MULTITUDES OF LIVING BEINGS. 75 



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bones of mammalia have also been discovered at 

 Herne Bay and along the shores of Lincolnshire 

 and Norfolk, as well as other parts of the coast to 

 which the tertiary formation extends. 



Such are the various formations belonging to 

 the epochs or periods in the physical history of 

 our planet which preceded the period when the 

 human race became its inhabitants. From the 

 earliest deposits, having for their immediate foun- 

 dation the primary unstratified rocks, to the 

 human epoch, we discover that an inconceivable 

 multitude of creatures existed, suited with infi- 

 nite wisdom to the condition of the globe at their 

 respective periods. Vast multitudes of these crea- 

 tures from age to age became extinct, and were 

 succeeded by others of a higher type as the 

 unnumbered ages passed away. From the first 

 formation of the globe to the completion of the 

 tertiary formation, and the deposit of the bed of 

 clay on which Paris and London stand, everything 

 indicates that, so far as it is possible to judge, 

 hundreds of thousands of years must have elapsed. 

 Imagination is lost in endeavouring to conceive 

 the vastness and the violence of the changes to 

 which the earth has thus been subject, before it 

 became, in the eyes of its mighty Creator, a suit- 

 able abode for man. That changes perhaps as 

 marvellous still await the earth it is scarcely 

 possible to doubt ; changes in which the destiny 

 of man is involved, and which may be succeeded 

 by an improvement in the condition of the earth 

 and an advancement in the state of the human 



