain districts of the sea, were enor-
mously abundant. Some of them being enclosed in
shells, some enclosing shells, and some perhaps not
provided with any solid framework, swam about, or
dwelt at various depths, and by their carnivorous and
voracious habits greatly tended to keep down the
exuberance of the lower forms of life.

The neighbourhood of the shore, and the shallow
banks during this period were peopled by multitudes
of fishes of moderate size, living chiefly on the crabs,
lobsters, and shell-fish, or on the encrinital animals ;

i 5

178 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

and, for the purpose of crushing the shells of such
creatures, these fishes were provided with a pavement
of hard rough enamelled teeth fixed on the palate.
The whole body also and the head were covered
with plates of bone, also coated with enamel, and
serving as a defence against the attack of the
larger ammonites and belemnites. Farther out at
sea were tribes of sharks of different species, all pre-
daceous and carnivorous, and many of them of the
most gigantic proportions. No fishes like those now
common on the coasts of England then existed on the
earth.

The fishes, though abundant and represented by a
powerful and important group, had ceased to be the
lords of creation in the lias seas. The depths of the
sea as well as the shallows, the broad expanse of
waters as well as the coast-line, were in those days
the dwelling-places of a group of reptiles of which
every representative has long since become extinct.

Two of these have more especially attracted atten-
tion, in consequence of their great abundance in the
fossil state in our own country, but they are by no
means the only ones known. Of these two, one was
more exclusively tenant of the deep, while the other
was probably more frequently met with on the mud
banks or on shore. Both were truly marine in their
habits, and both seem to have served as the represen-
tatives of the great cetacean tribe — the whales, the
porpoises, and other similar animals — now existing.

It is difficult to imagine, without appearing to cari-
cature, the conditions of existence of such animals.
We know indeed their form, their proportions, their
strange contrivances of structure, their very skin, and

OF CREATION. 179

the food which they devoured, and yet, knowing with
absolute certainty these points, we hardly dare draw
the conclusions which are suggested.

But I will venture to carry out the idea, and fill up
in yet greater detail a sketch of the condition of the
sea and its inhabitants during this portion of the rep-
tilian epoch.

There were then perhaps existing on or near the
land some of those reptiles which I shall describe in
the next chapter ; and with them were associated some
true crocodilians, not much unlike the fresh- water
garial inhabiting the Ganges. These, perhaps, might
occasionally swim out to sea, and be found in the
neighbouring shoals.

But these shoals were alive with myriads of inver-
tebrated animals; and crowds of sharks hovered about,
feeding upon the larger forms. There were also nu-
merous other animals, belonging to those remark-
able groups which I have attempted to describe in
some detail. Imagine then one of these monstrous
animals, a Plesiosaurus, some sixteen or twenty feet
long, with a small wedge-shaped crocodilian head, a
long arched serpent-like neck, a short compact body,
provided with four large and powerful paddles, almost
developed into hands ; an animal not covered with
brilliant scales, but with a black slimy skin. Imagine
for a moment this creature slowly emerging from the
muddy banks, and half walking, half creeping along,
making its way towards the nearest water. Arrived
at the water, we can understand from its structure
that it was likely to exhibit greater energy. Unlike
the crocodile tribe, however, in all its proportions, it
must have been equally dissimilar in habit. Perhaps,

180 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

instead of concealing itself in mud or among rushes,
it would swim at once boldly and directly to the
attack. Its enormous neck stretched out to its full
length, and its tail acting as a rudder, the powerful
and frequent strokes of its four large paddles would
at once give it an impulse, sending it through the
water at a very rapid rate. When within reach of
its prey, we may almost fancy that we see it drawing
back its long neck as it depressed its body in the
water, until the strength of the muscular apparatus
with which this neck was provided, and the great ad-
ditional impetus given by the rapid advance of the
animal, would combine to produce a stroke from the
pointed head which few living animals could resist.
The fishes, including perhaps even the sharks, the
larger cuttle-fish, and innumerable inhabitants of the
sea, would fall an easy prey to this monster.

But now let us see what goes on in the deeper
abysses of the ocean, where a free space is given for
the operations of that fiercely carnivorous marine
reptile, the Ichthyosaurus. Prowling about at a great
depth, where the reptilian structure of its lungs and
the bony apparatus of the ribs would allow it to
remain for a long time without coming to the air to
breathe, we may fancy we see this strange animal,
with its enormous eyes directed upwards, and glaring
like globes of fire ; its length is some thirty or forty
feet, its head being six or eight feet long ; and it has
paddles and a tail like a shark ; its whole energies
are fixed on what is going on above, where the Plesio-
saurus or some giant shark is seen devouring its
prey. Suddenly, striking with its short but compact
paddles, and obtaining a powerful impetus by flapping

OF CREATION. 181

its large tail, the monster darts through the water
at a rate which the eye can scarcely follow towards
the surface. The vast jaws, lined with formidable
rows of teeth, soon open wide to their full extent ;
the object of attack is approached — is overtaken.
With a motion quicker than thought the jaws are
snapped together, and the work is done. The mon-
ster, becoming gorged, floats languidly near the sur-
face, with a portion of the top of its head and its
nostrils visible, like an island covered with black mud,
above the water.

Such scenes as these must have been every day
enacted during the many ages when the waters of
the ocean were spread over what is now land in the
eastern hemisphere, and when the land then adja-
cent provided the calcareous mud now forming the
lias.

But a description of such scenes of horror and car-
nage, enacted at former periods of the earth's history,
may perhaps induce some of my readers to question
the wisdom that permitted, nay enacted them, and
conclude rashly that they are opposed to the ideas we
are encouraged to form of the goodness of that Being,
the necessary action of whose laws, enforced on all
living beings, gives rise to them. By no means, how-
ever, is this the case. These very results are perfectly
compatible with the greatest wisdom and goodness,
and, even according to our limited views of the course
of nature, they may be shewn not to involve any need-
less suffering. To us men, constituted as we are, and
looking upon death as a punishment which must be
endured, premature and violent destruction seems to
involve unnecessary pain. But such is not the law of

182 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

nature as it relates to animal life in general. The
very exuberance and abundance of life is at once
obtained and kept within proper bounds by this
rapacity of some great tribes. A lingering death — a
natural decay of those powers which alone enable the
animal to enjoy life — would, on the contrary, be a
most miserable arrangement for beings not endowed
with reason, and not assisting each other. It would
be cruelty, because it would involve great and hope-
less suffering. Death by violence is to all unreason-
ing animals the easiest death, for it is the most
instantaneous ; and therefore, no doubt, it has been
ordained that throughout large classes there should be
an almost indefinite rate of increase, accompanied by
destruction rapid and complete in a corresponding
degree, since in this way only the greatest amount of
happiness is ensured, and the pain and misery of slow
decay of the vital powers prevented, All nature,
both living and extinct, abounds with facts proving the
truth of this view ; and it would be as unreasonable
to doubt the wisdom and goodness of this arrange-
ment, as it would be to call in question the mutual
adaptation of each part in the great scheme of crea-
tion. No one who examines nature for himself, how-
ever superficially, can doubt the latter ; and no one
certainly, who duly considers the laws ordained for
the general government of the world, can believe it
possible for these laws to have acted without a system
of compensation, according to which the vital ener-
gies of one tribe serve to prepare food for the de-
velopment of higher powers in another.

OF CREATION. 183

CHAPTER IX.

THE GIGANTIC LAND REPTILES, THE FLYING REPTILES, AND OTHER
ANIMALS CHARACTERISTIC OF THE OOLITIC AND WEALDEN FOR-
MATIONS.

AFTER the termination of that great deposit of
calcareous mud, so characteristic of the older part
of the middle secondary period, considerable change
seems to have taken place in the relative position of
land and sea ; and, from the abundance of calcare-
ous rock afterwards developed, as well as from the
nature of the fossils, it may safely be concluded that
these changes involved important alterations in the
whole system of organic nature in this part of the
world. Referring only to those districts which, being
now land, enable us to discover their structure, and
drawing our conclusions only from the actual facts
that have been determined, we may venture to con-
clude, that, immediately after the deposit of the lias,
the bed of the sea was affected by widely acting
earthquake movements, and that tracts of land, more
or less extensive, rose up, especially on the north-
eastern flank of the lias in Yorkshire, in several dis-
tricts on the continent of Europe, and in the central
and eastern portions of North America.

It also appears that these elevations must have
alternated with depressions, and that thus a number
of islands were formed in a sea of moderate depth,

184 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

but frequently changing both in depth and in the
nature of its deposits ; the islands being the habita-
tion of land animals, while the surrounding coasts af-
forded food and shelter for vast multitudes of fishes
and other marine groups. The marine deposit, how-
ever, seems to have been nearly limited towards the
west by a recently formed lias coast, leading us to
suspect the existence of land extending westwards
and northwards from the line of that bed. Possibly
this land may have formed a broken ring surrounding
a Mediterranean Sea, just as the two portions of the
great continent of America, connected partly by the
Isthmus of Darien, and partly by the chain of the
West India islands, now enclose a tract under nearly
similar conditions.

However this may be, the great eastern oolitic
archipelago seems to have been limited towards the
west by England, and perhaps terminated towards
the north with the land which now forms the range
of the Hartz mountains, the mountains of Saxony,
and those of Bohemia. Throughout the whole tract
the general conditions of deposit must have been
nearly analogous ; but there were many important
modifications in detail, especially in the western,
southern, and south-eastern part, where the older beds
are most developed ; while in the north-eastern and
central districts, the newer beds are apparently the
most important. The newest of all the deposits was
a great fresh- water formation known as the Weal den
group, occupying a portion of the south-east of Eng-
land, and met with again in Hanover.

By a gradual change in the nature of the deposits,
the whole oolitic range seems to have served as the

OF CREATION. 185

habitation and burial-place of many successive races of
beings ; but there is nowhere evidence of such con-
siderable or violent change as would justify us in sepa-
rating the series into two or more parts. The whole
was probably continuous ; and, although aifected by
contemporaneous and successive disturbances fre-
quently repeated, these hardly involved any changes
of great moment modifying the general result.

The inhabitants of the sea during the oolitic
period include, as might be expected, a vast mul-
titude of species. Of these some were attached per-
manently to marine bodies, and so were partly or
entirely dependant on a particular mechanical, chemi-
cal, or mineralogical condition of the sea bottom ;
others were attached less permanently, possessing
only imperfect powers of locomotion, and limited as
to the depth at which they conveniently live ; while
there were others, again, swimming freely in the
ocean, and limited only in their range by the nature
of the supply of food. The first-mentioned of these
groups includes the coral animal and many others of
low organization, the next comprehends the encrinites,
star-fishes, sea-urchins, &c., as well as a number of
crustaceans and insects, and a large proportion of the
animals enclosed in shells ; while the last, in some
respects the most important and interesting group,
includes the more highly organized mollusca, the
fishes, and the marine reptiles. It will be convenient
to describe, first, these different groups of the inha-
bitants of the ocean, and then proceed to the account
of the land animals of the period.

The corals of the oolitic seas formed some con-
siderable reefs and islands, especially during the mid-

186

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

Fig. 65

OOLITIC CORAL.

die part of the period ; but the species then common
resemble so closely those of existing seas in all im-
portant points of structure (fig. 65), that it will not be

necessary to describe
them in detail. They
differ, indeed, in spe-
cific, and often in ge-
neric character ; but,
in spite of this, there
can be no doubt of the
general analogy, and
we find exactly the
same set of contri-
vances adopted to pro-
vide that varied and
effectual resistance to the waves which characterizes
the labours of the coral animal, and which are espe-
cially seen in those gigantic monuments of its labours
distributed over a vast expanse of sea in the Tropics
and the southern hemisphere.

The oolitic encrinites are neither more numerous
nor more remarkable than those of an earlier period ;
and it would appear, indeed, as if the original form
of the development of this tribe had by this time
given way to a more advanced type. There are,
however, still some, and those very pretty and in-
teresting groups of these animals, amongst which we
may enumerate a fossil well known to collectors in
the west of England as the " pear " or " Bradford "
Encrinite. This species grew from a large and swel-
ling base attached to a rock or some marine sub-
stance ; it was provided with a stout stem of mo-
derate length, and the plates of the upper part, or

OP CREATION. 187

body, are singularly thick and strong. The rock
immediately below a particular bed of clay (called
the Bradford clay) seems to have been a favourite
locality, since the remains are there found in great
beauty. The stem, or stony column, terminated
with five pairs of short arms rising immediately from
the upper plates ; and these, when expanded, collected
food and conveyed it to the mouth.

Although the encrinites are not extremely abun-
dant in the oolitic rocks, the tribe of radiated
animals, to which they belong, was still amply repre-
sented. Star-fishes, sea-eggs, and sea-urchins of va-
rious kinds and size are universally distributed, and
exceedingly beautiful species of an extinct genus
(Cidaris), provided with stoukcal- pig. 66

careous spines, are found singu-
larly perfect (fig. 66). It would
hardly be thought possible, that
animals provided, as these are,
with a vast multitude of thick,
heavy, and perfectly solid stony
clubs, attached only to the shell at
one point, should, notwithstanding, OOLITIC SEA-EGG.*
be perfectly free in all its move- (Cidaris.)

ments, and, in fact, be greatly assisted in its locomo-
tion by such appendages. The spines or clubs, to
those accustomed only to watch the habits of animals
inhabiting the land, and therefore surrounded with air
and not water, appear so heavy as to be almost
clumsy ; but, in fact, they are so little heavier than

* In the specimen figured, the stony club-shaped spines are absent, as
is often the case in fossils ; but the small mammillated projections to
which they were attached by sockets are very beautifully shewn.

188

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

water, that they are perfectly manageable in that
element, and when used as spades in the soft wet
sand, the animal moves with great rapidity, and in
any direction by their aid. Most of the animals of
this group inhabit the shore, or moderate depths at
no great distance from shore.

The oolitic Crustacea include an extensive series
not very different from the lobster, the prawns (see
fig. 67), and the king-crabs of the existing seas. Most

Fig. 67

LONG-CLAWED OOLITIC SHRIMP.
(Megackirus.)

of these are found in one particular spot in the
north of Bavaria, in a peculiar fine-grained absorbent
stone, much used for lithographic purposes. This
stone is calcareous ; it has a peculiar aspect and
a remarkably delicate texture, and has, doubtless,
Fig. 68 Fig. 6.9 been deposited from

an impalpable mud.
The numerous

X^^SBr**^ fossils it contains,
Qli*Liuhh \ and they are even
more remarkable for
their perfect condi-

INSBCTS OF THE SECONDARY EPOCH. ^ ^ ^^ num_

ber, include but few remains of ordinary mollusca,

OF CREATION. 189

but, on the other hand, a very unusual proportion of
fishes, of crustaceans of various kinds, and of insects,
often in the most singular state of preservation.
From these as well as from other remains of in-
sects and crustaceans of the same period, character-
istic forms of which are given in the accompanying
wood-cuts (68, 69), we may deduce the fact that
there was but little difference in general form, pro-
portions, or structure between the ancient inhabitants
of the sea-coast and the existing ones, so far as such
groups are concerned, and that there is nothing in
them to indicate a warmer climate, or any peculiarity
in the condition of the atmosphere.

Among the shells most common during the oolitic
period there are many whose resemb- Fig. 70
lance to existing species is also strik-
ing, and which certainly point to a
very different condition having then
obtained ; but the genus Terebratula
seems to have been far more pre-
dominant than it now is, and in Some TEREBRATULA.
localities particular species of these gregarious animals
existed in beds at the bottom of the sea, almost
to the exclusion of other animals.

The tribes of bivalve and also of univalve mol-
luscs were, however, amply represented during this
period, and every day is adding to the number of
species, and the variety of generic forms assumed by
these creatures. From the careful study of these
on the spot, much light will probably hereafter be
thrown on the condition and depth of the sea and the
movements of the sea bottom during the part of the
period of which certain groups are characteristic.

190 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

The Ammonite, so greatly developed in the lias
seas, was scarcely less so during the whole of the
succeeding period, and the variety of form which it
exhibits is not less remarkable than the vast multi-
tude of the individuals preserved. This form is some-
times more perfectly preserved also in the rocks of
this period than in any others ; and one example,
in which the fragile termination of the aperture has
been handed down in a perfect state, is given in the
accompanying figure (fig. 71). But this tribe of Ce-

phalopoda was then repre-
sented by another group
numbers of which also are
met with in the lias, and
to which the name Belemnite
has been applied ; and this,
taking the place of a more
highly organized animal of

its class than even the nauti-
OOLITIC AMMONITE. lug flnd ammonite? has been

sometimes perfectly embalmed. The structure of the
soft parts is indeed so beautifully shewn in that same
clayey bed from which the perfect ammonite has been
worked out (the Oxford clay), that the oolitic period
is the most proper for its final description, though the
animal has been already alluded to,* and is almost
equally characteristic, not only of the lias and oolites,
but also of the newer secondary deposits.

The Belemnite has received its name from a pecu-
liar dart- shaped stony fossil which is not uncommon,
and which, under various local names (such as thun-
derbolt, devil's toe-nail, &c.), is familiar to most

* See ante, p. 145 et seq.

OF CREATION.

191

people in the different
parts of England where
it occurs abundantly. It
is found varying in size
from specimens not an
inch long, to others mea-
suring upwards of a foot ;
but the structure is gene-
rally seen to be the same,
the fossil when complete
being more or less cylin-
drical, with one conical
extremity, the other end
widening out and exhibi-
ting a conical hollow,
which is sometimes filled
up with a number of lit-
tle cup-shaped bodies like
watch-glasses, fitting into
one another.

Without amusing the
reader with the mistakes
of different authors with
regard to this fossil, it
will be sufficient to state
at once what it is, and
what is the meaning and
use of the various parts,
since the whole history
of the animal is now per-
fectly cleared up by the
aid of specimens which not
only exhibit all the solid

Fig. 72

BKLEMNITE.
(Restored Figure.

192 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

parts in their natural position, but even present to
our notice the muscular fibre, very little altered.
The whole contour of the animal is indeed accu-
rately determined, including the feelers projecting from
the head, the fins, the tail, and even a solidified
dark fluid once preserved within the body, and in-
tended to serve the living animal as a defence from
its enemies by enabling it to cloud the surrounding
water when attacked or desirous of concealment.

The fossil known to Geologists by the name
Belemnite is the internal skeleton of a cephalopodous
animal very much like the cuttle-fish, but provided
not only with a solid framework for the attachment
of muscles, but also with an apparatus like that pos-
sessed by the nautilus and ammonite. The animal
appears, however, to have combined also in some
degree the characteristic peculiarities of several of
the more highly organized genera of cephalopods, and
perhaps was fitted for a condition of the sea in which
the enemies of such an animal were more numerous
and powerful, and its food less easily obtained, than
is the case at present.

It is now known that the animal of the Belemnite
was naked, or rather that it was enclosed within a
muscular sheath, which formed a closed sac or bag
terminating above with the head. From around this
eight arms proceeded, whose length in the species ex-
amined seems to be about one-fourth part of the entire
length of the animal ; and each arm was provided
with from fifteen to twenty pair of hooks resembling
those now seen only in the most powerful and the
fiercest of the whole tribe of Cephalopoda, and used
to pierce the flesh of fishes and other animals, in

OF CREATION. 193

order to secure firm hold when the Belemnite was
about to seize its prey.

The head was provided with very large eyes ; the
jaws were probably horny ; and, besides the eight
arms, there seems to have been one pair of long tenta-
cles. Far down below the head, and within the
cavity of the shell, there was placed an oval sac
containing black fluid, communicating by a tube with
the aperture. This fluid exactly resembles the ink of
the common squid ; and there can be no doubt that it
was used by the animal in the same way, and for the
same purpose, namely, to darken the water when its
possessor, becoming alarmed, desired to escape. The
ink itself in a solid state, the bag which contained it, and
the tube or pen by which it was shot out into the water,
are all preserved in some of the specimens of this fossil.

The mantle of the belemnite, passing over the'
guard or shell, seems to have accommodated it-
self to the shape of the shell, and terminated in a
blunt point. Two fins, however, of a rounded form,
and of considerable size, extended on each side near
the middle of the animal. From this position of the
fins, from the shape of the shell, and from its general
structure, it has been concluded that the animal com-
monly remained in a vertical position, rising and
sinking with great facility, and possessing very un-
usual powers of locomotion and destruction.

The larger belemnites, as well as the ammonites
of this period, must have attained very gigantic
dimensions compared with their subsequent or previ-
ous size, and compared with the ordinary inhabitants
of the sea. Few fishes, perhaps, could have escaped
them except the larger sharks ; and even the young

K

194

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and other reptiles, may have
fallen a prey to these rapacious and terrible monsters.
Fishes of various kinds were manifestly very abun-
dant during the period we are now considering; but,
except the shark tribe, we have no knowledge of
the existence of any of large size. Those of which
the remains are most common were enclosed in ena-
melled plates or scales of considerable proportion-
ate size, and they possessed powerful teeth, enabling
them to prey on the Crustacea and on each other, as
well perhaps as on the stony Radiata. Another group

Fig. 73

ASPIDORHYNCHUS.

of fishes provided with sharp conical teeth, and be-
longing to the sauroid family, were mostly small, but
include some interesting species with very long snouts
(see fig. 78). These, no doubt, were rapid swim-
mers, while the former were probably slow and heavy

Fig. 74

LEPIDOTUS.

in their movements. One of the more common forms
of the latter is represented in outline in figure 74.

OF CREATION. 195

Reptiles abounded throughout this period, and
exhibit many forms no less interesting than they are
remarkable. Many of them seem to have been more
or less exclusively marine in their habits, but many
others were partly, and some entirely, terrestrial ;
these latter exhibiting peculiarities of structure which
render them well worthy of minute description.

The reptiles of the oolites include one genus
strictly marine in addition to the Ichthyosaurus and
Plesiosaurus ; and there were also several animals of
the same tribe whose habits were aquatic, although,
from peculiarities of structure, they are referred to the
crocodilian group. These chiefly resemble the crocodile
or garial of the Ganges, a species especially organized
for the capture of fish. There are also several others
exhibiting analogies with existing crocodilian reptiles.
I shall not, however, dwell on the slight differences of
structure by which this group is characterised, but,
after saying a few words concerning the third true
marine reptile, and a gigantic whale-like reptile called
Cetiosaurus,* proceed at once to some species still
more gigantic in comparison, which at the same
period inhabited the land.

Associated with the remains of the long-necked
plesiosaur there are found in some of the clay beds of
the oolites the teeth and bones of several species of
animals very nearly allied to that genus in many
important characters, but of enormously greater size.
These species seem to have been intermediate between
the Plesiosaurus and Ichthyosaurus, the teeth, verte-
brae, bones of the extremities, &c. being more like the

e/os), a whale ; aavpog (sawros), a lizard or saurian.

196 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES.

corresponding parts of the former, but the animal
resembling the latter in the absence of apparent neck.
For these reasons the genus has been named PUosaurus.*
One of the most remarkable of the numerous
crocodilian reptiles, — a natural group, which, though
not first introduced into the earth in the middle se-
condary period, yet seems then to have attained in
all respects its chief development, — was the Cetio-
saurus, already alluded to. This animal, rivalling the
largest whales in bulk, seems to have been of strictly
aquatic, and most probably of marine habits, and
was indeed closely allied to the group of true marine
reptiles. In this genus, too, was combined a broad
vertical tail and extremities developed into webbed
feet, the toes of which were terminated by strong
claws, probably assisting the animal in taking its prey.
Nothing is known of the teeth or skull, but there is
no doubt that the habits of the genus must have
been strictly predaceous.

About the middle, or perhaps before the middle of
the secondary period, there existed a considerable
tract of dry land, so near what is now England that
the remains of the animals dwelling there could be de-
posited at the bottom of the sea, and this in a condition
admitting of their being almost instantly embedded
and preserved. One bed in particular of the oolitic
series, occurring at Stonesfield, near Oxford, has
received remains of this kind in comparative abun-
dance; and we find in it, associated with marine
shells, several fruits, leaves, and other fragments of
vegetable origin, several wing-cases and other parts

* IlXawv (pleion\ more ; aavpog (sauros), a saurian : having greater
analogy with reptiles than the plesiosaurg.

OF CREATION.

197

of beetles and flies, some very singular bones of
small size, belonging, it would seem, to a flying rep-
tile, and others of gigantic proportions, referred to
large land reptiles ; but these latter were exceedingly
unlike the land reptiles at present existing, and exhi-
bit curious analogies with the gigantic living pachy-
dermal mammals, such as the elephant, rhinoceros,
and hippopotamus. Lastly, there are found in these
beds, though so rarely that but three or four instances
are known, the remains of small warm-blooded qua-
drupeds supposed to be referable to insectivorous
didelphine animals like the opossum, whose nearest
living analogue is to be found in America and the
Australian continent.

Let us first consider briefly the climate and ter-
restrial flora indicated by the organic remains, as far
as the plants will enable us to judge.

The first thing that slrikes us with regard to these
fossils is that they belong almost entirely to the fa-
mily of CYCADE.E, none of which are now indigenous
in Europe, although they are found in abundance
in sub-tropical and south temperate latitudes. They
resemble the palms in many respects, but also possess
analogies with the large and important group of
Coniferte, while they imitate the ferns in the mode
in which the leaves are curved up at their extre-
mities, and partly in the leaves themselves. Of the
whole group, the Cycas and Zamia are considered
to be those offering the nearest resemblances to
the extinct species. The former, the Cycas, of
which a South African species is represented in
fig. 75, exhibits a crown of foliage at the sum-
mit of a simple cylindrical trunk of considerable

198

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

height, which has no true bark, but is surrounded by
scales originally the bases of leaves ; the latter is
generally shorter, and the mass of woody matter
whence the leaves rise is less decidedly a trunk. So

Fig. 76

RECENT CYCAS.

CYCADEOIDEA.

far as we can judge from the remains found fossil
(see fig. 76), the climate was probably warmer during
the oolitic period than at present, but it certainly
differed in many respects, and possibly more resem-
bled that of New Zealand than of England.

The land reptiles, detached fragments of which
are all that remain to assist us in re-peopling the
ancient shores thus clothed with cycadeous vegeta-
tion, were of sufficient magnitude and importance
in the scale of creation to require, in all probability,
numerous companions on the earth, although few of
their remains have yet been laid bare. One of the
genera has received the name Megalosaurm * from its

* Meyag (megas), great ; aavpoz (sauros), a lizard.

OF CREATION.

199

gigantic size, although the size is, in some respects,
the character of least importance.

The jaw, or rather the fragment of a jaw with
teeth (fig. 77), a few vertebrse, and some of the bones
of the extremities, form the scanty amount of material
for the description of this animal ; but these remains

Fig. 77

MEGALOSAURUS.
Portion of the Lower Jaw.

are enough to enable the comparative anatomist to
decide with certainty with regard to several most
important characters, and they suggest inquiries and
probable conditions of the skeleton, of which the cor-
rectness may be tested by future discoveries.

The tribe of lizards, one of the most important
of the existing reptilian groups, forms a link in the
chain by which the animal now under discussion was
connected with known forms ; but, although analogies
unquestionably exist between the lizard and the
Megalosaurus, and also between this animal and the
crocodiles, there yet remain marked and peculiar cha-
racters separating it from both. It is now consi-
dered as one of an extinct family, supereminently
remarkable for the great height at which all the

200 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

species stood above the ground in proportion to all
other reptiles ; and the height is indicated not less
by the actual size of the bones of the extremities, than
by the provision made in the skeleton to resist the
pressure of an enormous weight.

The Megalosaurus was a gigantic carnivorous land
reptile, its body being of enormous size. In all pro-
bability it was not, like the crocodile, clothed in
scaly armour, but it stood with its whole body con-
siderably above the ground, in bulk and general
appearance rather resembling the hippopotamus than
the gigantic alligators of the present day. It was
most likely provided with a true reptilian tail, whose
length was considerable, although not nearly so great
in proportion as that of existing crocodiles andalligators.

The form of the fragment of the jaw which has
been preserved (fig. 77) marks in some measure the
shape of the head, showing that it was terminated
by a straight, narrow, and long snout, not tapering,
but compressed laterally. The teeth were of mode-
rate size. They formed, however, strong and powerful
cutting instruments, for the fore part was sharp and
jagged, and the hind part much thicker and blunt,
while ample provision was made for a constant succes-
sion during the whole lifetime of the animal.

The vertebrae are somewhat peculiar in form, and
present nearly flat surfaces to one another ; but it is
chiefly one group, consisting of five, firmly cemented
together into a solid mass, and distributing the weight
of the body upon the hinder extremities, that forms an
exception to the ordinary reptilian character. Except
the megalosaur, and the two or three extinct species
now grouped with it, and belonging to the same pe-

OF CREATION. 201

riod, no reptile has more than two bones cemented
together for this purpose ; and this is found sufficient,
because much of the weight is supported directly upon
the ground either by the body or tail of the animal.
On the other hand, all the heavy land quadrupeds
exhibit great strength and solidity in this part. It is
interesting to find the long and powerful extremities of
this monstrous reptile of the Oolites thus combined
with a structure altogether different from that of other
reptiles, but manifestly related to its habits. The ver-
tebrae of the Megalosaurus thus united are not in a
straight line, but describe a gentle curve with the con-
cavity downwards.

The bones of the extremities are long, large, and
hollow, resembling in this the corresponding bones
of land quadrupeds. They exhibit, however, a mix-
ture of the characters observed in the crocodile and
in some lizards. They are so large, compared with
the bones of animals most nearly allied, that, if the
same proportions had held throughout, the Megalo-
saurus might be compared with a crocodile of sixty
or seventy feet long, did such a monster exist ; but
the whole structure of the animal indicates consider-
ably greater bulk and height in proportion to length
than is seen in other reptiles. The real length was
probably about thirty feet, the trunk being broad and
deep, the tail comparatively short, and the limbs un-
usually long. We have no means of deciding in what
manner the tail was carried.

The gigantic land reptile of the oolites was accom-
panied by another, and still more oddly constituted
animal, connecting the reptiles with birds in a manner
not less remarkable than that by which the megalo-

K 5

202

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

saur unites them with quadrupeds. The animal is
called Pterodactyl,* and is a true flying reptile (fig.
78). It exhibits, however, in the various parts of its
skeleton such strange resemblances to other and very

PTERODACTYL.

widely separated groups, that it was successively de-
scribed as a bird and a bat, before it was acknow-
ledged according to its true analogies ; and this not
without some ground, since the mistake arose from
the presence of peculiarities of structure considered
in each case as characteristic of the two great classes
of Vertebrata to which it was referred. It is, perhaps,
the most extraordinary of all the beings of whose
former existence the study of fossils has made us
aware, and is that which if living would appear most
unlike anything that exists in the known world.

In the external form of the body the Pterodactyl
probably resembled the bats or vampires ; and some

* Hrepov (pterori), a wing ; SaicTvXoQ (dactylus\ a finger : from its
mode of flight.

OP CREATION. 203

of the species attained the size of a cormorant, al-
though others were not larger than a snipe. The
resemblance, however, to the bat tribe, was limited to
the form of the body, for the head was totally dif-
ferent, the snout being enormously elongated, and the
eyes exceedingly large ; while the organs of flight or
wings were even more powerful in proportion, and the
legs were probably capable of being used in the water,
assisting the animal to swim. The neck, also, was
long, and like that of a bird. Let us now consider
a little more in detail some of the peculiarities of
structure of this strange monster.

In the first place, the skull, far from resembling
that of a bat or bird, resembles in its general pro-
portions, and even in some points of detail, that
of the crocodiles ; and the reptilian analogies are com-
pletely preserved in the position and small size of the
cranium, and in the enormous prolongation of the
snout. The lower jaw is not less reptilian, and is
provided, as well as the upper jaw, with a long row
of powerful teeth implanted in sockets, and succes~
sively replaced as they were worn and lost. The
number of these teeth was about sixty; they are
conical like those of the crocodile, but larger com-
pared with the size of the jaw. The whole of the
proportions of the head indicate a creature of great
strength, capable either of darting down upon fishes
or preying upon the smaller land animals.

The neck of the Pterodactyl, although it contains
only the usual number of vertebrse (seven), must have
been of great length, and well fitted to support and
move the powerful head just described ; but an un-
usual provision is observable in the neck, assisting

204

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

to give additional strength to the head, a set of bony
tendons running along the vertebrae for this purpose.
The length of the neck corresponds with what we see
in birds, and indicates a perfect adaptation of the
animal for rapid and long-continued flight. In one
specimen the head is thrown back so far, that the
base of the skull almost touches the tail, without the
bones appearing to be in an unnatural position.

The number of vertebral bones in the back is very
considerable, and nearly three times that of birds.
In this respect, and in the thread-like form of the
ribs, so unlike the broad and flat plates of bone ex-
hibited in birds, the analogies are with the lizard
tribe; but, on the other hand, the tail possesses only
twelve or thirteen vertebrae, and so far is bird-like.

But it is chiefly in the bones of the extremity, by
means of which the animal was enabled to fly, at
the same time retaining the power of walking and
in all probability of swimming, that we find the
most singular of the mechanical contrivances, and
observe a structure different from that of any other
species, either living or extinct.

The bones which support the wings of a bird ex-
hibit, in spite of great external difference, a good deal
of similarity to the bones of the fore extremities of
quadrupeds, and even reptiles; and it might have been
expected, that, in adapting a species of either of these
latter classes for flight, and enabling it to live chiefly
in the air, similar modifications would have been ad-
hered to. But the fact is not so. The wings of a
bird owe a great part of their efficacy to the feathers
with which they are covered ; and, as it did not enter
into the plan of nature to provide quadrupeds or rep-

OP CREATION. 205

tiles with these appendages, other mechanical con-
trivances are resorted to by which the power of flight
is obtained, and the common integument preserved
in the bat and Pterodactyl.

In bats, which are flying quadrupeds, this modifi-
cation consists in the extraordinary development of
all the fingers, upon which skin is stretched like the
silk on the rods of an umbrella ; and this skin ex-
tends not merely between th.e elongated fingers, but
also from the last finger to the legs and feet, and so
to the tail. The thumb is partially left free, and
serves as a hook by which the animal suspends itself;
but the toes are exposed, and are moderately long.

There is no really flying reptile now existing, but
in one species (the Draco volans), which is able to
support itself for a short time in the air, there is a
very imperfect flying apparatus, which chiefly acts as
a parachute, supporting the animal in its long leaps.
This consists of an expansion of the skin over a series
of false ribs extending horizontally from the backbone.
In the Pterodactyl, however, which is evidently
and expressly contrived for flight, a very singular
contrivance is introduced, and it is one which seems
to have ensured to the animal the power of walking
and swimming, as well as flying (see fig. 78).

In order to effect this, the bones of the fore ex-
tremity, so far as regards the shoulder and arm-
bones, the wrist and the hand, scarcely differ from
the ordinary proportions of those bones in lizards, and
correspond with the dimensions of the hinder extre-
mity, so that up to this point there is no peculiar
adaptation for flying. On examining the bones of
the fingers, however, we find that the number of

206 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

joints in that which corresponds to the little finger
is increased to five, and each joint is enormously
lengthened. To the whole of the little finger, thus
produced till it has become longer than the body and
neck together, a membranous wing was attached,
which was also fastened to the rest of the arm, to
the body, and to a portion of the hinder extremity.
When, therefore, the arm was extended, the wing
was not necessarily expanded, and only became so
on the little finger being also stretched out so as to
be at right angles to the arm ; and the membrane was
then nearly surrounded on four sides by bone. By
this contrivance the necessity of employing the whole
arm in the mechanism of flying as in the bird, or
the whole hand as in the bat, was done away with,
and the flying apparatus being confined to one finger,
the arms and hands could be readily and conve-
niently made use of like the corresponding extremi-
ties of other animals.

The great peculiarity, then, in the Pterodactyl,
with regard to the organs of locomotion, is the free-
dom with which the arms and legs could act when
the wings were not in use — and this extends even to
the structure of the toes, which in the bat form only
a single hook, but in the Pterodactyl were free, and
would allow the animal to stand firmly on the ground,
to walk about like a bird, to perch on a tree, to
climb rocks and cliffs, and possibly also to swim in
the ocean.

We have, therefore, in this singular genus an ani-
mal which, in all points of bony structure, from the
teeth to the extremity of the nails, presents the cha-
racteristics of a reptile, being even perhaps covered

OF CREATION.

207

with scaly armour, and which was also a true reptile
in the important peculiarities of the structure of the
heart and circulating organs. But it was at the
same time provided with the means of flying ; its
wings, when not in use, might be folded back like
those of a bird ; and it could suspend itself, by claws
attached to the fingers, from the branches of a tree.
Its usual position, when not in motion or suspended,
would probably be standing on its hind feet, with its
neck set up and curved backwards, lest the weight of
the enormous head should disturb the equilibrium of
the animal.

The remains of quadrupeds found associated with
these anomalous and long extinct forms of reptiles,
are hardly sufficiently perfect to enable us to deter-
mine except very generally the kind of animals to
which they belonged, but they do not seem to pre-
sent any wide deviations from the existing type.
They appear to be marsupial in character, and to
resemble most the tribe of opossums,* a fact no doubt
sufficiently curious, but hardly affording evidence
enough on which to base any speculations concern-
ing the nature or extent of the land, or the possi-

* The use of the pouch, the characteristic peculiarity of structure in
marsupials, may possibly be connected with the condition of the land
which animals so provided usually inhabit. There is reason to suppose, for
instance, that a great part of Australia, where such animals are now chiefly
found, is remarkably exposed to drought, and that there are in that
country large tracts deprived of rivers and lakes, and in which compara-
tively few springs of water exist in the interior. The animals being
thus obliged to carry their young for long distances to obtain the necessa-
ries of life — food and water — need the singular provision accorded them
for this purpose. This view is not inconsistent with the presence of
gigantic reptiles inhabiting the land near the sea-coast, although no such
reptiles exist at present in Australia.

