20 CREATION OF ANIMALS. 



countries washed by their waves, and what the 

 net or other means may collect in their vicinity, 

 find their way indeed into our cabinets ; but 

 what are these compared with such as inhabit 

 the depths and caves and bed of the infinite 

 ocean, which net never dragged, nor plumb-line 

 fathomed. Who shall say what species lurk in 

 those unapproachable recesses never to be re- 

 vealed to the eye of man, but in a fossil state. 

 The giant Inocerami, the singular tribe of Ammo- 

 nites, and all their cognate genera, as even La- 

 marck seems disposed to concede: 1 the Baculites, 

 Hamites, Scaphites, and numerous others there 

 have space enough to live unknown to fame, while 

 they are reckoned by the geologist as expunged 

 from the list of living animals. I do not mean to 

 assert that these creatures are not extinct, but I 

 would only caution the student of nature from 

 assunling this as irrefragably demonstrated ; 

 since we certainly do not yet know enough of the 

 vast field of creation, to say dogmatically with 

 respect to any species of these animals that this 

 is no longer in being. 



But besides the unexplored parts of the sur- 

 face of the earth, and of the bed of the ocean, 

 are we sure that there is no receptacle for 

 animal life in its womb ? I am not going here 

 to revive the visionary speculations of Athana- 



i In N. D. D. H. N. vii. 553. 



