Fossils. 143 



and sea plants. The Alps, the Apen- 

 nines, the Pyrenees, Libanus, Atlas, and 

 Ararat, every mountain of every coun- 

 try under heaven, where search has been 

 made, all conspire in one uniform and 

 universal proof, that the sea has covered 

 their highest summits. If we examine 

 the earth, we shall find the mouse deer, 

 natives of America, buried in Ireland ; 

 elephants, natives of Asia and Africa, 

 buried in the midst of England ; croco- 

 diles, natives of the Nile, in the heart of 

 Germany ; shell-fish, never known but 

 in the American seas, together with skel- 

 etons of whales, in the most inland re- 

 gions of England ; trees of vast dimen- 

 sions with their roots and tops at the bot- 

 tom of mines and marls, found in regions 

 where such trees were never known to 

 grow, nay, where it is demonstrably im- 

 possible they could grow. Such are the 

 awful memorials of the great convulsions 

 and revolutions which have taken place 

 in the natural world ; of countries laid 

 under the rolling waves of the ocean ; 

 and of lands rising from the midst of the 

 waters, and becoming the habitations of 

 beasts and of men ; so transient fiiicl un 

 certain are all earthly things. 



