318 An Attempt to ascertain the. Animal 



period with this would appear to be the Wealden deposits of 

 Tilgate Forest. 



Many of my hearers will remember that, when that able and 

 entertaining lecturer, Professor Phillips, last lectured at Hull, 

 on geology, he told us that there was no appearance before the 

 cretaceous formations that in any way indicated that the world 

 had been previously fitted for the habitation of man. 



The chalk itself was a formation in the seas of those days : 

 the Wealden deposits, according to Mantell, were formed in 

 an estuary, or the outlets of some immense river ; most pro- 

 bably such river emptied itself into the said sea. There are, 

 however, indications, from the vegetable and animal remains of 

 those formations, that the dry land at that period (wherever 

 it might be) had then become fit for the habitation of man ; 

 though, as no human remains have yet been found in those 

 strata, it is impossible to say to a certainty that man had then 

 become an inhabitant of our planet. 



If, however, the earth, at the period of the cretaceous for- 

 mations, was ft for man's residence, it seems to me consistent 

 with the goodness and wisdom of Him who makes nothing 

 in vain, that man would be then created. True it is, that 

 the not finding his remains amongst the fossils of that period 

 deprives us of positive proof of his then existence, but fur- 

 nishes no proof that he did not then exist in the world. If 

 the chalk indicates the bed of the sea of that period, what 

 stratum, I ask, then formed the dry land ? for that is the 

 place to search for the remains of the human beings of that 

 day, and not in the bed of the then sea, nor in that of the 

 nearly contemporaneous Wealden deposit, which was the bed 

 of an estuary, or arm of the sea : these, at most, could only 

 include a few of the accidentally drowned ; and, in the midst 

 of the crocodiles and megalosauri of that day, so tempting 

 a mouthful as a human being would not be allowed, I think, 

 to rest in peace in the bottom of the waters, there to be found 

 after many days. 



It is not yet known where the dry land of that period is to be 

 found ; but, probably, when the bed of the then sea was raised, 

 the dry land became the basin that holds the present seas. 



However, in the Wealden deposits it is that the remains of 

 iguanodoiis have been found, and the period of this formation 

 is, we have seen, the time when man might, and probably 

 did, first appear upon the earth. Now, is not that probability 

 heightened (if the behemoth were identical with the iguano- 

 don) by the first words the Almighty addressed to Job in 

 speaking of the behemoth ? " Behold now behemoth, which 

 I made with thee" 



Hence it would seem that, whatever was the period of man's 



