OF CREATION. 305 



the mouths of the rivers and on the shores of the 

 Polar seas, where the ice has bound together, as with 

 cement, the bones of the ancient inhabitants of those 

 inhospitable climates ; and, secondly, the numerous 

 caverns in limestone rocks, common in the mountain 

 limestone of England, Belgium, and France, and the 

 oolitic limestone of the north of Bavaria and Saxony.* 

 These caverns have served as the dens of the animals 

 now entombed there ; and we meet occasionally with 

 series of bones belonging to some carnivorous species, 

 exhibiting a long succession of generations, and as- 

 sociated with remains of other animals upon whom 

 these Carnivora preyed. 



Besides the frozen shores of Siberia, and the ca- 

 verns of England and Europe, the actual gravel 

 spread over a large extent of surface in northern 

 Europe and England also abounds with fragments 

 of large animals, amongst which the remains of ele- 

 phants are especially abundant. The marly beds of 

 alluvium in Ireland and the Isle of Man, the mass 

 of clay and rolled material called " brown clay," in 

 the east of England, and some other alluvial and di- 

 luvial deposits, also contain, more or less commonly, 

 fragments of the ancient inhabitants of the land, and 

 amongst these especially occur the remains of the 

 larger pachyderms and ruminants, which were once 

 common. 



The conditions under which the animal remains 

 have been preserved in the ice are highly favourable, 

 and they enable us to judge of much more than the 

 mere skeleton of the animal. The preserving power 



* Similar caverns containing bones are met with in limestone in the 

 Brazils, in Eastern Australia, and in other parts of the world. 



