176 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



[Aug. 1, 1S69. 



mud corned atervards to be changed into hard rock, 

 as we see it is, and no mistake about it, as our 

 tools purty well knows— why don't we find the 

 whole hanimal, or the skilleton on it, where we've 

 turned up this here leg ? That's what I wants to 

 know ! " 



I here perceived that doubts had been stirred up 

 within the minds of some of my most thoughtful 

 " brethren " by what I had already introduced for 

 their consideration, and, as they turned to me for 

 my opinion, whereby these same doubts might be 

 cleared away, I at once declared to them the deluge 

 or flood to which reference had been made had had 

 nothing to do with the phenomenon or physical fact 

 before us. I proceeded to prove to them, by re- 

 ference to well-established truths, that for countless 

 centuries of years before man became involved in 

 the naturally progressive order of animal existence, 

 the earth's surface had undergone innumerable 

 changes by upheavals and depressions, caused by 

 the violent action of the earth's internal heat. 

 These disturbing processes would necessarily oc- 

 casion as many partial inundations or deluges ; so 

 that, in the course of time, the portions of the land 

 and water surfaces of the earth would be made to 

 change places with one another, and that many, 

 many times during the long tract of millions of 

 years. I reminded them, by an appeal to visible 

 facts, that the same process of translocation was at 

 the present moment going forward, although more 

 slowly in its action in these our temperate climes 

 than in or near the tropical regions of the earth, 

 where volcanoes are numerous and earthquakes 

 more frequent and violent. The earth also, when 

 much younger than now, must have exhibited greater 

 and more sudden changes in its constitution and 

 external or surface character than in its more ad- 

 vanced age, just like a young animal, that in its 

 actions gives proof of much freakislmess and change- 

 ableness of disposition or temper. I also convinced 

 them, by the testimony of the rocks, that in the 

 whole animal world there had ever been, even as 

 now, destructive warfare therein regnant or prevail- 

 ing, as well as natural decay and death, or, in other 

 words, more philosophical and true, constant change 

 or creation, and this from the beginning of the 

 earth, or for myriads of years preceding the human 

 era. 



The relic of the animal or reptile then lying 

 before them, belonging to a monster race — here I 

 drew with a piece of chalk on the back of a shovel 

 the picture of thelguanodou, — had become anextinct 

 type for many ages anterior to that in which man 

 began to appear as a higher organized animal. I 

 showed also to them that these two orders of exist- 

 ence — the gigantic reptilian and the human — could 

 not have been contemporaneous, by reason of the 

 earth's climate and its vegetable productions, which, 

 while being in their nature necessarily consistent 



with that of the one, would be incongruous or un- 

 congenial with that of the other. 



Erom what I had already told them, they were 

 prepared for my explanation for the finding of this 

 isolated fossil bone. There was no need for my 

 telling them that the animal had died at some 

 time or other, and in the inquest we were holding 

 upon the part of the body then lying before us, 

 there was that absence of circumstantial facts which 

 might have been adduced as evidence as to whether 

 the " individual " met his death by violence, prac- 

 tised upon him by some other animal or other 

 animals, whether it was occasioned by an act of 

 felo de se, or whether his decease was the effect of 

 old age or natural decay. No other verdict could 

 therefore be arrived at, but that where the creature 

 died, the body very possibly continued to lie, until 

 all that was inconsumable by beast, bird, and insect 

 — the skeleton form — was thus left to be bleached 

 by the sun, the wind, and the rain. The bones, in 

 time, fell from one another, destined at the' next 

 overflowing of the lake or river's banks, to be borne 

 away from the spot where the creature had breathed 

 its last ; the skull to one part, the ribs aud back- 

 bone to another, the leg-bones somewhere else, and 

 one of the thigh-bones down (as I said) to where 

 they were all then standing. Here it became im- 

 bedded in the loose sand, to have gradually accu- 

 mulating masses of earth, by the mechanical action 

 of water, heaped upon it ; to undergo the processes 

 of pressure and petrifaction, together with the sand 

 in which it became entombed ; to repose there for 

 the many thousands of years preceding the appear- 

 ance of mankind upon the stage of the earth, as 

 well as for an equally long period since, or until 

 that very morning, when some men in Sussex, — 

 viz., Jack Penfold, Bill Thompson, George Hum- 

 phrey, and others, being employed in quarrying for 

 building stone, succeeded in disinterring and bring- 

 ing to light a part of the body of that huge animal 

 which had lived and died more than a million of 

 years before. 



This concluded my brief geological address in the 

 stone-pit to about a score of hard-working, hard- 

 handed men. Whether their heads and hearts were 

 as hard as the palms of those hands which were al- 

 most simultaneously extended towards me to clasp 

 mine as I ceased to speak, I had good reasons for 

 doubting. Stone bottles and small wooden kegs, as 

 well as horn cups, were hoisted into view. " They 

 wished," said they, "that the liquor was better 

 tipple for my sake." Not, therefore, to offend the 

 honest pride of either of them, I drank a little with 

 each, and as I moved to take my departure, and 

 they to return to ,their stone-quarrying, " Talk of 

 a sarment," said Jack Penfold, " that's the sort of 

 sarment for me ! What do you say, Bill ? "— " Ay ! 

 ay ! " was the laconic answer. 



As I ascended the deeply-rutted waggon-truck 



