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mind as we attempt to think of a time when this world of ours was 

 a busy world without ourselves ! It seems almost impossible to 

 picture out a globe covered with a magnificent vegetation, and in- 

 habited by myriads of creatures — and man, absent. In one of 

 those odd mixtures of science and fiction with which the name of 

 Jules Verne is associated, the author gives an account of an ideal 

 journey into the interior of the earth. The scientific traveller 

 comes into regions are the huge saurians of the Mesozoic Period 

 still battle in primeval seas, and to others where the Megatherium 

 and the Mastodon are browsing on more recent vegetation. But 

 he seems bound to introduce a human companion to them : — , 



" At a distance of a quarter of a mile, leaning against the trunk 

 of a gigantic kauri, stood a human being, the Proteus of those 

 subterranean regions, a new son of Neptune, watching this countless 

 herd of mastodons, and huger still himself, * '•' * a giant, 

 able to control those monsters. In stature he was at least twelve 

 feet high. His head, huge and unshapely as a buffalo's, was half 

 hidden in the thick and tangled growth of his unkempt hair. It 

 most resembled the mane of the primitive elephant. In his hand 

 he wielded with ease an enormous bough, a staff worthy of this 

 shepherd of the geologic period." 



For we have been for ages so much in the habit of thinking that 

 all creation exists for man, and man only ; we have so got into the 

 habit of pronouncing a thing useless if it serves no good purpose for 

 ourselves, that we almost refuse to entertain an idea of generations 

 of animals and plants that had nothing whatever to do with our 

 race, but lived apparently only for themselves. 



Yet so it was for countless flges, through all those wondrous 

 changes of land and sea which have taken place since. 



" The solid earth whereon we tread 



In tracts of fluent heat began." 



" O earth what changes hast thou seen ; 



There, where the long street roars, hath been 



The stillness of the central sea. 



The hills are shadows, and they flow 



From form to form, and nothing stands ; 



They melt like mist, the solid lands, 



Like clouds they shape themselves and go." 



But through it all it was a busy earth, full of life. The records of 

 the past are too evident and too simple to be misunderstood. 

 Nature does not write in hieroglyphs the history of a prehistoric 

 world, the characters may be read of all, written in the rocks 

 themselves. 



And certainly, among all the relics glittering at our feet as we 

 ramble across the sea-forsaken bay, none so readily attract our 

 notice as the curious Ammonites, Horn-stones, or Snake-stones. 



