140 VESTIGES OF THE 



is a tinea wliich attacks dressed wool, but never touches 

 it in its unwaslied state. A particular insect disdains all 

 food but chocolate, and the larva of the oinopota cellar ts 

 lives nowhere but in wine and beer, all of these being 

 articles manufactured by man. There is likewise a 

 creature called the pymelodes cyclojnnn, which is only 

 found in subterranean cavities connected with certain 

 specimens of the volcanic formation in South America, 

 dating from a time posterior to the arrangements of the 

 earth for our species. Whence the first pymelodes 

 cyclopum I Will it, to a geologist, appear irrational to 

 suppose that, just as the pterodactyle was added as a 

 new offshoot from the animal stock, in the era of the 

 new red sandstone, when the earth had become suited 

 for such a creature, so may these creatures have been 

 added when media suitable for their existence arose, and 

 that such phenomena may take place any day, the only 

 cause for their taking place seldom being the i-arity of 

 the rise of new physical conditions on a globe which 

 seems to have already undergone the principal part of its 

 destined mutations 1 



Between such isolated facts and the greater changes 

 which attended various geological eras, it is not easy to 

 see any difference, besides simply that of the scale on 

 which the respective phenomena took place, as the 

 throwing off of one copy from an engraved plate is 

 exactly the same process as that by which a thousand 

 are thrown off. To Creative Providence, we may well 

 conceive, the numbers of such phenomena, the time wlien, 

 and the circumstances under wliich they take place, are 

 indifferent matters. The Eternal One has arranged for 

 everything l)eforehand, and trusted all to the operation 

 of the laws of his appointment, himself being ever pre- 

 sent in all things. We can even conceive that man, in 