208 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

bility of other quadrupedal associates. The animals
in question were no doubt insectivorous ; and, as the
remains of insects have been frequently obtained from
the same beds, this is a point of some interest. It
was certainly the case that a group of animals, the
undoubted representatives of the highest class of
created beings, was introduced into the world before
or during this oolitic period, and it would be strange
if such group, having been introduced, remained un-
important or actually disappeared. But judging only
from the negative evidence before us, something of
this kind must be assumed, since there is subsequently
frequent and distinct proof of the near presence of
land, without any mammalian remains. It should
not be forgotten, indeed, that of all animal remains,
those of small quadrupeds inhabiting islands in a wide
ocean, are the most likely to be lost, and that, in a
case like this, negative evidence is really of very
little value.

The bones of true birds have not yet been found
in any formation older than the chalk, but we have
already seen that there is good reason to believe in
the existence of such animals at least as early as the
new red sandstone, the footmarks in beds of that age
both in America and England affording evidence to
this effect. Now, if birds existed during the new
red sandstone period, it is most likely that they also
were continued from that time without interruption.
With regard to this subject, it must, however, be
acknowledged as one on which it is easy to specu-
late, but on which speculations are nearly useless.

There is nothing in the distribution of the fossils
which entitles us to assume the total completion of

OF CREATION.

209

one series of operations, and the commencement of
another, between the deposit of any of the oolitic
beds, commonly so called ; nor does it appear that
any great and sudden changes took place, at least till
after the termination of the Wealden deposits. The
latter present to our notice some additional and
remarkable species of animal remains ; but this is not
astonishing, since the beds are extensive and of fresh-
water instead of marine origin. On the other hand,
many species are continued into the Wealden beds
from the oolites ; and some pass through that series,
their remains appearing again in the newer sandy
beds at the commencement of the cretaceous period.
The local deposit called " Wealden,1' as it is seen in
the south-east of our island, possesses great interest,
arising from the presence of a series of fresh-water
fossiliferous beds, chiefly of sand with imperfect bands
of shelly limestone, terminated by a thick deposit of
clay. The main interest arises from the fact that these
were probably formed in an estuary, or at the mouth
of some great river, and therefore in the immediate
vicinity of a tract of land. Fresh-water shells and
crustaceans, together with land plants, insects, &c.,
are here associated with fishes, which may, indeed,
have lived in an estuary, but which present no distinct
mark of fresh-water origin. Here, once more, we meet
with land reptiles associated with aquatic crocodilian
genera ; and some of these land reptiles, like those of
the older period, exhibit a remarkable resemblance
to the pachydermal quadrupeds, extending, indeed,
in this case to the possession of distinctly herbivorous
habits. These species, again, are not alone — they
are associated with the very same gigantic carnivor-

210 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

ous land reptiles met with in the oolites, and the
singular flying reptiles already described; but, al-
though the quarries have been diligently searched,
and the evidence carefully collected, there has not
hitherto been obtained distinct proof of the presence
of birds, and there is no trace, not even the slightest,
of any true quadruped.

The gigantic companion of the megalosaur, during
the Wealden period, has received the name of Igua-
nodon.* It is known to us by the teeth and a con-
siderable part of the skeleton ; but, unfortunately,
there has not yet been found any portion of the skull
sufficiently perfect to be absolutely identified with
the other bones.

The teeth of the Iguanodon (79, 80, 81) are
partly composed of bone, gradually becoming softer

Fig. 79 Fig. 80 Fig. 81

IGUANODON.
Teeth in different Stages of Growth.

from the edge inwards, and partly of enamel, by
which they are surrounded; the result of this con-

* Iguana^ a recent West Indian lizard ; oSovs (odous), a tooth : from
the resemblance of the teeth to those of the iguana.

OF CREATION. 211

trivance being the formation of a slant surface of
the crown of the tooth, and therefore of a sharp
cutting edge. While young, the tooth presents a
sharp cutting edge, and is lancet-shaped (81) : as
it grows further out from the jaw, it assumes the
form seen in fig. 80, and is then a powerful in-
strument, well adapted to separate tough vegetable
fibre ; while in its most advanced state (79) it
ceases to be adapted to this purpose, but is strong
and flat, and at the same time uneven, the pulp of
the tooth projecting from the surface, which is worn
so as to be nearly horizontal, and forming a trans-
verse ridge. The teeth therefore begin by being
incisors, and, in the course of time, as they become
worn, they pass into the condition of grinders, — a cu-
rious change, providing for the animal a perpetual
supply of teeth of all kinds, some enabling it to nip
off tough vegetable food, and others helping to grind
that food properly before it is committed to the
stomach.

The vertebral column of the Iguanodon is on a
scale commensurate with the vast bulk of the animal.
The vertebrae themselves have nearly flat surfaces,
and are large and somewhat wedge-shaped, exhibit-
ing rather crocodilian than lacertian analogies, al-
though essentially different from both those types of
structure. The neck is not known, since no vertebrae
have yet been found belonging to this part. The sacrum,
or that part of the back-bone cemented together to
distribute the weight of the body on the hinder extre-
mities, includes five vertebrae, as in the megalosaur ;
and in one specimen this continuous solid ridge of bone
measures seventeen inches in length, and its breadth,

212 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

though only eight inches at the fore part, becomes as
much as thirteen inches towards the hinder part. The
magnitude, both in diameter and length, of the thigh
and leg-bones, corresponds well with the large portion
of the spine thus grasped, as it were, by the bones of
the pelvis, and strongly points to the terrestrial habits
of the animal. The total length of the extremities
seems, in some cases, to have exceeded eight or even
nine feet, and the bones of the foot are gigantic even
beyond the proportions thus indicated, since one of the
separate bones measures thirty inches in length, and
the last joint of the toe, to which a claw was attached,
is five inches and a half long. There was thus an
ample base for the vast column supporting the body.

The tail of the Iguanodon was probably very much
shorter in proportion than that of crocodiles, and was
very dissimilar. It must, notwithstanding, have been
large, and flattened laterally, being of considerable
breadth in the vertical direction near its attachment
to the body. The ribs were unusually large, broad,
stout, and long, forming a strong case for the huge ab-
domen. They also extended very far forwards.

The general dimensions of the Iguanodon, though
undoubtedly very enormous, have often been greatly
exaggerated, since it has been assumed, that, in order
to arrive at these dimensions, it was only necessary
to compare the proportions of any part with those of the
corresponding part in the species supposed to be most
nearly allied. The proportions in this genus, how-
ever, must have been very different from those of li-
zards and crocodiles ; and, while the bones of the ex-
tremities were perhaps six or eight times larger than
those of the most gigantic alligator, the whole length

OF CREATION.

213

of the iguanodon is not likely to have exceeded thirty
feet. Even then, however, allowing about three feet
for the head, and assuming that the neck was short,
and that the tail was about thirteen feet long, which it
is calculated would be the extreme size, we still have
a length of twelve feet for the body, and this is much
more than is seen in the trunk of any living animal.
The body being of this length, and perhaps of more
than corresponding bulk, and lifted many feet from
the ground, reaching perhaps to the height of twelve
or fifteen feet,"* must indeed have been sufficiently
monstrous, and departed widely enough from any
known animal to justify the accounts that have been
given of its strange and marvellous proportions.

The Hyl&osaurus^ was another land reptile sup-
ported on long legs, and of massive proportions ; but
it differed in some important characters from the
Iguanodon, and by no means attained such large
dimensions. A considerable part of the skeleton of
this animal has been found, and is preserved in the
British Museum, but, unfortunately, these fragments
do not include either the skull or teeth, or, indeed,
anything that can indicate the manner of arrange-
ment of the teeth in the jaw, although it is probable,
from other parts of the body, that they approximated
in this point to the lizard type. The animal was
probably about fifteen feet long, and of a height pro-
portioned to that of the megalosaur. It was covered

* The tallest living elephant rarely if ever attains the height of eleven
feet. Out of eleven hundred, from which the tallest were selected and
measured with care on one occasion in India, there was not one that
equalled eleven feet.

+ 'YXaicc (hyloeos), a wood ; aavpog (sawros), a reptile. The reptile
of the woods or wolds of Kent and Sussex,.

214 P1CTURUESQE SKETCHES

with a scaly armour, the plates heing oval or circular,
and therefore not fitting one another, but studded in
unconnected order over the surface of a tough skin.
It has been supposed, by Dr. Mantell, that certain
broad bones found with the skeleton formed a fringe
on the back of the animal, but Professor Owen has
suggested that they may, with greater probability, be
ribs which defended the abdomen, analogous to a cor-
responding contrivance in the Ornithorhynchus.

Reverting now to the Megalosaurus, which, in some
of the important characters I have referred to, is nearly
allied to the Iguanodon and Hyl&osaurus, it appears
that these three form a natural and well-marked
group of reptiles now entirely extinct, combining a
complicated method of implanting the teeth in sockets,
with limbs of gigantic size and strength, sustaining
a bulky trunk by a long arched sacrum firmly ce-
mented into a bony ridge. These modifications of
structure, the most perfect yet discovered in reptiles,
are found in animals which attained colossal dimen-
sions, and must have played a conspicuous part during
the middle secondary period, as well in the character
of carnivorous as herbivorous animals. They seem,
indeed, to have been the most important members
this earth has ever witnessed of that great natural
class of cold-blooded oviparous animals which we call
reptiles.*

And these animals were by no means rare during
their period of existence, for, with regard to the
Iguanodon alone, fragments of not less than seventy
individuals appear to have come under the inspection
of one person (Dr. Mantell) within a few years, all

* Owen's " Report," ante cit. p. 200.

OF CREATION. 215

of them having been extracted from a few quarries
of Tilgate grit, opened for road-making and for the
supply of rough stone for building purposes. There
is no reason to suppose that the species in question
was confined to this locality, or was more abundant
there than elsewhere, nor that it was limited to
the Wealden district as exhibited in the south-east
of England, where, it must be remembered, the
strata have a vertical thickness of not less than a
thousand feet.

It is, no doubt, difficult to confine the imagina-
tion within due bounds when we endeavour to re-
call scenes enacted during the earlier periods of the
earth's history, and to picture these past events with-
out running into extravagance, and without over-
stepping the limits of simplicity and probability,
which should always characterise natural history.
I will, however, notwithstanding the difficulty and
danger, venture now, in concluding this chapter, to
shadow out to the reader a few descriptive scenes,
which may serve to give a better definition to the
views he may have derived of the remarkable geolo-
gical epoch described in the present chapter.

I think there is no doubt that we ought to regard the
whole of the oolitic series from the lias to the chalk
as one distinct period involving many great changes,
but still well marked throughout by its own group of
vegetables and animals successively developed or suc-
cessively introduced. Taking this view, we may recog-
nise in the vast variety of created beings thus grouped
together, one unbroken series, affected from time to
time by local circumstances and conditions ; and I
venture, therefore, to picture the various members of

216 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

this series, without special reference to those beds
in which they seem to us now to be most abundant,
because I doubt whether in many cases we are at all
able to decide upon such a point for want of evidence.
The time during which the oolitic period lasted
was, however, sufficient for the destruction of many
species, and the introduction of an equal or greater
number of new ones ; and I only question the fact
of any sudden or considerable change of this kind
being distinctly indicated by the fossils of any
known locality.

The great deposit of calcareous mud, which has
been described under the name of lias, and which
is so richly loaded with interesting fossils, does
not pass by any sudden change into more calca-
reous beds, and so into limestone, but first of all
seems to have become more sandy. The sand is
often loose and micaceous, and it probably assisted,
by forming a sea-bottom so entirely different from the
lias, to change the inhabitants of that sea-bottom,
and produce the necessity for the introduction of
a distinct group. This is the more probable, since
we find that the free swimming animals, such as the
belemnites, were little or not at all altered, while the
upper lias sands contain but few fossils of attached
animals, and these afterwards give way to oolitic
species.

The first change, therefore, announcing the intro-
duction of the oolitic period may have been a depres-
sion of the coast line of the liassic sea, altering the
conditions of life by changing at once the depth and
the nature of the sea-bottom, and permitting a de-
posit of sand to cover the clays of the lias as yet

OF CREATION. 21 7

imperfectly hardened, and form a basis for the great
deposit of limestone about to be super-imposed. As
we know, from the position of the lias with respect
to the underlying red sandstone, that land probably
extended not only to the west of England, and
therefore into the present Atlantic Ocean, but also in
various parts of modern Europe, we may understand
that there may have been many islands in the inter-
mediate sea, even if the depression in one part was
not accompanied by corresponding elevation in an-
other.

However this may have been, the lias sea-bottom
was succeeded, as we have said, first by a sandy, and
then by a calcareous bottom, and the inhabitants
were modified accordingly. Soon a deposit of nearly
pure carbonate of lime was formed under circum-
stances which allowed it to collect round minute
organic particles, and form the peculiar stone we
designate oolite ; and this deposit was repeated, not
incessantly but at intervals, during the whole of the
rest of the period of the marine deposits. The con-
ditions being favourable for the existence of such
animals as shell-fish, these were developed abundantly,
and for a long time their dead and broken shells
accumulated, forming at length complete and thick
bands of shelly matter, which afterwards hardening
became shelly limestone. The seas at this time
abounded with fish, amongst which were many
species adapted to feed on mollusca, crabs, and lob-
sters, most of them being of small size, but provided
with solid plates of enamel on the palate, enabling
them to crush the hard shells of the animals on which
they fed. In the older beds little coral appeared, and

218 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

we find few remains of large animals, either fishes or
reptiles. For a long time, allowing of the deposit of
near three hundred feet of strata in great part fossili-
ferous, and almost uniform in character over a consi-
derable extent of country, there were no important
changes, but the evidence that we at present possess,
although imperfect, renders it not unlikely that
depression might be going on at intervals.

At length, however, and still in the early stage of
the deposit of the oolitic rocks, a bed of clay ap-
pears partially covering the calcareous deposits in the
south and west of England; and contemporaneously
in other districts appears the " Stonesfield slate," a
fissile limestone already alluded to, occurring near
Oxford, a somewhat similar slaty rag at Oolley
Weston, in Northamptonshire, and some gritty and
shaly beds in the north of England, well seen on the
coast of Yorkshire, near Scarborough, while there
were also other beds occurring still further to the
north at Brora, in Sutherlandshire. The evidences
of adjacent land are here not to be questioned, and
we have now to consider what may have been the
nature and condition of this land, and its relation to
the deposits preceding and succeeding the date of its
formation.

It is, on the whole, not unlikely that partial ele-
vation of the sea-bottom was in some way connected
with the interesting set of phenomena now under
discussion. The bed of clay first mentioned rests on
the oolitic rock; and at the junction of the two there
are vast multitudes of the remains of the Apiocrinite,
a pretty encrinite, which appears to have been de-
stroyed suddenly and in great multitudes, probably

OF CREATION. 219

by the same cause as that which changed the nature
of the material deposited. These encrinites, there-
fore, were, at the same moment, destroyed and em-
balmed. The Bradford clay, as this bed is called,
was a very local deposit.

The land, in whichever direction it extended at this
period, probably included a considerable area, though,
from the rarity of terrestrial fossils, it is pretty clear
that it did not stretch away towards the east in the
direction of the present continent of Europe. On the
contrary, the existence of marine but shallow-water
fossils on the coast of Normandy, nearly identical with,
and embedded under the same conditions as those in
England, would rather seem perhaps to point to the
south-west as the range in which we may expect to
trace it. This land was clothed with vegetation, con-
sisting chiefly of zamias, cycadese, and such plants,
and these, with ferns and coniferous trees, may have
at once sheltered and provided food for the inhabitants.
But what were these inhabitants ? In the deep
forests we might certainly have seen large beetles ;
near marshy places many flies abounded, and a few
small opossum-like quadrupeds tenanted the earth;
but, with regard to other inhabitants of land and of
the sea. our knowledge of existing animals would
hardly give very definite information.

But analogy will still teach much that is interest-
ing and important even as to this point. Let us
imagine ourselves placed on a projecting headland or
hill of mountain limestone, anciently, as now, form-
ing a prominent and picturesque object, but com-
manding a view of the open sea, which then covered
the greater part of our island. Placed in imagina-

L 2

220 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

tion in this commanding position, let us endeavour to
recall the scenes once enacted near some tract of low
flat land — a sandy shore of the oolitic period — on
which, at a distance, a few solitary palm trees stand
out against the blue sky, but which is backed by a
more luxuriant growth of pines and ferns, extending
towards the interior, and crowning the tops of distant
high ground.

The first object that attracts attention might be one
of the crocodilian animals, with its long slender snout,
and with extremities admirably adapted for swim-
ming, combining those peculiarities of structure which
distinguish the Teleosaurus* This animal might be
seen moving slowly, and not without difficulty, to-
wards the water, but when there, darting abruptly
along, pursuing and devouring the small fishes that
swarmed about the shallows; these fishes, sluggish
in their nature, and chiefly feeding on the mol-
lusks which inhabit near shore, falling a ready and
abundant prey. Many other crocodilian monsters,
of similar habits, but more or less adapted for a
marine life, might also have been seen wandering
about seeking and devouring food.

While, however, this was going on in the near
vicinity of land, our supposed position would enable
us to watch also the open sea at a little distance.
Here we could not fail being struck with that most
gigantic of all reptiles, the Cetiosaurus (see ante,p. 195),
easily recognised by the dark outline of its huge head
raised partly above the surface to enable the animal to
breathe, while at the distance of some twenty yards

* This animal must have very closely resembled the narrow-snouted
garial of the Ganges, but its extremities were better adapted for swim-
ming.

OF CREATION. 221

from this would be seen its great fish-like tail. Could
our power of vision enable us to see beneath the sur-
face, there might also be observed those singular
webbed feet, and enormous toes armed with long
powerful claws, which so strikingly characterise this
creature.

But another of the monsters of the deep demands
our notice — a truly marine reptile — gigantic in its
proportions, admirably adapted for rapid motion, and
combining some of the terrestrial and crocodilian pe-
culiarities of the long-necked Plesiosaurus, with the
compact proportions of the great fish-lizard. Its huge
crocodilian head contrasts strongly with the porpoise-
like body, which is attached without any intervening
neck; and its powerful elongated extremities make up
for the absence of a vertical tail-fin. The sharks,
which were still abundant and powerful, and even
the Ichthyosaurus itself, could scarcely have escaped
from these terrible enemies.

Having thus obtained glimpses of the sea and its in-
habitants, let us next turn our attention to the adjacent
land. The long-snouted and other crocodiles, which
have gorged themselves with fish in the shallow water,
now sleep half-buried in the muddy and naked plains
on shore. Some of them, eighteen or twenty feet
long, advance on land with difficulty, their extre-
mities being far better adapted to swimming than
walking.

Presently a noise is heard, and a huge animal ad-
vances, whose true nature and habits we are at first
at a loss to understand. In its general proportions
it is far longer and also taller than the largest ele-
phant ; its body hangs down near the ground, but its

222 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

legs are like the trunks of great forest trees, and its
feet form an ample base for the vast columns which
press upon them. Instead of long tusks, large grind-
ing teeth, and a trunk like that of the elephant, this
animal has an exceedingly elongated and narrow snout,
armed throughout with ranges of sharp and strong
knife-like teeth. The monster approaches, and trod-
den down with one of its feet, armed with power-
ful claws, or caught between its long and narrow
jaws, our crocodile is devoured in an instant.

But there is yet another scene for us to contem-
plate. Still remaining at no great distance from the
shore, but advancing inland towards the forest, let us
watch the golden beetles, and the beautiful dragon-
flies and other insects, as they flit past in all the
brilliancy and cheerfulness of luxuriant and untamed
nature.

The lofty forest trees, perhaps not much unlike
some existing but southern pines, are woven together
with thick underwood ; and the open country, where
it is not wooded, is brown with numerous ferns, still
the preponderating vegetation, and distributed in ex-
tensive groups. Here and there a tree is seen, over-
turned and lying at its length upon the ground, pre-
serving its shape, although thoroughly rotten, and
serving as the retreat of the scorpion, the centipede,
and many beetles. A few quadrupeds not larger
than rats, but of marsupial structure, are distinguished
at intervals, timid even in the absence of danger,
and scarcely appearing from their shelter without
great precaution. These feed upon the grubs and
other insects living upon or burrowing into the
ground.

OF CREATION. 223

A strangely formed animal, however, is perceived
running along upon the ground : its general appear-
ance in motion is that of a bird, but its body and
long neck, its head and wings, are not covered with
feathers, but are either quite bare, or perhaps re-
splendent with glittering scales ; its proportions are
quite unlike those of any known animal ; its head
is enormously long, and like that of a crocodile ; its
neck long and outstretched, or thrown back on the
body; its fore extremities have four free toes, but
the fifth toe folded down on the body ; its hind legs
are short, and its feet perhaps webbed. This animal,
running along upon the ground, pursues and devours
the little quadruped we have been watching, and then
perhaps darts off towards the sea to feed upon the
fishes, which its peculiar powers would enable it to
take, either pouncing upon and so trans'fixing the
victim, or even occasionally wading or diving in
search of prey.

But we have not yet noticed the strangest pheno-
menon. This mailed reptile, four of its fingers still
free, but the fifth opened out, and by a connecting
membrane forming a wing of very large size, rises
into the air, and flits about or hovers over-head,
realising and even surpassing, in the conditions of its
existence, the wildest mythological accounts of flying
dragons which we read of, or those representations
which we see pictured by the pencil of the Chinese.
There is scarcely any freak of the imagination, how-
ever wild or vague, that does not seem surpassed by
some reptilian reality during this remarkable period.

Modified, no doubt, by considerable and even im-
portant changes in matters of detail, but still remain-

224 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

ing in all essential points the same, the picture thus
given may be looked on as neither false nor exag-
gerated, however imperfect, and as, to a certain
extent, characterising the whole of the long period
during which the oolites were being deposited. From
time to time, in various places during this period,
coral reefs were formed, mud-banks accumulated,
and occasionally a considerable quantity of sand was
also brought in ; and thus there went on a series of
changes, resulting in the formation of many important
beds of limestone and much clay, along a coast-line
gradually advancing eastwards, and probably under-
going numerous alterations of level.

At length this terminated, and a large tract of land
was brought very near the present coast of Ger-
many; while, in central Europe, the sea was deep-
ening, and scarcely even a chain of islands indicated
the great mountain ranges of the Alps, the Pyrenees,
the Carpathians, or the Caucasus. At this time it is
most probable that no great east and west subterranean
movement had acted on the part of the earth's crust
now above water in the northern hemisphere, and
possibly the first intimation of such a disturbing force
may be traced, though faintly, in the existence of
a considerable estuary, in which our Wealden beds
were deposited. From the condition of the upper
Portland beds, we find, that, just at the close of the
oolitic period, there were very numerous changes of
level induced over a small area in the south-east of
England, then most likely not far from the coast-line
of a large continent.

Although, however, we have good proof of the
existence of a considerable tract of land, the number

OF CREATION. 225

of species of land animals preserved in the Wealden
beds is exceedingly small, and the vegetable re-
mains, though numerous, are nowhere abundant or
greatly varied. They are, however, sufficient to
prove that very little change had taken place since
the commencement of the secondary epoch.

With regard to the animals, we still find reptiles
greatly preponderate, and almost all the principal
forms still continue. The great marine saurians, the
carnivorous land species, and those adapted for flying,
and the true crocodiles and animals allied to them, are
chiefly abundant ; but there have not yet been found
any remains of quadrupeds, or any that can with
certainty be referred to birds. Turtles and fishes of
various kinds seem to have been very abundant, and
besides these we have two new reptiles adapted for
land, one of them, at least, being a true vegetable
feeder.

The atmosphere in the low flat district on this
border of a continent, and near the issue of some
considerable river, may possibly have been loaded
with carbonic acid gas, the result of the rapid and
constant decomposition of decaying organic matter in
a damp swampy tract, and in this respect the con-
dition may have resembled that now observable in
the Sunderbunds, on the delta of the Ganges.

Surrounded thus with a constantly renewed ve-
getation, in an atmosphere and with climatal con-
ditions probably admirably adapted to its habits,
there existed another monstrous animal, more un-
wieldy even than the megalosaur, and treading down
whole forests in its advance, organized so as to
clear away a portion, at least, of the results of a

L 5

226 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

rapid growth of vegetable matter. This animal must
have been very abundant near the spot where its
remains have been met with ; it has not, however, as
yet, furnished sufficient material to enable us to com-
plete, even in imagination, its singular figure. It was
accompanied by another monster, also of large size,
and adapted to move about on land with its body
high above the ground, but concerning whose general
appearance we know even less than in the case of
the Iguanodon.

These animals may be considered with great
reason as the true representative in time of some
of the gigantic vegetable feeding quadrupeds of more
recent geological periods; and if this is the correct
view, it becomes probable that more nearly allied
species belonging to the class Mammalia were really
absent. Even in that case, however, it is necessary
to bear in mind, that, although absent in these la-
titudes, and in our European area, they may still
have been abundant in other districts, and in tracts
of land existing under different conditions.

The delta which had so long been in course of
formation, and on which so thick a bed of sandy
detritus had been deposited, was at length concluded
by a considerable bed of clay which covered up the
sand. The land so long above the water again sunk
far beneath its level, and the great ancient continent
or polynesia was obliterated during a long time,
deep sea deposits being formed in the same tract,
and extending with great uniformity over an area of
many thousand square miles.

OF CREATION. 227

CHAPTER X.

THE INHABITANTS OF THE EARTH DURING THE CRETACEOUS
PERIOD.

THE newest portion of the great middle epoch com-
menced soon after the termination of the deposits
from that great river whose delta formed the Weald
of Kent and Sussex, and traces of whose existence
we find also in the Isle of Wight and on the coast of
France near Boulogne. In the south-east of England,
by a gradual depression of small amount, a great
tract, once the recipient of fresh water, sunk down
and became once more subject to marine deposits.
This being the case, it is not wonderful that a great
change also took place in the nature of the fossils, and
that the whole of the fresh- water species disappeared,
and were replaced by others adapted to the new and
changed condition of things. A modification of this
kind extended also over a wide area, reaching from
England to the Caucasus, and perhaps continuing as
far as southern India : a new series of animals came
into existence throughout the district, while a con-
stant succession of alterations of the level of the sea-
bottom sometimes produced slight elevations, but
more frequently, and on the whole, considerable de-
pression. In this way was marked the commence-
ment of the new period, and during the early part
of it the deposit of the bed called "lower green-

228 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

sand." This bed is of moderate thickness in Eng-
land, but of far greater importance in this respect in
some parts of the Continent, where it is manifestly
the representative of an extensive and long- continued
series of operations. During this period the prevail-
ing material deposited was, in England, sand, varied
occasionally by calcareous and muddy bands, but on
the Continent it includes many beds of limestone.
The sands contain a good number of fossils very dis-
tinct from those of the oolitic period, so that the de-
posit of the Wealden beds had either occupied so long
a time that the species in the neighbouring seas had
died out and been succeeded by others, or else the
commencement of the deposition of these beds had
been marked by the introduction of a new series of
typical forms.

The deposit of lower greensand was probably
made in a sea which in the south of England was
either shallow, or at least not extremely deep ; and
the bed of clay called gault, which rests upon the
lower greensand, contains forms for the most part
quite distinct from it. The group of deposits called
on the Continent " Neocomiari* is nothing more than
the typical form of these older or lower sandy beds,
either immediately succeeding the Weald or resting
directly on the oolite, though not deposited on the
latter beds till after a long interval had elapsed,
during which, probably, the oolitic rocks had formed
dry land*

The gault, or blue clay reposing on the lower
greensand, is itself succeeded by another thin and
less important bed of sand, also containing pale green
particles, and for that reason called " upper green-

OF CREATION. 229

sand;" and this again gives place to the lower chalk.
The upper greensand is generally barren of fossils,
and was most likely formed rapidly in a shallow sea.
After it was deposited the sea-bottom probably sunk
more rapidly, previously to the great change indicated
in the chalk beds above.

The depression of the sea-bottom, which probably
went on, with few alternations of elevation, during
the greater part of the deposit of the chalk, was a
very important phenomenon, and altered, as may be
supposed, the general character of the marine fauna
in almost every important respect. We at once lose
the species usually predominant in shallow water and
on a coast-line, and either obtain deep sea or free-
swimming animals, or else find the deposit singularly
barren of all organic remains. But, as it is not to be
supposed that a continued depression, amounting in
the whole to many hundred fathoms, could take place
without considerable effect being produced on the
beds beneath the surface, and since such depression
was perhaps accompanied by a partial upheaval in
some other subterranean tract, it will not be thought
extraordinary if the effects of submarine volcanic
action are also met with connected with this period.
Among such effects may have been the outpouring of
large quantities of silica, either in solution in hot
water, or thrown out in the state of vapour ; and in
this way we may possibly account for the layers of
flint alternating with the pure white carbonate of
lime of which the chalk mainly consists.

In the early part of the cretaceous period the ani-
mal kingdom was represented by species which ex-
hibit striking differences when compared with those of

230 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

the oolites, so far as the Invertebrata are concerned,
while the same large marine saurians seem to have
been continued. This may readily be understood, if
we suppose, that, in the interval between the deposit
of the uppermost marine oolites and the lower green-
sand there was an extensive tract of land at some
distance from the districts examined. I know of no
other hypothesis by which the facts can be explained ;
and this view is extremely probable in itself, and
answers the conditions of the problem. To this view
I shall have occasion again to recur.

When, however, towards the close of the deposits
of greensand, the sea began to deepen, the character
of the fauna also changed, and we find gradually
fewer indications of the neighbourhood of land, either
by fragments of land fossils, or by any indications of
those molluscous animals which prefer for their habita-
tion the shallow water near a coast-line. The animals
and other remains of greatest interest that we shall
have to consider as characterising the chalk are thus
either free-swimming, or their nearest analogues are
known to inhabit deep water. They include sponges,
the minute animals called Foraminifera., those still
more minute microscopical animalcules called Infu-
soria, various forms of encrinites and other Eadiata,
cephalopodous and other mollusks, a few fishes, and
some, but still fewer, reptiles. Most of the species
are peculiar to the formation, but there is a manifest
approximation to the existing forms of animals, not
only in those of low organization, but also in the
fishes.

In the most ancient seas we find abundant exam-
ples of the work, of those singular beings, which, in

OF CREATION. 231

spite of the continual encroachment of the waves, and
in defiance of storms and external violence, have
always been endowed with a rapidity of increase
greater beyond comparison than that of the more
highly organized animals. These little creatures have,
in the lapse of ages, been enabled to build up the
most solid and enduring monuments, and have con-
structed mountains of coral limestone, which charac-
terise each separate formation ; and some of their
race continued throughout the secondary period in
the part of the world we now inhabit. They were
represented abundantly during the deposit of the
chalk; and a vast multitude of sponges, organic
bodies even less advanced in the scale of organiza-
tion, were spread over the sea-bottom, and appear
to have been destroyed from time to time by sudden
irruptions of chalky mud.

The horny net-work commonly known as the
sponge is nothing more than the frame- work of a very
peculiar kind of vegetable. The whole surface of a
living sponge is covered with minute apertures, with
large ones distributed at intervals, and the water is in
some way made to enter the small pores in a con-
tinual current, which passes out again by those of
larger size. It cannot be doubted that these currents
are connected with the supply of nutrition ; but in
what way the current is produced, or what are the
actual conditions of existence, naturalists have not
yet been able to discover.

The sponge as commonly known is made up of
horny fibres, but a large number of varieties exist, in
which spiculae, or little needle-shaped crystallized par-
ticles of flint or carbonate of lime, separated from the

232 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

surrounding water, replace these horny fibres, so that
the frame- work becomes more or less entirely made
up of them, and assumes a different character. A body
in this state when exposed to the influence of water
in which siliceous or flinty matter is abundantly pre-
sent, would, as we know by observation in similar
cases, attract to itself the particles of siliceous matter
in the water, and become fossilised and surrounded
with silica. Such has been, perhaps, the history of
those singular layers of flint which characterise the
upper beds of chalk ; and it is quite certain that care-
ful examination under the microscope often shows
very distinctly in such flints a fine net-work of fibres
like those which we know to exist in sponges. The
annexed figure (82) will give an idea of the appear-
ance of such fibres in flint when greatly magnified.

Fig. 82

FOSSIL SPONGE

The forms of the sponges themselve are not unfre-
quently preserved in that of the flint into which

OF CREATION.

233

Fig. 83

they are now changed, and in this way we occasion-
ally find grotesque shapes resembling in form various
familiar objects.

In the sand associated with the chalk, the very
spongeous bodies themselves, exhibiting on their sur-
face the peculiar marks and apertures characteristic of
them, are also met with in a perfect state. The
figure marked (83) represents a common form.

Flints, when examined
with the aid of a good micro-
scope, not only exhibit a net-
work of fibres, but also show
entangled amongst the fibres
a vast multitude of exceed-
ingly minute bodies, the re-
mains of a group of animals
known to naturalists as "in-
fusorial animalcules," and of
late years investigated with
great care by M. Ehrenberg.

The skeletons of these
little creatures exist not
only in the recesses of the
chalk flints, but they also abound in many parts of
the solid matter of the chalk itself, so that a large
part of this rock would seem to be made up of the
fragmentary skeletons of these most minute animals,
whose very existence would be unknown to us with-
out the assistance of powerful microscopes.

To give such an idea as can be conveyed by num-
bers, it will be sufficient to say, that, with regard to
some species, as many as twenty-two thousand indivi-
duals might be placed in a row on a linear inch of

POLYPOTHECIA.

234

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

surface, while they are often crowded together so
closely in putrid water, that one cubic inch of water
in that state contains more of these animalcules than
there are human beings on the globe. They increase,
too, so rapidly, that, according to a calculation care-
fully made, as many as 800,000,000 may be derived
from a single individual in the course of a month
in summer. The method of effecting locomotion and
obtaining food is not less singular and interesting in
these animals than their minute proportions, and is
derived from the possession of very numerous fine hair-

INFUSORIAL ANIMALCULES.*

like appendages called cilia, by the constant vibration
of which a current is produced in the water.

The shapes of the hard part or skeleton of the
animalcules found in the chalk, in flints, and else-
where, are many of them extremely curious and
beautiful. Some specimens appear to consist of tubes

* Fig. 84, Gomphonema. Fig. 85, Bacillaria.
Fig. 87, Xanthidium. Fig. 88, Gaillionella.

Fig. 86, Navicula.

OF CREATION. 235

placed edgeways, and projecting one beyond another;
others are also tubes, but placed parallel one with an-
other on long lines of fragile riband transversely to the
direction of the riband (fig. 85). Others, again, are
oblong figures united at the edges ; while one group,
more complicated than the rest, exhibits numerous
projections of the most singular shapes (Xanthidium,
fig. 87).

It cannot but be a matter of great interest to learn,
if possible, the use of these minute animals in the
economy of nature. That they are not merely acci-
dents in creation we may be quite certain, and that
they simply enjoy life, and do not contribute to the
well-being of the whole, may be considered equally
improbable, and too unlike the ordinary course of
nature, to be admitted for a moment. All things
work together, and we may, in all cases, safely
inquire concerning the adaptation of any group, how-
ever minute or apparently unimportant it may at
first appear.

It has been ingeniously suggested by Professor
Owen that these little creatures are the appointed
devourers of organic matter immediately before its
final decomposition into inorganic elements. " For
consider," says he, " their incredible numbers, their
universal distribution, their insatiable voracity, and
their invariable presence wherever animal or vege-
table matter is undergoing decomposition in water.
Surely we must be indebted to them — the ever ac-
tive and invisible scavengers of the world — for the
salubrity of our atmosphere ; but they perform a
still more important office, perhaps, in preventing
the gradual diminution of the present amount of
organized matter upon the earth.

236 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

" And it is not difficult to understand in what way
this result is produced, for, when the organic matter
is in that state of comminution and decay which im-
mediately precedes its return from the organic to the
inorganic world, these wakeful members of nature's
invisible police are everywhere ready to arrest the
fugitive particles, and turn them back into the ascend-
ing stream of animal life. Becoming the food of the
smaller infusorial animalcules, they again supply the
voracity of the larger ones, and of numerous other
small animals, which in their turn are devoured by
larger ones, and so, by degrees, the substance fit for
the nourishment of the most highly organized classes
is brought back by a short route from the extremity
of the realms of organized matter."

It is a remarkable and very interesting fact with
regard to these animalcules, that their light, though
siliceous skeletons, are capable of being transported
by the air in the form of fine dust to the distance of
many hundred miles out at sea ; and the quantity so
transported is often sufficient to cloud the air, and
form a sensible deposit on the decks and rigging of
ships. The microscope alone is capable of proving
whence this dust comes, but, with its aid, they can
be recognized, identified, and traced to that conti-
nent or island, which is not always the one nearest
at hand, where they are indigenous. It will not
be surprising, also, since we thus find the bodies
of the animalcules themselves carried along by mil-
lions through the air, that their eggs may be carried
yet farther, and prove a bond of union between dis-
tant lands, whose other inhabitants have no relation.
Who could have imagined that the atmosphere is in

OF CREATION.

237

this way the means of conveying to distant spots
the invisible stony frame- work and the eggs of these
little bodies ? and yet it is impossible to doubt the
importance of such a means of communication in the
animal economy.

But the animalcules, singular and interesting as
they are, form but one of several groups of ani-
mals of low organization that inhabited the sea
during the deposit of the chalk. The sea bottom
abounded with sponges of all kinds, as we have
already seen; and floating about near the surface,
there must also have existed a vast number of mi-
nute animals enclosed in shells formed of a number
of chambers or compartments, belonging to a group
now common in many seas and known by the name
Foraminifera.

