MULTITUDES OF LIVING BEINGS. 77 



after the lapse of many ages I again visited the 

 earth ; and the country, with its innumerable 

 dragon-forms, and its tropical forests, all had 

 disappeared, and an ocean had usurped their 

 place. And its waters teemed with nautili, am- 

 monites, and other cephalopoda, of races now 

 extinct ; and innumerable fishes and marine rep- 

 tiles. And thousands of centuries rolled by, and 

 I returned, and lo ! the ocean was gone, and dry 

 land had again appeared, and it was covered with 

 groves and forests; but these were wholly dif- 

 ferent in character from those of the vanished 

 country of the iguanodon. And I beheld quietly 

 browsing, herds of deer of enormous size, and 

 groups of elephants, mastodons, and other her- 

 bivorous animals of colossal magnitude. And I 

 saw in its rivers and marshes the hippopotamus, 

 tapir, and rhinoceros ; and I heard the roar of the 

 lion and the tiger, and the yell of the hyaena and 

 the bear. And another epoch passed away, and I 

 came again to the scene of my former contem- 

 plations ; and all the mighty forms which I had 

 left had disappeared ; the face of the country no 

 longer presented the same aspect ; it was broken 

 into islands, and the bottom of the sea had be- 

 come dry land, and what before was dry land had 

 sunk beneath the waves. Herds of deer were still 

 to be seen on the plains, with swine and horses 

 and oxen ; and bears and wolves in the woods and 

 forests. And I beheld human beings, clad in the 

 skins of animals, and arnred with clubs and spears; 

 and they had formed themselves habitations in 



