OF CREATION. 289 



bouring shallows or coast-line, forming beds of gravel 

 which form the first covering of the chalk, wherever it 

 has received other older tertiary deposits. The beds 

 of nummulites and miliolites contemporaneous with 

 those containing the Sheppey plants and the Paris 

 quadrupeds, seem to indicate a deep sea at no great 

 distance, and prove that there were frequent alter- 

 nations from the deep sea to a coastline, perhaps 

 the result of disturbances acting in the direction 

 already alluded to. 



The shores of the islands or of the tract of main 

 land then existing were apparently low and swampy, 

 rivers bringing down mud in what is now the 

 south-east of England and the neighbourhood of 

 Brussels, but extensive calcareous beds near Paris. 

 Deep inlets of the sea, estuaries, and the shifting 

 mouths of a river, were also affected by numerous 

 alterations of level not sufficient to destroy, but pow- 

 erful enough to modify the animal and vegetable 

 species then existing; and these movements were 

 continued for a long time. The seas were tenanted 

 by sharks, gigantic rays, and many other fishes of 

 warm latitudes, and abounded also with large car- 

 nivorous mollusca, capable of living either in fresh 

 or brackish water. The shelving land was clothed 

 with rich tropical vegetation to the water's edge, pre- 

 senting to view the palm and the cocoa-nut, besides 

 many of those trees which now lend a charm to the 

 Spice Islands of the Indian seas. All these abound- 

 ed also with indications of animal life. 



The large rivers were peopled with crocodiles ; 

 turtles and tortoises floated upon them; and these 

 tenants of the water, strange and varied as they 