89 90 91 92 93

FORAMINIFERA.*

The animals thus named occupy all the various
chambers of their habitation, and not merely, as in
the nautilus, the outermost one. They appear to
possess a more perfect organization than the polyps,
but are less complicated than the encrinites. Their
body is simple and gelatinous, no distinct organs being
recognisable in it. In size they vary from dimen-

* Fig. 89, Guttulina. Fig. 90, Rosalina. Fig. 91, Siderolina.
Fig. 92, Cristellaria. Fig. 93, Nodosaria.

238

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

sions perfectly microscopic, and absolutely invisible to
the naked eye, to about the bigness of a five-shilling
piece. In shape their habitation is sometimes flat
and disc-like, resembling a piece of money, and some-
times it presents the most singular modifications of
form, including every variety that can be conceived
to arise from the indiscriminate heaping together of a
great number of very differently shaped chambers, as
unlike one another in size as they are in shape.

Animals of this low organization multiply rapidly,
and are capable of making very important geological
deposits. While, indeed, the vertebrated animals
and the larger and more complicated mollusks live
for some considerable time, and modify during that
time the general conditions of organic existence, these
little creatures — the coral animal, the animalcule, and
the Foraminifera — may, by their rapid secretion of
solid matter from the water, and (owing to their
brief existence) equally rapid deposition of it in a
solid form, lay the foundation of islands, and even of
new continents. The land thus formed may, when
brought above the sea level, be destined to last, with
little change, throughout many successive geological
epochs, during which group after group of species of
the higher animals may be introduced and destroyed,
some of which leave no indication of their ever having
existed, while others are represented by a few bones,
a tooth, a scale, or perhaps only by the faint impress
of a footstep.

How important, then, it becomes that we should
understand these, the common hieroglyphics, even if
their meaning is less full, and when they talk an ear-
lier and a simpler language than the others, since the
sacred characters which speak of higher events are so

OF CREATION

239

infinitely more rare, and for that reason also more dif-
ficult to render. The most enduring monuments of
man himself — his cities, his pyramids, and his lofty
columns — are, in many cases, built of these far more
ancient and far more lasting objects, which withstand
the shock of earthquakes and the hand of time, and
which scarcely yield, even at last, to the slow in-
fluence of crystalline forces, re-arranging the particles
by the aid of heat and electricity.

Fig. 94

Many species of
radiated animals —
animals developed
more or less in a
star- shape, and form-
ed of five parts or
rays — are common
in the chalk (see fig.
94) ; but the elegant
lily encrinites of the
older periods had
now dwindled to a
few species of small
size and diminish-
ed beauty. One of the less common, but most pe-
culiar forms of these creatures, has the form of a
pouch, or rather, perhaps, of an egg open at the top.
The whole is built up of plates accurately fitting one
another; and arms proceeded from the summit, sur-
rounding the mouth. The shell or case, which
was not supported on a stem, is known to naturalists
by the name of Marsupite ;* and one cannot easily

STAR FISH.

* Marsupium, a pouch or purse, from the resemblance of the shell
to a pouch.

240

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

Fig. 95

imagine how an animal provided with so
heavy a covering could move about. It
may have been permanently attached,
though no stem appears, and possibly it
was provided with a membrane project-
ing between the plates, and coating their
external surface.

The true encrinites are not very com-
mon in the chalk, and this is especially
the case in our own country. Some re-
markable forms occur on the Continent,
and one of these is represented in the
annexed figure (95), but they are rarely
in a perfect state.

Besides these radiated animals, many
others of various kinds, and perfectly en-
closed in a stony case, such as sea-urchins,
&c., are found in the chalk, especially
in particular localities, and are accom-
panied by the remains of crabs and lob-
sters, some of them belonging to that tribe
of hermit crabs (fig. 96) which have no cal-
careous cover-
ing except up-
on the claws,
and are oblig-
ed to make use
of the shells

of whelks and
PAGURUS. other univalve

mollusca as habitations. It is interesting
to be able to trace the similarity of orga-

BOURGUETI- . , . »

CRINUS. nization which enables us to recognise a

Fig. 96

OF CREATION.

241

character and habit of this kind, for it gives a
reality to the investigations of the palaeontologist,
and a familiarity and homeliness to his descriptions,
which cannot fail to be pleasing and satisfactory.

Bivalve as well as univalve shells are found abun-
dantly, but not universally, in the chalk ; and some
districts in the south of France seem to be remark-
able for the singular and extreme development of one
group, of which, so far as can be told, there are no
living representatives. Their shells were perma-
nently fixed to some solid body. The structure
of the shell is peculiar and of great thickness and
strength, from which we may safely conclude that
the animal had no need of motion when once es-
tablished in its house. One such genus is called

Fig. 97

Sphcerulite, another
is the Hippurite ;
but there are seve-
ral belonging to this
group, and they seem
most nearly allied
to the inhabitants
of those univalve
shells of which the
limpet is the pre-
sent representative.
I have figured a spe-
cies of Sphserulite,
to give an idea of
the ancient form of the shell of this group.

Three common and characteristic forms of creta-
ceous bivalve shells are also figured. One of them,
called Inoceramus (fig. 100), is a shell whose remains

SPHJERULITE.

242 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

are frequently found in the chalk, but which has
no living representative. It often attained a large

Fig. 98 Fig. 99

TRIGONIA. PLICATULA.

size, and its hinges being singularly thick and pon-
derous, while the shell was often thin, it is not un-
common to find fragments of the more solid portion
detached. The Trigonia (fig. 98) is the ancient
representative of a genus still found, and not uncom-

Fig. 100

TEREBRATULA.

INOCERAMUS.

mon on the coast of Australia, but now absent from
the northern hemisphere ; and the other, Plicatula
(fig. 99), is one of a larger group, nearly allied to
the oyster, and very common throughout the creta-

OF CREATION. 243

ceous period. The Terebratulae (fig. 101) were also
abundant during the whole period, and continued
quite to its close.

The univalve shells of this period are also interest-
ing. Of those nearly allied to existing forms, the
annexed figure (102) is a good example. Fig. 102
But the most remarkable, beyond all com-
parison, are the indications of the ancient
Cephalopoda at this the last point of their
development. These animals, having been
developed throughout the lias and oolitic
period in extreme abundance, were conti-
nued in the cretaceous rocks, and there TORNATELLA.
seem to have expanded into a vast multitude of
strange forms before becoming finally extinct.

The forms thus assumed were curious, and the
exact bearing of them upon the habits of the animal
it is by no means easy to recognise. The most sim-
ple form in which an animal forms a habitation con-
sisting of a number of compartments may be under-
stood by examining any univalve shell. The greater
part of the animal is inclosed in a muscular sac called a
mantle, capable of depositing carbonate of lime. As
soon as one coat is deposited, which, of course, as-
sumes the shape of the muscular mantle, the simple
shell is perfected. If, as the animal grows, it is
developed in a spiral form, the shell increases at the
aperture ; but if the extremity does not adapt itself
to the original shell, and remain always of the same
size, it must, as it increases in size, withdraw itself
from its former compartment, and build a wall of par-
tition, and in this way we have the first step towards
the formation of the shell of the ammonite or nau-

M 2

244

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

tilus, the generic distinction being founded partly on
the position of a siphon or tube which connects one
chamber with another, partly on the shape of the
mantle.

It is easy to imagine, however, that in thus de-
i. 103 veloping itself round

an axis, the successive
whorls may or may not
actually touch one an-
other. The common
Spirula is an example
of the latter structure
in a recent shell ; and
the shell called Crio-
ceratite* (103) corre-
sponds with the ammo-
nite, much as the spirula corresponds with the nautilus.
Again, if, instead of being thus formed continu-
ously in a spiral, the animal at particular periods of
its growth went off in a straight form, and then again
curved, we should have a hooked shell resembling
that figured in the annexed cut, and called a Ha-

Fig. 104

CRIOCERATITE.

HAMITE.

mite\ (104), or another having a more boat-like form,
and called by naturalists Scaphite.^ But if, instead of

* Kpiof (cn'os), a battering-ram ;
f 'A/LIJJ (/«me), a reaping-hook.

ceras\ a horn.
% SiccHpoQ (scaphos), a boat.

OF CREATION.

245

r~.
«31

curving, it went on straight from the first, we should
then have a straight shell, in all important respects
the same, but having the same relation with the
Orthoceratite that the Crioceratite has to the Spirula.
Such a shell is called a Baculite* (105). p^. 105

And, lastly, if our ammonite in
building its habitation were developed
so as to exhibit a form like that of most
univalve shells, another genus would be
formed identical with one common in
the chalk, and called Turrilites,^ from
the spiral or turreted shape assumed.

These peculiar forms (and besides
those we have described there are
many others known) would not seem
to require any great difference in the
animal either with regard to structure
or habit, but they were no doubt ac-
companied by well-marked distinctive
characters. It is certainly not a little
striking, that, at the close of the se-
condary period, immediately before the
whole race of ammonite-like shells was
absolutely destroyed in the European
seas, there should have been so sin-
gular and almost fantastic a develop-
ment of them. They were accompani-
ed by belemnites, and probably by many BACULITE-
free-swimming soft cephalopods, whose remains are
not preserved.

The fishes of the cretaceous rocks are interesting,
although not remarkably different either in form or

* Baculusy a stick. •)• Turris, a tower.

246

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

size from most of those of the other secondary deposits.
They include, however, a number of families referred
to those two orders of fishes which now infinitely ex-
ceed the other two in number and variety of form
(the ctenoids and cycloids), but which till the chalk
had not been introduced upon the earth. Among the
chalk fishes there are also some of the sauroid family,
among which the species of a genus called Macro-

Fig. 106

Fig. 107

SCALE AND COPROMTE OF MACROPOMA.

poma were the most abundant and the most pre-
daceous. This fish was about eighteen inches or two
feet long : the head occupied nearly one-third of the
whole length, and was provided with strong jaws arm-
ed with numerous sharp conical teeth. The body was
covered with oblong scales (106) studded with hollow
tubes. The fins were powerful, and strengthened with
bony spines, which were probably defensive ; and
the whole skeleton is of robust proportions, and in-
dicative of great strength. Some specimens of this
fish have been so well preserved, that not only do
the gills remain, but the whole stomach may be seen,
with its membranous walls solidified, and with -a
number of coprolites in the abdominal cavity (see
fig. 107).

OF CREATION.

247

Besides these sauroid fishes, which were unques-
tionably very predaceous, a vast number of sharks of
different kinds must have existed, their teeth and
bony spines being found abundantly, although gene-
rally detached in various places in the chalk. The
scales of placoid fishes not inclosing the animal in a
bony case covered with enamel, as is the case with
ganoid fish, and the skeleton being either nearly or
entirely cartilaginous, the body would speedily un-
dergo decomposition after death, so that the different
hard parts, — the teeth (108), palatal bones (109), and

Fig. 109

SHARKS' TEETH.

fin rays, — became irregularly distributed. It is in
this manner accordingly that we find them.

The fishes in the chalk allied to the existing cy-
cloid and ctenoid orders are best illustrated by an ac-
count of the Beryx, closely allied to the perch, and
the Osmeroides, whose nearest analogue is the salmon.

The Beryx is a very common fish in the chalk of
the south-east of England, and there are there found
three distinct species. All of them are of small size,
the largest not more than a foot long, but the scales
are very large in proportion, and the head is also

248 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

very large, at least in some species, while the vertebrae
are short, and the ribs slight. The jaws are covered
with a band of very fine teeth, like the hairs in a
brush. The scales are jagged like the teeth of a
comb, and the fish belongs, therefore, to the ctenoid
order, of which that structure of the scales is charac-
teristic.

The cycloid fish Osmeroides is also common in the
chalk, but belongs rather to the lower than the
upper beds. The fishes of this genus are very beau-
tiful, and often tolerably perfect, but their size is not
large. Fishes of the carp family, others allied to the
mackarel, and an eel-shaped fish called Dercetis, form
the remaining groups most abundant in the chalk,
and most characteristic of the formation.

The reptilian remains of the cretaceous series are
exceedingly few, and present but a scanty amount of
new material with reference to this department of
fossil natural history. They include, however, one
new and gigantic lizard of marine habits, nearly allied
to the monitors (Mosasaurus) ; and with this are
found a few remains of turtles, one very gigantic
saurian whose structure is little known but which
has been called PolyptycJiodon (occurring in the lower
beds), the remains of a few Ichthyosauri, and frag-
ments of a Pterodactyl.

Of these reptiles, that which has been named Mosa-
saurus (the saurian of the Meuse, on whose banks the
fossil remains of it have chiefly been found) resembled
the monitor of India and Egypt, especially in the struc-
ture of the head and teeth ; but the head alone is far
larger than the whole body of any existing species of
these animals, and the teeth, which are of proper-

OF CREATION. 249

tionate size, are solid and firmly imbedded in the jaw
by a broad and strong bony attachment (fig. 110).
The powerful teeth thus inserted were renewed by
young teeth, which pressed against, and thus gradually
wore away the old ones, and replaced them as they
were required. Other teeth of smaller size, but still
large, were fitted on the palate, as in the serpents
and many fishes.

The back-bone of the mosasaur was admirably

Fig. 110

MOSASAURUS.

Portion of Lower Jaw.

adapted for enabling the animal to move rapidly and
easily in the water, and the tail seems to have form-
ed a powerful vertical oar of large size and great
strength. The paddles, too, were of gigantic propor-
tions, and in this respect this chalk reptile must have
rivalled the Plesiosaurus. All the analogies of the
genus, however, seem to have been with the lizard
tribe, although involving a perfect application to ma-
rine habits, which necessarily introduced considerable
modifications of structure. The habits of the mosa-
saur were highly predaceous, and it seems to have
been the last gigantic form of the marine reptiles
before the final destruction of those animals at the
close of the secondary period.

The turtles of the chalk and greensand hardly

M 5

250 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

exhibit any peculiarities which demand consideration
here. They are not of large size, and they all be-
longed to the group inhabiting the sea. Their re-
mains, although not common, include several species.

The gigantic reptile of the greensand called Polyp-
tychodon* is known only by such imperfect fragments
that we can scarcely do more at present than indi-
cate its vast proportions. The thigh-bone of this
animal was solid, and measured nearly four feet in
length.

The remains of Ichthyosaurus and Pterodactyl in
the chalk are beyond question, and the specimens are
of great interest. The former is known by a very
beautiful specimen of the head with teeth, and the
latter by the head, and also several of the long bones.

The bones of birds have been determined among
the fossil remains of the chalk ; and, although very
rare and in fragments, they seem to indicate, beyond
a doubt, the existence of a large species allied to the
albatross.

No trace whatever of the existence of any land
quadruped, or of any of the whale tribe, has been
met with in the chalk, or in any of the associated or
contemporaneous beds. This entire absence of the
Mammalia cannot but be looked on as an interesting
and remarkable fact.

The conditions of existence during the chalk and
the cretaceous beds generally were certainly different
from those which obtained during the oolitic period ;
but this must have been partly the result of circum-
stances, since the specimens found in the newer de-

* HoXvKTvxoQ (potyptychus), having many folds or wrinkles ; OCOVQ
a tooth.

OF CREATION. 251

posits afford information only with regard to the in-
habitants of deep water and the open sea, and offer
little help in determining the nature of the coast-line.
It thus becomes probable that a great part of this
difference may, after all, have consisted in a change
of the relative level of land and water. However
this may be, the group of organic remains in the
chalk is not sufficiently perfect to allow of our pic-
turing to ourselves any general view of the various
races, or obtaining a notion of the characteristic fea-
tures of the marine fauna as distinct from those of
former and later times.

On the whole, however, the geological naturalist,
recalling the different groups of animals then most
abundant, and comparing them with those of more
recent and also of more ancient dates, will be struck
with many manifest signs of approximation to the
existing condition, and may trace a gradual but uni-
form advance towards the present forms of life.

Such general views, forming what is sometimes
called the physiognomy of a group of animals or
vegetables, are far more important than might be
thought at first sight, for they often point distinctly
to the truest and most valuable analogies; and, being
dependent on the degree of uniformity of the condi-
tion under which the inhabitants, whether of land or
water, may have existed, they are in themselves real
and to be depended on. At the same time, it must
be remembered that there are kinds as well as de-
grees of analogy, and that resemblance, of whatever
kind or degree, by no means involves true affinity
or derivation from the same source. So far is this
from being the case, that we sometimes, on the con-

252 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

trary, find the most nearly allied species existing
under very different conditions, and forming part of
a group whose physiognomy is distinct ; while, on the
other hand, very different species, traceable to sources
altogether different, may, and often do, show the
greatest physiognomical resemblance. We shall con-
sider in the next chapter how the different portions
of the great secondary period are distributed, and to
what extent they are alike.

Before concluding these general remarks on the
chalk, it is necessary that I should here notice, how-
ever briefly, the uppermost beds of this period in
Europe ; those, namely, that occur on the banks of
the Meuse near Maestricht. From various appear-
ances it may be concluded that this deposit took place
not far from the shore. There have been found there,
for instance, the most perfect fragments of the Mosa-
saurus, the bones of turtles, &c., together with vari-
ous remains of crustaceans and shells, which bespeak
shallows occasionally left dry by the tide. No re-
mains of birds have, indeed, yet been obtained from
this spot, nor is there any indication of the extent
or direction of the land ; while, from the smallness
of this deposit, and the absence of distinct land fos-
sils, it might almost be concluded that there existed
only a few scattered islets in these European lati-
tudes. This locality is chiefly interesting from the
negative fact, that no modification of the fauna is
introduced in it. There is little positive evidence to
be derived from the few fossils there presented ; and
when we consider the aspect of the most ancient
tertiary fauna, it will be seen to bear no marks of
any association with this, which appears to repre-

OF CREATION. 253

sent the newest chalk period. If, indeed, any traces
exist of the intervening deposits between the true
chalk and the lower tertiary beds, they must pro-
bably be sought for either in south-eastern Europe,
or in those parts of Africa and Asia which form the
connecting link between India and the Mediterra-
nean.

The Geology of the newer secondary period in
these districts, although at present indistinctly work-
ed out, is gradually assuming interest and impor-
tance. It is true, that, in spite of many appear-
ances, some of them very deceptive, there is not
yet distinct evidence of a passage from the secondary
to the tertiary period ; but there is a greater simila-
rity in the general aspect of the two faunas, a more
distinct approximation in the proportionate numbers
of different species, and a more marked resemblance
in the prevailing types, than has been elsewhere ob-
served. Perhaps the best and the most important
similarities are those which occur in the fossils of deep
water deposits, and the recent publication of an ad-
mirable monograph on the cretaceous fossils of south-
eastern India'"" clearly shows that there exists valu-
able material of all kinds for great and interesting
generalisation on this subject, and that, in all pro-
bability, time and careful investigation will bring to
light other evidence, and perhaps ultimately afford
the link which is now missing.

* Geol. Trans., 2nd ser., vol. vii. p. 85 et seq.

254 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

CHAPTER XL

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING THE SECONDARY EPOCH AND
THE CIRCUMSTANCES OP ITS TERMINATION.

WE have now considered in succession the various
aspects of creation during the period that intervened
between the disturbances which broke up the older
rocks, distributing them in irregular patches and groups
over the earth, and the final close of the epoch by the
deposit of the chalk. This bed, originally perhaps
calcareous mud, afterwards became hardened under
water, and was at length laid bare over a great part
of Europe by the elevation of the sea-bottom. The
disturbance by which the whole of the Wealden dis-
trict of England was thus exposed, and the great
expanse of chalk which once covered it entirely re-
moved, must have been of later date ; and the mag-
nificent phenomena of altered chalk on the coast
of Antrim in Ireland and in the adjacent Western
Islands of Scotland, and of contemporaneous beds in
Germany, Switzerland, and eastern Europe, besides
the great disturbances of the cretaceous rocks along
the elevated district of central Europe, all clearly
show the extent of this disturbance, and the results
of it. The commencement of this series of dis-
turbances may be considered to have closed the
secondary epoch.

OP CREATION. 255

If we consider the case of the British Islands
generally, it appears very clear that the great earth-
quake movements resulting in elevation, which have
chiefly left marks of their long-continued action, were
of two principal geological periods : those of the first
period commencing about the middle of the deposit
of the coal, and lasting till the upper beds of new
red sandstone were deposited; and those of the
second period, not beginning till after the close of
the deposit of the upper chalk of Britain, but lasting
throughout the formation of the beds of London
clay. Since, also, these two periods of disturbance
are those at which the most marked difference seems
to have taken place in the nature of animal and
vegetable existence, we are justified in believing that
the frequent succession of disturbances during these
periods rendered certain parts of the earth not capa-
ble of maintaining their former inhabitants, and that
the disturbances lasted so long that the species sub-
sequently introduced were of very different specific
character.

Before the commencement of the secondary epoch
we must suppose that there existed some consider-
able tract of land to supply the abundant deposits
of woody matter which have since become coal,
and the sinking down of this land, and consequent
frequent exposure of a fresh surface to the ravages of
the sea, may account for the rapid deposition and
peculiar character of the new red sandstone, and also
of its successor the lias ; and I have stated the pro-
bability that the oolitic strata were deposited in an
ocean bed, sinking during the early and middle part,
but rising towards the close, until, at length, at the

256 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

Wealden period, it was elevated into an extensive
and important district, not far removed, though per-
haps very different in form and direction, from the
land in the northern hemisphere at present. After
a time, however, the depression re-commenced, and
lasted till a considerable tract of deep water cover-
ed the greater part of the existing land of Europe.
The depression was probably very gradual, but it must
also have been general, for we have good evidence
that it included nearly the whole of what is now
the Alpine range of mountains, and quite the whole
of that extensive range of high ground to the east,
which has since been lifted up to form the chain
of the Caucasus.

In our own country, and in the northern hemi-
sphere generally, the direction of the elevating force
during the first of these two periods was, for the most
part, north-east and south-west. This is seen in the
Welsh and Cumberland hills, the Scandinavian moun-
tains, and the Ural chain, and in the general strike of
the older deposits. It is not, indeed, uniform, nor are
the mountain chains parallel, but there is sufficient
evidence to prove that there was, in this way, 9
general impress given.

During the secondary period we have this direc-
tion retained in England, the oolitic escarpments af-
fording excellent examples of its permanence : but on
the continent of Europe there is much confusion ; and
even the older rocks in the eastern districts, as in
Russia, instead of being consolidated and almost
crystalline, are loose and scarcely altered from the
condition they may have exhibited when first de-
posited. It might be worth while to speculate how

OP CREATION.

257

far it is probable, from this condition, that the whole
secondary deposit in Europe took place in a sea
limited in extent, surrounded, or nearly so, by land
to the west and north, and subject to very constant,
but inconsiderable changes of level in that direction,
though comparatively quiet in its eastern portion,
where there was deeper water. Such a condition
would seem to account for the great variety and ex-
tent of the deposits, the uniformity of some few of
•them in certain directions, the persistence of some
fossils of high organization (as the Ichthyosaurus,
&c.) through several distinct divisions, and the ge-
neral uniformity of character of the group of fos-
sils in some, but not in all districts. If we look
upon the whole period as one of transition in the
latitude of Europe, and suppose that the axis of dis-
turbance was shifting from the north and south to
the east and west direction, many of the apparent
anomalies of the formations will perhaps disappear.

Whatever may be the result of speculations of
this kind, the fossils of the secondary period certain-
ly exhibit a very perfect and beautiful series, possess-
ing characters at first difficult to decipher, but al-
most always capable of being made out by detailed
and careful investigation.

Observing the indications given by the different
and successive groups of organic remains, we can
also learn the changes that have taken place in a
particular district; and thus, for instance, in Eng-
land, we may trace a rapid deposition of limestone in
one spot, and mud in another, these being contem-
poraneous, but having very different fossils. Each
of these, again, was succeeded by other beds of the

258 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

same or different kind, without any long pause, and
often, it may be, while the preceding deposit was be-
coming solid ; but the new beds exhibit great local
differences and sometimes apparent repetition. One
thing, however, is perfectly clear in the midst of
all this change, introduction, and substitution of spe-
cies, namely, that there was on the whole no true
advance in the perfection or even the complication of
organic forms, between the commencement and the
close of the epoch ; for, at the outset, we find evi-
dence of the existence of reptiles of the two ex-
tremes of organization ; in the middle we have
merely a vast multiplication of reptilian species, ex-
hibiting very interesting and remarkable modifica-
tions, but no new type ; while towards the close
these all cease, and we revert to the same, or nearly
the same, modifications of lacertian structure as at
first. Neither in size, number, or affinity to higher
forms, nor, indeed, in any conceivable point, can we
trace systematic advance in organization in the rep-
tiles of this great saurian period. It must not be
forgotten also, that the reptiles were, with the excep-
tion of the few marsupial quadrupeds, the animals of
most complicated structure, and that they form, in
the strictest sense, the characteristic group of the
secondary period.

Nor do we find any different result if we examine
the other groups. The birds exhibit indications of
their existence by a few footsteps in the new red
sandstone, at the commencement of the epoch, and
a very few isolated bones obtained from the chalk
give evidence of their presence scarcely more distinct
at its close. No such remains at all have yet been

OF CREATION. 259

found in any of the intermediate deposits. Just so
it is with the mammals. In the lower beds of the
middle part of the series we have a few but distinct
traces of their presence ; these, however, are totally
lost in the newer beds, and even in the Weald, a
fresh-water deposit, we are still without a single frag-
ment that can be supposed to have belonged to any
quadruped, the companion on land of the gigantic
dinosaurians.

The Invertebrata illustrate the same fact yet more
decisively. A vast development of the highest
type, the Cephalopoda, seems to have been through-
out characteristic of the period, and one genus alone,
that of ammonites, was represented then by many
more species that now form the whole group. The
belemnites and other free-swimming animals of the
same kind (cuttle-fish) were no less abundant, and
their remains are found every where, distributed
it is true locally, owing to the conditions of de-
posit being only occasionally favourable for their
preservation. Other univalve shells are also met
with in great abundance, proving clearly how similar
the conditions of existence must have been to those
which still obtain in various parts of the world.
The abundance of Terebratulae in particular locali-
ties, the presence of other bivalve shells of almost
all the different existing families, the development
of Foraminifera and minute infusorial animalcules in
deep sea deposits, and, indeed, almost every natural
history fact presented to us, offers the strongest ana-
logy to similar facts now observable. These facts
all prove how greatly the study of existing nature
may aid us in working out the problems of the past

260

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

history of the world, and how nearly the past stands
in relation to the present.

But though there are thus very near and impor-
tant resemblances, neither can it be questioned that
there are wide and startling differences. Where
now, or during more modern geological periods, we
should find remains of elephants, rhinoceroses, and
hippopotamuses, we have multitudes of the bones
of gigantic reptiles, assuming their form, occupying
their place, and substituted for them in the islands
and continents of the ancient world. The whale
tribe, an exceedingly important and widely extended
group of animals, now inhabiting the seas from the
poles to the equator, represented by many species of
various proportions and dimensions, and manifestly
occupying a very important place amongst the in-
habitants of the deep, is, in like manner, totally ab-
sent. It must be remembered, too, that in this case
the argument arising from the absence of the group
is far stronger than in the case of land animals,
for the remains of these creatures, both of teeth and
bones, were just as likely to be preserved as those of
other marine animals, and in more modern deposits
they have been so preserved. But there is also a good
reason for their absence. Their task was performed
by others ;* they were not needed, because their place
was supplied by the gigantic marine reptiles, which
have abounded during the whole period, and which

* This is the case at least with the large-toothed carnivorous Cetacea.
It is worth while to observe that we do not at present know of any
fossil remains in secondary rocks of large herbivorous or animalcule-
feeding animals, whether reptilian or otherwise, corresponding to the
dugong, &c., and the gigantic true whales (Balance}.

OF CREATION. 261

have left undoubted marks of their existence and
wide distribution.

This method of substitution, by which, at different
times and in various places, animals and vegetables
of very different organization have replaced one an-
other, is found by geological observations to have been
universally adopted in nature. Large groups may be
observed performing their appointed task at one pe-
riod or in one place, and these are represented by
other species at another time or at some distant
spot, the representative species exhibiting some ana-
logous peculiarity, either of structure or habit, which
fits it for that similar function.

This important fact is, however, not made known
to us exclusively by geological researches, but also by
investigations into existing nature ; and these latter,
when combined with the former, become more dis-
tinctly recognised, and by their manifest relation to
long periods of time as well as extensive tracts in
space, exhibit their true importance with reference
to all nature.

Viewed as one epoch, the secondary rocks present
to us a well-marked and very distinct group of ani-
mals and vegetables, from the careful study of which
we may arrive at some probable conclusion with
regard to the condition of the earth and seas during
the period of deposit. We thus learn to consider the
secondary period as indicating a condition very differ-
ent from that of the earlier epoch, and as cut off from
it absolutely by the introduction of new forms of or-
ganic existence. Its great characteristic undoubtedly
appears to be the introduction of reptiles, or rather the
presence of reptiles in such vast variety of form, and

262 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

in such relative numerical abundance, as to render
it probable that the apparent absence of animals of
higher organization is not accidental, or a conclusion
based on imperfect examination, but that it was real
and absolute.

The corresponding* characteristic of the former and
earlier period we found to be the great development
of fishes, which occupied then the position afterwards
filled by reptiles. Now it is this apparent substitu-
tion or representation that gives confidence and jus-
tifies the conclusions drawn. By the help of compa-
rative views of this kind, we perceive the meaning,
the symmetry, and the perfectness of each group, and
the adaptation of each to its own end. By carefully
carrying out the method of comparison, we gradually
attain more distinct, less exaggerated, and more ra-
tional views of the differences of organic being at
various periods ; and there is no doubt that the views
thus attained are infinitely more real than those de-
rived from the examination of a few isolated facts of
marvellous character, which attract the imagination,
but which for that very reason are likely to mislead
the judgment.

If called upon to give a general account of the phy-
sical geography of the secondary period, in the vici-
nity of our own island, I might venture to suggest,
— 1. That during this period there were many in-
considerable disturbances of the bed of an ocean which
then covered our island, but which was partially
bounded in several directions by islands extending to
the west and north, the lines of coast being more or
less extensive, and generally at no great distance.
2. That the effect of these disturbances was for a

OF CREATION. 263

long time gradually to depress the bed of the ocean,
while the deposits, chiefly of calcareous matter,
were sufficiently rapid and abundant, at least near
shore, to keep pace with the sinking. 3. That after
a time partial elevation took place, converting into
dry land a large tract, in consequence of the wide
extent of a moderately shallow sea, arising from the
condition just mentioned. 4. That there was an ex-
ception to this conversion into dry land in the south-
east of England, and some other spots ; but that here
the waters were chiefly fresh, indicating the presence
of an extensive river emptying itself not far off into
the sea. 5. That while this elevation took place in
England, depression was going on in the south of
Europe, accompanied by disturbances, and producing
a deep sea, b'. That such deep sea was afterwards
enlarged by a wider movement of depression, until
it extended from Scandinavia to Spain, and from
England to the Caucasus, being throughout that
wide tract the recipient of deposits of chalky mud ;
and, finally, that this sea was probably deeper and
was soonest deepened in the southern part of the
district, but that just in that part the sea-bottom
afterwards again underwent elevation on a grand
scale, and formed either continuous land or a chain
of islands extending from England to Asia Minor,
and connected with the elevation of the Alps, the
Pyrenees, and the Caucasus.

This last disturbance was accompanied, however,
by a total destruction of almost the whole series of
animated beings in these parts of the world ; it was
accompanied also by the outburst of a considerable
quantity of lava (seen in the north of Ireland), and

264 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

by the production of the central mountain districts
of Europe and Asia. In this way was given the
first decided tendency to the great east and west
line of direction which was afterwards retained dur-
ing the elevation of the eastern part of the northern
hemisphere.

How long it was after the deposit of the chalk
that these movements commenced, and how long
they lasted, — whether, as is probable, they began
early, and lasted for a very long time, or whether
they commenced only when the chalk had become
hard and attained its present condition, — we are not
able yet to assert; but there is little doubt that the
great secondary period was locally terminated by dis-
turbances connected with the elevation of Europe and
Asia, while possibly at this very time deposits were
going on in the seas immediately adjacent, and over
a great part of the valleys in those two continents.

These, we believe, are conclusions which Geologists
will hardly be inclined to dispute, and they form
the outline of a connected history of the revolu-
tions of the globe during the secondary epoch. But,
besides that part of the history which has immediate
reference to British Geology, there are other import-
ant facts already known with reference to other dis-
tricts. The successive elevation of the Alps, the Pyre-
nees, the Carpathians, the Caucasus, and the Hima-
layan chain, and even of the Andes, will also be
found to bear importantly on the general physical
Geology of the epoch, and will tend to clear up
many doubts and difficulties that arise in the con-
templation of the phenomena as they are presented
in our own country and in western Europe.

OP CREATION.

265

THE THIRD, OR MODERN EPOCH.

CHAPTER XII.

THE INTRODUCTION OF LAND ANIMALS AND THE COMMENCEMENT OF
THE TERTIARY PERIOD IN WESTERN EUROPE.

THE close of the secondary period was succeeded
by a general disruption of the various beds that had
been deposited in those parts of the earth to which
we now have access, and by changes and modifica-
tions so considerable as to alter the whole face of
nature. It would appear, also, that a long period of
time elapsed before newer beds were thrown down,
since the chalky mud not only had time to harden
into chalk, but the surface of the chalk itself was
much rubbed and worn.

So completely and absolutely is the line of demar-
cation drawn between the secondary and newer de-
posits in parts of the world where these beds have
been recognised in actual contact, that it had become
a common notion among Geologists, to assume the
destruction of all natural relations between them, con-
cluding that not one single species of animal or vege-
table connected the two periods, and lived through
the intervening disturbances. Although this view
certainly requires modification in points of detail, it

266 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

is still correct in a general sense, and expresses, with-
out much exaggeration, the real extent of difference
in condition, the result, perhaps, a lapse of time
greater than is elsewhere indicated. In this -way
the secondary period is distinctly cut off from the
tertiary. It is scarcely less separated by the fact
that in the former we every where find marks of the
presence or near vicinity of the sea in all the deposits,
even those from fresh water, while, in the newer beds,
land animals at once assume the importance which
they have ever since retained, having been evidently
present in great numbers and variety.

Confining ourselves, at present, to the principal lo-
calities of older tertiary deposits in Europe, we find
distinct indications, from the nature of the beds them-
selves, that they were deposited with a considerable
degree of regularity, and even uniformity, and not in
a very short time. The beds are extensive, and con-
sisted at first of such rolled pebbles as might have been
produced by the rubbing and wearing of the chalk
flints on a shingle beach. The rocks were broken
into small and similar fragments, rolled until they
were perfectly smooth and either round or oval, and
thus appear of nearly uniform character throughout
widely distant tracts. Whatever, therefore, was the
condition of the district now covered by the older
tertiary beds of England, France, and Belgium, dur-
ing those ages that elapsed between the final depo-
sition of the chalk as we now see it, and the deposit
of pebble-beds upon its worn surface, the cause that
brought into existence these beds seems to have been
connected with the re-introduction of a coast-line,
and a shallow adjacent sea-bottom. Whether, as is

OF CREATION.

267

highly probable, a deep sea at first covered all these
districts, and, owing to comparatively rapid and re-
peated elevation after the deposit of the chalk, the
change of depth destroyed, without allowing to emi-
grate, the species of animals of whatever kind that
inhabited the ancient sea, or whether a considerable
tract of land was formed in an east and west line,
cutting off communication between districts not far
removed in latitude, and extending, perhaps, from
Asia Minor far out into the Atlantic: these are
points which Geology does not, at present, enable us
to solve. All we know is the great fact of the ab-
sence of the chalk species in the tertiary beds, their
place being supplied by new species, for the most part
of very different organization. We thus have to
enter upon a new series of phenomena, when we turn
from the contemplation of the secondary to that of
the tertiary period.

When, however, the time had elapsed, and the
change had taken place, — and it must be repeated
that the interval, whether long or comparatively
short, was marked by the destruction of nearly the
whole marine creation, — when, after this, the sea-
bottom in these parts of the world again received
accumulations of mud and shingle, it is not unlikely
that a great elevatory movement had already com-
menced. From the general direction of the subse-
quent disturbances which brought to light the Weal-
den district in England, and elevated the Alps and
the Caucasus, it is almost certain that the line of
that movement was, on the whole, east and west.*

* The later, or tertiary movement, seems to have had a north-west and
south-east direction, as the former one, effecting the elevation of the oolites

N 2

268 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

From the careful examination of Europe, as it now
exists, we also learn that the elevation was most con-
siderable in the middle of Europe, extending thence
to the western part of England along what is now its
southern coast ; marked by a parallel movement in
the line of the Pyrenees, the corresponding range on
the east coast of the Adriatic, and the Caucasus, and
producing land inclosing lakes of fresh water in what
is now the Grecian Archipelago.

It appears, also, that these disturbances were conti-
nued until the close of the middle tertiary period in cen-
tral Europe, and probably much later in the Caucasus,
while they have, perhaps, scarcely yet ceased in the
central parts of Asia. They were, however, much
earlier concluded in England, and were there suc-
ceeded by a long period of tranquillity, our own
island being elevated above the sea, and receiving
very slow additions, chiefly on its eastern coast.

In examining the Geology of the tertiary period
we are fortunate enough to find a chain of evidence
informing us not only of the existence of land, but of
the nature of the vegetation that clothed it, and the
animals that inhabited it. This evidence commences
even before the beginning of the great disruption
which brought up the Weald, and it lasts not only
through the period of that disturbance, but afterwards
to much later times. Owing, however, to the pre-
valence of causes which did not permit the preserva-
tion of organic remains, we have less evidence with
regard to some of the later periods than to those of
earlier date. There seems no doubt that the marine

of England, was north-east and south-west. The Alps form the central or
culminating point, and are transverse to the main direction of the period.

