CLASS I. MAMMALIA: ORDER 8. EDENTATA. 



475 



ceaseless wonder.* In the Museum of Madrid, in Spain, is the skeleton of an enormous animal 

 found twelve miles southwest of the city of Buenos Ayres, about the year 1 789 ; and other similar 

 skeletons, more or less perfect, have since been discovered in the same reo-ion. These have been 



SKELETON OF MEGATHERIUM AT MADRID. 



carefully examined by scientific men, and especially by Cuvier, and have been referred to a race 

 of animals of gigantic proportions, once living in South America, but now extinct, to which has 

 been applied the name of Megatherium. Of this Dr. Buckland gives the following eloquent 

 sketch : 



" The size of the Megatherium exceeds that of the existing Edentata, to which it is most nearly 



* Remarks ox Fossil Remains. — It does not come within the scope of this work to treat the subject of Fossil Re- 

 mains much beyond the mere mention of the most important species. We have already given (see p. 7,) some gen- 

 eral views on this subject, but at this point it may be well to add a few observations, suggested by the facts immedi- 

 ately before us. We have stated (p. 10,) the number of species of extinct animals, definitely classified, to be 2-"), 000; 

 Professor Bronn, of Heidelburg, has, however, given a much larger list of species actually discovered. Probably ; I 

 this time (1858,) 35,000 may be known. The striking fact is disclosed by these discoveries, that in several classes of 

 animals there are more fossil species than are now known to exist of the same genera. It seems probable that it will be 

 found, in the further researches of science, that the same is true in respect to most or all classes of animals. Yet it 

 is to be observed, that while the great types of animal creation are thus preserved through successive geological 

 ages, doubtless embracing millions of years, nothing is to be found which supports the theory of a transmutation of 

 one animal species into another, in a constantly improving and ascending scale, as has been suggested by some able 

 writers. On the contrary, every animal seems to be of a distinct species, and must therefore have had a distinct cre- 

 ation. If a species dies out, though its semblance may remain, and perhaps in many forms, yet that is the end ot its 

 existence; it does not continue or revive in any manner or degree in any of the succeeding generations of its class. 

 Nor does it appear that one species of animal is in any way connected with any other, except as analogous .types in 

 the Creative Mind. While the origin of things is generally hidden from human sight, we are here able distinctly to 

 see, from period to period, the Act of God, extinguishing the lights of life and kindling others, similar indeed, but 

 never the same. Man's creation, then, was not a development of a law, by which he was.evolved from a chimpanzee 

 or an orang-outang, as some philosophers teach ; it was an Act of God, precisely such as the book of Genesis reveals. 

 The Bible and Geology are here together in one of the most interesting points of human history— the origin of our 

 being. God— not a Law, not an Abstraction, not a Principle— but God, breathed into man the breath of life, and he 

 became a living soul. This is the threshold of faith, and is as clearly revealed by science as religion. 



