356 THE CAUSES OF THE XI 
we must look at this past creation. Suppose that 
we were to sink a vertical pit through the floor 
beneath us, and that I could succeed in making 
a section right through in the direction of New 
Zealand, I should find in each of the different 
beds through which I passed the remains of 
animals which I should find in that stratum and— 
not in the others. First, I should come upon 
beds of gravel or drift containing the bones of 
large animals, such as the elephant, rhinoceros, 
and cave tiger. Rather curious things to fall 
across in Piccadilly! If I should dig lower still, 
I should come upon a bed of what we call the 
London clay, and in this, as you will see in 
our galleries up stairs, are found remains of 
strange cattle, remains of turtles, palms, and large 
tropical fruits; with shell-fish such as you see the 
like of now only in tropical regions. If I went 
below that, I should come upon the chalk, and 
there I should find something altogether different, 
the remains of ichthyosauria and pterodactyles, 
and ammonites, and so forth. 
I do not know what Mr. Godwin Austin would 
say comes next, but probably rocks containing 
more ammonites, and more ichthyosauria and 
plesiosauria, with a vast number of other things; 
and under that I should meet with yet older 
rocks containing numbers of strange shells and 
fishes ; and in thus passing from the surface to the ~ 
lowest depths of the earth’s crust, the forms of 
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