206 THE WORLI/. 



mains are as capable of resisting decay as the harder parts o:l* 

 many inferior animals. Such remains however, except in places 

 subject to great change from volcanic action, or the shifting and 

 filling up of the ancient channels of rivers, are never discovered. 

 The inference is plain, and we are irresistibly led to the conclu- 

 sion, that long antecedent to the date of man, the surface of the 

 earth teemed with life ; and that it has been subject to mighty 

 revolutions, which have, at once swept off its face, whole races of 

 its former inhabitants, whose fossilized remains have formed the 

 bed of a mighty ocean. It was therefore a splendid boast, that 

 the deeds of the English chivalry at Agincourt made Henry's 

 chronicle 



as rich with praise 



As is the ooze and bottom of the deep 

 With sunken wreck and sunless treasuries 1 