OF CREATION.

269

Fig. Ill

fauna of the oldest tertiary seas was totally discon-
nected from that of the cretaceous epoch.

The first tertiary land concerning which we have
distinct knowledge was richly clothed by a vegetation,
a good deal of whose general character is recognised
by examining the fruits of trees and fragments of wood
found abundantly in the Isle of Sheppey. These fos-
sils are exceedingly numerous and varied, and the
fruits obtained from the single locality just alluded to
include several hundred species, all of which are dif-
ferent from existing and known plants, although many
of them seem closely allied to generic forms now met
with in warmer climates than those
at present characterising similar la-
titudes. A portion of one of these
fruits is figured in the annexed cut; it
marks the existence of a five-seeded
fruit which was enveloped in a mass
of downy filamentous structure. The plant was pro-
bably allied to the natural order of Malvaceae. There
is, indeed, nothing in these plants which removes
them at once and in a marked manner from the exist-
ing type ; and the most remarkable fact concerning
them as a group is the preponderance Fig. 112

of species allied to the palms, some
of them being apparently interme-
diate between the cocoa-nut and the
Pandanus, or screw- pine — well-
known and common tropical plants, NIPADITKS.+

* So called from the name of a botanist, J. Hight, Esq.

f A very common fruit in Sheppey. It contains a single seed nearly
in the centre, closely resembling that of the cocoa-nut, and with a very
hard shell.

HIGHTEA.*

270

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

Fig. 113

not met with now in northern latitudes. The recent
analogues of another genus, Nipa-
dites (fig. 112), the family of Nipa,
inhabit the Spice Islands and Japan,
and chiefly in low damp or marshy
tracts at the mouths of great rivers,
especially in brackish water. Asso-
ciated with these are some varieties
of the cucumber, or gourd tribe, the
pod of a variety of Acacia or Mi-
mosa (see fig. 113), the seeds of
cypress-like plants, and the fruits
of some coniferous trees. There are
also fragments of wood and stems
indicating the presence of a species of
the pepper plant, — of several varieties
of palm-trees, and of several coni-
ferous trees. The wood has often
been pierced and almost destroyed
by an extinct species of teredo before
it was deposited in the bed where
it is now found ; and sometimes it
mosrrKS. j. tf ^ fa Collecti0n

(London Clay.) «™

or the tubular cavities or these ani-
mals filled with carbonate of lime.

The older tertiaries of the London Basin, of the
Hampshire and Isle of Wight Basins, of the Paris
Basin, and of the neighbourhood of Brussels, are all
contemporaneous deposits, and differ only in conse-
quence of local peculiarities caused by the nature of
the material. The oldest part of each, which is every-
where a coarse pebbly bed, may possibly have once
been spread pretty uniformly over the whole tract ;

OF CREATION.

271

but, afterwards, when the land had risen above the
sea in various places, and yielded different kinds of
detritus, the water in some places was nearly fresh, in
others brackish, and in others, again, perfectly salt.
In this way all varieties of development are accounted
for; and we may understand how the coarse and
occasionally flinty limestone found at Paris, the great
and uniform mass of clay near London, the marly
clay of Brussels, the highly siliceous material, pro-
bably deposited from warm springs, in central France,
and the limestones of the Greek Archipelago and
Asia Minor, all present fossils having something of
the same general character, and belonging to the
same epoch. In the tertiary beds in western Europe,
there is, on the whole, not much distinct uniformity
of character ; but when we examine the contempo-
raneous deposits of northern India and South Ame-
rica, we find evidence of the operations of nature
having been conducted on as grand a scale during the
tertiary as during the preceding geological epochs.

The beds of London clay at Sheppey and else-
where are not only remarkable for the amount of
information they give us concerning the vegetation of
the early tertiary period in Europe, but are almost
equally instructive with regard to the animal inha-
bitants of the land at that time.

A considerable number of shells are found, both
univalve and bivalve, of which the annexed figures
(114 — 117) will give some idea, but the most re-
markable fact concerning them is the absence of the
whole group of ammonites, and their replacement by
a newly-introduced genus of carnivorous tracheli-
pods (animals of lower organization), which here

272

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

abound in the most remarkable profusion. Upwards
of two hundred species of these shells (Cerithium,
fig. 116) are found in the older tertiary beds of
Europe. The nautilus is retained in these beds,

Fig. 116

Fig. 114

Fig.lM

EOCENE SHELLS.*

especially in the London clay (the most distinct
marine deposit), but it has ceased to be the represen-
tative of the prevailing
group of mollusca. In
addition to the shells
there are in the beds
at Sheppey a multitude
of the remains of crabs
and lobsters, some of
them exceedingly per-
fect, indicating the vi-
CRUSTACEAN. cmity of ft coast_line at

the time when this part of the series was deposited.
One of these is figured (118), to give an idea of
the near resemblance of them to existing species.
Figures are also given (119, 120) of a species of

* Fig. 114, Lucina. Fig. 115, Corbula. Fig. 116, Cerithium.
Fig. 117, Cone.

OF CREATION. 273

foraminiferous shell, called Nummulite (from num-
mulus, a little piece of money), whose remains are
so incredibly abundant in some localities, that rocks
are made up of them, and which, although belonging
also to the secondary Fiff. } \ 9 Fiffm 120

epoch, must be con-
sidered characteris-
tic of some older
tertiary beds. Other
smaller foramini-
ferous shells have NUMMULITES.*
built great masses of the limestone of this period. f

Besides the numerous shells and other inverte-
brate remains, the older beds of this newest epoch
afford many very interesting fragments of fishes, of
reptiles, of birds, and even of quadrupeds. In order
to obtain a general view of the eocene fauna, we
must consider some of these a little in detail.

The fishes naturally present themselves first for
investigation and description, and their remains, as
well in the London clay as at Monte Bolca in north
Italy, and in a remarkable deposit, probably of the
same age, in Asia Minor (Lebanon), are very numer-
ous. They are not, however, in all cases very well
preserved, and this is especially the case with re-
gard to those found in the tenacious blue clay of
the Thames valley, where there is frequently no-
thing to be obtained but a few bones of the head.
It is thus far more difficult to determine their ana-
logies than those of the older fishes, where we geiie-

* Fig. 119 shows the external surface of the shell, and fig. 120 the
appearance of a section, the light parts being the chamber-walls, or septa,
f A great part of Paris is built with a limestone of this kind.

N 0

274 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

rally have the whole body. This condition is partly
owing to the nature of the bed, which must have been
originally a fine mud, in which the fish had rotted
after death, when the bones separating, and the fins
becoming detached, the thin fragile scales, unlike the
bony enamelled case of the older fishes, would not
afford a coating solid enough to preserve the integrity
of the form. Now, in fishes, the bones of the head
are so numerous and variable, that they have hardly
yet been reduced to a distinct system, and there is
thus the greatest possible difficulty in making out the
species. Even after the bones of the skull of the
more common recent fishes have been prepared as
carefully as possible for purposes of comparison, much
difficulty remains, in consequence of the ancient fishes
not resembling so much those of our own coasts as
those of the Indian seas and Southern Ocean, which
are necessarily far more rare, especially in a state
to admit of the skeleton being reconstructed. It is
a remarkable result of the knowledge and careful
research of M. Agassiz, that, in spite of this, he has
been able to give a tolerably complete sketch of the
fossil fishes of the London clay.

Like the fishes of older formations, the London
day species may be distinguished into groups; but, in
consequence of the much nearer resemblance to the
recent type, these principally belong to the Cycloid
and Ctenoid orders of M. Agassiz, very few indeed
of the Ganoid order, so characteristic of the older
beds, being here found. In fact, while the whole
number of the Sheppey species at present known
amounts to ninety-two, and only eleven of these are of
the more ancient type of Ganoids, thirty-two being

OF CREATION. 2 75

Placoids (chiefly rays and sharks), while no less than
forty-four are distinctly referable to existing families
of the Ctenoid and Cycloid orders ; most of the latter
are very nearly allied to existing species.

Among the principal families of fish represented
in the London clay of Sheppey are those of which
the perch, the mackarel, the blenny, the herring, and
the cod are the respective types. The species of
the perch family are by far the most numerous of
the Ctenoid fishes (those having the scales jagged
like the tooth of a comb), while those allied to the
mackarel are equally predominant among the Cy-
cloids. It appears, that, of about a hundred and
forty -four Cycloid and Ctenoid species of fishes which
now inhabit the seas surrounding the British Islands,
there are seven species of the perch, eleven of the
mackarel, twenty of the cod, eight of the herring,
and eight of the eel families ; and referring to the
whole number (about forty-four) of the fossil species
of the two first-mentioned orders found in the Lon-
don clay of Sheppey, we meet with the same num-
ber of species (seven) of the perch tribe, twelve
species of the mackarel, four species of the cod, two
of the herring, and one of the eel family, while four
others of the most abundant recent families are
either totally absent or very sparingly represented.
On the other hand, there is, besides these, one family
now almost confined to the southern seas, but repre-
sented in the London clay by three distinct genera ;
another (now absolutely tropical), by a genus nearly
related to the existing tropical form ; while a third,
which includes the common sword-fish, a species of
which, inhabiting the Mediterranean, sometimes

276 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

strays to our shores, was represented by five species
referable to four genera, all of which have analogies
connecting them with species at present only met
with in the southern seas.

As an example of one of the fishes whose remains
are extremely common in the London clay of Shep -
pey, I give a restored figure of the B&anurus (S.

Fig. 121

SCLENURUS.

Bowerbankii), which illustrates some peculiarities, as
well as shows the general resemblance to existing
groups. This genus is of the Ctenoid order, and not
very widely removed in its affinities from the perch.
It affords an example of unusually perfect restoration
from fragments almost always injured and displaced,
and it departs so far from modern types, that, al-
though its place in scientific classification can be de-
termined (chiefly from the scaled cheeks, and the
bony plates about the head), there is yet decided
proof of its being a new genus.

It is interesting to find, that, while this and many
other marine representatives of the perch and modern
allied forms existed, other species now common are

OF CREATION.

277

unrepresented. The whole of the salmon family as
now known is absent; and of the numerous important
and useful varieties of the cod only four species have
been met with, but few specimens of which have
yet been discovered. On the other hand, a tropical
family nearly allied to the salmon (the Characida)
is represented by one or two species of large size ;
and there are others, belonging to a family of which
several genera are now living in the tropical seas of
Asia, where these animals dart about from place to
place with restless activity, and are remarkable above
all the other fishes for their singular forms and bril-
liant play of colours. It is hardly possible to imagine
anything more strange in appearance than the fossil
species of these animals, although the recent forms
are sometimes sufficiently grotesque. One extinct
genus, for instance, is remarkable for having a fin
rising like an immense mast from behind the head
to a height far greater than the length of the body,
a corresponding sail extending from this to the tail,
while there are two extremely slender though nearly
equally long fins on the belly. Another is, if possi-
ble, more singular and preposterous, the height of
the body and fins together being three times as much
as the whole length of the animal. These fishes
are chiefly met with in the Monte Bolca beds of
north Italy. From all this it appears extremely
probable that the older tertiary fishes existed under
different climatal conditions from those which obtain
at the present day on the coasts of Europe ; a con-
clusion confirming that arrived at by the examination
of the fruits and seeds drifted down and deposited
in the isle of Sheppey.

278

PICTUKESQUE SKETCHES

In considering the ancient tertiary fishes of Europe,
I have confined myself to an account of those of
the London clay, because in the adjacent basins of
the same age in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight,
in the neighbourhood of Paris and other parts of
France, and in Belgium, the fossils found include but
few remains of this kind, being chiefly indicative of
the condition of the sea with regard to the other in-
habitants, such as shells, or else offering illustrations
of the nature of the quadrupeds and land animals of
higher organization than of fishes. The two remarkable
localities already alluded to, that of Monte Bolca in
northern Italy, and that of Mount Lebanon in Asia
Minor, include also many remains of fishes; and these,
although exhibiting different species, still further con-
firm the general conclusions arrived at from the study

of the Sheppey beds
of the London clay.
A very interesting
example has been
described lately by
Sir P. Egerton, and
is figured in the ac-
companying cut. It
is a small but per-
fect Kay; and the
rarity of obtaining
Placoid fishes of
any kind, even in
tolerable perfection,
renders this beau-
tiful specimen ex-
tremely interesting. It is a male of full age, with a

122

FOSSIL RAY FROM LEBANON.
(Cyclobatis.)

OF CREATION. 279

smooth skin, slender tail, and no defensive weapons.
It presents so many analogies with the torpedo, that,
like the species of that singular group, it may have heen
provided with a special electric apparatus, to enable
it to obtain food and resist the attacks of its enemies.

We ought not to conclude the account of the fishes
of this period without referring also to those species
of the Ganoid and Placoid orders found in the isle
of Sheppey. The hard crushing teeth of some re-
markable Granoid fishes are found occasionally, and
have been described by M. Agassiz, in his great work
on fossil fishes. The flat pavement of palatal bones
with which these animals were provided probably
enabled them to grind to powder the shells of the
molluscs and crustaceans on which they fed. Besides
this group, there was also a species of sturgeon ex-
isting at the period in question ; as many as seventeen
well-marked species of large rays, besides two saw-
fishes ; ten species of shark, and three species of the
family of CMmarida or sea-monsters, which exhibit
a close affinity to the sharks.

The reptiles inhabiting the land, and the rivers and
estuaries near land, at the time of the London clay
deposit, exhibit evidence with regard to the question
of climate strictly in accordance with that suggested
by the examination of the fishes, the molluscs, and
the vegetables. Thus we find a lacertian and several
crocodilian animals, some turtles and tortoises, and
a very interesting addition to previously discovered
reptiles, namely, a serpent. The crocodiles of the
London clay most nearly resemble a species from the
island of Borneo, but "are certainly distinct. The
tortoises are some of them freshwater, and there are

280 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

a few marine turtles exhibiting some interesting
peculiarities, and connecting the freshwater and ma-
rine tribes ; but most of the marine species are smaller
than those now existing, and resemble species re-
stricted to warm climates.

The serpents of the London clay are extremely
interesting, for they are of the tribe now represented
by the boa constrictor and python, and attained un-
questionably very large dimensions, varying, probably,
from ten to upwards of twenty feet in length. Rep-
tiles of this kind only exist at present in tropical coun-
tries, and they generally prey on quadrupeds and birds.

The fossil remains of birds from the older tertiaries
are exceedingly rare, owing, no doubt, chiefly to the
fact, that the fragments of such animals would be
rarely conveyed to the sea or estuary where a deposit
was going on. Still the London clay of Sheppey has
yielded proof of the existence of more than one species
of bird which inhabited the land at the time of this
deposit, and amongst them is a true vulture, smaller
than any now known to exist.

Although the remains of birds are very rare in the
marine formation of the London clay, several species
have been obtained from the examination of the Paris
Basin fossils, some of which more or less resemble
the pelican, the sea-lark, the curlew, the woodcock,
the owl, the buzzard, or the quail. In a few in-
stances the general outline of the skeleton has been
preserved.

We next have to consider the land quadrupeds
characteristic of these strata. Such fossils are much
more commonly found in the gypsum beds near Paris
than in the London clay ; but this has no doubt arisen

OF CREATION. 281

from the circumstances of deposition, since the same
or nearly the same groups are indicated throughout
the whole district. The Paris fossils were described
by Cuvier, and their description formed the first of
his long and important series of contributions to the
accurate knowledge of extinct animals, which has
given such steadiness and certainty to the science of
palaeontology. The tertiary remains thus serving as
the groundwork of the "Ossemens Fossiles" included a
considerable number of species, chiefly belonging to the
group of Pachydermata or thick-skinned animals, now
represented by the elephant, Sec. ; they also include a
number of carnivorous animals (quadrupeds), such as
a wolf, a fox, a racoon, &c., and an opossum.

Besides these animals, several of which are repeated
among the comparatively rare mammalian remains
of our own island, there have been found also in
England a few fragments of teeth indicating the
existence of a monkey and a bat. These occur in
sands of the age of the London clay, and they tend
to complete the chain of evidence already alluded
to, and render it highly probable that a warmer
temperature obtained in these parts of the world
during the early tertiary period than at present.

I have already alluded to the apparent predomi-
nance of the pachydermatous tribe of animals among
the quadrupeds of the Paris Basin, and it is interest-
ing to find that the various genera of this group seem
to have represented those of the great tribe of rumi-
nants afterwards predominant. This would seem to
show that the state of the land was then less favour-
able for such animals as are now common in Europe,
and renders it probable that a different and more

282 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

luxuriant and rank vegetation might then have pre-
vailed.

The pachydermatous animals that chiefly attract
attention amongst the older tertiary quadrupeds are
those which have been named Palteotkerium and Ano-
plotherium. Besides these there are also many others
more or less nearly allied. Most of them exhibit
analogies with the horse, and connect the heavy pa-
chyderms, such as the elephant and tapir, with the
ruminants. They form a well-marked group, of which
the tapir is perhaps the best living representative ; and,
as all the knowledge that we possess, as well of the
structure as the habits of these creatures, must neces-
sarily be comparative, perhaps the best introduction
to the description of the extinct group will be an ac-
count of the less known peculiarities of the existing
type.

The tapir occurs both in South America and in the
Indian islands, but the species are, as might be ex-
pected, quite distinct. The animal is about the size
of a small horse, but it has a short proboscis, and in its
general appearance might be considered intermediate
between the elephant and the pig. Its teeth are
somewhat like those of the rhinoceros, and are adapt-
ed for succulent vegetable food. Its skin is nearly
naked, like that of the elephant ; its habits are semi-
aquatic; and though quiet, it has not been domesti-
cated. It seems to pass a solitary existence, buried
in the depths of the forests, and never associating
with its fellows, but flying from society and avoiding
as much as possible the neighbourhood of man. It
rarely stirs abroad from its retreat during the day,
which it passes in a state of quiet lethargy, and seeks

OF CREATION. 283

its food only by night. With the exception of the
hog, it is the most truly omnivorous of the tribe of
animals to which it belongs, for scarcely anything
comes amiss to its ravenous appetite. Its most com-
mon food is vegetable, and consists of wild fruits,
buds, and shoots.*

The description of the habits of the tapir would
probably require little change to be applied to the Lo-
phiodon^ a genus of extinct pachyderms most nearly
resembling the tapir, but known only by imperfect
fragments. A considerable number of species (up-
wards of twelve) are however known ; and one is
as large as the largest rhinoceros, but the others are
much smaller, and one does not equal in size the
smallest variety of pig. Fragments of four species of
this genus have been determined from the English
eocene beds, and all of them probably inhabited the
drier parts of the land.

The PalceotJierium { is much better known than
the Lophiodon, probably because it was an inhabi-
tant of districts nearer water, into which its remains
were readily drifted. Like the Lophiodon, the dif-
ferent species (which are numerous) varied greatly
in size. Portions of the skeletons of these animals
have been found in the gypsum-quarries near Paris,
so nearly perfect, that there remains no doubt what-
ever as to the general form and proportions of several
of the species. They were all provided with a short
fleshy snout or proboscis ; and, in the arrangement,

* Gardens and menagerie of the Zoological Society delineated, vol. i.
p. 202.

t Ao0ja (lophia), a crest ; odovQ (odous), a tooth,
t HaXaioQ (palceus), old ; Qripiov (therion), a beast.

284

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

number, and general character of the teeth, they com-
bined the peculiarities of the tapir and rhinoceros.
Unlike the tapir they had, however, only three toes
on each foot. Their legs also were longer, and their

Fig. 123

PAL^EOTHERIUM.

general form more slender than that animal, at least
in the species of medium size ; and in this respect
the Palseotherium was probably intermediate be-
tween the tapir and the horse.

The Anoplotherium* may be considered as a still
farther departure from the tapir towards the rumi-
nants, having been far less clumsy and more agile in
its movements than either the Palseotherium or the
tapir. The animals of this interesting group exhibit
two peculiarities which are observed in no other
quadruped, the feet having only two toes, and the

* Ava (ana), privative ; o?rXo£ (qpZos), a weapon; Orfpiov (tlierion},
a beast : an animal without defensive or offensive weapons, (having no
tusks.)

OF CREATION. 285

teeth being placed in a continuous series without any
interval between the incisors and the molars, as is
the case with all other Mammalia except man. For
this reason, namely, the absence of tusks, or canine
teeth longer than the other incisors, the animal has re-
ceived its name of Anoplotherium, or "weaponless ;"
and there are three well-marked sub-genera, all of
which appear to have been abundantly present dur-
ing the older tertiary period. They none of them
had a proboscis or produced snout ; and in this and
other respects they rather resemble the ruminants than
the pachyderms ; but one species seems to have been
well adapted to live in swamps and marshes, and pro-
bably for that reason its remains are more common
than those of the other forms.

This first species belongs to a division considered
typical, and attained the largest dimensions. It was
about as tall as a dwarf ass ; but its body was longer
in proportion, and its tail of enormous size, giving the
animal the general aspect of the otter. It is most
likely that this species lived chiefly near the water,
feeding on roots and the succulent leaves of aquatic
plants. Its total length, including the tail, would be
nearly eight feet; its skin was probably either naked
or covered with smooth hair like the otter ; its ears
were no doubt short, and its whole appearance must
have been that of an animal fitted to inhabit and
seek its food in water. By far the most remarkable
peculiarity in this species is the tail, which was com-
posed of nearly thirty vertebrae, and equalled, if it
did not surpass, the length of its body. Cuvier has
observed that no living animal, with the exception of
the kangaroo, has so long and so powerful a tail.

286

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

The species characteristic of the second group of
Anoplotheres, called Xiphodon (see fig. 124), was
very different, both in its proportions, its size, and
its habits, from the more common species just de-
scribed. It is called gracile, or slender, as an indica-
tion of its superior agility and slender proportions ;
and, indeed, the graceful elegance of the bones of its
skeleton reminds one more of the structure of the
gazelle than of any other quadruped. Its height was
about as large as that of a goat, but its head and trunk
would indicate a much smaller animal, as the bones

Fig. 124

ANOPLOTHERIAN ANIMAL.
(XipTiodon.')

of the extremities were excessively elongated, and in
striking contrast to the species first described. Light

OF CREATION. 287

and elegant as the gazelle, it would course rapidly
along on the banks of the lakes and rivers, or on
the borders of those marshes in which the former
species lived, and would feed on the aromatic
herbs, and browse on the young shoots and tender
buds of shrubs growing in such localities. Its move-
ments would be free and unencumbered ; and, like
most of the more active Herbivora, it was doubtless
a timid animal, and provided with large and very
mobile ears, readily turned in any direction at the
slightest approach of danger. There can be little
doubt, too, that it was covered by very short hair,
and that in all external characters it resembled
closely the ruminants (such as the smaller deer), and
could hardly have been distinguished from them.

The third group of Anoplotheres contains several
species much smaller than either of those just de-
scribed, one of which resembled the hare, not only
in dimensions but also in the proportions of its
limbs, which are so contrived as to have given it
great swiftness of motion, and therefore a means of
escape from its enemies. If the Xiphodon was the
roe of the antediluvian world, and, from the almost
total absence of true ruminants, it is not impossible
that the place of the deer tribe was occupied by
the pachyderms, this little species represented in the
same way the smaller rodents, such as the hare and
the rabbit.

It is interesting and curious to find that there is
another small pachyderm, whose remains have been
found in the London clay, but which belongs to
a distinct genus, still more closely resembling the
hare, and was even provided with the large full

288 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

eye so strikingly characteristic of that timid quad-
ruped. This genus approaches also very closely to
another from the Paris Basin, and both of them
resemble a small quadruped called hyrax, a native
of Africa and some parts of Asia, more than any
other existing pachyderm.

Having now considered in detail these various
groups, let us next attempt to group together the
principal geological observations of the early tertiary
period in Europe. In doing so it may be noticed,
first, that at this time all the great plains of Europe
and the districts through which the principal rivers
now run were then probably submerged ; and that
in all probability the land chiefly extended in an
east and west direction, far out in the Atlantic,
possibly even trending greatly to the south and con-
necting the western shores of England with the
western islands of Africa. The land now forming
the great mountain chains intersecting Europe, the
Pyrenees, the Alps, the Appenines, the mountains of
Greece, the mountains of Bohemia, and the Carpa-
thians, existed then only as chains of islands in an
open sea. Elevatory movements, having an east and
west direction, had already commenced, and were
producing important results, laying bare the Weal-
den district in the south-east of England. The
southern and central European district, and parts
of western Asia, were then the recipients of cal-
careous deposits (chiefly of Foraminifera), forming in
deep water what is now the Appenine limestone,
while the numerous islands were gradually lifted
above the sea level, and fragments of disturbed
and fractured rock were washed upon the neigh-

OF CREATION. 289

bouring shallows or coast-line, forming beds of gravel
which form the first covering of the chalk, wherever it
has received other older tertiary deposits. The beds
of nummulites and miliolites contemporaneous with
those containing the Sheppey plants and the Paris
quadrupeds, seem to indicate a deep sea at no great
distance, and prove that there were frequent alter-
nations from the deep sea to a coastline, perhaps
the result of disturbances acting in the direction
already alluded to.

The shores of the islands or of the tract of main
land then existing were apparently low and swampy,
rivers bringing down mud in what is now the
south-east of England and the neighbourhood of
Brussels, but extensive calcareous beds near Paris.
Deep inlets of the sea, estuaries, and the shifting
mouths of a river, were also affected by numerous
alterations of level not sufficient to destroy, but pow-
erful enough to modify the animal and vegetable
species then existing; and these movements were
continued for a long time. The seas were tenanted
by sharks, gigantic rays, and many other fishes of
warm latitudes, and abounded also with large car-
nivorous mollusca, capable of living either in fresh
or brackish water. The shelving land was clothed
with rich tropical vegetation to the water's edge, pre-
senting to view the palm and the cocoa-nut, besides
many of those trees which now lend a charm to the
Spice Islands of the Indian seas. All these abound-
ed also with indications of animal life.

The large rivers were peopled with crocodiles ;
turtles and tortoises floated upon them; and these
tenants of the water, strange and varied as they

290 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

were, and unlike the present inhabitants of the dis-
trict, were not without resemblance to many species
still met with on the earth.

The interior of the land, of which the surrounding
waters were thus peopled, was no less remarkable,
and exhibited appearances equally instructive. Troops
of monkeys might be seen skipping lightly from
branch to branch in the various trees, or heard mow-
ing and chattering and howling in the deep recesses
of the forest. Of the birds, some clothed in plumage
of almost tropical brilliancy, were busy in the forests,
while others, such as the vulture, hovered over the
spots where death had been busy. Gigantic serpents
might have been seen insidiously watching their prey.
Other serpents in gaudy dress were darting upon the
smaller quadrupeds and birds, and insects glittered
brightly in the sun. All these indications of life and
activity existed, and that, too, not far distant from
the spots on which are placed the two most import-
ant cities in the world. But this happened not only
before our island was visited by its earliest human
discoverer, but long before man had been introduced
on the earth.

Not less strange, however, than those already
alluded to, were the other inhabitants. With the
monkeys were associated small opossums, squirrels, a
racoon, and other animals at that time the tenants of
the forest. Several of the smaller Garni vora prowled
about preying upon these, and amongst whom, a
species of fox and a wolf show, that, as there was a
large supply of animal food, so there were other ani-
mals to avail themselves of the supply. But in all
this one thing is remarkable ; it is the almost total

OF CREATION. 291

absence of the tribe of ruminants. None of those
which are so useful and almost necessary to man
were then to be seen. The deer tribe and the goat,
the sheep, the ox, the camel, all are wanting, and
their place was filled by various representatives be-
longing to the tribe of which the hog, the horse, the
rhinoceros, and the elephant, are the present types.
These, indeed, were abundant and varied enough,
both in their dimensions, their appearance, and their
habits. Some swam in the water; some tripped
lightly and elegantly on the borders of the marshes ;
others, constantly on the alert, ran like the wind at
the slightest approach of danger, or were watch-
ing that they might escape by flight or conceal-
ment the fate that attended them. Everything was
thus perfectly adapted to animal wants and neces-
sities, but no preparation was yet made for man.
Quadrupeds had taken the place once held by rep-
tiles, and include herbivorous as well as carnivorous
forms, and so far an advance seems to be indicated ,
but the destructive races still preponderated in point
of numbers and importance.

Such seems to have been the condition of things at
this early tertiary period, as far as is made known
by geological investigations in Europe, and thus grand
seems to have been the first development of the
higher types of animal existence, if, indeed, our ig-
norance of more ancient tracts of widely extended
land may not have led us falsely to the conclusion
that true mammalian quadrupeds were only abundant
during the last epoch of the earth's history.

o 2

292 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

CHAPTER XIII. •

THE CONDITION OF EUROPE AFTER THE OLDER TERTIARY BEDS HAD
BEEN DEPOSITED, BUT PREVIOUS TO THE HISTORIC PERIOD.

THE great series of modifications of the surface af-
fecting Europe, of which the commencement has been
described in the last chapter, continued at intervals
through a very long period, marked by successive
changes in animal and vegetable organization, until
at length we reach to the existing creation. Look-
ing, however, at the most recent conclusions of palae-
ontologists concerning tertiary formations generally
in the old continents, there does not appear any pro-
bability of a true subdivision of those beds into dis-
tinct periods, nor does there seem any proof of more
than a mere local grouping of the various parts. The
whole of the tertiary geology in Europe may certainly
be regarded as continuous ; and perhaps it would be
found that all the other epochs were in the same way
really unbroken, if we were in possession of materials
enabling us to observe with accuracy the mutual
bearing and influence of each part upon the whole
development throughout all time.

We left off in the last chapter with an account of
deposits chiefly in the vicinity of London and Paris,
but reaching also on the one side to the capital of
Belgium, and on the other to the south flanks of a

OF CREATION. 293

portion of the Alps, and the eastern part of the Me-
diterranean. There can be little question that through-
out the whole of Europe the general change of level
the commencement of which is thus marked was such
as to produce elevation on a grand scale, but it was
long before this elevation was sufficient to raise above
the waters the great plains of our continent, or those
districts watered by its principal rivers. These, in-
deed, were the recipients of the great mass of the
deposits then going on ; and it is not unlikely that
the very fact of reiterated changes of level may have
rendered the amount of material thus removed very
considerable.

The great valleys of the Loire and the Garonne in
France ; the tract between the High Alps and the
Jura mountains in Switzerland ; the tract north of
the Alps extending eastwards in the present valley of
the Danube towards Turkey, and as far as Hungary,
and then northwards into Poland ; the tract, also,
north of the Alps extending in the Ehine valley as
far as Mayence, and occupying a breadth of many
leagues ; the eastern coast of England, the western
coast of the Spanish peninsula, and the south of
France, — all these districts are marked by deposits,
for the most part more recent than the London and
Paris beds, but more ancient than the great south
Italian series, and distinctly separated from the ca-
vern and gravel deposits, which appear to be among
the newest of the geological formations in what is
now called Europe. The more remarkable character-
istics of this intermediate period, so far as fossils are
concerned, must be sought for in the strata of the
Rhine valley, where we find some remarkable and

294

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

interesting zoological facts developed, although on the
whole the natural history of the period in question
manifestly combines the more ancient character of the
older strata with the recent zoology and botany of
the same countries at present. Without at all dwell-
ing on the subject of the fossil shells and other Inver-
tebrata of the period, a group of some characteristic
forms is given to mark the gradual and peculiar ap-
proximation to the existing fauna.

130 129 128

127

MIDDLE TERTIARY SHELLS.

In beds of the middle or newer part of the tertiary
epoch, there are also occasionally found numerous
remains of reptiles, but these are chiefly confined
to forms more or less resembling those of existing
nature. Amongst them, however, may be mentioned
a gigantic salamander, once thought to be the re-
mains of some human skeleton, and numerous turtles
and tortoises exhibiting marked peculiarities of struc-
ture. The beds at Oeningen, in Switzerland, near to
the Lake of Constance, offer a rich variety of such
forms, and include, also, many very interesting species

* 125, Venus. 126, Pecten. 127, Auricula. 128, Turritella.
129, Mitra. 130, Conus.

OF CREATION.

295

of fishes, all of which are extinct. The figure annexed
(131) represents an interesting chelonian animal from
this district.

Fig. 131

OENINGEN FRESH-WATER TORTOISE.

Of the quadrupeds of this middle period, the Dino-
therium* is in some respects the most remarkable,
not only in point of size, but in its relation to the
anoplotheroid animals of the older beds on the one
hand, and to the elephantine animals of more recent
times on the other. The remains of this monster are
nowhere common, but have been found both in the
Middle Rhine valley (between Mayence and Bale),
and also in the valleys of the Jura chain.

It dwelt, probably, in swamps. Its length was
nearly twenty feet ; its body, huge and barrel-shaped,
very much resembling that of the hippopotamus, be-
ing little raised above the ground, although the huge
columns which formed its legs are supposed to have
been nearly ten feet in length. Its head, rarely,

* Aavo£ (deinos}, fearfully large ; Brjptov (^m'cm), a beast.

296

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

Fig. 132

perhaps, brought entirely above the water, was
like that of a large elephant, and it was provided
with a short, but very muscular and powerful pro-
boscis. A pair of large and long tusks were ap-
pended to this skull, and curve downwards, as in the

walrus. But observe
the fact most re-
markable of all.
These tusks do not
proceed from the
upper jaw, whence
they could be made
to depend entirely
upon the bones of
the neck to support
them, but are fixed
in the lower jaw,
and are planted, as
it would seem, in
this strange position
at the greatest pos-
sible mechanical disadvantage. There can scarcely
be a doubt that an animal provided with appendages
so placed was an inhabitant of water ; and the tusks,
which are very large, were probably useful as pick-
axes, enabling the monster to dig for succulent vege-
table food by day, while perhaps at night they could
be attached like anchors to the banks of the river or
lake in which the animal habitually dwelt. It was
the most gigantic of the herbivorous quadrupeds, and
was associated with the palseotheres of the more an-
cient tertiary period, and with the mastodons and
elephants which lived on till a far more recent date.

DlNOTHERimi.

(Skull.)

OF CREATION". 297

It is not unlikely that at this time, when the pa-
laeotherium and the dinotheriuin were thus compa-
nions of the elephant, a large fresh- water lake covered
what is now the valley of the Middle Rhine. This
supposition involves the existence of tracts of land
enclosing such lake, but the direction of the land
must have been somewhat different from that now
adjacent. An open sea then seems to have extended
from the Caspian and Black Seas towards the north-
west, quite into the north of Switzerland. The pre-
sent chain of the Alps was rising and assuming the
character of a mountain range, forming, perhaps,
islands in this great sea, which must have covered the
whole of Italy, Turkey, and Greece, a great part of
Asia Minor, and much of northern Africa. The great
features of the modern fauna, and even of the flora
of these districts, were, however, already in the course
of development ; the continent of Europe was begin-
ning to assume its general contour ; England was,
perhaps, already an island, though in that case only
recently separated from the main land, to which it
was afterwards united ; and the pent-up gases, whose
efforts to escape were lifting extensive districts above
the sea-level, and forming great chains of mountains
in north Italy, were partly and at intervals relieved
by volcanic eruptions which took place in central
France, in north-eastern Spain, and in the Lower
Rhine, near the present town of Bonn. Possibly it
was also at this time (though the event may have oc-
curred earlier) that the great submarine flow of melt-
ed rock took place, whose effects are seen in the
north-east of Ireland and the opposite islands of
Scotland, where the chalk is covered by this erupted

o 5

298 PICTUKESQUE SKETCHES

matter. The picturesque basaltic columns of the
Giant's Causeway and Staffa mark the extent and
intensity of a line of volcanic action, which has long
ceased to produce direct results in the British islands.

After the lapse of a certain period, and when the
elevatory movements had long gone on, the continent
of Europe was at length fully brought above the
surface of the sea, and became a fit habitation for
the land animals of various kinds gradually intro-
duced upon it. The deep and broad inlets of the sea
became valleys and plains ; the lakes were drained by
the great river channels, which, owing to the greater
elevation of the interior, conveyed the water in a de-
finite and short course to the sea, instead of allowing
it to stagnate over wide tracts of low swampy land ;
and the whole Continent put on its present aspect.

But during these changes the climate had also
become greatly modified. The increased proportion
of land, especially towards the north, would neces-
sarily lower the general temperature, and at the
same time render the climate more excessive. Vast
forests, composed of oak and beech and other mo-
dern trees, produced other arid not unimportant mo-
difications ; and at this period, probably before the
great expanse of land towards the North Pole had
arisen from the sea, and while the general character
of the great European tract was still insular, vegeta-
tion extended almost to the Arctic Circle, and to
such an extent as to provide food and shelter for the
largest quadrupeds. This combination of analogies
and differences forms throughout a somewhat striking
character of the middle period, and we find, as one
result, that the physiognomy of the fauna at pre-

OF CREATION.

299

Fig. 1.33

sent obtaining in northern Europe, is closely allied
to, though not identical with, that which formerly
characterised the great plains of Siberia, and corre-
sponding tracts of North America.

At this period the most gigantic of the existing
groups of vegetable-feeding quadrupeds seem to have
been represented by very nearly allied species, roam-
ing at will from the latitude of Italy to the North
Pole, and over the whole of the land in the northern
hemisphere. These animals were apparently organ-
ized so as to be in some measure sheltered from cold,
the elephants, for example, having been covered with
hair. The species include a multitude of animals
bearing a greater or less resemblance to the present
inhabitants of the respective districts, but most of
them not now met
with in a living state.
Among the animals
of this kind now cer-
tainly extinct must be
ranked several species
of elephants, and the
Mastodon.

