EIGHTH GEOLOGICAL EPOCH. 95 



water-courses at various depths, the bones of buffaloes and other 

 modern animals are often found quite entire. Beneath the clay is 

 another layer of a different soil, bearing the appearance of having 

 been formerly the bottom of a marsh. It is more gravelly, darker 

 coloured, and softer than the other, and in it, or sometimes in a 

 stratum of compact blue clay alternating with it, there are found 

 innumerable bones of large mammals, chiefly ma'stodons, but in- 

 cluding also elephants, and extinct species of animals of the ox 

 and deer tribe. In other localities the mastodon bones are founu 

 immediately below the surface in reclaimed marshes, and they are 

 sometimes extremely perfect, sometimes broken and water-worn. 

 The Big Bone Lick would appear to have been resorted to, not 

 only in modern times by the living races, but more anciently by 

 animals now extinct, for the salt, and perhaps the food produced 

 by the marsh. The buffalo and bison are frequently known to 

 perish entrapped in these licks and swamps, and it seems evident 

 that the ma'stodon and elephant of former times must, from their 

 huge size and unwieldy forms, have been at least equally exposed 

 to the same fate. rfnsted, Rogers, $c. 



40. Up to the present time all geologists agree in saying tint in 

 the formations of this period, as well as in the most ancient rocks, 

 neither human bones nor any vestige indicative of the existence of 

 man on the face of the earth has been found, arid it is, for this rea- 

 son, probable that man had not yet been created at the time of the 

 destruction of these animals. 



EIGHTH GEOLOGICAL EPOCH. 



Modern Formation. 



41. New formations are now being made, either by the effusion 

 of igneous matter from the bowels of the earth, or by sediment 

 from waters, and, these formations, which are contemporaneous with 

 man, constitute the modern formation. 



42. Since the last great catastrophe alluded to (the upheaval of 

 the Alps), there has been a general repose, which perhaps will be 

 disturbed one day by some new geological revolution ; by the up- 

 heaval of some great mountain chain, for example, and by the 

 great rush of waters which must follow such a convulsion, new 

 lands will rise from the bosom of the ocean, and probably enclose 

 remains of the bony frame of man and of animals now existing, 

 just as the ancient formations conceal the solid remains of creatures 

 which preceded us on the earth. Even now we have proof that 

 things must pass in the present time very nearly as they did in 



40. Are human bones found in a fossil state, in the formations thus for 

 studied 1 What is the inference from the fact ? 



41. What is meant by modern formation? 



4~ Are human bones any where found in a fossil state* 



3D* 



