I6i FOSSIL MAMMALIA. 
Crocodile? Secure within the panoply of his: 
bony armour, where was the enemy that would 
dare encounter this Behemoth of the Pampas ? 
or, in what more powerful creature can we find 
the cause that has effected the extirpation of his 
race ? 
His entire frame was an apparatus of colossal 
mechanism, adapted exactly to the work it had to 
do ; strong and ponderous, in proportion as this 
work was heavy, and calculated to be the vehicle 
of life and enjoyment to a gigantic race of qua- 
drupeds ; which, though they have ceased to be 
counted among the living inhabitants of our 
planet, have, in their fossil bones, left behind 
them imperishable monuments of the consum- 
mate skill with which they were constructed. 
Each limb, and fragment of a limb, forming 
co-ordinate parts of a well adjusted and perfect 
whole ; and through all their deviations from 
the form and proportion of the limbs of other 
quadrupeds, affording fresh proofs of the infi- 
nitely varied, and inexhaustible contrivances of 
Creative Wisdom. 
