attended to, when you consider, that, without your assistance, the 

 pleasure I have promised myself, in my long-proposed tour, will be 

 considerably diminished : for what, to an inquisitive mind, can be 

 more mortifying, than to have the curiosity excited to the highest 

 pitch, without acquiring a single point, on which even conjecture 

 may be founded ? 



LETTER II. 



VESTIGES OF THE INHABITANTS OF A FORMER WORLD LIME- 

 STONE AND MARBLE MEDALS OF CREATION PLEASURES 



AFFORDED BY THIS SCIENCE ANIMALS IN THE FORMER 



WORLD DIFFERENT FROM THOSE OF THE PRESENT. 



1 o comply with the request you have made, will give me real sa- 

 tisfaction ; since, I am confident, should my endeavours prove 

 equal to the undertaking, that I shall open to you a source of inex- 

 haustible pleasure. For, not only the country through which you 

 are now journeying, but the greater part of this island, and even 

 of the globe, teems with these curiously-formed stones : the remains 

 of those beings, which, many ages since, depended, for their exist- 

 ence, on the various energies of vegetable or animal life. These 

 bodies, every atom of which they are constituted; existing in a dif- 

 ferent state of combination from that in which they were originally 

 disposed, often retain, nearly, the exact figure which they bore 

 in their primitive state. But the forms which they present to our 

 view are, frequently, so different from any organized being we have 



