BIOGKAPinCAfi SKETCH. li 



from any charge of idleness which some, in ignorance, may 

 have attributed to him. 



The rapturous enthusiasm with which Falconer prosecuted 

 his favourite researches, as well as the inferences he drew 

 from the teachings of geological science, are made evident by 

 the followuao- extracts from his Note-books and corres- 

 pondence. 



Writing in 1840 of his Sewalik discoveries, he says : — 



' What a glorious privilege it would be, could we live back — were it 

 but for an instant — into those ancient times when these extinct animals 

 peopled the earth ! To see them all congregated together in one grand 

 natural menagerie — these Mastodons and Elephants, so numeroiTS in 

 species,, toiling their ponderous forms and trumpeting their march in 

 countless herds through the swamps and reedy forests: to view the 

 giant Sivatherium, armed in front Avith four horns, spurning the timidity 

 of his race, and, ruminant though he be, proud in his strength and 

 bellowing his sturdy career in defiance of all aggression. And then the 

 graceful Giraffes, flitting their shadowy forms like spectres through the 

 trees, mixed with troops of large as well as pigmy horses, and camels, 

 antelopes, and deer. And then last of all, by way of contrast, to con- 

 template this colossus of the Tortoise race, heaving his unwieldly frame 

 and stamping his toilsome march along the plains which hai'dly look 

 over strong to sustain him. 



' Assuredly, it would be a heart-stirring sight to behold ! But 

 although we may not actually enjoy the effect of the living pageant, a 

 still higher order of privilege is vouchsafed to us. We have only to 

 light the torch of philosophy, to seize the clue of induction, and like 

 the prophet Ezekiel in the vision, to proceed into the valley of death, 

 when the graves open before us and render forth their contents ; the dry 

 and fragmented bones run together, each bone to his bone; the sineAvs 

 are laid over, the flesh is brought on, the skin covers all, and the past 

 existence — to the mind's eye — starts again into being, decked out in all 

 the lineaments of life. " He who calls that which hath vanished back 

 again into being enjoys a bliss like that of creating." Such were the 

 words of the philosophical Niebuhr, when attempting to fill up the 

 blanks in the fragmentary records of the ancient Eomans, whose 

 period in relation to past time dates but as of yesterday. How much 

 more highly privileged then are we, who can recall as it were the 

 beings of coiintless remote ages, when man was not yet dreamt of; not 

 only this, but if we use discreetly the lights which have been given to 

 us, we may invoke the spirit of the winds, and learn how they were 

 tempered to suit the natures of these extinct beings. We may con- 

 template the soil on which they were afterwards to move and breathe, at 

 first reposing imder the depths of the ocean, and then raised tranquilly 



