162 



DEVELOPMENT OF OEGANIC LIFE 



[Ch. IX. 



near some coral reefs, and at some distance from the land 

 they drew up on hooks attached to their line portions of an 

 ape, elephant, or leopard, should we not be sceptical as to 

 the accuracy of their statements ? and if we had no doubt of 

 their veracity, might we not expect them to be unskilful 

 naturalists ? or, if the fact were unquestioned, should we not 

 be disposed to believe that some vessel had been wrecked 

 on the spot ? 



The casualties must always be rare by which land quadru- 

 peds are swept by rivers far out into the open sea, and still 

 rarer the contingency of such a floating body not bein 

 devoured by sharks or other predacious fish, such as were 

 those of which we find the teeth preserved in some of the 

 carboniferous strata. But if the carcass should escape, and 

 should happen to sink where sediment was in the act of 

 accumulating, and if the numerous causes of subsequent 

 disintegration should not efface all traces of the body, in- 

 cluded for countless ages in solid rock, it would be contrary 

 to all calculation of chances that we should hit upon the 

 exact spot — that mere point in the bed of an ancient ocean, 

 where the precious relic was entombed. Can we expect 

 for a moment, when we have only succeeded, amidst several 



and shells, in finding a few 



bones of aquatic vertebrata, that we should meet with a single 

 skeleton of an inhabitant of the land ? 



Clarence, in his dream, saw ' in the slimy bottom of the 

 deep/ 



thousand fragments of corals 



a thousand fearful wrecks ; 



A thousand men, that fishes gnaw'd upon ; 



Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl. 



Had he also beheld, amid ' the dead bones that lay scattered 

 by/ the carcasses of lions, deer, and the other wild tenants 

 of the forest and the plain, the fiction would have been 

 deemed unworthy of the genius of Shakspeare. So daring 

 a disregard of probability and violation of analogy would 

 have been condemned as unpardonable, even where the poet 

 was painting those incongruous images which present them- 

 selves to a disturbed imagination during the visions of the 

 night. 



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