AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 477 



exactly like those now met with above excavations, also in the 

 same locality throw up hazel nuts in immense quantities that are 

 precisely like those now produced in the same region. In dig- 

 ging wells on this continent the germs of ancient vegetation have 

 occasionally grown after being thrown up, but in no case have 

 they produced any new species. In one case, the circumstances 

 of which came under my own observation, the wild red plum 

 common to this country was thus introduced, although not occur- 

 ing within some miles. Timber buried in swamps by accumula- 

 tions of muck and soil to the depth of many feet has always 

 proved to be identical with that of existing trees. 



On a former occasion J submitted here measurements of the 

 lower jaw of a mummied bull in Dr. Abbott's Egyptian collection, 

 and showed that it differed neither appreciably nor significantly 

 from the same bone in average sized modern oxen. Cuvier re- 

 garded all the domestic varieties of the ox as descended from one 

 species — the ancient Egyptian stock. The mummied cats and 

 birds derived from the same source are complete antetypes of 

 existing species, in no case differing more from them than indi- 

 viduals of the same race differ from each other. Eonastre found 

 more than eighty kinds of animals and plants either existing or 

 represented in mummies, and in every instance they were iden- 

 tical with existing species. 



The descriptions of animals as given by Aristotle are as true to 

 nature as when he composed them, and the medical properties 

 of plants are found to be the same when identified as observed 

 by the ancients. As man represents the last and most complete 

 form of physical organization, an argument to prove there has 

 been no change of consequence in his construction for thousands 

 of years may be supposed to include inferior organizations, and 

 such an argument may be drawn from the works of the ancients. 

 Their poetry appeals to the same passions and aspirations that 

 move men now; their moral philosophy shows as delicate a sense 

 of right and wrong as that of which we boast; in architecture we 

 do nothing but imitate them ; in the exact sciences no important 

 advances have been made for two thousand years — the demonstra- 

 tions of Euclid having never been improved. While in mechan- 