This latter animal,
whose mammillated
teeth have long been
known, grew to about
the same size as the
elephant, being even
perhaps occasionally
somewhat larger, but its body was longer in propor-
tion, its limbs thicker and shorter, its mouth broader,
and it appears to have formed a link in the chain

MASTODON.
(Grinding Tooth.)

300 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

connecting the elephant through the dinotherium
with the tapir. In North America this animal was
widely distributed, and perfect skeletons of it have
been obtained from the great salt-marshes in that
country (often many acres in extent), the animal ap-
pearing to have resorted thither for the sake of the
salt, and becoming occasionally mired, as large heavy
quadrupeds frequently are at the present day. The
magnitude of the North American swamps or quag-
mires, one of which extends for forty miles in a north
and south direction, with an occasional breadth of
twenty-five miles, renders it probable that some of
the more ancient deposits in which the remains of
land animals occur, in a similarly perfect state, may
also have been of this kind.

The Mastodon, which with the elephant was a con-
temporary of the dinotherium in the period succeed-
ing the deposit of the London and Paris beds, exhi-
bits in some specimens the singular and interesting
phenomenon of small tusks in the lower jaw, besides
fully developed tusks, as large as those of the elephant,
in the upper jaw ; and of this fact several fragments
of the animal that have been met with offer suffi-
cient proof. Each group of these gigantic pachy-
derms seems to have been very widely spread dur-
ing the period immediately subsequent to its intro-
duction ; and we meet with the remains of a vast
number of individuals not only in Europe but in
Asia, while the Mastodon and elephant also extended
into North and South America, and even into the
great island-continent of Australia.

The actual period at which the dinotherium and
Mastodon became extinct has not yet been fully de-

OF CREATION. 301

termined ; but there seems no doubt that the latter
genus, as it was more widely spread in space, had
also an extended range in time ; and, as we have
already had occasion to notice, it seems to have
connected the middle with the newer series of de-
posits, possibly reaching down almost to the human
period, and certainly in the latter part of its course
being accompanied by species which are now exist-
ing, both of the larger pachyderms, and also of the
smaller animals of various kinds.

It was conjectured by Cuvier that the mastodons
were more aquatic in their habits, and were better
adapted for swamps and marshes, than the elephants
are known to be ; but this the form and structure
of their teeth renders improbable, and they most
probably fed on tough vegetable food, such as the
branches of those trees common in the temperate
zone, and even on harder and coarser substances than
those which the teeth of the elephant are enabled to
grind to pulp.

Widely as the Mastodon was once diffused over the
earth, — and its remains are met with in the tropics
and in both temperate zones, and have been found in
America up to the 66th degree of north latitude, —
we still have no difficulty in fixing upon its metropo-
lis, since in the north temperate zone, in the western
hemisphere, these remains are found to outnumber
those of all other large quadrupeds, and bear to the
bones of elephants the proportion of five to one. The
magnificent and complete skeleton of a Mastodon
from the banks of the Missouri, now in the British
Museum, is an instance of the condition of preser-
vation in which organic remains of extinct species

302 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

may sometimes be presented for the examination of
the naturalist, and offers an admirable opportunity
for making out all the peculiarities of structure. We
shall see, hereafter, that, if such magnificent examples
are not found in the deposits of northern India, it is
rather owing to the condition of the beds in which
fossils are preserved than from any want of abun-
dance and variety in the species.

The elephant has been mentioned as the companion
of the Mastodon in Europe during the middle tertiary
period, but the animals of this kind were also accom-
panied by a vast multitude of others, whose remains
have been chiefly found in the beds of the valley of
the Upper Rhine between Mayence and Bale. Dur-
ing the period thus represented, and while a portion
of the " crag" on the eastern coast of England was
being gradually added to the tertiary accumulations
of our island, a gradual elevation was taking place
in most parts of central Europe, in northern Asia, and
in North America, modifying the form of the land
in the northern hemisphere, impressing upon it those
peculiar characters which it now presents, altering
also the climate, and rendering it more excessive.
Up to this time, however, the Arctic ice had proba-
bly nowhere extended beyond the Arctic Circle, and
was perhaps limited to a range far within that area.
Beyond the 70th or 75th parallel of north latitude
the warm summers then seem to have so far prepon-
derated over the cold of winter as to allow of the
presence of vegetation in spots which are at present
bare and desolate, the frozen soil now yielding only a
few lichens, and vegetable life being often limited to
the little blood-like particles spotting the surface of
the snow.

OF CREATION. 803

The middle tertiary period, whose gigantic pachy-
derms unite such distant quarters of the globe, is,
after all, but poorly represented by fossils in Europe,
except in the valley of the Rhine. But we have
good proof of changes then going on which mark the
lapse of a long series of ages; and it is most likely
that during this period nearly the whole Alpine chain
of Europe, and the great range of the Caucasus,
attained considerable elevation, while vast masses of
sand and other deposited matter were accumulated
in the neighbouring seas in those parts of the Conti-
nent now known as the great valley of Switzerland
and the valley of the Danube. The volcanoes of
central France, of the north-east of Spain, and of
the lower Rhine and the Eifel, were still in full
action ; a great part of the Continent was in process of
elevation ; much of the older transported matter call-
ed gravel and boulder clay, and many of the erratic
blocks, were already covering up some of the more
regularly deposited strata; and icebergs, detached
from the shores of a polar sea, were now floated down
from high latitudes by marine currents, and bore with
them fragments of rock, the abundant presence of
which, when broken into small pieces, and mixed
together, has proved so great a puzzle to Geologists.
Perhaps, too, great waves, produced by the sudden
elevation of extensive tracts of the sea-bottom, then
washed over the low lands with unusual violence,
tearing up as they advanced every interposed object,
and, after conveying the broken rocks for a short dis-
tance, leaving them in heaps at the mercy of the
next of the great waves of the same kind that might
sweep by in consequence of another upheaval.

304 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

During this time the land was becoming peopled
with all that rich variety of mammalian life, which
characterised the later tertiary periods in the north-
ern hemisphere. In addition to the elephant and
the Mastodon, the latter of which soon died out, we
have two distinct and well-marked species of rhino-
ceros, a hippopotamus, several kinds of horses, large
insectivorous animals, and a considerable number of
Carnivora, some of large size, and differing consider-
ably from the groups now inhabiting these parts of
the world. We also find an important and very
interesting group of true ruminants, including a gi-
gantic deer, and the aurochs, the parent, it would
seem, of the tribe of domestic cattle. With these
are associated marine Mammalia in great variety,
forming, on the whole, a singular and well-marked
group, interesting in the highest degree for the ana-
logies it exhibits with widely-spread existing species,
as well as for the differences presented between it
and any neighbouring fauna.

In order, however, to give an idea of the nature
of the species thus forming the inhabitants of northern
Europe, England, northern Asia, and part of North
America, (for we cannot disconnect the later geolo-
gical history of this wide tract, including the greater
part of the land in the whole northern hemisphere,)
we must first trace the conditions under which the
more remarkable extinct forms of animal life are pre-
sented.

Among the more singular and unexpected localities
for fossils of this kind, may be quoted two, very dif-
ferent in every other respect, but both yielding an
abundant supply. These are, first, the gravel cliffs at

OF CREATION. 305

the mouths of the rivers and on the shores of the
Polar seas, where the ice has bound together, as with
cement, the bones of the ancient inhabitants of those
inhospitable climates ; and, secondly, the numerous
caverns in limestone rocks, common in the mountain
limestone of England, Belgium, and France, and the
oolitic limestone of the north of Bavaria and Saxony.*
These caverns have served as the dens of the animals
now entombed there ; and we meet occasionally with
series of bones belonging to some carnivorous species,
exhibiting a long succession of generations, and as-
sociated with remains of other animals upon whom
these Carnivora preyed.

Besides the frozen shores of Siberia, and the ca-
verns of England and Europe, the actual gravel
spread over a large extent of surface in northern
Europe and England also abounds with fragments
of large animals, amongst which the remains of ele-
phants are especially abundant. The marly beds of
alluvium in Ireland and the Isle of Man, the mass
of clay and rolled material called " brown clay," in
the east of England, and some other alluvial and di-
luvial deposits, also contain, more or less commonly,
fragments of the ancient inhabitants of the land, and
amongst these especially occur the remains of the
larger pachyderms and ruminants, which were once
common.

The conditions under which the animal remains
have been preserved in the ice are highly favourable,
and they enable us to judge of much more than the
mere skeleton of the animal. The preserving power

* Similar caverns containing bones are met with in limestone in the
Brazils, in Eastern Australia, and in other parts of the world.

306 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

of cold, by checking and for the time preventing
decomposition, enables even the muscular tissue to be
retained unaltered, so that we have occasionally the
skeleton clothed with flesh and skin, as if the animal
had died but yesterday, and as if we could yet con-
sider it as belonging to a living race. It is singular
thus to find the most perfect monuments of past
ages entombed in ice, buried in the silent sepulchre
before death had altered a single character of struc-
ture, and now from time to time disinterred and
seized as prey by the present denizens of those
climates, the wolves, the dogs, the foxes, and the
bears, or rescued only from the fangs of such assail-
ants to be the subject of wondering examination by
man — their successor, after countless years, in the
possession of the earth.

There cannot be a question that many of the larger
animals whose remains occur in the gravel of England
once ranged over the northern continent as far as
the 130th degree of east longitude, and were enabled
to live either constantly or migrating southwards
during the long winter and returning again in the
summer, as far north as the 73rd or 74th degree of
latitude. Among the species thus known may be
mentioned an elephant and a rhinoceros, but many
others certainly accompanied these.

It will be interesting to consider the condition of
animals thus embalmed, and the adaptation they ex-
hibit to the circumstances under which they existed ;
but, before describing the animals and the state in
which they were found, it is important to record the
fact, that in the same districts, and beyond the 75th
degree of latitude, large and complete birch-trees are

OF CREATION.

307

now found embedded in the sandy cliffs, and are suf-
ficiently plentiful to be used as fuel by the inhabi-
tants. And although, on digging them up, they ap-
pear to have undergone decay, and only emit a glow
without distinctly burning, yet they have generally
retained their bark, branches, and roots. The first
living trees of the same kind are found about 3°
farther south, but are then only shrubs, and do not
attain any considerable magnitude till we reach much
warmer climates.

The bones and tusks are most perfect and are
also most abundant in these districts, when obtain-
ed from clay hills or black earth, at a depth of a
few feet beneath the surface ; and experience has
shewn, that the more solid the clay, the better are the
bones preserved. It is curious, also, that a greater
number are found in elevations near the higher hills
than along the low coast, some of those hills which
are exceedingly prolific being as much as 200 feet
above the sea-level. The sand which contains the
fossils is frozen as hard as a rock; but an outside
layer occasionally thaws, and this being gradually
undermined by the water, causes large fragments
(consisting of frozen sand and bone) to break off and
fall into the stream.

The bones and tusks of the elephantine animals
thus found are said to be less large and heavy as we
advance towards the north, but increase wonderfully
in abundance. For about a century the fur hunters
have every year brought away large cargoes from the
Lachow Islands, but there is as yet no perceptible
diminution of the stock. Besides being more plen-
tiful, the tusks on the islands are observed to be

308 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES.

fresher and whiter than those on the main land ; and
a sand-bank on the western side of one of them
proved, on one occasion, a most productive spot, the
sea, after a long continuance of easterly winds, wash-
ing an abundant supply of bones on the bank, as if
from some vast submarine store.

In the latter part of the summer of 1799, a native
Tungusian fisherman, who was in the habit of col-
lecting tusks for sale from among the blocks of ice
and rubbish which had fallen from the cliffs, saw
on the banks of Lake Oncoul, near the mouth of the
Lena river, and projecting from the cliff, a mass of
unusual form, but, from its shapeless appearance, he
could make nothing of it. The year after, proceed-
ing to his usual haunt, he noticed that this lump was
somewhat disengaged and had two projecting parts;
and towards the end of the summer of 1801, when
he again looked at it, he found it to consist of the
whole side of a gigantic animal having large tusks,
one of which projected from the ice. So slowly do
changes take place in these districts, that the next
summer being rather cold, no alteration was to be
noted ; but in 1803 part of the ice between the earth
and the monstrous animal was somewhat more melted
than before, till the whole at length fell by its own
weight on a bank of sand. Next year our fisherman
came in the month of March, and cut off the tusks,
which he soon sold for about the value of 50 roubles,
(about 71. 10s.) Two years after this, in 1806, being
the seventh year from the discovery of the carcase,
these distant and desert regions were traversed by Mr.
Adams, an employe of the Court of Russia ; and his
account of the rest of the history of this mammoth,

OF CREATION. 309

the ancient elephant of northern Europe, is too inter-
esting to be abridged, without the loss of much of its
value as a vivid description of so extraordinary a
phenomenon.

Mr. Adams states, "At this time I found the mam-
moth still in the same place, but altogether muti-
lated. The prejudices being dissipated in consequence
of the Tungusian (who had fallen sick from alarm
on first hearing of the discovery, because it was con-
sidered a bad omen) having recovered his health,
there was no obstacle to prevent approach to the
carcase. The proprietor was contented with his pro-
fit for the tusks, and the Jakutski of the neighbour-
hood had cut off the flesh, with which they fed their
dogs ; during the scarcity, wild beasts, such as white
bears, wolves, wolverines, and foxes, also fed upon it,
and the traces of their footsteps were seen around.
The skeleton, almost entirely cleared of its flesh, re-
mained whole, with the exception of one fore-leg.
The head was covered with a dry skin ; one of the
ears, well preserved, was furnished with a tuft of
hairs. All these parts have necessarily been injured
in transporting them a distance of 7330 miles, (to
St. Petersburg!},) but the eyes have been preserved,
and the pupil of one can still be distinguished.

" The mammoth was a male, with a long mane on
the neck. The tail and proboscis were not preserved.
The skin, of which I possess three-fourths, is of a
dark grey colour, covered with reddish wool and
black hairs ; but the dampness of the spot, where it
had lain so long, had in some degree destroyed the
hair. The entire carcase, of which I collected the
bones on the spot, was nine feet four inches high and

310 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

sixteen feet four inches long, without including the
tusks, which measured nine feet six inches along the
curve. The distance from the base or root of the
tusk to the point is three feet seven inches. The
two tusks together weighed three hundred and sixty
pounds English weight, and the head alone four
hundred and fourteen pounds. The skin was of such
weight, that it required ten persons to transport it to
the shore; and after having cleared the ground, up-
wards of thirty-six pounds of hair was collected,
which the white bears had trodden in while devour-
ing the flesh."

A part of the hair of this animal is in the Museum
of the Royal College of Surgeons of London. It con-
sists of two sorts, common hair and bristles ; and of
each there are several varieties, differing in length and
thickness. That remaining fixed in the skin is thick-
set and crisply curled ; and it is interspersed with a
few bristles about three inches long, of a dark reddish
colour. Among the separate parcels of hair, are
some rather redder than the short hair just men-
tioned, about four inches long, and some bristles,
nearly black, much thicker than horse-hair, and from
twelve to eighteen inches long.

Thus, then, we find that the elephant of the north
temperate and Arctic zone was in most respects ex-
ceedingly like the species now inhabiting India, and,
with the exception of a warm woolly and hairy cover-
ing, offered but little modification of structure. It
was said by the native who discovered the carcase,
that it had been so loaded with fat, that the belly
hung down below the joints of the knees. The food
of the creature was probably twigs and the branches

OF CREATION. oil

of trees ; and herds of these gigantic quadrupeds may
possibly have migrated northwards in warm weather
to the limits of arboreal vegetation, where from time
to time individuals were buried either alive, or soon
after death, in an icy shroud, and where the bones
of those who died from natural or violent causes
were also buried and preserved in the frozen gravel.

Twenty years before the elephant just described
was obtained from its icy grave, another carcase, also
of a gigantic thick-skinned animal, was found half-
buried in frozen sand on the shores of the same icy
seas. This animal was nearly twelve feet long ; its
body was clothed with skin, which resembled leather,
but was so far decomposed that the discoverers were
unable to bring away more than the head and feet.
The skin of the head was found to have preserved all
its exterior structure, and one could see upon it many
short hairs. The eye-lids and eye-lashes had not en-
tirely fallen into decay; a substance existed in the
cavity of the skull, and beneath the skin were, in
some places, the remains of the putrified flesh. It
was known at once to be a rhinoceros, by the situa-
tion of the horn and the fold of the integument which
surrounded it : the horn itself was absent.

In this example the individual belonged to a spe-
cies exceedingly different in many respects, especially
in the form of the head, from the only known existing
species of rhinoceros, and the interest is even greater
than in the former case, because the differences are
more striking. The hair (a characteristic part) was
short on the face, and strongly planted in pores of the
skin; it grew there in tufts, was of a rigid texture
and grey colour, with here and there a black hair

312 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

longer and stiffer than the rest. The hairs also ad-
hered to many parts of the skin of the legs, being
from one to three lines long, and of a dirty ash-colour;
they were much more abundant than is ever seen on
the living species. It is not to be inferred, from the
thinness of this hairy covering of the legs, that the
body was also sparingly clothed, since other wool-
covered Arctic animals, as, for instance, the musk-
ox, are similarly bare on the extremities.

The extinct rhinoceros, thus discovered in Siberia,
was, like the elephant, widely distributed over the
northern hemisphere, at least through the eastern
continent, and extended as far as our own island.
Its hide was destitute of the folds which characterise
that part in the existing one-horned species. One horn,
probably the one planted on the bones of the nose,
has been found, and is of very large size, measuring
nearly three feet in length; and there was probably
another behind it, — both of them longer and more
formidable weapons than are found in any of the
known existing species. The head of the extinct
animal was also longer in proportion, and terminated
by a very strong bony apparatus, well shewn in some
of the skulls that have been preserved.

The teeth of this animal prove that its habits, with
regard to food, were not very different from those of
the recent species ; and probably those individuals
whose remains are found embedded in the Polar ice,
were in the habit of migrating from*the south dur-
ing the short Arctic summer, and either died from
natural causes, or being overtaken by the sudden and
intense cold, were prevented from returning. This is
the more probable, since, in addition to the animals

OF CREATION.

313

already described, many others, and amongst them
the large bear and the musk-ox of the Arctic land,
are known to occur ; and the migratory habits of the
latter animal have been distinctly noticed by good
naturalists.

The large animals formerly spread over such ex-
tensive tracts in northern Europe, found in the frozen
gravel and sand on the shores of the Polar seas and
in the drift-gravel, and often associated with large
boulders in warmer latitudes, have also been in many
cases preserved in caverns, in limestone rocks, or in
the alluvial deposits of lakes and rivers. We obtain
also from these sources a knowledge of many species,
not hitherto met with in so perfect a state as the
elephant and rhinoceros just described, but still af-
fording sufficient material to enable us to determine
their general structure, external form, and habits.
Among the most interesting of these, from their size
and the circumstances under which they occur, may
be ranked the great cavern bear, the cavern hysena,
a gigantic feline animal of the caverns, a gigantic
animal of the Bos tribe, and a very large-horned
cervine animal, often designated as the Irish elk.
Remains of all these, and also of the hippopotamus
and other pachyderms, have been met with in more
or less abundance in the caverns, and are mixed with
the drift and other gravel of our own country.

The history of these caverns is almost as curious
and interesting, and is as important in a geological
sense, as that of the animal remains found in them.
They are often at a considerable elevation, the open-
ing being on the side of the valley. On being first
broken into they are generally found coated entirely

314 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

with an incrustation of carbonate of lime, deposited
from water that has filtered in from the limestone
rock. The floor of the cave is thus hard, and gives
no indication of the fossil riches buried beneath it ;
and even where no stalagmitic incrustation exists, the
true ancient floor is covered with a thick sediment of
soft mud and loam. The general level of the dis-
tricts in which the caverns occur has, probably, in
most of such cases, undergone slow recent elevation
without disturbance.

In one of the most remarkable of these caves
(Kirkdale, in Yorkshire), the appearance, when the
mud was removed, is described as resembling the
floor of a dog-kennel, being strewed all over from
one end to the other with hundreds of teeth and
bones of various kinds of animals. These fragments
were in greatest abundance near the mouth, that part
being the most capacious; but the bones of all kinds
of animals were strewed quite irregularly.

The caverns thus filled with various bones were
in many cases the ancient dwelling-places of large
Carnivora, such as the hyaena, the lion, the tiger, and
the bear: to these spots the temporary owners had
brought their prey to devour in secret ; here they lived
and died, often from generation to generation, and in
these spots we find, written in no obscure language,
a portion of the early history of our island after it
had acquired its present form, while it was clothed
with vegetation, and when its plains and forests were
peopled by many of the species which still exist there ;
but when there also dwelt upon it large carnivorous
animals prowling about in the forests by night, and
retiring by day to these natural dens.

OF CREATION.

315

In our own island the nature of the more abun-
dant bones and teeth, the condition of the bones of
the neck, and various other causes, tend to prove that
a large species of hysena, more nearly allied to the
South African species than to that of Egypt and Asia
Minor, but still very distinct, was the almost exclusive
tenant of these caverns. Some of them, however, and
by far the greater number of the very similar caverns
on the Continent, were occupied by a large species of
bear, equalling, or even exceeding in size, the grisly
bear (Ursus ferox), and well known to fossil collec-
tors under the name of Ursus spelaus, or cavern
bear.

Fig. 134

JAW OF CAVERN BEAR.

The great cavern hysena belongs to a tribe now
confined to warmer climates; and, while exhibiting
all the peculiarities of structure belonging to its genus,
this fossil animal was much larger and more for-
midable than either of the nearest allied species, both
of which are inhabitants of the Cape of Good Hope.
Like the living hysenas, there can be no doubt that
the extinct species fed on any kind of animal food,
living or dead, that came within their grasp. They
obtained their prey chiefly or entirely at night ; their

p2

316 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

teeth were exceedingly strong, terminated with blunt-
ed cones, and provided with a strong bony belt
defending the gum (figures 135, 136). They were

Fig. 135 Fig. 136

TEETH OF CAVERN HY^INA.
{Hyaena spel&a?)

thus especially adapted for breaking and gnawing
bones. The strength of the jaws and teeth, and the
state of the muscular apparatus for working them,
was unusually great even for carnivorous animals ;
the neck was compact and powerful, and the whole
structure bespeaks the greatest possible amount of
strength. It is a remarkable and interesting fact,
and one which distinctly shows the correctness of
the conclusion with regard to the occupation of the
caverns by hysenas, that almost all the bones found
in them are gnawed and broken, while those in the
gravel are comparatively uninjured. The number of
individual hysenas determined from the examination
of the cavern bones in England amounted some time
ago to nearly three hundred, — a large number, when
we consider how few probably of the ancient dens
have been broken into and examined, and how large

OP CREATION. SI 7

a proportion of these animals would necessarily be
obliged to depend upon less secure recesses, in those
parts of the country where limestone rocks offered no
cracks and crevices to serve them as dens.

The hysena is not strictly a destructive carnivorous
animal, although it makes the nearest approach to
the true feline character in its teeth. It seeks rather
the dead carcase than the living prey, and feeds upon
offal in preference to killing for itself. The period
at which the large species, just described, was an
inhabitant of England was, however, also marked
by the presence of more than one very large species
of the true feline tribe, well worthy of notice. Al-
though the animals of this kind are now nearly
confined to warm climates, or, at least, are most
abundant there, it is by no means the case that
there is any peculiarity in their organization limit-
ing them in this respect, and it is certainly rather
the abundance of food than the temperature that
is concerned in the result. The Indian tiger is well
known to follow the great herds of antelopes quite
to the verge of perpetual snow in the Himalaya
mountains.

The teeth of the fossil tiger of England and
northern Europe are at least equal in size to those
of the largest Bengal species, and the bones of the
extremities are both larger and more powerful ; so
that this animal was probably even more gigantic
than its powerful recent analogue. Perhaps this
greater size may have been necessary to cope with
the more vigorous and larger ruminants and pachy-
derms which roamed over the open plains, or inha-
bited the depths of the forests.

318 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

The teeth of a large species of lion, of a true
leopard, of a wild cat, and of another remark-
able and little known animal, also of large size and
Fig. 137 mghty carnivorous habits, have been
found in the gravel and the caverns,
associated with those already described.
The teeth of this last-named species
quite equal in size the corresponding
teeth of the tiger, and indicate an ani-
mal of even greater ferocity. The
powerful cutting-tooth, curved back-
wards like a pruning-knife, and ser-
rated or jagged like a saw, as seen
in the annexed figure (137), is very
different from the corresponding struc-
ture in the better known FeUda, and
the animal has therefore been referred
TOOTH OP to a new sub-genus, under the name of

MACHAIRODUS.

The ruminating quadrupeds contemporary with the
animals just described included several of the deer
tribe, a goat, and at least three species of the genus
Bos. One of the latter is probably identical with the
great Lithuanian aurochs, still preserved in eastern
Europe ; another is a very gigantic species of urus,
now most likely extinct ; and a third, smaller than the
common ox, has been found in the bogs of Ireland, and
also in various places in England in the superficial
gravel. Of all these, the remains of the aurochs or bi-
son are remarkable for their large size, and their longer
and somewhat straighter horns than the existing wild
bison, which is a species still preserved in the extensive
forests of Lithuania ; but still it does not appear that

OF CREATION. 319

the fossil animal can be separated from that species.
The aurochs is distinguished from the domestic breeds
by a thicker clothing of hair, and the development
of a curly felted mane at the fore part of the body;
and it appears to have inhabited northern Europe in
company with the other species at the time of the
Roman Empire.

It is interesting to find, from the descriptions of
Caesar, that a gigantic aboriginal wild ox (the Urus)
was known in his time, which was not much infe-
rior to the elephant in size, and which differed from
the domestic cattle, not only in its superior dimensions
generally, but also in the greater expanse and strength
of its horns. Numerous remains of this animal found
fossil prove it to have been a contemporary of the
elephant, the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, and the
cavern carnivora, at the period immediately pre-
ceding the present condition of things. It is most
likely that the species has now become absolutely
extinct, and that the domestic cattle are rather the
descendants of those introduced tame by the Romans,
than the degenerate produce of the other more gi-
gantic species.

TJie small Irish ox is remarkable for the flatness
of its forehead and its short and small horns, and
may possibly have been the original parent of the
mountain breeds of the Highlands and of Wales. Its
remains have been found in the gravel, associated with
those of the elephant.

The cervine animals inhabiting England and north-
ern Europe during the last geological period were com-
paratively numerous in respect of species, and they
include many interesting forms. Among the most

320

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

remarkable is that which is generally known as the
great Irish elk (Cervus [Megaceros\ Jiibernicus) ; and
the remains of this animal were described so long
ago as 1697, but were then referred to the Ame-
rican moose. The Irish deer, however, surpassed
the largest elks or wapiti insize, and much exceeded
them in the dimensions of the antlers. This character
— the vast proportionate size of the horns — which is
illustrated in the adjacent cut (139), where they are

139

140

138

FALLOW DEER.

MEGACEROS.

ELK.

placed side by side with those of other species of
deer, (138, 140,) together with the stronger propor-
tions of the limbs and the great size of the vertebree
of the neck, are modifications which completely dis-
tinguish the fossil animal from the moose, and prove
it to have been less like that than many of the other
deer. In fact, the fallow deer offers the nearest ana-
logies to this extinct and gigantic species.

Several well preserved and perfect skeletons of the

OP CREATION. 32 1

Megaceros are now articulated, and may be seen in
various public museums ; and, although these more
perfect remains have been obtained from Ireland and
the Isle of Man, where the conditions were highly
favourable for their preservation, there is not wanting
distinct evidence to prove that the animal was also
formerly an inhabitant of England. The expanse of
the horns, in some specimens, is said to be as much
as sixteen feet ; they are branched and palmate, and
were unquestionably shed and reproduced annually, like
the horns of others of the deer tribe. The specimen
in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in
London is ten feet six inches high to the summit of
the antlers, and six feet to the top of the longest dorsal
spine. In this instance the span of the horns is but
eight feet, and the weight of the skull and antlers
seventy-six pounds; but in other cases, as in the Dublin
specimen, the span of the horns as well as the weight
is much greater. It is interesting to consider the
extent of vital energy which could thus throw out,
in the course of three or four months, between sixty
and seventy pounds weight of osseous matter.

There is reason to suppose that this animal re-
mained an inhabitant of the earth up to a compa-
ratively late period, though it had probably died out
before the introduction of the human race. It must
have existed at a time when there was abundance
of open forest and an ample supply of vegetable food,
and its remains occur chiefly in the marl, but are found
also in gravel. There can be little doubt that it, and
several of its contemporaries, were destroyed during
or in consequence of the great geological changes
that have taken place recently in our island, the ge-

p 5

322 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

neral result of these having been to diminish the
supply of food and shelter required by the large
vegetable feeders, which anciently formed a most
important part of its inhabitants.

A very large round-antlered deer, whose head was
of greater size than that of the Megaceros, is found
in England to have been contemporaneous with this
latter species and with the cavern animals ; and with
these were also associated the red deer, the rein-deer,
and a nearly allied but distinct species of about the
same dimensions, the modern fallow deer, and the
roebuck.

Lastly, we find, in addition to these land Mam-
malia, whose remains are common, that there
are also indications of the larger marine tribes of
the same great natural order. The bones of the
extremities and portions of the vertebral column
are among the fossils of this kind found in the
gravel; and in the cliifs of Suffolk and Norfolk, in
f. 141 the newer and per-

haps middle tertiaries,
below the gravel, frag-
ments have been found
which are recognised
as ear-bones of ceta-
cean animals of various
WHALE'S EAR-BONE. species and very dif-

ferent size. I annex a figure of one of these.

In tracing the peculiarities of structure and habits
of these animals, and in describing as almost con-
temporaneous those strange and remarkable pachy-
dermatous genera, the Dinotherium, the Palseothe-
rium, the Mastodon, and the elephant: — associated

OF CREATION. 323

as these are with the equally striking extinct feline
animals allied to the lion and tiger, with the hysenas,
the numerous herds of gigantic and wild oxen, the
large-horned deer and others, many of which are only
locally extinct, some now locally abundant, I have
hitherto omitted to direct especial attention to the
changes that must meanwhile have gone on with
regard to the relative level, the extent, and the posi-
tion of the dry land. The picture given of the con-
dition of Europe in this respect at the commence-
ment of the present chapter being referred to, and
compared with its present appearance, some idea will,
however, be formed of the nature and amount of the
modifications that the surface has undergone.

It seems reasonable to assume that the first ele-
vation of great masses of land, some part of which
now consists of lofty mountain-peaks of granite and
of igneous rocks, should have been accompanied by
local disturbances of the bed of the sea, producing
waves capable of transporting large quantities of
broken rock, and that by a succession of similar
movements these fragments might be conveyed, being
more and more pounded and rolled, to a distance
of many miles, or even hundreds of miles. Perhaps
it may be because the quantity of land elevated in
the Arctic Circle was lifted up under different cir-
cumstances, and in more uniform, dome-shaped, and
larger masses, producing more powerful waves, that
the fragments broken off from the old rocks of
Scandinavia, Lapland, and northern Russia, and the
northern parts of our own island (which have all
partaken of this movement and its consequences),
have been farther transported, and are deposited in

324 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

more regular, more widely spread, and more cha-
racteristic beds of gravel than the Alpine rocks>
whose range is, in every respect, more limited.

The whole subject of the distribution of gravel is,
however, one abounding in difficulties which have
as yet been only partially explained. Besides as-
suming the action of great waves acting for a very
short time immediately after an earthquake shock,
and propelling a mass of broken rock with irresist-
ible power at a rapid rate for a short distance, some
geologists have called in the aid of marine currents.
The action of the waves on an ordinary coast-line is
also itself sufficient to account for many even of the
more striking phenomena. While these causes, ana-
logous to those now in action, are thought by some
geologists sufficient to explain the facts, others again
have resorted to ice in some form as the only agent
capable of solving the problem. One theory connected
with ice is indeed only more improbable than it is
bold and ingenious, its author and supporters as-
suming the whole of that part of the earth on which
gravel is now found to have been once actually be-
neath a frozen surface, and to have been traversed by
glaciers, such as those which in the Alps produce
very similar and analogous appearances. There are
certainly, however, no sufficient grounds for believing
that true glaciers have ever covered Europe, since
there is no evidence of the existence of mountain
chains from which they could have proceeded.

Although these authors, misled by partial observa-
tion, have thus limited the action of ice to glaciers,
or frozen streams descending from mountain sides
and moving along on the plains, simply from the

OF CREATION. 325

action of gravitation, or by some supposed force con-
nected with the alternate thawing and freezing of
water, others have assumed that the ice may have
acted in the form of icebergs. In other words, it has
been supposed that glaciers, descending to the sea
in cold climates, may have been broken off from
time to time and floated away, conveyed by marine
currents until they are either melted by the warmer
waters of the ocean or stranded on some submarine
mud -bank or shoal. In either case, and both are
illustrated by recent examples, the load of broken
rock which such masses of ice carry would form a
bed of gravel, which, on subsequent elevation of the
sea bottom, might become a portion of the general
surface of a continent or island.

The breaking up of the surface, during or after the
intense cold of an Arctic winter, or even of such
cold as occurs annually in thickly-inhabited districts
in Russia, is another means by which some of the
phenomena of gravel when little removed from the
parent rock have been explained. Geologists are in-
debted to Sir Eoderic Murchison for this and many
other ingenious suggestions concerning the origin of
gravel ; and there can be no question, that the care-
ful examination of existing nature, so far as it is
exposed to our view, is the most satisfactory as it
is the safest and most reasonable mode of explain-
ing the various appearances which are presented in
the course of geological investigations.

Whatever the cause or causes may have been, the
distribution of numerous blocks of stone, sometimes
rounded, but more frequently angular, and of every
size and shape, and the removal of these to various

826 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

distances from the parent rock, are facts distinctly
made out. Such blocks, also, are not confined to
northern Europe, but are met with both in North
and South America, and in other parts of the world.
It is, however, certain, that true gravel with rolled
blocks of stone is not universally distributed; and the
effects thus produced have been as partial as they
were frequent, the result being often quite different.
It thus happens that while in most cases common
gravel, or transported and erratic blocks and boul-
ders, have been deposited, we find elsewhere only
great masses of mud and clay, mixed with stones,
sand, or any other material, drifted into recesses, and
left there by the iceberg or the retiring wave.

It is not likely that a great system of eleva-
tion can have acted during a long period, bursting
asunder in some districts the hard and brittle rocks
at the surface, and sending up granite in a soft and
pasty or melted state ; tearing asunder in others the
tough superficial beds, and allowing the escape of
gaseous vapours and currents of molten rock ; while
in others, again, wide tracts were slowly but per-
manently lifted above their former level, without
a re-action having taken place after the force had
ceased to act, causing a general or partial subsidence
over some vast areas. Possibly, the more extreme
and Arctic temperature which many things seem to
indicate as characterising a late geological period,
may have been connected with a more uniform ex-
panse of land near the poles, the general level of
that land being also somewhat higher than at pre-
sent. After this partial elevation there may also
have been a partial depression, especially, perhaps, in

OF CREATION.

327

north-western Europe ; the climate there may have
become ameliorated, while at the same time consi-
derable tracts, which had long existed as dry land,
were gradually covered up by water.

It was probably after this last depression, succeed-
ing the period of deposition of the gravel, and it-
self accompanied by undulation of the surface admit-
ting of many superficial deposits in certain districts,
that the final separation of our own islands, and the
destruction of many species of animals which had
before been their chief inhabitants, took place. Pos-
sibly, also, the land may then have sunk some two
or three hundred feet, or even more, below the
present level, so that there remained only the higher
grounds on which the smaller animals were enabled
to live, while the larger ones died out. Another
movement of elevation then occurred, once more
bringing large tracts of land above the surface, es-
pecially along the north-western extremity of Europe
and the neighbouring British Islands, and by this were
formed the numerous raised beaches of the south and
west coast of England. It was not till this late modi-
fication of the surface, that the courses of the rivers,
the general contour of the land, the general relations of
land and sea, the climate, and the general fauna and
flora distinctly assumed their present character; nor
was it, perhaps, till long after this time, that, on the
introduction of man,* new changes and modifications
took place, and new races were introduced, not, in-
deed, naturally indigenous, but otherwise well adapt-

* There is, however, some evidence tending to prove that man was an
inhabitant of our own island even so long ago as the cavern bear and
hyaena.

328 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

ed to the soil and climate. Nor, indeed, is this all ;
for the same mighty influence has changed even the
conditions of climate and the natural course of sea-
sons by the removal of forests and the draining of
marshes. In this way have been effected those
final, and, in their way, mighty changes, which this
closing chapter of the earth's history calls upon us
to notice, although, from their recent production,
they rather belong to recent natural history than to
geology in the general acceptation of the term.

In Europe, and, above all, in England, where every
corner of land is considered as waste if it is not
employed directly by human agents and for human
purposes, and where man is in everything paramount,
these changes have now so far affected the surface of
the land, as to render it difficult to pursue our investi-
gations with regard to the true history of unfettered
nature. We must go to distant countries and other
climes, where nature is still free, to discover the great
facts of general progress ; it is there, if at all, that
we shall find distinct traces of the progress of that
well-adapted system, according to which all things,
animate and inanimate, work together in harmony ;
and we must travel with the enterprising and the
active, over plains and into forests hitherto untrodden
by man, or, with the geologist, we must look far back
into the ancient history of the earth, if we would
know truly and fully what nature is, and how far the
laws originally imposed on matter are real and have
been perpetual.

OF CREATION.

329

CHAPTER XIV.

THE CONDITION OP INDIA, THE ASIATIC ISLANDS, AUSTRALIA, AND
NEW ZEALAND DURING THE TERTIARY PERIOD.

