84 SQUALIDES. 



six inches from the point to the angle. All the 

 fossil bones of the antediluvian races, which have 

 been discovered, show that the primitive animals 

 were of far greater magnitude than those of the 

 present time. Perhaps there is no subject of deep- 

 er interest to the naturalist, than this curious fact, 

 sustained by the exhibition of entire skeletons, in 

 the cabinets of this country and Europe. These 

 prove, conclusively, that those which preceded 

 the present occupants of the soil, were truly gigan- 

 tic. The perfect bones of a lizard, sixty feet in 

 length ; — the teeth, skulls, and vertebrae of the 

 mastadon, as well as some others, will ever re- 

 main objects of wonder and astonishment. Were 

 those moving mountains of flesh, proportioned to 

 the products of the earth ? and if so, and they 

 were permitted to roam over the globe, what 

 physical change in the constitution of the world, 

 rendered it necessary to drive entire species utter- 

 ly from existence, by a sudden and terrible des- 

 olation ? After the deluge, the animals which 

 were distributed over the continent of Asia, seem 

 to have been diminished in form, and though, in 

 process of time, exceedingly numerous, the ag- 

 gregate, apparently, is better proportioned to the 

 amount of sustenance, yielded by the soil. 



How these observations will apply to the 

 water, we are not prepared to say. The whale 



