18 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. 



prior to the Adamic creation, and the inhabitants of the 

 present state.* Where are now the 'mastodons, the mega- 

 theriums, the saurian giants of those days ? But surely if 

 we make so vast a leap as from one world to another, the 

 very forms of terrestrial things would be obliterated, and a 

 corresponding difference appear, which nothing but infinite 

 Wisdom could devise. 



This we may never know till we become denizens of that 

 changeless state to which time and space are nothing : when 

 we shall know as we are known. — But we have completed 

 our circumambulation, and are just at home. 



* It is scarcely necessary to remark, that there is nothing in the Word 

 of God, which opposes the commonly received opinion, that this world had 

 an existence in a habitable state, previous to the chaos which prevailed at 

 the commencement of the Sacred narrative. 



