86 



should escape and 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, is it, not 

 contrary to ail calculation of chances that we should hit upon 

 the exact spot ? Can we expect for a moment, when we have 

 only succeeded amidst several thousand fragments of corals and 

 shells in finding a few bones of aquatic or amphibious animals., 

 that we should meet with a single skeleton of an inhabitant of 

 the land ? Are we then warranted in supposing that man was 

 not an inhabitant of this world during the deposition of the oolitic 

 group ? In the first place, the southern hemisphere is even at 

 present but thinly inhabited, and if perchance a man be car- 

 ried into the rivers, he would soon be devoured amongst such a 

 profusion of carnivorous reptiles. As to the works of man within 

 this zone, even at the present advanced state of civilization, they 

 consist of such materials that their remains would be undistin- 

 guishable from the wrecks of the forest. Therefore we have no 

 proof that man was not an inhabitant of this world during the 

 deposition of the series in question. 



Let us take as an example the banks and lagoons of the 

 Amazon, which are swarming with reptiles, and consider the na- 

 ture of the deposits forming at the mouth of this immense river. 

 The inhabitants of the country are principally roving Indians, 

 living in bamboo huts ; probably we should not be far wrong in 

 stating, that for every man there are within this region 10,000 

 amphibious animals. Again, for every man, or his relics, which 

 may be carried into the deposits of the river and escape being 

 devoured, there will be deposited 100,000 amphibious reptiles : 

 is it then to be wondered at that man or his works have not been 

 discovered in the deposits of the saurian zone, much less during 

 past aeras, before the world became so thickly populated as it is 

 at present ? Besides, the deposits in question have been but 

 very partially explored, — merely the edges of the strata. 



Marine animal life was exceedingly abundant during the de- 

 position of the older oolitic group now found in Europe ; some 

 beds seem composed of little else than the remains of shells and 

 corals. A very striking zoological feature of this group is the 

 immense abundance of Ammonites and Belemnites which must 

 have ex sted previous to, and during not only the deposition of 



