134 Notice of Dr. MantelVs Medals of Creation. 



few sea-weeds, and shells and Crustacea. Bat can we doubt for 

 a moment that that ancient sea had its boundaries and its shores? 

 that then, as now, there were islands, and shores, and continents, 

 and hills, and valleys, and streams, and rivers, teeming with ap- 

 propriate inhabitants ? The single drifted dicotyledonous leaf, 

 in the carboniferous sea, affords as certain indications of dry land, 

 as the olive branch which the dove brought back to the ark ; 

 one fact of this kind overthrows a host of theories based upon 

 negative evidence. 



"Advancing upwards, organic life presents more numerous 

 modifications, but no traces of the highest orders of the animal 

 kingdom are apparent, until on the sands of the ancient Triassic 

 ocean we behold appearances as unexpected and startling as the 

 human footstep to Crusoe on his desolate island — the tracks of 

 biped colossal birds, of which no other vestiges remain, and to 

 which the existing order of creation affords no parallel. 



"We now enter upon that marvellous epoch during which rep- 

 tilian organization obtained its full development — when the Igua- 

 nodon and Megalosaurus, 



' Mighty pre-Adamites, who walk'd on the earth 

 Of which ours is the wreck,'** 



were the inhabitants of vast islands and continents. But here, 

 as in earlier periods, we have proof that warm-blooded animals 

 existed, and the diminutive marsupial and insectivorous mam- 

 malia of the oolite, the heron of the Wealden, and the albatross of 

 the chalk, attest that the system of animal creation was complete. 

 " Leaving behind the age of reptiles, we approach that of the 

 colossal mammalia, when extensive countries were peopled by 

 the enormous herbivorous Megatheria, the mastodons, and other 

 gigantic Pachydermata, long since become extinct. But with 

 these last races many existing species were cotemporary, includ- 

 ing the monkey tribes, which, of all animals, approach nearest 

 to man in their physical organization. Thus by slow and almost 

 imperceptible gradations, we arrive at the present state of ani- 

 mate and inanimate nature. But even after the existing conti- 

 nents had attained their present configuration in the period im- 

 mediately antecedent to the human epoch, innumerable tribes of 

 carnivorous animals swarmed throughout the temperate climates 



Byron. 



