POST-PLEIOCENE FOSSILS. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The Post-Pleiocene period is marked in the geological sequence, as that interesting 

 epoch when life upon our globe was manifested in those organic forms, chiefly of the same 

 species that belong to the historical, or present period, and were obviously designed "from 

 the beginning" to be the contemporaries and companions of man, who appeared immedi- 

 ately afterwards ; "The crowning point of creation." 



It is the last formation of the Cainozoic or Tertiary, the epoch just antecedent to the 

 advent of man upon this earth; a period in which, it may be said, the earth had been finally 

 prepared and made ready for him who was to be formed in the likeness of the Creator, 

 and was to have dominion given him over "the fish of the sea, the fowls of the air, the beasts 

 of the earth, the herb and every creeping thing, yea — over all the earth ;" a period that 

 will ever be distinguished as the grand connecting link between the past and the 

 present. 



Sir Chas. Lyell. who is considered the best authority on tertiary geology, placed this 

 connection in a striking point of view, having ascertained that ninety-five per cent of the 

 fossils of the Post-Pleoicene period, are identical with living species. 



The crust of the earth, as far as the researches of geologists extend, appears to be sepa- 

 rated into strongly marked divisions, that seem to have been formed during four distinct 

 and prolonged periods. These periods, for the sake of convenience, have been named in 

 accordance with the class of animals and vegetables in existence during the formation of 

 each, evidences of which we find preserved in their fossil remains. 



The first division has been called Azoic; which signifies without life; the rocks of this 

 age consist of granite gneiss, etc.; they contain no traces of organic forms, and being the 

 lowest or first formed in the series, and originally in an incandescent state, passed, no 

 doubt, into the condition of rocks, before the creation of animals and plants. 



In the second division, the Palceozoic, or ancient life, we have indications of the first 

 animals and plants created, not one species of which has outlived the convulsions that 



