Notice of the Wonders of Geology. 9 



Saurians ; or the walks of the quadrupeds and the quadrumana, 

 which in the later geological eras, preluded the appearance of 

 man, the last being whom the Creator called into existence. 

 Among all the elementary writers who have described fossils, no 

 one has done it with more perspicuity and felicity than Dr. Man- 

 tell. The figures, where they are not his own, are borrowed 

 from the best authorities, and place the forms full before the 

 reader, while his vivid and exact descriptions enable us to realize 

 the existence of the often strange and uncouth beings of the 

 gone-by ages, as if they had been our familiar companions. 



The style of the work, although it was very good in the first 

 edition, (as we had occasion to remark, in the observations insert- 

 ed in this Journal, Vol. 34, p. 387, and already alluded to,) is great- 

 ly improved in the present edition. Indeed, it realizes our beau 

 ideal of a familiar and yet dignified philosophical style. It is con- 

 densed and luminous, garnished by a graceful flowing elegance, 

 and rising as the subject may require, into the sublime as well as 

 the beautiful. 



We are not aware of the existence of any work on any sub- 

 ject of science, which has better claims at once to a place upon 

 the shelf of the philosopher, and upon the centre table of a re- 

 fined family. While it is full and exact in its details, it is de- 

 lightful as a readable work of taste, equally entertaining and in- 

 structive to the youth of both sexes, who will derive from it not 

 only the most important information in the science of which it 

 treats, but the happiest moral impressions, and the most healthful 

 and useful views of the wise and benevolent designs of the Cre- 

 ator of our world and of all the worlds, that spangle, with their 

 silvery orbs, the azure dome of the heavens. 



Dr. Mantell's introductions and summaries, prefixed and appen- 

 ded to his principal divisions, afford great assistance, the former in 

 en,Jering a new apartment in the vast temple which he surveys, 

 and the latter, in remembering the various furniture which it 

 contains, and the permanent instruction that flows from the sur- 

 vey. These general views and deductions are presented in elo- 

 quent and impressive language. Detached from the facts on which 

 they are founded, they may be regarded as containing, in con- 

 nexion, each with the rest, a summary of geological conclusions 

 and doctrines, or geological Institutes. 



Vol. XXXIX, No. 1. — April-June, 1840. 2 



