GEOLOGY, ' 605 



tain chains, and horrible invasions of ice, wliicli waste or 

 engulf everything living. 



This last epoch abounds less in new animal forms than 

 those which preceded it; but the creatures which were 

 brought forth at this time are often remarkable for their 

 vast size, their number, and the extent to which they were 

 disseminated. In every part of the globe their vestiges, 

 disinterred by patience and learning, prove the truth of 

 these assertions. 



We have seen invisible antediluvian Infusoria, heaped 

 up into mountains by the waters of the globe, exist 

 through a cycle of ages, and present themselves to our 

 astonished gaze with all the details of their organization. 

 In the diluvium, on the contrary, we find a population of 

 colossi belonging to the ancient world. Elephants, masto- 

 dons, rhinoceroses, and hippopotami are spread over regions 

 far from where they now live. France itself supported 

 numerous cohorts of them, and they existed in the midst 

 of the ices of Siberia. 



In antediluvian times this latter comitry Avas even 

 peopled with such herds of elephants and rhinoceroses, 

 that travellers say the soil of some islands in the Icy Sea 

 is at present literally stuffed with their bones. 



Art, which from the remotest epoch has employed so 

 much ivory for ornament and statuary, finds without 

 any search a rich mine of this precious substance in the 

 teeth of the fossil elephants which abound in these ancient 

 charnel-houses. At present the north of Asia furnishes an 

 enormous quantity for commercial purposes. The ivory 

 mines of New vSiberia and of the island of Laclioo are so 

 rich in these debris that their soil is absolutely a mass 

 of sand, ice, and elephant tusks. Every time there is a 

 storm the waves throw up a great number of these, some 



