146 NATURAL HISTORY 



seas that have swept above them, and the forces that 

 have broken and lifted the earth beneath them. 



Then she traces the "footprints of the Creator" 

 in the quarries of the Old Red Sandstone, and 

 again wanders through the luxuriant forests of the 

 carboniferous flora. Mounting one step higher, she 

 splits from the Connecticut Valley the paths of 

 gigantic birds, and forms unknown among living 

 fauna. From the shores and waters of the Oolitic 

 ocean she brings up reptilian life, in form more 

 wonderful, and in armor and strength more ter- 

 rific, than painter or poet ever dreamed of. And 

 once more the earth almost seems to tremble be- 

 neath the tread of Mastodons, whose bones she 

 brings up and places joint to joint in all their vast 

 proportions. And last, above the tribes entombed in 

 rock, she points to man, the crown of all not only 

 the last, but the most perfect being ever formed 

 upon the earth with all the faculties needed by a 

 rational soul, showing, in his physical organization, 

 that he is the last of the long series, and beyond him 

 no progress is possible, according to the plan dimly 

 sketched in the first vertebrate of the Silurian wa- 



