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only marine and freshwater organic remains, and it is but in 

 very few instances that We can detect traces of terrestrial crea- 

 tures. In some parts, large deposits of carbonate of lime are seen, 

 with scarcely any organic remains, although forming at the same 

 time as those deposits in which they are very abundant. Those 

 persons who confide in what are hastily called general views, 

 and believe in the gradual change and sequence of organic life 

 on the globe, and picture to themselves the early land and sea 

 as tenanted only by what they find in the sedimentary deposits 

 of a particular region, from what they consider simple forms of 

 life to a more complicated, till man, as they say, was at last 

 awakened to the supremacy of creation, — would receive a useful 

 lesson on the banks of the river Magdalena and the lagoons of 

 Santa Martha ; they would soon be satisfied that the few fossil 

 birds and quadrupeds of Stonesfield, and other places, are not 

 anomalies so puzzling as they were once considered. How can 

 we expect to find the whole variety of the living system in such 

 deposits ? It is as unreasonable as the general views which have 

 been established on their absence. 



Although there have been actually found, not only the bones 

 of quadrupeds, and various terrestrial animals, but also those of 

 man, amongst those of the extinct animals, in caves, &c, and 

 also in a fossil state in the calcareous deposits of Guadaloupe, 

 yet so obstinate is the adherence to the supposed recent origin 

 of man, as compared with the organic remains of the sedimen- 

 tary rocks, that such discoveries are not considered sufficient to 

 prove their coexistence. Various species of monkeys have been 

 found under similar circumstances, which were at one time con- 

 sidered of the same recent origin ; even this must show the in- 

 consistency of the hypothesis. 



In the red sandstone, which occupies nearly the same geological 

 position as the cretaceous group, in Dumfriesshire in Scotland, 

 and Massachusetts in North America, we find the impressions 

 of the feet of birds, and the foot-marks of tortoises. On the pre- 

 sent soft sand banks of the river Magdalena, between Mompox 

 and Morales, the writer saw impressions of foot-marks of birds 

 of a most gigantic size, — feet measuring about fourteen inches 

 long and eight inches wide, having three claws, and the steps four 

 feet ; amongst which were also those of tortoises, and various 



