354 
VERTEBRATA. 
birds, called Brontozoum giganteum, of the cassowary kind, had a foot eighteen inches long, and must 
have weighed from four hundred to eight hundred pounds — four times the weight of the ostrich ! 
And all these things are written on the ancient sandstone rocks, beneath the surface of the soil ; 
and so certain, so minute is the record, that even the rain-drops that pattered on the sands while 
these creatures were living here, are iraperishably preserved. And these things were written by 
the finger of God — who can doubt it ? And who can doubt that Man — the being competent 
to read the record, and after the lapse of ages, actually present here to read it — is the object of 
care, of sympathy, to Him who alike made and preserved these inscriptions, and made and pre- 
served and taught generations to interpret them ? The poet has said, in respect to common ob- 
jects which strike the mind on the surface of the earth — 
" And this our life, 
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing." 
Shall not man, in view of these and other revelations of geology, rise to a higher life, which shall 
find something more than mere sermons in this Book of Rocks, with the imprint of the Almighty 
on its title-page ? We have seen but the beginning ; Ave know that mankind have but just en- 
tered upon this study, which ages on ages cannot exhaust. Yet how wonderful the record — and 
every page of it speaking of God, and tracing his footsteps while laying the foundations of the 
world, long, long before he walked with man in the Garden of Eden. Do we not, must we not 
derive this great good from such a view — the manifest truth that God made man to interpret his 
works ; and does not the firm conviction follow, that a being thus endowed, is not limited to a 
transient existence, but is bound to immortality ? How inevitable is the hope, how confident 
the anticipation of a future life — which shall unfold man's capacities, and give scope to man's 
destiny — springing up in the soul from such contemplations ! And will not God fulfill the hopes 
thus inspired, and perform the promises thus implied ? 
