142 KELATIVE GEOLOGICAL ANTIQUITY OF TREES. 



such a state of feeling is the inevitable result of these sublime 

 " Aspects of Nature." 



The annual melting of the snows on the summits of the 

 mountains furnished perpetual supplies of water, which in the 

 form of springs, rivulets, or mountain cataracts, descended 

 to lower levels, irrigating the richly- wooded valleys ; or a 

 thousand little tributary streamlets, which are always governed 

 in the directions which they take by the inequalities of the 

 ground over which they move, all poured together their tribu- 

 tary waters, until finally they formed the great rivers of the 

 earth which now perpetually roll along to the ocean. Many 

 of the animals of this period, such as the hyena and bear, 

 lived in caves. In the famous cavern at Kirkdale, in York- 

 shire, England, " parts of the skeletons of from two to three 

 hundred hyenas have been detected, mixed with portions of 

 the osseous framework of the cave-tiger, the cave-bear, the ox, 

 the deer, the mammoth, and the rhinoceros."* 



So far no human remains have been discovered, no skeletons 

 except those of the hitherto irrational denizens of the earth. 

 Human skeletons are only fonnd in modern fluviatile and ma- 

 rine deposits, along with the bones of the existing species of 

 animals, and of the leaves and branches of plants now grow- 

 ing on the earth's surface, or they occur in those ancient reposi- 

 tories of the dead called, by antiquarians, barrows or tumuli. 

 Man is therefore, comparatively speaking, a recent creation. 



The occurrence of human skeletons in modern fluviatile de- 

 posits, accompanied by coins and works of art, the preserva- 

 tion of the bones of the existing species of animals, and of the 

 leaves and branches of plants now growing on the earth's sur- 

 face, in the various geological formations now in progress, 

 shows the immutability of Nature, and proves that the same 

 enduring monuments of the present state of things will be 

 transmitted to future ages as we possess of the former condi- 

 tions of the earth. 



The earth was created for man. To him the whole of these 

 changes point from the first appearance of life in the Palaeozoic 



" The Testimony of the Rocks," by HUGH MILLER. 1857. 



