156 ON THE REVOLUTIONS, &C. 



us no information, and in this Discourse we must not seek an answer to 

 our question from other sources. 



It is certain, that we are at present at least in the midst of a fourth 

 succession of terrestial animals, and that after the age of reptiles, after 

 that of palaeotheria, after that of mammoths, mastodonta and megatheria, 

 the age arrived in which the human species, together with some do- 

 mestic animals, governs and fertilizes the earth peaceably ; and it is 

 only in formations subsequent to this period, in alluvial deposites, in 

 turf-bogs, in the recent concretions, that those bones are found in a 

 fossil state, which all belong to animals known and now existing. 



Such are the human skeletons of Gaudaloupe, incrusted in a species 

 of travatine with land shells, slate and fragments of the shells and ma- 

 drepores of the neighbouring sea ; the bones of oxen, deer, roebucks, 

 and beavers of common occurrence in turf-bogs, and all bones of the 

 human race, and of domestic animals found in the deposites of rivers, 

 in burial grounds, and in fields of battle. 



None of these remains belong either to the vast deposite of the great 

 catastrophe, or to those of the ages preceding that wonderful event. 