IN considering the geology of Europe, we have had
to generalise with regard to a district, most parts of
which have been mapped with at least sufficient ac-
curacy to enable us to recognise the broad outline
of the chief elevatory movements that have taken
place, and concerning which we are provided with
much minute and detailed knowledge of a positive
kind. If, therefore, in spite of these advantages,
there is still doubt and hesitation in determining the
ancient history and the exact succession of deposits,
it may well be supposed that not less difficulty exists
with regard to other countries, of whose geological
structure we know far less. This is the case with
the great continent of Asia, in spite of numerous re-
searches and the labours of many intelligent tra-
vellers ; and, unfortunately, in many parts the most
difficult of access, especially the Chinese empire, the
investigations of these travellers have not included
any accurate account of geological phenomena.

With a very few exceptions, the geology of Asia
is known only with reference to distant and isolated
spots ; and this is the case, not perhaps from the want
of continuity of such rocks at the surface, but because
they are not readily traceable in the districts that

330 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

have been much visited, and are best developed in
those which are least accessible to scientific travel-
lers of the present day.

Generally speaking, however, the continent of Asia,
like the greater part of Europe, must be considered
as of recent elevation. The broad tracts north of the
Himalaya chain, the district marked by the pre-
sence of extensive lakes on the European frontiers, a
considerable part of the peninsula of India, and pro-
bably the whole of Arabia, besides many at least of
the larger islands, are marked by the distinct pre-
sence of tertiary beds. These, however, exist in a
somewhat different condition from that observed in
Europe ; they often contain fossil remains of animals
totally different from European forms, but they still
approximate, and offer many interesting analogies on
a careful examination and comparison. It would be
unsafe at present to suggest what may have been the
actual history of the movements that formed the pre-
sent continent, and the order in which they occurred,
but we may at least give some sketch, which, however
it may hereafter need modification, will suggest ideas
and assist in the ultimate development of the subject.

If we look at the map of Asia, and compare its
physical geography with that of Europe, it will not
be difficult to trace the relation of the great moun-
tain chains. The district, whose recent elevation in
Europe is marked by the Alps and the Carpathians,
is continued into Asia by the mountain chain of the
Caucasus, and is thence traceable till we reach the
Himalayas. Between these districts are spaces occu-
pied by the Black Sea and the Caspian, where the land
has probably only recently emerged from the sea.

OP CREATION. 331

Thus, then, it would appear that the elevatory
movement has here acted at several places along a
band extending for about eight thousand miles, with a
breadth of nearly five hundred miles, and running
nearly east and west. There is good reason to sup-
pose that the whole of this tract, without exception,
was under water at the commencement of the secon-
dary period, for we find beds of lias and various other
secondary deposits not only in the Alps and the Cau-
casus, but also in the western extremity of the Hima-
layas. The disturbance to whose action are due
these two principal ranges of mountain country in the
eastern hemisphere, was thus a recent occurrence,
geologically speaking; and there is ground for sup-
posing that the Carpathians and the Caucasus, which
are intermediate ranges between the Alps and the Hi-
malayas, became mountains at even a later date than
the Alps.

But the study of Indian geology points still further,
and teaches us that the Himalayan movement con-
tinued to a very recent period, for we find in the
lower ranges on the flanks of this great chain a
singular development of upraised and tertiary beds,
apparently of various dates. We find, moreover,
that the great tracts of country overspread by basalt,
and appearing to have been only recently elevated,
are really of very modern date, and were most likely
among the results produced by that vast subter-
ranean action, of which the forcing up, to the height
of twenty-five thousand feet, the granite peaks of the
mountain chain of central Asia was a direct and
striking effect.

The chief localities in Asia which offer distinct and

332 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

satisfactory evidence on the subject of its ancient
inhabitants, are first, the entire chain of the sub-
Himalayas, or Sewalik hills ; next the western coast
of India, especially near the Gulf of Cambay ; and,
thirdly, the mouth of the great Irawaddi river, in the
peninsula of Siara. These spots are widely distant,
but the remains found in each have proved to belong
to nearly or absolutely identical species. They are
now at very different elevations, the difference amount-
ing to many thousand feet, but they were no doubt form-
ed contemporaneously, and at the same level. These
beds are present under different circumstances, the ma-
terial in which they are imbedded varying exceedingly ;
but they are essentially the same, and appear to have
been deposited in a vast inland lake of fresh water,
near whose banks there were forests, and in whose
waters were present numerous fresh-water fishes.

The remains thus brought to light in the hard
sandstone of the Sewalik hills, or in the conglomerate
on the shores of the Gulf of Cambay, include a vast
number of species, and must have been the result of
accumulations made during a very long period, ex-
tending over as much of the tertiary epoch as is com-
prehended in the middle and newer divisions of other
countries. They represent the inhabitants of the
land during this period, and probably include nearly
the whole series, since we find amongst them monkeys,
numerous carnivorous animals, rodents or gnawing ani-
mals, Insectivora or insect-eating animals, and a most
remarkable and unusual proportion of pachyderms,
the prototypes of the numerous elephants, rhinoce-
roses, hippopotamuses, horses, &c., whose remains are
found in various parts of the northern hemisphere.

OF CREATION. 333

There is besides a singular and interesting group of
ruminants, including giraffes, antelopes, deer of vari-
ous kinds, and many others more or less resembling
the existing animals of the order. Some anomalous
species are also met with, extremely different from
existing forms ; and, in addition to these mammals
there are a number of reptiles, amongst which' is a
tortoise of the most portentous dimensions.

The detailed history of these animals, and the con-
clusions derived from the careful study of the nume-
rous and perfect remains of them that have been
obtained, have not yet been presented to the world
by the naturalists best qualified to determine these
matters, although the fossils have been the subject of
careful study for a long time, and a magnificent work,
in which they are described and figured, is now in
course of publication.* The account given of them
by myself, in a work published in the autumn of
1844,f is still the only general outline on record, and
I am obliged therefore to repeat some portion of that
in the present chapter.

Of the various animals whose remains are found in
these Indian tertiaries, among the most striking, from
its shape and proportions, was that designated " Si-
vatherium." J This animal appears to have been as
large as the rhinoceros. Its head was even larger
in proportion, and was shaped like that of the ele-
phant, being provided with a small trunk or pro-
boscis ; the eyes were small and sunk, the head very

* Fauna Antiqua Sivalensis. By Capt. Cautley and Dr. Falconer.
t Ansted's Geology, Introductory, Descriptive and Practical, vol. ii.
pp. 98 et seq.

J From the Indian god Siva, an Qrjpiov (therion), a beast.

334

PICTUEESQUE SKETCHES

large in the posterior direction, and the general ex-
pression probably dull and heavy. The teeth were
rather fitted for bruising and crushing the branches
and twigs of trees, than for masticating the more suc-
culent and coarser food of the rhinoceros ; but the ani-
mal must have had a compound stomach, resembling,
in the peculiar and typical habit connected with this
structure, the ordinary ruminants, though the habit was
not perhaps developed to quite so great an extent.

Fig. 142

SlVATHERIUM.

The most remarkable fact with regard to this
animal is connected with another point of structure by
which it approximates the ruminating tribe : I mean
the possession of horns. Not only was the Sivathere
provided with one pair above the brows, but it had
.another pair placed more towards the back of the
head, in the manner observed in some of the four-

OF CREATION. 335

horned antelopes. In the Sivatherium, however, (un-
like the antelope,) one pair of horns resembled those
of the cow, and this pair was placed just between
and above the orbits. The bony cores on which the
true horns were placed render it quite certain that
the horny sheath must have been of very large size.
The other pair of horns were palmated and branch-
ing, and resembled rather the horns of the elk than
those of any other animal. They also were large
and very massive, and were placed behind the pair
already described. The form, the proportion, and
the singular appendages of the head of this animal,
render it extremely interesting as a link between the
ruminants and pachyderms; but the nature of the
extremities, which were probably of moderate pro-
portions, is still obscure, and requires further elu-
cidation. The fragments of the animal from the
Sewalik hills are accompanied by the remains of pa-
chyderms, and are in a very perfect state, but other
very nearly allied generic forms have also been found
at Perim Island, in the Gulf of Cambay.

Amongst the animals associated with the Sivathe-
rium, there were several pachyderms of large size,
including at least seven species of elephants and mas-
todons, forming an almost perfect species, uniting the
whole group of these animals by successive links, two
of which, the Asiatic and African species, still exist.
There is also a Dinotherium, at least as large as, and
probably larger than, the species found in the Rhine
valley. There are several species of hippopotamus, some
of large, and others of very small size ; more than one
rhinoceros, distinct from either of the existing forms ;
several species of the genus Equus (horse, ass, and

336 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

zebra), varying in size from the ordinary dimensions
of the horse to a little creature not larger than the
gazelle. To this list may be added also more than
one species of giraiFe, of somewhat stouter make than
the existing species, and of larger size ; besides a
great multitude of antelopes and deer, and several
of the Bos tribe. The Carnivora included a large
extinct genus, probably fiercer and more powerful
than the tiger, and resembling the Machairodus,
already described as occurring with the cavern bones in
England and Europe. There were also numerous other
feline animals, a colossal bear, and several remains
referable to the dog tribe and the hysena.

All these animals were either associated together
at the same period, or succeeded one another in
groups occupying the land then existing ; but almost
the whole of those, whose remains are thus found,
have now become extinct. The following figure (143)
represents part of the lower jaw and tooth of one of
the extinct elephants of this period, and is copied
from Capt. Cautley and Dr. Falconer's great work,
already referred to.

The great Indian fossil fauna, which lasted so long
without any interruption, was thus at length broken
up and brought to a definite conclusion, while that of
the western districts appears to have only undergone
some modification, involving the destruction of the
more prominent groups. This, perhaps, was the na-
tural and necessary result of the nature of the changes
effected; these changes having altered the original
position of the Indian beds to a very great extent,
and having been accompanied by the outburst of a
larger quantity of melted rock than has been ob-

OF CREATION. 337

served in any one district elsewhere on the surface of
the globe. Not less than two hundred thousand
square miles of country are there entirely covered

Fig. 143

JAW AND TOOTH OP ELEPHANT.

with basalt of comparatively modern date, and great
lines of elevated land also of modern elevation now
form lofty and extensive tracts ; the Ghauts of south-
western as well as those of eastern India, the central
or Vindhya range, the northern Circars, and other
mountain ranges have all been formed, and vast ter-
tiary deposits, of which the Kunkur and the Regur
or cotton soil of India are among the most remark-
able, have been spread out over the surface. These,
it is probable, are all different results of one system
of upheaval, which did riot terminate till the eleva-
tion of the loftiest mountain tract in the world was
effected ; and these changes are certainly of compa-
ratively recent date, many of them having gone on
even during the historic period. Probably much of
the low land, and even some of that having consi-
derable elevation in the plains of central Asia, has
only at a very recent period emerged from the sea.

Q

338 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

India is connected geologically with Europe in
very distinct ways : partly by the continuation, at
intervals, of the mountain chain of the Himalayas,
in which secondary rocks form the central axis;
partly by several tertiary or very late secondary dis-
tricts, extending from Cutch, near the mouth of the
Indus, by Arabia, into Egypt ; and partly by the
very modern alluvial and sandy tracts of the Cas-
pian, passing into Siberia.

Much remains to be made out with regard to all
these links, but much also has been done ; and there
can be little question that the great sandy deserts
of Arabia and Africa, and the steppes of Tartary,
have been at no very distant period beneath the sea.
The continuous volcanic band commencing in Asia
Minor, and traceable through the Mediterranean,
by the Greek Islands, into south Italy, has also
been concerned very intimately with the elevation
of the tract both to the north and south of it. We
may even hope some day to connect by a perfect
series the middle and newer tertiary formations of
the old continents in the northern hemisphere ; and
perhaps the time is not very far distant, when, the
Russian and Tartar provinces in northern Asia being
surveyed, and some glimpse obtained with regard to
the geological structure of China, a complete history
may be worked out, defining the limits of change
during the tertiary period throughout this vast
tract.

In the way of tertiary geology, many parts of
Australia appear to promise matter for investigation,
as interesting as that of the better and longer known
continents, and on almost as grand a scale. At pre-

OF CREATION. 339

sent, however, our knowledge of fossils in this respect
is limited to the bones of various quadrupeds, partly
obtained from caverns in limestone, and partly from
rolled and transported material corresponding with
our gravel. There is, on the whole, a great poverty
in the number of generic and specific forms in this
large tract of land, not only of the fossil remains of
the larger land animals, but also with regard to
the existing fauna, which, as well as that now ex-
tinct, is limited to a particular group of animals,
all of them exhibiting a peculiar bony apparatus in
the pelvis. In the female this is connected with
the presence of a pouch, where the young are re-
ceived at a very early period, and carried about
for some time after birth, whence the animals are
called marsupials, or pouched animals.* Fossil re-
mains of animals of this kind have been already
alluded to, as occurring in the secondary and older
tertiary beds of our island.

In Australia, the existing marsupials, or pouched
animals, include species having almost every peculi-
arity of structure and habit; and they are so organ-
ized, that, while some are mere vegetable feeders,
others are omnivorous, and others again carnivorous.
There is doubtless some reason why the animals of
this singular continent should be separated by so

* Of this remarkable group some species are found in the Molucca
Islands ; and one genus, containing several species, is peculiar to America ;
and, though chiefly confined to the tropical portions, is met with as far
north as the United States, where, however, only a single species is
found. The number of species in islands north of Australia (New
Guinea, &c.) is probably not inconsiderable. — Waterhouse's " Mam-
malia, vol. i. pp. 2, 3.

Q 2

340 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

broad and distinctive a character from those of the
rest of the world.*

The fossil animals of Australia are also marsupial,
and exhibit forms which, for the most part, are not
very different from those still living. Some, in-
deed, offer peculiarities sufficiently striking, as well
in point of size as structure, and of these we may
mention two genera, the former being a gigantic
wombat, and the latter representing in its propor-
tions the elephantine animals of other continents,
but still retaining the marsupial character. The
bones that occur in a fossil state are sufficient to
indicate many interesting conclusions with regard to
the ancient inhabitants of this singular and now de-
tached continent; and, combined with the knowledge
we possess of the present and former inhabitants of
the existing land in other parts of the world, they
lead us to suppose that different orders of the great
class of mammalian Vertebrata have been fitted to in-
habit, or at least have been chiefly developed in dif-
ferent countries ; and that, while Europe, Asia, and
Africa, with the adjacent islands, form one principal
district, and are also connected with North America ;
the recently elevated continent of South America
forms another, and Australia a third ; but we find
that, in the vast tract of land in the northern hemi-
sphere, there is the greatest variety of types, corre-
sponding, it may be, with a more varied character of the
land, and the differences of climate thence involved.

But Australia is not entirely unconnected zoolo-
gically with the northern continents. It contains,

* I have already alluded to the possibility that this character may
have reference to the physical geography of the districts inhabited by
the group. See ante, p. 207.

OF CREATION. 341

in addition to its numerous marsupial animals, one
species which is considered to be a true Mastodon.
It is thus brought into relation with distant coun-
tries by a genus which forms a link between the
tribes inhabiting Europe, Asia, and Africa, and North
and South America. This fact is the more interest-
ing, since the widely spread and cosmopolitan animal
in question seems to have been amongst the last of
those mighty tenants of the earth that ceased to exist
immediately before man was introduced.

Very few of the islands near Australia, except
Van Diemen's Land, and very few indeed of those
other islands which form the numerous archipelagos
of the eastern and southern seas, are sufficiently
well known, or have such an extent of superficial
detritus, that we could with any reason expect them
to furnish much palseontological evidence. New Zea-
land is, in point of fact, the only island from which
such remains have been obtained ; and the condition
of the bones, and the circumstances under which they
are found, render it impossible to state very decid-
edly in what bed they there occur. It is, however,
something to know that in these islands there existed
formerly, and possibly not very long ago, a consider-
able and important group of wingless birds, of which
one representative, the Apteryx, still remains, al-
though apparently that also will soon be lost. Many
extinct species of these strange animals have been
found in the gravel of the northern island, and they
vary greatly in size, some having been far larger than
the largest ostrich, while others were very small. In
all these the general character is nearly the same, the
animals being much stouter and more powerful in

342 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

proportion than the ostrich, and absolutely without
any trace of wings. The general outline of one of
the largest of these extraordinary animals, of which
a figure is given in the annexed wood-cut (fig. 144),
will afford some notion of the vast proportions at-
tained ; the figure of a man being drawn to the

Fig. 144

DlNORNIS.

same scale as the bird, to assist the eye in judg-
ing of the dimensions. The various species hitherto
determined have all been referred to a single genus,
under the name Dinornis.* The legs of the Dinornis
were powerful, and were no doubt well adapted for
rapid locomotion; and in the Apteryx similar power-

f Acii/og (deinos), enormously large ; opvig (orm's), a bird.

OF CREATION. 343

fill extremities enable the animal to run swiftly, and
when attacked to defend itself with great vigour.
The Apteryx is nocturnal in its habits, and dwells
in the deepest recesses of the forest, where gigantic
trees are interwoven almost impenetrably with climb-
ing plants, and where, deeply embayed in the moun-
tains, there occur open swampy spots covered with
bulrushes. It feeds on insects and seeds.

The islands of New Zealand, situated to the east
of Australia, are still farther removed than that con-
tinent from the groups of islands in the Indian Ocean ;
but, in spite of their distance, it is in these latter that
we find the nearest analogue to the singular wingless
birds just described. The Dodo, which had been
brought to England and preserved in museums more
than two centuries ago, and figures of which have
been given, appears to have inhabited the Mauritius
and the island of Bourbon at no distant period, al-
though for some centuries it has not been seen in a
living state. Like the extinct wingless birds of New
Zealand, it was nearly allied to the cassowary, also
an inhabitant of the Mauritius, but it was more mas-
sive, and of more clumsy proportions.

The study of the tertiary geology of Asia, Aus-
tralia, and the islands of the Pacific and Indian
Oceans, assisted by broad general views of the phy-
sical geography of those countries, seems to point to
them as among the chief districts which have un-
dergone changes during the latest geological period ;
and there is every reason to conclude that they are
still being greatly modified by undulatory movements
on a grand scale, constantly going on over a large
part of the earth's surface. At the commencement

344 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

of the tertiary period northern Asia was probably
almost entirely under water, and a broad tract of
shallow sea may have extended, broken only by a few
islands, from the latitude of 50° north to the North
Pole. A chain of islands, nearly continuous, may
then have existed in what is now the North Pacific
Ocean, bringing the islands east and south of the Phi-
lippines into close relation with Australia, and with
the archipelagos extending many hundred miles to
the east of that continent, while Australia may also
have then extended westward and northward be-
tween the tropics. A considerable part of southern
India was no doubt covered by the sea ; but land ex-
tended probably towards the east and west from
central India, perhaps connecting Arabia with the pe-
ninsula of Malacca. Within this broad tract of land
there appears to have been, during a great part of
the tertiary period, a very extensive fresh- water lake,
whose northern shore extended within the temperate
zone ; and on the banks of this lake lived vast herds
of the larger Mammalia of all kinds, with those other
animals characteristic of the old continent and the
tertiaries of India, whose remains are so abundantly
distributed in many distant regions. The disturb-
ances which were then in action breaking up the
chalk in England and elevating the Weald ; those
which, advancing eastward, formed hills in the great
Alpine countries of Europe ; those which also lifted
the Caucasus from the sea-bottom, and partly found
vent in the now extinct volcanoes of Asia Minor,
had not yet disturbed this vast and thickly-peopled
district, which was not greatly modified till very late
in the tertiary epoch.

OF CREATION. 345

The Himalayas, and the mountains which now
connect that chain with Persia, were, however, it is
probable, even then indicated by a chain of islands,
and did not till a much later period become elevated
into a mountain range. The sands and other rocks,
which, by slight undulations of the surface, had been
deposited in great thickness on what are now the
flanks of this range, and which received and buried
vast multitudes of the bones and other remains of the
inhabitants of the land, were then lifted up, and par-
took both of the main elevatory movement which
lifted the plains of India, and of the local disruption
which produced the mountain chain.

The elevation which commenced in the Himalayan
region did not at once disturb the formation of de-
posits a little further to the south. These seem to
have been continued without interruption far into
what may be considered the modern period ; and yet,
after these, there occurred changes in this part of
the world of the most gigantic nature, resulting in the
outpouring of vast quantities of lava, and the eleva-
tion of the singular chain of the western Ghauts of
India. Scarcely any distinctly marine deposits of a
late tertiary period have yet been recognized in this
part of the world.

These movements, described in so few words, were
doubtless going on for many thousands and tens of
thousands of revolutions of our planet. They were
accompanied also by vast but slow changes of other
kinds. The great plains of Tartary, the whole of
Siberia, and many parts of north-western Europe,
were then undergoing elevation. The inhabitants of
a tropical or warm temperate continent extended into

Q5

346 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

these new countries, becoming acclimatised in high
northern latitudes; and where we now find only the
bear, the wolf, and the fox, the elephant, the rhino-
ceros, the hippopotamus, and a multitude of feline
and other typical carnivorous species, were then fully
represented. As, however, the northern land in-
creased in extent, rose in elevation, and advanced
further towards the pole, the effects of such change
became felt. Intense cold advanced further to the
south, the climate of the central districts from in-
sular became extreme and continental, and at length
the greater number of the animal inhabitants, unable
to exist under such circumstances, gradually, but
completely died out.

Meanwhile we may inquire concerning the fate of
the continent whose position between the tropics has
also been indicated. The expansive force employed
in lifting up, by mighty movements, the northern
part of the continent of Asia, found partial vent, and
from numerous subaqueous fissures there were pour-
ed out the tabular masses of basalt occurring in cen-
tral India, while an extensive area of depression in
the Indian Ocean, marked by the coral islands of
the Laccadives, the Maldives, the great Chagos bank,
and some others, were in course of depression by a
counteracting movement.

A similar area of depression, on a far grander scale,
is also indicated among the western islands of the
North Pacific Ocean, and we see distinct proof of
great change having been effected in all these dis-
tricts; involving, indeed, not only depression, but
partial and occasional elevation, especially in the line
of modern volcanic action extending from Sumatra
to New Zealand.

OP CREATION.

347

The continental area formerly, it would seem, con-
necting the island of New Guinea with parts of Aus-
tralia, and reaching to about 10° N. lat., seems to have
sunk down, contemporaneously with the elevation of
land in the north temperate zone; and the movement
of depression in this case, and of elevation in the other,
is most probably not yet completed. During the
changes thus going on, it is not easy to conjecture
at what rate other and corresponding changes may
have affected the organic world, but one series of facts
seems distinctly made out, and forms the groundwork
on which these conclusions are based. I mean the
former distribution of the larger land animals in
groups not very dissimilar to those now existing over
certain districts, and analogous to those at present
connected by broad physical characters. This ar-
rangement of the groups corresponds also remark-
ably, and in a most interesting manner, with the dif-
ferences observable between the generic forms which
were then common and those that are now met with.
It agrees in the singular fact, that many of the groups
of species formerly represented by gigantic types
were not confined to one district, but extended over
all the known land of the eastern hemisphere. It
agrees also with the arrangement of nearly allied spe-
cies at the present day, many of these being indi-
genous in distant and unconnected spots now, and
having been so formerly. And, lastly, it proves that
there is as little evidence to be derived from this
branch of geological investigation, as there is from re-
cent zoology and botany, in favour of any view of local
or secular development of new typical forms of or-
ganic existence ; since these modifications are rather

348 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

produced at once in distant spots, which, so far as
we know, were as unconnected formerly as they are
at present.

The distribution of the more characteristic land
animals in groups is the main fact to be observed in
considering this part of the subject ; but we should
not forget that some important set of causes must
also, in all probability, have been in action, tending
to produce that singular development of the larger
quadrupeds, which has not only peopled the conti-
nents and islands of the Old World with gigantic
types, but has also affected America, in the southern
as well as the northern districts. In that part of
the world, as elsewhere, there is a detached and sin-
gular group of animals, now greatly limited in dis-
tribution, but anciently represented by a large num-
ber of individuals as well as species, attaining di-
mensions not less gigantic in proportion than those
of the elephantine monsters or reptiles of India or
western Europe, or even of Australia and New Zea-
land.

OP CREATION. 349

CHAPTER XV.

THE CONDITION OP SOUTH AMERICA DURING THE TERTIARY PERIOD.

I HAVE thought it well to bring to a conclusion the
argument derivable from the geology of the old
continent and its adjacent islands, because, when we
consider the case of South America, to which the
present chapter will be exclusively devoted, we find
ourselves most emphatically in a new world, and sur-
rounded by forms anomalous at first sight, although
strictly analogous to the existing fauna of that coun-
try, and clearly adapted to its conditions.

The tertiary geology of South America is on the
grandest scale, and of the most instructive nature.
Flanked by the great mountain chain of the Andes
which runs parallel to the western coast, this country
is still the seat of disturbances which ought to be
studied as exhibiting the true elements of geological
causation and illustrating almost every great geolo-
gical principle. That part of the continent extending
from the mountains eastward towards the sea is di-
vided into vast plains drained by the river Amazon
and the Rio de la Plata, and separated by a succes-
sion of transverse mountain ridges, comparatively un-
important with reference to the subject we have now
to consider.

Almost the whole tract of plain country has been
affected by strictly tertiary changes, and elevation has

350 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

taken place at such long intervals and by such slow
degrees as hardly to interfere with the condition of
things obtaining at the time.* A long succession of
animals nearly allied to, but in many cases quite dis-
tinct from, its present inhabitants, dwelt on this rising
continent ; and corresponding groups seem to have
existed ever since the first elevation of the country,
fragments of them being embedded in the gravel and
other deposits at the mouths of the great rivers.

Throughout the whole of Brazil, and in the pro-
vinces of La Plata and Buenos Ay res, remains of the
extinct quadrupeds formerly tenanting these districts
are occasionally met with, and are sometimes not only
abundant, but preserved in the most wonderful state
of perfection. Some of these skeletons exhibit nearly
every bone of the animal ; the strong cuirasses of
others have scarcely a fragment removed from its true
position ; and these are found on the banks of the
rivers, and in the adjacent mud, while numerous
detached bones occur in the caverns in Brazil, and
are distributed as widely and buried as safely as the
bones of elephants or hyaenas in the corresponding
places of deposit in England and Europe. We have
but to examine the fragments, and re-construct the
animals, to learn the zoological condition of the great
South American continent during the tertiary period,
which indeed may there be regarded as rather passing
away, than actually past.

But, first of all, let us consider the nature of the
country itself in which these remains are found ; and,

* An account of these will be found in Mr. Darwin's valuable work on
the " Geology of South America," published while these sheets were pass-
ing through the press.

OF CREATION. 351

since there has probably been but little difference in
this respect, we shall thus learn at the same time the
conditions under which the ancient inhabitants may
have lived.

The almost boundless plains, to which in South
America the name " Pampas " is given, are localities
equally remarkable and interesting to the zoologist,
the botanist, and the geologist. They are not ac-
tually level, but rather gently undulating; yet, at the
same time, the change of level is so gradual and
small, that the undulations more resemble the swell
of a great ocean in a calm, than any smaller or more
visible hills. Over these tracts the traveller may pass
for a hundred miles, without seeing any change either
in the nature or the products of the soil, and without
meeting with a single pebble. They exhibit the
appearance of a sea-bottom which has remained for
a long period undisturbed ; and it is impossible to
conceive anything more monotonous, or in that re-
spect more dreary, than a journey over a desert so
boundless. A succession of broad flat terraces, of dif-
ferent elevation, but in all respects similar, character-
ises also the whole district of Patagonia from the sea
to the mountain chain on the western coast.

But it must not be imagined that the vegetation in
those tracts partakes of the dreary and monotonous
aspect of the country. It is, on the contrary, rich to
a degree scarcely imaginable in a country and cli-
mate like ours. It exhibits occasionally clumps of
well-grown trees, but more commonly the rapid and
rank luxuriance of tropical districts. The whole of
that part of South America, which is spread out in
flat valleys between the branches and trunks of the

352 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

noblest rivers in the world, is provided throughout
with an unfailing supply of moisture, and, conse-
quently, enjoys perpetual fertility; and, as the rivers
are frequently changing their course, they thus de-
posit the rich alluvial soil in various parts, and with it
also bury the trunks of trees and the carcases of ani-
mals washed away in the occasional floods, or lying
dead on the river banks. There is an abundant and
never-failing supply for the most voracious of vegeta-
ble-feeding animals ; and no amount of destruction
seems to check, even for a short time, the rapid increase
of the grasses and other plants that are indigenous.

At the time when America was first discovered, this
vast district was chiefly tenanted by a small number
of species of animals of very strange habits and struc-
ture, and of which it may, perhaps, be sufficient to
say in general language, that they are represented
by the sloth, the armadillo, and the ant-eater: we
shall presently see what kind of sloths and armadillos
were its inhabitants at a yet earlier period. Besides
these, there also existed, among the animals indi-
genous in this continent, a kind of camel called the
llama, several moderate-sized carnivora, a remarka-
ble group of monkeys, and some interesting forms of
rodent or gnawing animals. The group first men-
tioned (called by naturalists Edentata, or toothless,
from the absence of cutting teeth) includes the most
interesting both of recent arid fossil species; but, be-
fore describing these, it will be better first of all to
consider the structure and habits of those which do
not belong to this group, but exhibit analogies with
the more common types of animal structure in other
parts of the world. Amongst these we find a pa-

OF CREATION. 353

chydermatous species, called the Toxodon,* showing
many curious points of resemblance to the dinothere,
but more nearly approaching the rodents (e. g. beaver,
&c.) in some important respects. There are also the
remains of another interesting and very large species,
called the Macrauchenia, which was a sort of camel,
connecting the pachyderms with the ruminants. These
have been found to possess considerable interest, and
assist in bringing the whole group of fossils more im-
mediately into comparison with those of other parts
of the world.

The Toxodon, like the Dinotherium, is chiefly
known by portions of the skull, and is almost as
remarkable for the position and arrangement of its
gnawing teeth, as the giant of the middle tertiary
period in Enrope seems to have been for its singular
tusks, and their position in the lower jaw. The di-
mensions of the skull show that the Toxodon must
have rivalled the largest quadrupeds in this respect ;
and its general proportions, its peculiarities of form,
and its structure, prove clearly that this extinct genus
differed essentially from any other animal hitherto
described.

The general form of the skull of the Toxodon
seems to present no analogies with that of the ele-
phant, or indeed with any of the larger quadrupeds.
The teeth, of which there are seven grinders on each
side of the upper jaw, and two incisors, one of them
extremely large, and almost like those of a beaver,
sufficiently indicate the peculiarities in this respect ;
and from these the name of the genus has been derived.

One peculiarity in the skull worthy of notice is

* TO£OJ> (toxon), a bow ; O^OVQ (odous), a tooth.

.354

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

seen in the slope of the back part of the head,
which is characteristic of the dinothere, and common
to the Cetacea and some of the rodents. A very
limited capacity is thus indicated, and the indication
is strengthened by the exceedingly small space that
there is for the brain.

The teeth of the Toxodon are very interesting.
All the grinding teeth are long and curved; but un-
like the case of the guinea-pig, whose teeth, also
curved, are directed outwards, the curve is here such,
that each two corresponding teeth of the upper jaw
bend over to meet each other in the palate and form
an arch capable of overcoming immense resistance
to pressure.

The two large incisive teeth, in like manner, bend
backwards in their sockets, and extend in an arched
form as far as the grinding teeth. The whole of the
inside of the upper jaw is thus a vaulted and groined
roof of the strongest possible construction ; and as the
teeth continued to grow and to be pushed forward
during the whole life of the animal, there was a con-
stant and continual compensation to meet the effect
of the wearing away of the crown of the tooth
against opposing teeth of corresponding structure
in the lower jaw. The enamel of the teeth is not
repeated in distinct folds as in the herbivorous ani-
mals of the present day, but the powers of perpetual
renovation would amply compensate for this defec-
tive quantity of enamel, and enable the animal to
grind down vegetable food of the toughest kind, with-
out danger of ultimately wearing away the grinding
surface. It is evident, however, from the nature of
the attachment of the lower jaw, that the motion

OF CREATION. 355

of the jaw in the process of mastication was not
the same as in the rodents, but admitted of consider-
able lateral motion and great pressure, assisting in
the trituration of the food. There was also a power-
ful muscular apparatus enabling the jaws to be work-
ed sideways ; and it appears from the bones of the
face, that those muscles, by which the incisive teeth
and the extremities of the jaws were worked, and
which form the lips, were also exceedingly large and
strong ; these fore-teeth being probably used (like tjie
corresponding teeth of the hippopotamus) to divide or
tear up by the roots the aquatic plants growing on
the banks of the streams which the Toxodon may
have frequented. It also appears that the lips of this
singular animal were endowed with great sensibility,
large nerves having been supplied for such purpose.
The expanded muzzle seems even to have been fur-
nished with whiskers.

The extremities of the Toxodon are not at all
known, nor can it be distinctly determined whether
they were such as to enable the animal to move about
on land, or whether, like the dugong and other herbi-
vorous cetaceans, it remained permanently in the
water. It is considered unlikely, however, that the
latter was the case, although there are not wanting
some curious points of structure indicative of its
aquatic habits. The affinities exhibited both to the
rodent and cetacean orders are very remarkable, this
pachydermatous animal, of gigantic proportions, be-
ing characterised by teeth which closely resemble
those of the gnawing tribes, while the structure of
some bones of the skull approaches in many respects
to that of the whales.

356 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

The knowledge that we possess of the Toxodon is
derived entirely from a consideration of some of the
bones of the head. We have next to deduce the
habits and instincts of another extinct genus, of
which nothing is known but a few bones of the trunk
and the extremities, without a fragment of a tooth
or of the skull to serve as a guide in the investi-
gation. It is the triumph of comparative anatomy
that such an investigation is possible; and few things
in scientific induction are more beautiful than the
nature of the arguments by which, in these cases, the
results of the investigation of each bone and frag-
ment of a bone are shewn to bear upon and ex-
plain one another.

The animal I have now to describe is called Ma-
crauchenia,* from the great length and magnitude of
its neck, which was very nearly as long as that of
the giraffe. Its analogies have been beautifully and
admirably worked out by Professor Owen, and he
has referred it with great certainty and confidence to
the order Pachydermata. It belongs also to that
group (containing the rhinoceros and palaeotherium)
of which the various species are not provided with a
proboscis, and have only three toes on the fore-foot.
The fore and hind feet of the Macrauchenia were of
equal size. The body was nearly as large and mas-
sive as that of the rhinoceros, and the length of the
legs very much greater. The long neck was not car-
ried gracefully as in the giraffe, but in a stiff and
upright position like that of the llama ; and the whole
appearance of the animal must have been heavy,
awkward, and ungainly. It is interesting to find

* MaK|00£ (makros), long ; av^rjv (auclien\ the neck.

OF CREATION.

357

that its nearest analogies are with the extinct genus
Palaotherium, but it also indicates a very beautiful
transition from the pachyderms to the ruminants,
through the singular group of which the camels and
the llama are the existing representatives. A true
anoplotheroid animal has recently been added to the
list of South American pachyderms.

We now come to the consideration of those ani-
mals more especially characteristic of the later ter-
tiary period on the continent of South America, — a
group of animals perhaps the most remarkable of any
that has yet been determined, and one which exhibits
a perfect and beautiful adaptation of closely analogous
structure in the case of species varying in bulk al-
most as much as it is possible for those of analogous
structure to do. All the rest of the quadrupeds that
I shall have to describe belong to the same natural
order, which includes, with few exceptions, the great
majority of those fossils hitherto obtained from South
America. The order, as I have already stated, is
called Edentata, and is now characterised by the
sloth, the armadillo, and the ant-eater. Of the ex-
isting species of these animals, the largest is the great
ant-eater, which equals in length a Newfoundland
dog: of the others, the gigantic armadillo attains
about two-thirds of that bulk; and the sloth never ex-
ceeds two feet in the length of the body, although its
fore extremities are disproportionately long. At the
time immediately preceding the last change that took
place upon the earth, South America was, however,
inhabited by numerous animals of this order, some
of them rivalling in bulk the largest pachyderms, and
others quite as remarkable for their structure, their

358 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

appearance, and their habits, as for their strange
analogies with the sloth and the armadillo.

The sloth is well known and exceedingly common
in some of the forests of South America. It has
very long fore-legs, so constructed as to support the
animal when hanging on the under side of the branch
of a tree, and in this position it usually rests. It
never willingly descends to the earth, where the pe-
culiar form of its limbs prevents it from advancing
without great and painful efforts; but when on a
tree it moves rapidly and with ease, passing from
one branch to another, and getting from tree to tree
by the help of the numerous parasitical plants which
form a net-work uniting the upper branches of the
most lofty trees of the forest. The animal is not
provided with a tail, and the want of such an ap-
pendage is not felt, the bones of the extremities and
the powerful toes forming an ample support for the
creature whether moving or resting suspended from
a branch.

It is curious and very interesting to see all the
most marked peculiarities of the skeleton, so far as
relates to the essential structure of this animal, trans-
ferred, on a gigantic scale, to some extinct species,
while at the same time the modifications observable
in the shortening and strengthening of the legs, and
the addition of a powerful tail, are quite enough to
convince the physiological naturalist that the actual
habits must have differed in spite of much essential
and important resemblance.

One of these huge monsters has been well named
Megatherium;* and nearly every bone of its enor-

* Meya (mega), great ; Orjpiov (therion), a beast.

OF CREATION.

359

mous body is preserved in a skeleton existing in
the Museum at Madrid. Another skeleton, also, of
a nearly allied species (Mylodon*), smaller indeed,
but not less interesting, has been brought to England,
and has been the subject of a most elaborate descrip-
tion by Professor Owen, while the skeleton itself,
admirably articulated, may be seen in the Museum
of the Eoyal College of Surgeons in London, The
complete structure of an extinct species has in no
instance been more satisfactorily made out than in
the case before us; and, therefore, the whole nature

Fig. 145

MEGATHERIUM.

of the argument by which conclusions are arrived at,
from the comparison of the shapes and peculiar pro •
jections and proportions of bones, may well be illus-
trated here by a reference to this remarkable extinct
species.

