CLASS I. MAMMALIA: ORDER 8. EDENTATA. 475 
ceaseless wonder.* In the Museum of Madrid, in Spain, is the skeleton of an enormous animal 
found twelve miles southwest of the city of Buenos Ayres, aboiit the year 1789 ; and other similar 
skeletons, more or less perfect, have since been discovered in the same region. These have been 
SKELETON OF MEGATHERIUM AT MADlllD. 
carefully examined by scientific men, and especially by Cuvier, and have been referred to a race 
of animals of gigantic proportions, once living in South America, but now extinct, to which has 
been applied the name of Megatherium. Of this Dr. Buckland gives the following eloquent 
sketch : 
" The size of the Megatherium exceeds that of the existing Edentata, to which it is most nearly 
* Remarks on Fossil Remains. — It does not come within the scope of this work to treat the subject of Fossil He- 
mains much beyond the mere mention of the most important species. We have already given (see p. 7,) some gen- 
eral views on this subject, but at this point it may be well to add a few observations, suggested by the facts immedi- 
ately before us. We have stated (p. 10,) the number of species of extinct animals, definitely classified, to be 25,000; 
Professor Bronn, of Heidelburg, has, however, given a much larger list of species actually discovered. Probably at 
this time (1858,) 35,000 may be known. The striking fact is disclosed by these discoveries, that in several classes of 
animals there are more fossil species than are now known to exist of the same genera. It seems probable that it M'ill be 
found, in the further researches of science, that the same is true in respect to most or all classes of animals. Yet it 
is to be observed, that while the great types of animal creation are thus preserved through successive geological 
ages, doubtless embracing millions of years, nothing is to be found which supports the theory of a transmutation of 
one animal species into another, in a constantly improving and ascending scale, as has been suggested by some able 
writers. On the contrary, every animal seems to be of a distinct species, and must therefore have had a distinct cre- 
ation. If a species dies out, though its semblance may remain, and perhaps in many forms, yet that is the end of its 
existence ; it does not continue or revive in any manner or degree in any of the succeeding generations of its class. 
Nor does it appear that one species of animal is in any way connected with any other, except as analogous types in 
the Creative Mind. While the origin of things is generally hidden from human sight, we are here able distinctly to 
see, from period to period, the Act of God, extinguishing the lights of life and kindling others, similar indeed, but 
never the same. Man's creation, then, was not a development of a law, by which he was evolved from a chimpanzee 
or an orang-outang, as some philosophers teach ; it was an Act of God, precisely such as the book of Genesis reveals. 
The Bible and Geology are here together in one of the most interesting points of human history — the origin of our 
being. God — not a Law, not an Abstraction, not a Principle — but God, breathed into man the breath of life, and he 
became a living soul. This is the threshold of faith, and is as clearly revealed by science as religion. 
I 
