IMPORTANCE OF OEGANIC REMAINS, EOT. 105 



enormous quantities of abraded matter from the lands ; and 

 accordingly we find, that strata of aqueous formation have 

 become the common repository not only of the Remains of 

 aquatic, but also of terrestrial animals and vegetables. 



The study of these Remains will form our most interesting 

 and instructive subject of inquiry, since it is in them that we 

 shall find the great master-key whereby we may unlock the 

 secret history of the earth. They are documents which 

 contain the evidences of revolutions and catastrophes, long 

 antecedent to the creation of the human race; they open 

 the book of nature, and swell the volumes of science, with 

 the Records of many successive series of animal and vege- 

 table generations, of which the Creation and Extinction 

 would have been equally unknown to us, but for recent dis- 

 coveries in the science of Geology. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



Aggregate of Animal Enjoyment increased, and that of Pain 

 diminished, by the existence of Carnivorous Races. 



Before we proceed to consider the evidences of design, 

 discoverable in the structure of the extinct carnivorous races, 

 which inhabited our planet during former periods of its his- 

 tory ; we may briefly examine the nature of that universal 

 dispensation, whereby a system of perpetual destruction, 

 followed by continual renovation, has at all times tended to 

 increase the aggregate of animal enjoyment, over the entire 

 surface of the terraqueous globe. 



Some of the most important provisions which will be pre- 

 sented to us in the anatomy of these ancient animals, are 

 found in the organs with which they were furnished for the 