* MvXrj (myk), a mill ; oSovg (odous*), a tooth.

360 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

First of all, let us take a general view of this
extraordinary animal, whose singularly massive pro-
portions cannot but strike every one with astonish-
ment.* Its length is nineteen feet, its breadth across
the loins nearly six feet, its height not more than
nine. The general proportions of the body rather re-
semble those of the hippopotamus than the elephant;
and the trunk itself, much larger than that of any
hippopotamus, is terminated by a pelvis, and by hind
extremities nearly three times as large as those of
the most gigantic elephant. These hind-legs are pro-
vided with feet set at right angles to the leg, as in
the bear; the heel projects nearly fifteen inches back-
wards, and the toes, armed with claws, proceed more
than twice that distance forwards, so that a proper
base is afforded for the massive column, and the
whole is able to sustain the weight that once rested
upon it. There is also, in addition to the hind legs, a
tail more than equal to them in length, and propor-
tionally thick and strong; and this tail must have sup-
ported, instead of depending from the broad termina-
tion of the pelvic region.

To match these strange proportions of the hinder
extremity, we find the fore-legs longer than the cor-
responding part in the hind limb, but having a per-
fect mechanism for free motion in all directions, and
connected to the sternum by a very powerful bony
apparatus, also permitting free motion. This extre-
mity was terminated by unusually broad expanded

* See the figure of the skeleton in the preceding page, where the pro-
portions will be recognised on comparing the figure with that of an ordi-
nary-sized man, drawn to the same scale and placed by the side for this
purpose.

OF CREATION. 361

feet, of which the proportions, however, are much re-
duced in appearance, in consequence of the massive-
ness of the leg itself, already described. The foot is
five-toed ; the two outer toes were provided with
claw bones of great size and strength, but the whole
foot is short in proportion to its breadth.

The skull of this strange monster was exceedingly
small and narrow, and was connected to the trunk
by a neck of moderate length. The whole body
gradually tapers forward from the enormous pelvis
and gigantic hind-quarters, which offer a singular
contrast to the short neck and slender head. These
singular proportions are nowhere met with amongst
quadrupeds, except amongst the Edentata, of which
the Megatherium is certainly one of the most inte-
resting examples.

Let us now trace the points of analogy that exist
between the Megatherium, or rather the megatheroid
animals, including under this name the various gigan-
tic species of the same group at present known, and
the sloth, the living animal most nearly allied to them.

The first glance at the head of the Megatherium
exhibits very striking resemblances to the sloth in
several points, some of them peculiar to the whole
tribe of edentates, and others indicative of the habits
of the animal. The general form is more elongated
and straighter, the length however not being due to
the prolongation of the jaws (which are cut off
shortly), but to the skull itself; and the structure
of the bones of the nose would seem to indicate the
existence of a long upper lip, or even a short pro-
boscis. The extreme narrowness of the palate is also
worthy of notice, and was, no doubt, in accordance

R

362 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

with peculiar habits. The long broad bone, descend-
ing by the side of the cheek, is one of those points
in which the resemblance to the sloth is carried out
very accurately; and this is not less interesting, al-
though we are at present ignorant of its exact mean-
ing. It is characteristic of the whole group of Eden-
tata.

The teeth of the megathere are large in proportion
to their thickness, and are gently curved. Their
grinding surface is simple and well adapted to the
comminution of leaves and twigs. They are all of
them molars (grinding teeth), and there are four on
each side of each jaw. They consist of regular four-
sided prisms, the outer coating being of bony matter,
enclosing a thin inner coating of enamel, and a central
mass of ivory ; while the opposing teeth are so placed
in the jaw that the enamel of each cuts into the softer
bone and into the central ivory of the corresponding,
one, so that a grinding surface is constantly and evenly
preserved, and two wedge-shaped cutting edges work
into one another, and keep one another sharp.

These teeth were renewed from the root through-
out the entire life of the animal, and were gradually
pushed forwards as they were needed. They were
set very deep in the jaw. It is worthy of notice,
that many of these modifications, — the narrow palate
for instance, the position of the teeth closely set in the
jaw, their great length, and the corresponding depth
of the jaw, — all exhibit a certain amount of resem-
blance to the structure of corresponding parts of the
elephant, although the fundamental structure of the
teeth, and the general form of the skull, is at present
exclusively restricted to the sloth family.

OF CREATION.

363

I shall not dwell long on the description of the ver-
tebral column and the ribs of the Megatherium. The
neck is strong, but not remarkably so. It is of mo-
derate length, and differs from that of the three-toed
sloth in a point in which this latter quadruped dif-
fers from all others, namely, the possession of an addi-
tional vertebra of the neck. In this respect, indeed,
the two-toed sloth, or unau, (another existing species,)
approaches the megatheroid type, but is itself ano-
malous, exhibiting an increased number of dorsal ver-
tebrae, so that the extinct genus did not agree in this
respect with either of the existing sloths inhabiting
trees. In the tail, also, the difference is marked not
less strongly, for the sloth is unprovided with any
such appendage, while it formed a prominent and
important organ of support in the Megatherium and
other extinct species.

The ribs, both of the Megatherium and the sloth,
are broad, and offer a firm support to the body of the
animal. Those which are interlocked among each other
to form the breast-bone offer an example of a very
singular structure, found not in the sloth but in the
ant-eaters, and apparently intended to assist these
animals when burrowing through the earth. The
resisting power and the strength thus afforded to the
fore extremities was exceedingly great.

But by far the most remarkable part of the mega-
there is seen in the posterior portion of the skeleton,
commencing with the lumbar vertebree, and including
the bones of the pelvis, the tail, and the hinder
extremities.

In all these there may be traced a succession of
contrivances strikingly indicative of enormous, un-

R 2

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

wieldy and massive strength ; and in all this region
there is a total dissimilarity to the sloth, and in-
deed to all other recent animals of tEe same natural
family. It is almost impossible for any drawing or
any description to give an adequate notion of the
extent to which strength and massiveness is carried
in this animal ; but the skeleton figured in a previous
page (see p. 359) will perhaps serve to assist the reader.

The first thing to be noticed with reference to this
part is the wide expanse of bone stretching out from
each side of the vertebral column to a distance of
five feet, and scarcely leaving any interval in the
hollow of the back. Powerful bones are seen placed
at right angles to the spine and vertically over the
hind legs, and these form a solid mass well fitted to
withstand any amount of pressure, and to enable the
hind legs to support without injury almost any effort
that could be made by the animal when resting, as if
on a tripod, upon its hind legs and tail. This great
width also indicates a large size of the abdominal
cavity, adapted to the habits of the animal as a
vegetable feeder, but at the same time rendering it
ponderous and unwieldy.

Articulated to each of the broad plates of bone
stretching out thus from the back, we find legs of cor-
responding magnitude and strength. The thigh-bone
is not more than two feet four inches long, but its
circumference at the smallest part is equal to its
length, while the circumference of the thigh-bone of
an elephant is not more than twelve inches. Although,
however, the thigh-bone is short, it is set vertically,
and not obliquely as in most animals, and its full
length is thus taken advantage of, although the rate

OP CREATION. 365

of progression would thus be in a corresponding de-
gree slow. The size of the leg when clothed with
flesh must have been large even in proportion to the
circumference of this bone, for it is much flattened
and expanded outwards.

The character of strength indicated so clearly both
by the proportion, the position, and the peculiar
shape of the thigh bone, is fully preserved in the
other bones of the leg; for we find the two bones, the
tibia and fibula, united together both at the top and
bottom, forming an almost perfect column, nearly as
large as the femur, and set vertically beneath it. This
is a contrivance only characterising the armadilloes
among living animals, and in them it corresponds
with an apparatus of the fore extremity enabling, the
possessor to burrow beneath the surface of the earth.
Its object is to offer a powerful resistance to the
great pressure exerted when the hind extremities are
employed as the purchase, while the fore-legs are be-
ing made use of for digging. In the megathere the
similar contrivance was, no doubt, useful in very
nearly the same way.

The base of the column we have just been con-
sidering was no less remarkable for massiveness and
extent than was the vast and massive shaft itself.
The bone of the instep is a cube of nearly nine
inches a side; it rests on a heel bone extending eigh-
teen inches backwards, and the other bones are of
similar proportions. The foot was terminated by
three toes, one of which appears to have been armed
with a tremendous claw. The claw, or rather its
sheath, for of the actual claw itself we have no re-
mains, measures upwards of ten inches in length and

366

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

thirteen inches in circumference at the root; and in
this respect, therefore, the analogy with the sloth is
still preserved.

The tail of the Megatherium is a part in which the
extinct genus differed essentially from the sloth. Its
length was very considerable, certainly not less than
five feet. The vertebrae of which it is composed are
so large, that the circumference of this organ near
the root must have been between five and six feet.
Large processes are attached to the caudal verte-
brae, which would strengthen it greatly; and there
are indications on the back of extremely powerful
muscles to work it. It assisted, no doubt, in occa-
sionally supporting part of the weight of the body.

Having thus considered the remarkable structure
of the hinder extremities and their vast strength, let
us turn next to the fore-legs, and learn the relation
exhibited by them to the rest of the body.

The fore extremity of the Megatherium consists
of a scapula or blade-bone, a humerus or shoulder-
bone, two bones of the fore-arm, wrist-bones, bones
of the palm of the hand and finger-bones ; including
therefore every perfection of structure manifested in
the mammalian type except an opposing thumb.
Some of the fingers are, however, imperfectly deve-
loped, and were chiefly useful in locomotion. The
length of this extremity does not differ greatly from
that of the hind leg.

The shoulder-blade exhibits the general propor-
tions and some of the peculiarities of structure be-
longing to the class Edentata, and more especially
possessed by those requiring to make great and pow-
erful use of the fore extremity; and the effect of the

OF CREATION. 367

contrivances thus alluded to is to give an unusually
large and irregular surface for the attachment of
those muscles which move the fore-leg. The blade-
bone or scapula is connected to the chest by a cla-
vicle or collar-bone, the absence of which in the
pachyderms and large ruminants is in accordance
with the habits of those animals. The collar-bone
gives a steady and fixed position to the socket of the
blade-bone, at the same time admitting of a rotatory
motion in the extremity. It is the possession of this
bone that enables many small animals to carry food
to the mouth by the fore extremity, but its chief use
seems to be to give strength and stability to the shoul-
der joint, so that it would be out of place in such
animals as the elephant, the deer, or the ox, whose
habits are different. In the megatheroid animals,
however, the head was small, the proportions of the
fore part of the body not excessive, and at the same
time there is no reason whatever to suppose that the
animal required to move rapidly.

The shoulder-bone of the megathere is remarkable
for the enormous size of the lower part. It is small
in the middle and upper part, and is connected with
the blade-bone by a round head fitting into a socket
and admitting of free motion. At the lower end,
however, where it is attached to the arm-bones, it
attains an immense breadth, and served for the at-
tachment of muscles of extreme and unusual magni-
tude, working the fore-foot. The use of this expan-
sion is obvious, if we compare the shoulder-bone of
a ruminating animal, where the crests are scarcely
observable, with the corresponding bone in the ele-
phant and rhinoceros. In the ant-eater this con-

368 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

trivance is carried yet further, and by its means the
animal is greatly aided in digging up the large solid
nests of the white ant. The bones articulated to
the large termination of the shoulder-bone corre-
spond well in magnitude and strength. The one is
broad, powerful at its upper end, and short, and the
other revolves freely upon it, giving that motion of
the fore extremity by which man is able to move his
hand on either side by a simple motion of the wrist.

The entire fore-foot must have been a yard long
and twelve inches wide. It was provided with five
toes, three of which were conspicuous for their large
proportionate size, and were armed with long and
and powerful claws. The other toes did not appear
outside the foot, being only rudimentary.

The account which I have given of the skeleton
of the Megatherium requires but little modification
when we turn to the other smaller animals of the
same kind living at the same time, and found in the
same locality.

The Mylodon, the one best known, was smaller
than the megathere, its trunk being shorter than
that of the hippopotamus, although the pelvis and
the bones of the extremities were greater than the
corresponding parts in the largest elephant. The
chief differences that exist between this genus and
the more gigantic one already described, are seen
in the nearer approximation to the sloth exhibited in
the form of the skull, and several modifications of
little importance that characterise the teeth. The
fore extremities, also, were terminated by only two
instead of three-clawed toes, but in all important
points the animal was the same.

OF CREATION.

.369

The figure presents an outline of the animal as it
may have appeared when engaged in obtaining food
from the trees of the forests it inhabited. The atti-
tude is the same as that in which the perfect skeleton
in the Royal College of Surgeons is set up.

Fig. 146

The Megalonyx* is another genus, chiefly known
by bones of the extremities. It appears to have had
the thumb more developed, and greater freedom of
motion of the fore extremity. In other respects, and
in its proportions, it probably resembled the Mylodon.

The Scelidotherium f differs rather more from the

* MeyaXr/ (megale), great ; ovv'£ (onyx), a claw.

f S/cf\i£, gen. aiceXidoQ (scelidos), the thigh ; 9r]piov (therion), beast.

370 P1CTURUESQE SKETCHES

megatheroid type than either the Mylodon or Mega-
lonyx, and even exceeds them in some of those mon-
strous proportions for which they are so remarkable.
It is also interesting as exhibiting a transition to the
ant-eater and armadillo, which it resembles more than
the sloth in the form and structure of the skull. In
all important points, however, as well with regard to
the head as the vertebral column, and also in the den-
tition, the scelidothere and the Megatherium are so
closely analogous that they hardly admit of a separate
description. In the fore extremities the same singu-
lar contrivances present themselves; and in the hinder
extremities and the tail, the strength is perhaps greater
in proportion than in any known animal, living or ex-
tinct.

Of these bones the femur, or thigh-bone, is the
most remarkable, and it differs in some points from
the corresponding part of the megathere, its breadth
being greater in proportion to its length than is the
case even in that singularly proportioned animal. It
appears, that, although the total length of the scelido-
there could not have been greater than that of a New-
foundland dog, the fore extremities not being larger,
and the height not nearly so great, the hind extremi-
ties were more gigantic than those of the largest
rhinoceros or hippopotamus, and the animal was pro-
vided with a tail so thick and strong, that there is
nothing in existing nature with which to compare it.

We have now only to consider what can have been
the habits of animals so strangely organized, resem-
bling the sloth in the structure of the teeth and other
characters which mark the food to have been the leaves
and tender twigs of trees, but rather approximating to

OF CREATION.

371

the armadillpes and ant-eaters in certain peculiar con-
trivances for strength which in these living edentates
are connected with habits of digging and burrowing
beneath the surface of the earth. All the extinct
species we have yet discovered of the group attained
dimensions which seem to have unfitted them entirely
for any such habit, neither allowing them to climb
trees like the sloth, or to burrow like the mole, the
ant-eater, or the armadillo.

We know that the general proportions of the
megatheroid animals resemble those of the elephant ;
but, although their body was relatively quite as large,
their legs were shorter and much thicker, and their
fore extremities were endowed with greater facili-
ties of motion.

The head, moreover, is very diminutive, and the
neck, although longer, was not so much so as to
enable the animal to reach to any height above its
body. It is also quite certain that these animals
could not have had a long proboscis, and some had no
proboscis at all ; so that the question presents itself, how
they could have obtained the leaves of trees, which
the structure of their teeth shows to have been the
only food adapted for them.

Now we have seen, in the course of our investiga-
tion concerning the peculiarities of structure of these
animals, that they exhibit in all cases very remark-
able modifications of the extremities, the hinder part
of the body being enormously large, powerful, and
massive, and bearing every mark of the greatest pos-
sible adaptation for resisting pressure, forming as it
were a point tfappui, from which the rest of the
body could act with safety and certainty. It is also

372 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

the case that the fore extremities were exceedingly
powerful, hut in a different way, admitting of free
motion, and provided with large and prominent claws,
so that they were well adapted for grasping the trunk
or the larger branches of a tree, while the forces con-
centrated upon them from the broad posterior basis
are such as could well assist in the act of wrenching
off a branch, or even, if need were, uprooting a tree.

There is, indeed, no other reasonable conclusion to
be drawn from the consideration of the framework of
these gigantic quadrupeds. Their massive proportions
cannot but arrest the attention of even the most indif-
ferent beholder, and such proportions seem to imply
powers and actions as peculiar to the living animal,
as are these modifications to the framework of the
body handed down to us.

The enormous pelvis of the Megatherium proclaims
itself the centre, whence muscular masses of unwonted
force diverged to act upon the trunk, the tail, and the
hind legs ; but, in order that it should possess sta-
bility and resistance equivalent to the due effect of
the forces acting from it, it required to be bound
down and supported by members of corresponding
strength.

'We find, accordingly, a thigh-bone, which, though
longer than the shoulder-bone, is half as broad as it
is long, and is provided with bony crests, giving un-
equivocal evidence of the magnitude and power of the
muscles once attached to and working from them.

This thigh-bone, placed vertically, rested on leg
bones of corresponding magnitude, and on a foot
which in all its proportions must have served as a fit
basis for the leg. The foot was of great length

OF CREATION. 373

(equalling, if not surpassing, that of the femur) ; the
prolongation of the heel served as a fulcrum, and the
powerful claw of the middle toe held fast to the
ground, at the moment when the forces of the fore-
limbs were exerted. There was also a strong and
powerful tail, its proportions being exactly such as
to complete with the two hind legs a tripod strong
enough to afford a firm foundation for the massive
pelvis, and sufficient resistance to the forces acting
from that great bony centre. The proportions of
these parts, colossal as they are, lose their anomalous
character when we view them as the fixed point to-
wards which the fore part of the body was to be
drawn when the animal was in the act of uprending
a tree to serve as its subsistence; and the value of
all these contrivances is seen, when we understand
the habits of these singular animals.

The nature of the food required by them has been
already mentioned ; and since it is utterly incredible,
that creatures so vast in their proportions should have
been either climbers of trees or burrowers in the
earth, while their teeth and jaws were expressly
adapted for the comminution of foliage, and their
height and general form prevented them from reach-
ing up to obtain such food, it only remains for us to
conclude that they were enabled by their great
strength to uproot the trees themselves, and bring the
foliage on which they fed within the reach of their
mouths or short trunks. Having thus obtained the
means of supporting life, and being provided with a
tongue of remarkably large size and strength, not
less adapted than that of the giraffe (and apparently
even larger and stronger in proportion), the creature

374 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

was thus enabled to strip off the leaves and smaller
branches, which the absence of teeth in the front of
the jaw left to be performed by such agency. Every
contrivance was introduced to fit these animals for
the performance of certain offices in the ancient
forests of South America, which are now executed
by a multitude of smaller animals, not very dissimilar
in many points of structure.

The megatheroid animals, however, are not the
only gigantic species of the edentate order living at
this period. Associated with them was an arma-
dillo, almost as colossal in its proportions and quite
as anomalous in its structure. This animal has been
called the Glyptodon* and it exhibits in the compli-
cated structure of its teeth an approach rather to
the pachydermatous type shewn in the Toxodon than
to the megathere or the existing armadilloes, while
in other respects it seems to have connected the
edentates with the heavy-coated rhinoceros.

The Glyptodon, like the armadillo, was covered and
defended by a shell not unlike a coat of mail, made
up of round or many-sided pieces, fitting one another
accurately, continuous over the whole of the upper
part of the body, and covering the upper surface of
the thick and powerful tail. The armour is massive
and very heavy, and when detached from the body
resembles a barrel.

The bones of the leg and foot, perfectly adapted
to bear the steady pressure of an enormous weight,
are extremely interesting. They present the frame-
work of a foot of such structure and form as is
without a parallel in the animal kingdom, so admi-

* r\V7TTO£ (glyptos), sculptured ; odovg (odoits), tooth.

OF CREATION. 375

rably is it contrived to form the base of a column
destined to support a vast superincumbent weight,
and at the same time to allow of that degree of
motion of the fore extremities which is required for
the scratching and digging operations of animals like
armadilloes. The Glyptodon can only be matched

Fig. 147

GLYPTODON.

by the great land tortoise, whose remains are found
fossil in the Sewalik Hills; and we may almost con-
sider it to have represented this monster, performing
a nearly similar part, and clearing away the decaying
animal and vegetable matter, that might otherwise
have accumulated and become mischievous. Several
species of gigantic size have been determined from
the examination of fossils brought to England, and
now preserved either in the British Museum or the
Royal College of Surgeons.

The inhabitants of the central plains of South

376 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

America during this period appear to have wan-
dered northwards as far as the southern districts
of North America, while the Mastodon of the
countries ranged southwards into Brazil. Whether
the means of passage consisted of continuous or bro-
ken land on the eastern side of the Gulf of Mexico,
or whether the high land of Mexico itself even then
connected the two continents, we are not at present
able to tell, but the very broad distinctions that there
are between the extinct faunas of this comparatively
modern period, as exhibited by the fossils of North
and South America generally, as well as the great dif-
ference observable in the recent faunas, would rather
lead us to conjecture that the species common to
both may have been conveyed accidentally, and that
these two great tracts of land in the western hemi-
sphere were anciently detached from one another.

However the case may have been in that respect,
it is interesting to consider the condition of this part
of our earth at the period immediately antecedent
to the introduction of man. Instead of a country
remarkable for the absence of all large quadrupeds,
it was exactly the reverse, but these ancient giants
are now represented by smaller although similar spe-
cies. The Pampas then, perhaps, presented a con-
dition of vegetation little different from that still
characteristic of them; numerous clumps of forest
trees were dotted about at intervals, and the in-
tervening country was covered for the most part by
rich and luxuriant vegetation. Other trees probably
fringed the margin of those gigantic rivers which still
pour out their torrents of water and drain a mighty
continent. In the half swampy tracts, or in the

OF CREATION.

377

pools formed by the shifting beds of these rivers, the
Toxodon then dwelt; and over the broad plains the
Macrauchenia slowly paced. At one spot, numer-
ous bare trunks of trees, stripped of their verdure,
rotten and half decayed, or alive again with the
busy tread of millions of ants and other insects,
mark the vicinity of the great leaf-eating tribe. The
Glyptodon, with his heavy tread, slowly advances un-
der the weight of a thick and cumbrous coat of mail,
and finally clears away the half- destroyed vegetation.
The smaller species of the megatheroid family — each
one, indeed, a giant in his way — feed on the younger
and smaller plants, tearing them up by the roots or
reaching from the ground to devour their foliage.

But presently the Megatherium himself appears,
toiling slowly on from some great tree recently laid
low and quite stripped of its green covering. The
earth groans under the enormous mass; each step
bears down and crushes the thickly growing reeds
and other plants; but the monster continues to ad-
vance towards a noble tree, the monarch of this pri-
maeval forest. " For a while he pauses before it, as if
doubting whether, having resisted the storms of so
many seasons, it will yield even to his vast strength.
But soon his resolution is taken. Having set himself
to the task, he first loosens the soil around the tree to
a great depth by the powerful claws on his fore-feet,
and in this preliminary work he occupies himself for
a while: and now observe him carefully. Marching
close to the tree, watch him as he plants his monstrous
hind feet carefully and earnestly, the long projecting
claw taking firm and deep hold of the ground. His
tail is so placed as to rest on the ground and sup-

•378 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

port the body. The hind legs are set, and the
animal, lifting itself up like a huge kangaroo, grasps
the tree with its fore-legs at as great a height as
possible, and firmly grapples it with the muscles of
the trunk, while the pelvis and hind limbs, animated
by the nervous influence of the unusually large spinal
cord, combine all their forces in the effort about to be
made. And now conceive the massive frame of the
Megatherium convulsed with the mighty wrestling,
every vibrating fibre reacting upon its bony attach-
ment with the force of a hundred giants : extraor-
dinary must be the strength and proportions of the
tree, if, when rocked to and fro. to right and left, in
such an embrace, it can long withstand the efforts of
its assailant." (Owen, on the Mylodon.) The tree
at length gives way; the animal, although shaken and
weary with the mighty effort, at once begins to strip
off every green twig.

The effort, however, even when successful, was not
always without danger.* The tree in falling would
sometimes by its weight crush its powerful assailant,
and the bulky animal, unable to guide it in its fall,
might often be injured by the trunk or the larger

* In the specimen of Mylodon, in the College of Surgeons, the skull
has undergone two fractures during the life of the animal, one of which is
entirely healed and the other partially. The former exhibits the outer
tables broken by a fracture four inches long, near the orbit. The other
is more extensive, and behind, being five inches long, and three broad,
and over the brain. The inner plate has in both these cases defended
the brain from any serious injury, and the animal seems to have been re-
covering from the latter accident at the time of its death. (See Professor
Owen's memoir " On the Mylodon,'1 &c., p. 22, et passim. Many of the
remarks in the present chapter have been borrowed from this admirable
monograph.)

OF CREATION. 379

branches. To guard against some of this risk, the
skull, the most exposed part, is found to exhibit more
than usual defence against injury. It is more cellular
than is usual with other animals, and the inner and
stronger plate is covered with an outer table and
intermediate walls, to resist a sudden and violent
shock.

Thus does it appear, that, at a very recent geologi-
cal period, and perhaps not long before the actual
introduction of man upon the earth, a multitude of
strange and monstrous animals tenanted various dis-
tricts; that each group was, then, as it is now, dis-
tinct from the rest, although so organized as to per-
form the same part in nature; and yet more, that
each group possessed certain peculiar characters, ex-
hibiting a relation with the animals still inhabiting
the same districts, although the actual species are
greatly changed, being modified in form, in propor-
tions, and in habits. It would not be easy to imagine
sets of phenomena more instructive, or more sugges-
tive of new ideas and new views of creation ; nor
could any plan that we can conceive have indicated
so clearly the uniformity of action, and the multitude
of different means used to bring about the same great
end. We shall consider in the next chapter the ge-
neral conclusions that are suggested from this study
of ancient nature.

380 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

CHAPTER XVI.

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING THE RESULTS OF GEOLOGICAL
INVESTIGATION.

No one can properly consider the nature of geo-
logical researches, and the extent to which they indi-
cate the ancient history of the globe and its inha-
bitants, without being struck by the simplicity and
grandeur of the great plan of creation, and the adap-
tation of certain typical forms of organic life to a vast
variety of different conditions, examples of which
seem to have been introduced in regular order from
the beginning of the world till now. In the pre-
ceding pages I have endeavoured to give, in the
way of narrative, an idea of some detached but
characteristic events of this history, and a number
of sketches of the different epochs, or times when the
conditions were most peculiar and most instructive.

In carrying out this object, however, I have fre-
quently been forced to dwell rather upon the diffe-
rences than the analogies that may be traced in the
structure and adaptation of successive groups, and
have directed attention so often, and in so marked a
manner, to these differences, that some of my readers
perhaps might over-estimate their importance, did I
not now, in summing up the nature and value of the
evidence already given in detail, explain how far such
an impression may be considered correct. In the
present concluding chapter, therefore, I propose to

OF CREATION. 381

take a general view of the whole subject, tracing as
far as I am able the gradual development of life
upon the globe.

Now a very superficial glance at general natural
history will show, that however great the difference
may be between the groups characteristic of any two
geological periods at the same spot — a difference,
therefore, corresponding to a lapse of time — the dis-
tinction is equally marked at the present day in
living groups with respect to space. Whatever, also,
may have been the law anciently in force with refer-
ence to the succession of organic beings on the earth,
and the introduction of new ones, that law, so far
as we can tell, is permanent and uniform.

It appears, therefore, that a vast and comprehen-
sive plan, still perhaps only partially unfolded, marks
at once the infinite wisdom, the infinite power, and
the infinite goodness of the Creator ; and we may
also conclude, that this method of action, or, if we
will so call it, this law, may involve in its vast com-
pass, not merely our own planet, but some or all
of those orbs which circle round our sun, and per-
haps, also, those unnumbered systems, which, like
our own, are in motion through space. It is pos-
sible that all these bodies may in their progress ex-
hibit an analogous method of development, consisting
of the elaboration of series of groups, alike and yet
different, each perfectly adapted to its purpose in its
own way, and each having direct reference to all the
rest.*

* It should, however, be distinctly understood, that there is not the
slightest reason to suppose any actual repetition of the same plan. The
evidence we have on the subject would rather lead us to conclude the
contrary ; but there may still be that amount of analogy which involves
unity of plan.

.382 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

I am quite prepared to admit that the advance of
accurate scientific knowledge may be so considerable
as to enable man at some future day to comprehend
not only a few of the details, but even the general
nature of this great plan of development. But he
is certainly not yet in a condition to perceive the
bearing of all those facts which are presented for his
study, or to obtain a comprehensive view of the broad
generalisations they involve ; and in the attempt to
include them within the compass of his imagination,
and express their true relation in language, he has
hitherto always failed. Convinced as I am of this,
I offer with great diffidence those general conclusions
on the subject in question which I have to suggest ;
and if I should be myself accused of speaking less
cautiously or more dogmatically than may seem fit, I
can only repeat this expression of my earnest endea-
vour to avoid such a form of speech. On the other
hand, while I would not wish to blame others for
giving decided expression to their own views, I
would still caution my readers against the premature
and unwise attempts that have been made by some
authors to explain and bring within the compass of
an assumed law of development the obscure and
isolated phenomena hitherto observed and apparently
bearing on this subject,* whatever those views may be.
If, from the study of fossils, we seem to attain
any definite notions concerning the general plan of
creation, these, it must be remembered, are only
valuable so far as they can bear comparison with

* The law of development to which I here allude, supposes the suc-
cessive elaboration of organic beings, each new form exhibiting higher or
more complex organization.

OF CREATION. 383

observations concerning existing nature, and the pre-
sent condition and relations of organic and inorganic
matter. The moment that we pass beyond this limit,
that moment we launch without compass into a vast
and boundless ocean of conjecture, guided only and
warned by the appearance of innumerable wrecks,
the results of similar attempts, which serve to point
out the danger, but hardly teach us how to avoid it.

In the actual condition of the earth's surface we
find abundant proof of change of almost every kind.
Nothing is permanent, nothing continues in a con-
dition absolutely the same for more than the shortest
possible time : there is movement, disturbance, modi-
fication going on, above the surface, on the surface,
and beneath the surface — everything is in motion, not
a particle of matter in the whole universe stands
still, and everything is manifestly tending to a some-
what different state, though there appears every pro-
bability that the new state will be strictly analogous
to the old one.

In the case of inorganic nature, this perpetual
turmoil is now universally recognised. Not only
does the earth move as a mass, but every particle of
matter seems to be constantly changing its position
in relation to the adjacent particles. The air is con-
stantly receiving, conveying, and distributing parti-
cles of earth and water. The water is in constant
movement from the action of the winds and tides,
from the influx of rivers, and from unequal evapora-
tion from its surface. But the surface itself is yet
more decidedly exposed to change ; for not only is
part carried from one place and deposited in another
by every dash of the never-tiring wave, and every

384 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

drop that falls in the form of rain, but there is a con-
stant tendency in the parts below the surface to re-
arrange themselves in some other order — to obtain an
equilibrium which is no sooner obtained than it is
lost. All nature is thus animated; the sea is never
so quiet, the air is never so calm, the earth is never
so fixed, but that these silent and invisible, but ap-
preciable changes still go on.

And these changes, we are taught by the most
careful observations and measurements, have much
more than a mere superficial and momentary cha-
racter. Large tracts of land are being even now up-
heaved, and others are depressed. But a few years —
and what is now a flat coast-line may present a steep
cliff; and large tracts of land now above the water
may then be submerged. Streams and rivers bring
down mud, and by this mud choke up their own
channels ; but they soon make other channels, which,
after a time, are closed in a similar way.

But if this is the case with regard to inorganic
matter, how much more strikingly is it true when we
consider the nature of organic life. A constant re-
placement of every part, both solid and fluid, which
is endowed with the mystic power of life, seems to be
the first requisite for its existence, and the essential
attribute of its presence. Every particle of the solid
frame-work which supports our bodies will, in a
few weeks, or at the most a few months, entirely
disappear, only, however, to give place to other par-
ticles arranged in like manner. Individuals are in
the same way represented by their offspring; and
this representation is carried out in nature, not only
with families of individuals, but also with those

OF CREATION. 385

groups into which we collect similar beings, organized
with the same characteristic peculiarities. Every-
thing in nature speaks of substitution and repre-
sentation — a permanence of idea, but a ceaseless
change in the individual.

Analogy, therefore, would teach us to expect that
there has always been and must always be this
amount of change. But does analogy go no farther ?
In the case of some animals, the young is first brought
into the world perfect in its kind, and filling a defi-
nite place among created beings, but not adapted to
the habits, and apparently not possessing the struc-
ture and peculiarities of the parent animal. But the
young becomes at length more perfectly developed,
acquiring a greater variety of wants and of powers, and
gradually seeming to exhibit a more complex, or, as
we are in the habit of considering it, a higher organi-
zation, but only seeming to do so. Here, therefore,
we have analogy of a remarkable kind, not with-
out its meaning, and worthy of being referred to as a
key in explaining difficulties. We know not why or
how it is that the egg of a butterfly, when it has
existed for a certain time, and has been exposed to
a certain temperature, becomes a worm, greedily de-
vouring green food, rapidly increasing in size, and
performing the important part it is known to do in
the economy of nature. Still less, if possible, can we
judge of the cause why this worm, after a time, build-
ing for itself a warm coat of silky fibre, burying
itself, as it were, in a shroud of its own manu-
facture, — ceasing to feed, and scarcely remaining
alive, — at last bursts forth in the form of the parent
animal, and lives for a short time on the tender juices

8

386

PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

of flowers. Surely this is not less remarkable, al-
though the phenomenon is more familiar, than the
succession of species which we observe to have taken
place during the lapse of time, or the representation
of species well known to exist over wide areas in
space.

The analogy is not greatly strained, if we suppose
that the original plan of development of all organic
nature, whatever it may have been, included succes-
sion and representation of species, just as the develop-
ment of the moth includes metamorphosis : nor is it
unphilosophical to suggest such an illustration as an
explanation, not only safe to a certain extent, but
even satisfactory with regard to many of the diffi-
culties presented by this subject.

But there is no appearance in nature, and nothing
in geology, that can enable us to explain by pro-
gressive development the gradual derivation of new
types, or well-marked groups, of higher organi-
zation from those which preceded them. In the
oldest formations we find corals, star-fishes, crustacean
animals, and shell-fish (mollusca), together with a
very few fragments of small fishes. We know not ac-
curately how far these may have been the products
of a deep or a shallow sea — of an ocean far distant
from land, or a sea whose coast-line was immediately
adjacent. We know not either whether this sea was
warmer or colder than the sea that washes our coast
now. But this we do know, that of all these animals,
each is perfect in its way, each is fully developed
after its kind. The trilobite had perfect vision by
its hundred eyes — the cuttle-fish powerful and perfect
weapons of destruction, ample means of escape from

OF CREATION 387

danger, and an admirably contrived chambered habi-
tation— the fish had its strong defence of enamelled
scales. Nor were the corals, the cuttle-fish, the crust-
aceans, or the fishes of after times at all more highly
organized in these respects.*

And such is the case throughout. The reptiles
which first appeared belonged to groups more com-
plicated in their organization than many of those
which succeeded them. In all ancient forms of ani-
mals, also, as in their existing analogues, there is
adaptation as well as development. These two great
principles proceeded, it would seem, hand in hand,
side by side, carrying out the great plan sketched
from the beginning. Wherever there was room for
an animal or vegetable of a certain kind, there that
animal or vegetable was introduced, bearing its mark
as belonging to a special group, and exhibiting the
closest resemblance to some other organic form, filling
elsewhere, or at another time, the same office. There
is, however, very rarely any absolute identity of spe-
cific form in the individuals or groups characteristic
of times or places removed by a great interval.

There is hardly any fact in natural history more
distinctly the result of observation, or more valuable
as suggesting a great law of nature, than the strictly
co-ordinate relation which space and time bear to
development in organic existence. In the compara-
tive repose of the open sea, on a calm day, in deep
water, we find floating on and near the surface my-

* Still, it must not be forgotten that there is in the structure of some of
these animals, and especially the fishes, a singular limitation to what is
now the character of the corresponding species at an early period of the
development of the individual.

s 2

388 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

riads of animals and vegetables of the very simplest
organization, (Fomminifera, Medusa, Conferva, and
Fuel,) and these differ but little, whether we exa-
mine the waters of high northern latitudes, the seas
of the tropics, or those of the Antarctic zone ; and in
rocks that appear to have been formed in deep water
we find very generally the remains of similar animals,
as far as they are capable of being preserved ; their
range in a fossil state being as considerable in a ver-
tical direction as it is horizontally with regard to the
recent species.*

These minute animals, standing as they do on
the extreme verge of animated existence, perform
also, in all probability, (a suggestion for which we
are indebted to Professor Owen,) the important office
of bringing back into circulation a vast quantity of
organized matter, just when on the point of being
dissipated into its chemical elements. The animal-
cules soon become the food of other creatures of
somewhat higher organization; and they supply in
this way, and very rapidly, sufficient nourishment for
the numerous and voracious tribes of Mollusca, crus-
taceans, and fishes that inhabit the water.

The course of nature in this respect seems to have
been at all times the same. Certain Mollusca of
low organization, the so-called Brqchiopoda, not many
steps removed from the animals of the former group
(Zoophyta), appear to have been, next to them,

* In the case of infusorial animalcules, the same species (the inha-
bitants of fresh water) have been found living in the southern extremity of
South America and in Europe ; while species at one time supposed to be
peculiar to America, have been found associated with African land species
in the dust that has fallen upon vessels far out at sea in the Atlantic.

OF CREATION. 389

among the most widely extended groups, constantly
represented in closely allied, if not identical specific
forms. In other words, they are the most cosmo-
politan of existing Mollusca ; they are gregarious and
often live in great depths of water, but lastly they
have considerable vertical range, and are greatly
similar to one another in their development in time.
Some, no doubt, of the highest Mollusca, nearly re-
lated to the common squid or cuttle-fish, are also very
widely spread, but this arises from the free-swimming
habits of the animal, and is therefore to be considered
as having a different cause from that which obtains in
the former case, where the animal, at least in the full-
grown state, is permanently attached to some subma-
rine body.

No animals, again, at the present day, are more
widely distributed than those which secrete and de-
posit in various ways solid calcareous matter; and of
all these it would be difficult to find any that have
greater influence than some of the smaller zoophytes.
It is just these animals also whose remains are distri-
buted through rocks of various ages, and which, there-
fore, seem to determine least effectually, in time as
well as space, any important point with regard to the
true geological position of a containing rock.

If, leaving the Invertebrata, we examine the various
groups of vertebrate animals, a nearly similar result
is obtained. Certain groups of fishes now charac-
terise certain limited districts, and this without our
being able to discover any reason for it. Of these
groups some exhibit much higher organization than
others, arid present marked differences of habit and
structure, while some, on the other hand, are more

390 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

widely distributed and more nearly cosmopolitan.
On our own coast, again, we should find buried at
moderate depths, and at no great distance from the
coast-line, a multitude of animals, exhibiting pro-
bably but few decided indications of the vicinity of
land except within the range of comparatively shoal
water. On the coast of America, on the contrary,
there would be extensive deposits in the open sea,
at a distance of several hundred miles from the coast,
containing occasionally plants and animals floated
down by the vast rivers of that continent, and con-
veyed along on the surface by the river stream and
the marine currents. On the coast of Asia we
should probably have striking indications of the ex-
istence of animals of high organization; while on
the coast of Australia there would be scarcely any
mark of higher conditions than those which are
known in the oolitic rocks. Lastly, in those distant
parts where the ocean is broad and deep, and the
islands small and scattered, there might only be seen
the remains of imperfectly organized Foraminifera,
mixed perhaps with a few Radiata, such as the deep-
sea urchins, and fragments of some free-swimming
animals.

Now it is important to consider these great differ-
ences, because they lead us to the only true means
of judging with regard to geological phenomena.
Any one visiting in succession Australia, South Ame-
rica, Europe, South Africa, and Asia, and looking
at the animal kingdom without taking man into ac-
count, might come to the conclusion, that, in point
of development and complexity of organization, there
was on the whole a distinct advance in the scale

OF CREATION. 391

of beings; or that, in other words, the indigenous
mammalian animals or quadrupeds existed in a con-
dition less removed from that of birds and rep-
tiles in Australia than in South America, in South
America than in Europe, in Europe than in South
Africa, and in South Africa than in Asia, since, in
the first-named district, he would find the marsupial
or pouched animals exclusively present, in the next
the edentates most characteristic,* in the third the
ruminants, in the fourth the pachyderms and car-
nivorous animals, and in the last the pachyderms,
Carnivora, and monkeys. Would he for this reason,
however, be justified in concluding that in either
case the kind of progress exhibited in Nature's works
would gradually bring out edentates from marsupials,
ruminants from edentates, carnivora from ruminants,
or monkeys from carnivora? We may safely o/sert
that such a conclusion would be false; nor is there,
in any case, the shadow of probability that progress
or development of this nature has ever existed. And
when, in examining rocks of different age, we dis-
cover marsupials in the oolite, what is the actual
evidence with regard to the other groups of quadru-
peds ? It is simply this, that in the next newer beds
in which the remains of quadrupeds appear, there are
marsupials, ruminants, pachyderms, carnivores, and
monkeys, indiscriminately mixed together; and with
regard to the three latter groups, it is not easy to de-
termine which of them was the truly characteristic

* In Scnith America there is now not one indigenous species of the
hollow-horned ruminants (ox, sheep, goats, &c.), and the pachyderms
and Carnivora are few in number of species, and of small size. Thi? was
not the case, however, during the Tertiary period.

392 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

one; for, though the remains of pachyderms seem
to be more abundant than any others, this may well
be a result of their peculiar habits and the swampy
condition of the land near where the beds were depo-
sited, and we know that such animals are at present,
and may well suppose that they always were, asso-
ciated with numerous and powerful species of Carni-
vora.

Besides, however, these facts with regard to the
present distribution of quadrupeds, we find that the
distribution of the groups in times not long past ex-
hibited a strictly analogous class of results. In South
America, for instance, the horse and several other
pachyderms, several hollow-horned ruminants, and
some carnivores of larger proportions than now exist,
anciently inhabited the country and were contem-
poraries of the gigantic edentates. There is some
evidence also to prove that North and South America
were formerly united much more directly than they
are now, the more highly organized group seeming
to have been destroyed in the southern part of the
continent, but having been retained in the northern.
So also in England and western Europe we find fossil
monkeys, and indications of vast multitudes of large
Carnivora and pachyderms, although these animals
have there been for a long time nearly or altogether
extinct.

The result that we are forced to arrive at from
such considerations as these is, that climate and at-
mospheric conditions, the consequence probably of
differences in the quantity of land above water in
certain districts, in the relative position, the exten-
sion, and the level of the land, combined, it may be,

OP CREATION. 393

with other causes concerning which it would be idle
to speculate, had far more to do with the extent
and the true nature of the organic forms, than any
incomplete development of the mammalian class.

The notion of a true progressive development, the
geologist therefore, as well as the zoologist and bo-
tanist, must except against. There are no good
grounds for believing in its existence in any case
at present ; and the history of the past is decidedly
opposed to the idea of such a plan having ever been
in operation.

Nature, in fact, will not allow herself to be tor-
tured into our systems, nor will she adapt herself to
the procrustean bed of any system-maker amongst
us. The infinite ramifications of life, the thrusting
in, as it were, in every spot where life is possible, of
those animals and vegetables best fitted to exist un-
der such circumstances ; these of themselves are suffi-
ciently important facts, and speak clearly enough to
check presumptive and hasty generalizations, if in-
deed it were possible to check this natural tendency
to advance too hastily to conclusions. At all de-
grees of temperature, from the surface of snow to
the boiling water of hot springs ; in all soils, from the
rich land of the tropics to the barren desert ; on the
whitened surface of pure salt and on the naked rock
on the mountain summit ; in all degrees of light, from
the full glare of sunshine to the darkest recesses of
the rocky cavern ; in air and in water ; upon the
earth, and even beneath the earth ; at all times., from
the first introduction of living beings until now — we
find pressing in on every side abundant evidence of
this marvellous fact, this perpetual miracle. We are

s 5

394 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

surrounded by the results of life, and most of the
productions of art are derived from materials first
elaborated by organic bodies either animal or vege-
table, and in that state afterwards made available.

Notwithstanding this vast and exuberant presence
of organic existence, it is yet true that we cannot
even imagine the nature of the broad line of demar-
cation, which seems, as it were, to form an impassable
gulf between that which we call living, and that
which is only dead matter. Life is no less a mystery
to us now, than it was when man first speculated on
its nature. We know not what it is, why it is, or
how it is ; we know only that it exists, and is every-
where present. The development of one form of life
from another may therefore well remain undeter-
mined, since we cannot even guess at the nature of
that first change which produces organization, and
which thus modifies and acts upon inorganic matter.

From the investigations of naturalists concerning
various groups of animals of high organization, as
they are now distributed in different parts of the
world, there is therefore, I repeat, no support for
any theory of the progressive development of species ;
while the comparison of the species themselves, and
of the groups which they form, with those found fos-
sil, or which have been their representatives in for-
mer times in the same districts, is equally opposed to
any such view. It should be borne in mind also, that,
in taking the case of quadrupeds, we are acting with
perfect fairness, as they are the animals of which we
know most, while on the other hand the evidence they
offer is by no means the most favourable illustration
of the view advocated, since the reptiles offer matter

OP CREATION. 395

for consideration which is yet more unanswerably
opposed to the theory of successive development.
Without, however, dwelling longer on this subject,
I would now, in conclusion, endeavour to bring to-
gether, and place before the reader in a simple and
intelligible form, some of the general results of geolo-
gical investigation.

It appears, then, from the observations that have
been made, —

First* — That the earth has always been subjected
to two kinds of forces acting on a grand scale, and
over large tracts. Of these forces, the one class
(called igneous) is connected immediately with heat,
and has been generally, if not always, deep-seated,
producing its effects partly by modifying and me-
tamorphosing other rocks, partly by elevating large
tracts, and partly by protruding heated, and some-
times molten matter through the surface. The
other (aqueous) is essentially and necessarily super-
ficial— it acts chiefly where land and water are in
near and extended contact, it tends to diminish the
inequalities of the eartli's surface, and it has its effi-
ciency greatly affected by the corresponding action of
the former class of forces. It also appears that we
have no distinct proof, although there seems high pro-
bability, of that condition of things found in the
lowest aqueous rocks having been the first, for it is
quite possible that conditions of formation and subse-
quent modifications may have produced all those pe-
culiar characters on which we found our judgment
concerning points of this kind.

Secondly, — That during the deposit of the oldest
known fossiliferous rocks, which was certainly an

396 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

early, if not the very earliest, period of the earth's
history, there was great uniformity of general cha-
racter amongst the various animals whose remains
occur in rocks of the same age, over almost the whole
world, throughout a -vast thickness of deposit. But
there are no distinct indications of any other condi-
tions having then existed than might even now obtain,
with certain very trifling modifications, in some dis-
tricts, either of the northern or southern hemispheres.

We have not yet, in these old rocks, obtained any
proof of the vicinity of land; and even the absence
of fishes, or their great rarity, although an important
negative fact, must not be assumed to prove abso-
lutely that no fishes existed at that time. Animals
of this kind may have abounded in other parts of the
sea, although the districts where we now find the
older fossiliferous deposits were possibly unfit, through
local conditions, for supplying their wants.

Thirdly, — That in the next succeeding period, when
fishes were very abundant and of extraordinary form,
and where there is also distinct proof, in the presence
of coal, of the existence of land near many of those
parts of the earth which are now occupied by the
deposits of this age, we are not obliged to suppose
that the land or coast-line was very extensive, that it
was everywhere unpeopled by quadrupeds and rep-
tiles, or that, even if such was the case, it possessed a
different atmosphere, or a very greatly increased tem-
perature. The parts of the world now most abound-
ing in vegetable life are not those in which animal
remains would most frequently be deposited; and
those containing the most nearly allied vegetable
forms are neither tropical in climate, nor are they

OF CREATION. 397

districts in which reptiles or quadrupeds now abound
at all. A very broad line of distinction should be
drawn between positive and negative evidence in
cases like these, where we are so entirely dependent
on analogies. Making, however, all allowances, it
cannot but appear as a very remarkable and interest-
ing conclusion, that there should have been in many
different countries, extending from high northern la-
titudes to Van Diemen's Land, at the same geologi-
cal epoch, and under nearly similar circumstances,
this extensive deposit of vegetable matter; nor is it
easy to avoid the conclusion, that there must have
existed some conditions distinct from those which
have since obtained, and that these acted with great
comparative uniformity, since they produced such
similar results. There are few problems in geology,
the solution of which would be more interesting and
instructive than that of the origin of coal; and this
perhaps is a matter not altogether hopeless, since the
careful and minute investigation of the associated
beds of shale and stone, so well laid open in the nu-
merous excavations made to obtain the coal from its
bed, affords material of unusual value and extent,
available for this purpose.

Fourthly, — It appears that the period which suc-
ceeded the paleeozoic age was one during which
various singular and gigantic reptilian animals were
introduced, and that these animals then lived in
great numbers, and occupied a most important place,
both among the vegetable and animal feeders ; but,
judging from the fossils of this period, we are still
without distinct evidence of there having been any
such difference in climate as is inconsistent with the

398 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

present state of the earth's surface. Marvellous, too,
as the results of investigation have been with regard
to this fauna, it ought not to be forgotten, that it
offers in many important respects an approximation
to existing conditions, pointing rather to the increase
of land in small spots, such as islands, than to any
other change. The largest reptiles now existing fre-
quently live in muddy spots, without any luxuriant
vegetation in their vicinity, and far removed from
the haunts of quadrupeds and birds. They are well
known to bury themselves in mud, which often
hardens about them, and they remain in this way
in a state of torpor, until returning moisture — their
muddy district being again flooded — recals them to
life and activity. The marine reptiles, and the huge
land reptiles of the oolites, may thus have been very
near neighbours, and the low muddy banks, scarcely
lifted above the level of high water, and tenanted by
the Plesiosaurus, may well have been succeeded or
accompanied by low land of the same kind, on which
the Megalosaurus could find food and shelter.

But there is considerable difference in the geogra-
phical position of those districts near which land ex-
isted during the carboniferous and the oolitic period.
In the former we see coal or accumulations of ve-
getable matter dispersed in many isolated spots in
Europe, as on the Rhine near Diisseldorf, in Belgium,
on the Moselle near Nancy, almost throughout France
(although in quantities so small that the beds are
rarely worked), in the north of Spain, in Kussia at
the mouth of the Don, in Silesia, and in Bohemia.
On the other hand, it is only in western England,
western France, and central Germany that the rep-

OP CREATION. 399

tiles and land animals of the oolitic period are found;
and while in England they occur in all the rocks of
that age, they have only been met with in France in
the older, and in Germany in the newer rocks of the
series.

It seems also not improbable, that, since in Eng-
land and western France the oolitic strata were de-
posited on the eastern flanks of the older rocks, but
in Germany on the southern, and in eastern Europe
on their south-western side, the land may then
have extended chiefly to the westward and south-
westward, only existing in detached islands towards
the north, and not reaching at all into high latitudes.
There is not, however, much probability of there
having been any great extent of land at this period
in the district now occupied by Europe, for this area,
during the earlier part of the period, was most likely
marked by long-continued, slow depression, favour-
able to the formation of extensive and thick fossili-
ferous banks, and also admitting of the structure of
coral reefs.

The period of the oolites, wherever those rocks are
to be recognised, was one of local depression, but the
close of the deposit was undoubtedly marked by ele-
vation ; and at that time land existed in and near the
south-east of England, and may have formed part of
a tolerably large tract. During the time when the
remarkable series of Wealden deposits were being
formed in fresh water, we are not aware of any cor-
responding marine beds in Europe ; and this may
have been owing to the existence of a great part of
Europe as land during this period. In one small
area in Scotland, and in North Germany (Hanover),

400 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

there are beds probably contemporaneous and of some
interest; and these seem to render probable the vi-
cinity of land where they were in process of forma-
tion; but whatever may have been the condition at
that time, it soon became that of a marine district
rapidly sinking; and the deep sea of the chalk period
soon afterwards covered, with few exceptions, the
whole land of Europe. The inhabitants of the sea
hitherto known from the fossils of the chalk period
are chiefly such as required deep water; and the
effect being uniform over great tracts, the cause no
doubt was the same, and acted in the same way.

The great and important want of continuity of the
upper beds of the chalk with the beds deposited
upon them in most parts of the world, cannot but be
looked upon also as a most instructive fact, proving,
it would seem, that, after the materials of these beds
had been accumulated, there was a long interval dur-
ing which they had time to consolidate, and become
partially worn away. The deposits at that time pro-
bably formed the ocean-bed of a great eastern ocean;
while the main land of the period, if there existed
any in these latitudes, occupied a tracfr extending to-
wards the west and south, but scarcely reaching even
the most westerly point of Europe.

At length, however, and fifthly, another change
took place, the ocean-bed became elevated, land ap-
peared near the south-western parts of England, ex-
tending, perhaps, to central France and Italy; and
it may be that there was then commenced a great
east and west movement of elevation, which, acting
for a long time and by many successive efforts, has
produced the important mountain chains of the east-

OP CREATION. 401

+

ern hemisphere; at first the Alps, the Pyrenees, and
the Carpathians, and ultimately the Caucasus, and
the Himalayan chain. It is, perhaps, something more
than a mere vague hypothesis, to assume that these
elevations acted first in the western and southern dis-
tricts, producing the early deposits of the London,
Hampshire, Brussels, and Paris basins ; and that
they afterwards became more violent, elevating the
Weal den district in England, while at the same time,
or a little later, they formed the granitic axis of the
loftier mountain districts.

These first deposits being formed, a tract of land
was laid bare and became tenanted by large qua-
drupeds; and after many changes and elevations,
a continent arose, not, indeed, the same in all re-
spects as that which we call Europe, but exhibiting
some of its chief physical features; and having a
wider extension to the west, while the great valleys
were still beneath the sea. A period, perhaps, suc-
ceeded this, when the land towards the north was
more compact and higher; and then the great west-
erly districts which had long been at a much higher
level than they now are, sank down to a depth of
many hundred feet, so that the western lands quite
disappeared, and only a number of small islands were
presented in the spot now occupied by Great Britain
and Ireland. Huge icebergs, and mighty waves, the
result of subterranean and submarine disturbances,
or conveyed from colder seas by marine currents,
washed over many parts of our island, and of north-
ern Europe, then under water ; and thus the final
surface of gravel was given. After this, one more
great movement of elevation took place, mighty in-

402 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES

deed, but slow, and acting by successive and repeated
hitches, each of small amount, the effect produced
being chiefly on the northern and western districts,
but affecting the whole coast irregularly, not only with
regard to England and Scotland, but even through
Scandinavia up to the Arctic Circle.

Throughout the changes which have acted to make
England what it is, we see no evidence in any part
of its long history which can render probable any
sudden modifications either of the earth's crust, or
of the animals and vegetables by which the land
and sea have been peopled. There is, in other
words, no evidence to show that the whole of
created beings have been at any one time swept off
from the earth by the action of laws imposed upon
matter from the beginning. The natural and neces-
sary action of these laws does not seem to involve
any great and general catastrophe.

Neither is there evidence of such interruption of
the general system, as should at any one epoch have
required a fresh creation of the whole series of organic
beings. The ordinary method of succession of spe-
cies, as of individuals, seems to have been during all
time strictly adhered to, and this is a point of no
slight interest and importance, since we can hardly
otherwise comprehend any system, at least we can-
not understand any general harmony to have existed,
exhibiting the uniform action of a wise and perfect
plan.

Nor can it be understood as a less noble or less
striking proof of creative power, that in this great
plan, according to which our globe was created, every-
thing should be foreseen and provided against, that

OP CREATION. 403

everything should succeed in its time and place, that
each organized being should perform the task allot-
ted to it, and retire when its work was done, hav-
ing assisted to carry on, without interruption and
without interference, the great and uniform system.
The perfect relation of each animal and vegetable to
the time and place allotted to it is no less marked
and certain than that admirable adaptation of every
part in the individual, which is known to be so neces-
sary to its comfort and even its existence. The whole
system is one, it is the result of one mind, of one
will, of one power. It is governed by a few simple
laws, which no power but that which instituted them
can possibly interfere with, and which, so far as we
can judge, never have been interfered with. It is
permitted to man to become acquainted by care-
ful observation with some of the methods thus
adopted, and the laws imposed ; and the power being
given, it is surely incumbent on him to employ it,
humbly indeed, and cautiously, but earnestly and
with an honest desire to discover truth, whatever that
truth may be, or however it may clash with his pre-
conceived opinions.

INDEX.

[The names printed in Italics are those of fossils figured at the
pages referred to.]

ACACIA-LIKE trees of Sheppey, 269.

Adams, Mr., his account of a Mam-
moth 308.

America (South), Tertiary Geology
of, 349.

Ammonites (Liassic), 138, 141.

(Oolitic), 190.

Ancient epoch, 1 5.

Animalcules, infusorial, 233.

Anoplotherium, 284.

Apiocrinite, 186.

Apteryx, 341.

Asia, Tertiary Geology of, 329.

AspidorhynchuS) 194.

Astraa, 186.

Aulopora, 30.

Auricula, 294.

Aurochs, Lithuanian, 318.

Australia, Tertiary Geology of, 338.

Azoic rocks, 20.

Bacillaria, 234.
Baculite, 245.
Bear of the Caverns, 313.
Belemnite, 146, 190.
Bellerophon, 94.
Beryx, 247.

Birds, fossil, of London Clay, 280.
Bourgueticrinus) 240.
Brachiopoda, account of, 39.
Brussels, older tertiary beds of,
271, 289.

Calamite, 84.

Calymene, 36.

Carboniferous period, 73, 101.

Catenipora, 31.

Caryocrinites, 34.

Caryocystites, 34.

Caverns, ossiferous, 313.

Cephalaspis, 64.
Cephalopoda, account of, 38.

(Silurian), 42.

(New Red Sandstone), 119.

(Liassic), 139.

(Oolitic), 190.

(Cretaceous), 243.

Ceratite, 119.

Cerithium, 272.

Cervus (Megaceros) hibernicus,

320.

Cetiosaurus, 195, 220.
Chain coral, 31.
Chalk, 229.
Chelonichthys, 69.
Chelydra, 295.
Chiracanthus, 71.
Chirotherium, foot-print of, 127.
Cidaris (Oolitic), 187.
Cirrhopoda, account of, 38.
Cirrus, 95.

Clay slate, notice of, 18.
Coal, 76.
Coccosteus, 68.'
Conus, 272, 294.
Coprolites, 172.
Coralline, Sertularian, 29.
Corals (Silurian), 30, 31.

(Oolitic), 186.

Corbula, 272.

Creseis, 41.

Cretaceous period, deposits of, 227.

general condition of the sea

during, 250.
Crinoidal animals (Silurian), 33.

(New Red Sandstone), 118.

(Liassic), 136.

(Oolite), 186.

(Cretaceous), 240.

Crioceratite, 244.

406

INDEX.

Cristellaria, 237.
Crustaceans, Oolitic, 188.

London Clay, 272.

Crystalline rocks, notice of, 16.
Ctenoid scale, 60.
Cycadeae, 197.
Cycadeoidea, 198.
Cycas, recent, 198.
Cyclobatis, 278.
Cycloid scale, 60.
Cyprella, 91.
Cyrtoceras, 44.
Cystidea, 34.

Dapedius, 152.

Deer, fossil remains of, 320.

Devonian period, 52.

Dicynodon, 125.

Didelphine animals of the Oolites,

197, 207.
Dinornis, 342.
Dinoiherium, 295.
Dercetis, 248.
Dodo, 343.

Ear-bone of Whale, 322.
Edentata, notice of, 357.
Elephant or Mammoth, 302, 308.

Indian extinct species, 336.

Elk, Irish, 320.

Encrinites, 33, 118, 136, 186,

240.
Eocene or older Tertiary period,

288.
Epochs, tabular view of, 14.

ancient, 15.

middle, 115.

modern, 265.

Euomphalus, 95.

Fallow deer, horn of, 320.
Ferns, fossil, 82.
Fishes' scales, 60.
Fishes (Devonian), 63.

(New Red Sandstone), 119.

(Liassic), 149.

(Oolitic), 194.

(Cretaceous), 245.

(Tertiary), 273.

Fishes' tails, homocercal and he-

terocercal, 111.
Flint, formation of, 229.
fossils of, 230.

Flora (Carboniferous), 82.

- (Oolitic), 197, 222.

- (Tertiary), 269.
Foot-prints* fossil, 122, 127.
Foraminifera, general account of,

237.

- of the older Tertiaries, 272.

Gaillionella, 234.

Ganoid scale, 61, 62.

Ganoid fishes (London Clay), 279.

Gasteropoda, account of, 38.

Gault, 228.

Glyptodon, 375.

Glyptolepis, 70.

Gneiss, notice of its formation, 18.

Gomphonemcti 234.

Goniatites, 96.

Granite, account of, 16.

Graptolites, 29,

Gravel, fossils of, 305.

- origin of, 323.
Greensand, 228.
Guttulina, 237.

Hamite, 244.
Hermit Crab, 240.
Heterocercal tail of fish, 111.
Hightea, 269.
Hippurite, 241,
Holoptychius, 71, 98.
Homalonotus, 36.
Homocercal tail of fish, 111.
Hyaenas, number of, in caverns in

England, 316.
Hylaeosaurus, 213.

IcMhyodorulites, 100, 149.
Ichthyosaurus, 162, 174, 180.
Igneous rocks, notice of, 15.

India, Geology of, 329.
Infusorial Animalcules, 233, 234.
Inoceramus, 242.
Insects (Lias and Oolitic), 188.

Kirkdale Cavern, contents of, 314.

Lalyrinthodon, 128.
Lebanon, fossil fishes of, 273.
Lepidodendron, 85.
Lepidosteus, scale of, 61.
Lepidotus, 153, 194.

INDEX.

407

Lias, account of, 135.
Lily Encrinite, 118.
London Clay, 270.
Lophiodon, 283.
Lower Greensand, 228.
Lucina, 272.

Maehairodus, 318.
Macrauchenia, 356.
Macropoma, 246.
Magnesian Limestone, 103.
Mammoth buried in polar ice, 308.
Marsupial animals, account of, 207,

357.

Marsupite, 239.
Mastodon, 299.
Mechanical rocks, non-fossiliferous,

18.

Megaceros hibemicus, 320.
Megachirus, 188.
Megalichthys, 97, 98.
Megalodon, 60.
Megalonyx, 369.
Megalosaurus, 198, 222.
Megatherium, 359.
Metamorphic rocks, account of, 18.
Middle epoch, 115.
Millstone Grit, 75.
Mimosites, 270.
Miocene or middle tertiary period,

292.

Mitra, 294.
Modern epoch, 265.
Mollusca, divisions of, 38.
Monte Bolca, fossil fishes of, 273.
Mosasaurus, 248.
Murcldsonia, 95.
Mylodon, 368.

Nautilus, general account, 42.

(Liassic), 139.

Navicula, 234.
Neocomian, 228.
Neuropteris, 83.
New Red Sandstone, 115.
New Zealand, birds of, 341.
Nipadites, 269.
Nodosaria, 237.
Nothosaurus, 155.
Nummulites, 273.

Odontopteris, 82.

Old Red Sandstone, 57.

Oolitic period, 183.
Opossums of the Oolites, 207.
OrtMs, 41.
Orthoceratites, 44.
Osmeroides, 60, 248.
Ox, Irish, 319.

Pachycormus, 153.

Paffurus, 240.

Pateotherium, 283.

Pampas, account of, 351.

Paris Basin, characteristic fossils

of, 281.
Pecopteris, 82.
Pecten, 294.
Pentacrinite, 137, 176.
Pentamerus* 41.
Perch, scale of, 60.
Periods, Geological, tabular view of,

14.

Permian beds, 103.
Placodus, jaw and teeth, 121.
Placoid scale, 61, 62.
Plesiosaurus, 157, 179.
Plicatula (Cretaceous), 242.
Pliocene or newer tertiary period,

303.

Pliosaurus, 196, 227.
Polypotheda, 233.
Polyps, account of, 29.
Polyptychodon, 248.
Productus, 93.
Pterichthys, 66.
Pterodactyl, 202, 223.
Pteropoda, account of, 38.
(Silurian), 41.

Rays, fossil, (Lias,) 61, 153.

(Tertiary) from Lebanon, 278.

Reptiles (New Red Sandstone),

121.

(Lias), 154.

(Oolitic), 195.

(Cretaceous), 248.

(London Clay), 279.

Rhine Valley, deposits and fossils

of, 293.
Rhinoceros, extinct, found in polar

gravel, 312.
Rhynchosaurus, 124.
Rosalina, 237.

Salamander, gigantic, 294.

408

INDEX.

Salmon family represented in the
London Clay, 27 7.

Sandstone, old red, 57.

new red, 115.

Sauroid fishes, 97, 153, 194, 246.

Scaphite, 244.

Scelidotherium, 369.

Scianurus, 276.

Secondary series, general consider-
ations on, 254.

Sedimentary rocks, non-fossiliferous,
17.

Serpent, fossil, of London Clay, 280.

Sertularian Coralline, 29.

Sewalik fossils, 332.

Sharks (Carboniferous), 100.

(New Red Sandstone), 120.

(Liassic), 153.

(Oolitic), 194.

(Cretaceous), 247.

(London Clay), 279.

Sheppey, fruits and other fossils
found at, 268.

Siderolina, 237.

Sigillaria, 86.

Silurian period, 23.

Silurian seas, general condition, 45.

Siphuncle of Ammonite, 142.

Sivatherium, 334.

Sloth, gigantic extinct species
allied to, 358.

Sphseronites, 35.

Sph&rulite, 241.

Spkenopteris, 83.

Spiadae of sponges, 232.

Spinacorhinus, 61, 153.

Spirifer, 93.

Sponges, fossil, 231, 232.

Star-fish (Chalk), 239.

Stigmaria, 86.

Stonesfield Slate, 196.

Succession, nature of, in Natural
History, 55.

Tails of fishes, 111.

Tapir, account of. 282.

Teleosaurus, 220!

Terebratula (Carboniferous), 94.

(Oolitic), 189.

(Cretaceous), 242.

Tertiary period, 265.

early condition, 288.

middle period, 292.

— — newer period, 303.

conclusion of, in England,

323.

Tetragonolepis, 152.
Thickness of the non-fossiliferous

rocks, 19.

Tiger, fossil, of England, 317.
Tornatella (Cretaceous), 243.
Tortoise, fresh-water, from (Enin-

gen,295.

gigantic, of India, 333.

Toxodon, 353.

Tree ferns, 87.

Trigonia, (Cretaceous), 242.

Trilobites (Silurian), 36.

Trinucleus 36.

Tunicata, account of, 38.

Turrilite, 245.

Turritetta, 294.

Turtles (Cretaceous), 249.

(Tertiary), 279.

Ursus spelceus, 315.
Urus, 319.

Venus, 294.

Vulture, fossil, (London Clay,) 280.

Wealden deposit, 209, 225.
Whale's ear-bone, 322.
Wood, fossil, (Lias,) 136.

XantMdium, 234.
Xiphodon, 286.

Zamia-like plants in New Red-
Sandstone, 131.

THE END.

LONDON

Printed bj S. & J. BENTLEY, WILSON, and FLEY,
Bangor House,*Shoe Lane.

In two vols. 8vo., with numerous Illustrative Engravings.
Price 21. 2s.

GEOLOGY:

INTRODUCTORY, DESCRIPTIVE, AND PRACTICAL.
BY PROFESSOR ANSTED.

" It is a companion for the study and the field, and contains an excel-
lent exposition of practical Geology, entering on a clear and full review of
the applications of the science to mining and the attendant operations, to
the hygiene of mines and especially coal-pits, to engineering and architec-
ture, and to agriculture." — Athenaeum.

" He is an admirable writer, and has lucidly arranged in his volumes
the great facts and phenomena of Geology, without entering into absurd
and unsatisfactory speculations on their causes." — Britannia.

" Our own judgment of it has been formed upon a careful perusal of
nearly the whole treatise ; and knowing that it coincides with that of
many distinguished Geologists, we do not hesitate to express the belief
that it is better adapted to convey a competent knowledge of the certain-
ties of the science, than any other work with which we are acquainted."
— British and Foreign Medical Review.

" The important station which Professor Ansted occupies, and the
reputation he has obtained in fulfilling its duties, led us to expect a good
book at his hands ; but the work before us has exceeded our expectations,
being by far the best suited to the real wants of the age, of any work on
Geology that has yet appeared." — Church of England Quarterly Review.

<l It is comprehensive, yet concise ; clear, without being diffuse ; accu-
rate, without being tedious ; abounding in illustration, yet without de-
scending too far into minutiae ; it developes principles, and steers clear of
speculation." — Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal.

" Professor Ansted' s beautifully illustrated and interesting work
affords the best view of English Geology hitherto prodnced. On this
ground we recommend it to the particular attention of Geologists." —
Jameson's Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal.

"Herr Ansted schildert, in der erwahnten Reihenfolge, jede Felsarten-
Gruppe auf eine sehr gllickliche Weise ; ohne sich in peinliche Details
einzulassen, theilt er das Wichtigste mit." — Leonard and Bronn's Jahr-
buch.

" We look upon it as a first-rate production ; and we congratulate the
students of King's College on possessing such a guide as the author in
this important and seductive branch of human enquiry." — Literary
Gazette.

" Ansted's Geology is a very able work ; well arranged in its plan
comprehensive in its subjects, both principal and subordinate, and
scholarly in its treatment. The volumes are profusely illustrated, the
diagrams and the wood-cuts intermixed with the letter-press being highly
useful in explaining the text."— Spectator,

Over.

PUBLISHED DURING THE PAST TWELVE MONTHS.

ANSTED'S (Professor) Ancient World. 149 Illustrations. Post 8vo. 12*.
HEWITSON (W. C.), Coloured Illustrations of the Eggs of British Birds, with

description. 2 vols. 8vo, 4/. 10s.
JENYNS (Rev. Leonard, M.A.), Observations in Natural History, with a Calendar

of Periodic Phenomena. Post 8vo, 10s. 6d.
KELAAKT (Dr.), Botany -and Topography of Gibraltar and its Neighbourhood.

8vo, 10s. 6d.
OWEN (Professor), History of British Fossil Mammals and Birds. 237 Illustrations;

8vo, If. lls. 6d., large paper, 31. 3s.

PALEY (F. A., M.A.), Manual of Gothic Architecture. Fcp. 8vo, 70 Illust. 6s. 6d.
SPRATT (Lieut., R. N.), and Professor ED.JFORBES, Travels in Lycia, &c. 2 vols.

8vo, with a Map and other Illustrations, I/. l6s.

PREVIOUS TO THAT PERIOD.

ANSTED s (Professor) Geology. 2 vols. 8vo. Numerous Illustrations, 2/. 2s.
BAPTISMAL FONTS. A series of 125 Engravings, with Descriptions. 8Vo, I/. 1*.
BELL'S History of British Quadrupeds, including the Cetacea. 8vo, 28s.
BLOOMFIELD'S Farmer's Boy and other Poems, with 13 Illustrations. Fcp. 8vo,

7s. Gd., or large paper, 15s.
BOWERBANK'S History of the Fossil Fruits and Seeds of the London Clay.

Part I. Royal 8vo, 16s.
BRODIE'S History of the Fossil Insects in the Secondary Rocks of England. With

11 Plates, 8vo, 9*.
CATALOGUE of the Fossil Mammalia and Birds in the Museum of the Royal Col-

lege of Surgeons. 4to, I/. Is.
IUMMOND'S Fi

DRUMMOND'S First Steps to Anatomy. 12mo, with Illustrations, 5s.

FORBES' s History of British Starfishes, and other Animals of the Class Echino-
dermata. 8vo, 15s.

GARNER'S Natural History of the County of Stafford. 8vo, many Illustrations,;21s.
*JONES'S Natural History of Animals. Vol. 1, 105 Illustrations, post 8vo, 12s.

MORRIS'S Catalogue of British Fossils; comprising all the Genera and Species hi-
therto described ; with references to their Geological Distribution, and to the
Localities in which they have been found. 8vo, 10s.

MOULE'S Heraldry of Fish. With 200 Engravings, 8vo, 21s.

NEWMAN'S Familiar Introduction to the History of Insects. 8vo, with Q4 Illus-
trations, 12s.

NEWMAN'S History of British Ferns and Allied Plants. Second Edition, with En-
gravings. 8vo, I/. 5s.

OWEN'S Description of the Skeleton of an Extinct Gigantic Sloth; with Observa-
tions on the Megatherioid Quadrupeds in general, ll. 12s. 6d.

SELBY'S History of British Forest Trees. Illustrated, 8vo, 28s. ; large paper, 21. l6s.

WHITE'S Natural History of Selborne. A new Edition, with Notes by the Rev.
LEONARD JENYNS, M.A., &c. 12mo, /*• 6rf.

YARRELL'S History of British Fishes. Second Edition. 2 vols. 8vo, 3/. Supple-
ment to the First Edition, 8vo, /s. 6d. Royal 8vo, 15s. Imperial 8vo, 22s. 6d.
Paper on the Growth of the Salmon in Fresh Water, with 6 Coloured Illustra-
tions of the Fish of the natural size. 12s. sewed.

YARRELL'S History of British Birds. Second Edition, 3 vols. 8vo, with 535 Il-
lustrations, 41. 14s. 6d. Supplement to the First Edition, 8vo, 2s. 6d. Royal
8vo, 5s. Imperial 8vo, 7«- 6d-

IN COURSE OF PUBLICATION.

BELL'S History of British Crustacea, in Parts, at 2s. 6d., or large paper, 5s.
HENFREY'S (Arthur, F.L.S.,) Outlines of Structural and Physiological Botany.

Fcp. 8vo. 18 Plates, 10s. 6d.
INSTRCMENTA ECCLESIASTICA, Edited by the Ecclesiological, late Cambridge

Camden Society. 4to, ll. Us. 6d.

JOHNSTON'S History of British Zoophytes, Second Edition. In Parts, 2s. 6d. each.
SHARPE'S Windows of the Decorated Period, in 9 Parts, at 2s. 6d.

IN PREPARATION.

Coucu's illustrations of Instinct. Post 8vo.
A New Edition of BABINGTON'S Manual of British Botany.
,, BELL'S History of British Reptiles.

JOHN VAN VOORST, 1, PATKRNOSTKR ROW.

14 DAY USE

RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED

EARTH SCIENCES LIBRARY

This book is due on the last date stamped below, or

on the date to which renewed.
Renewed books are subject to immediate recall.

I ; ' •.,:: I./:

fl FNTERLIRftAftY

""ITT

I (o I ^

jclrl

n

g DECS

{^•"~""" ' • "• ' ' —

FEE

^H — • — — — . — i __

m

i

,

LD 2 i-.r-o «;-),'(;::
(D6471slO)476

General Library

University of Caluornia

Berkeley

•x\ (,

\ V *r+