REVIEW — BRIDGEWATER. TREATISE. 
Ill 
tainty, than the anatomical details of those creatures that present 
their living bodies to our examination. 
In the present treatise, the author has endeavoured at great 
length to prove that the extinct species of animals and vegetables, 
which have in former periods occupied our planet, afford in 
their fossil remains the same evidences of contrivance and de- 
sign that have been shewn by Ray, Derham, Paley, and others, to 
pervade the structure of existing genera and species of organized 
beings ; and we can hardly imagine that any stronger proof of 
the unity of design and harmony of organization that have ever 
pervaded all animated nature, than we find in the fact established 
by the greatest of all comparative anatomists, Cuvier — that 
from the character of a single limb, and even of a single tooth or 
bone, the form and proportions of the other bones and condition 
of the entire animal may be inferred. “ The law,” says the 
reverend author, “ prevails no less universally throughout the ex- 
isting kingdoms of animated nature, than in those various races 
of extinct creatures that have preceded the present tenants of 
our planet ; hence, not only the frame-work of the fossil skeleton 
of an extinct animal, but also the character of the muscles by 
which each bone was moved, the external form and figure of the 
body, the food and habits, and haunts and mode of life, of crea- 
tures that ceased to exist before the creation of the human race, 
can, with a high degree of probability, be ascertained.” 
It would appear that the more perfect forms of animals became 
gradually more abundant as the world became older; that ani- 
mals and vegetables of the lower classes prevailed chiefly at the 
commencement of organic life: and the very simple fact, that 
no human remains have ever yet been found in conjunction with 
those of extinct animals, may be alleged in confirmation of 
this hypothesis, — that these animals lived and died before the 
creation of man. Had the case been otherwise, there would 
indeed, have been great difficulty in reconciling the early and 
extended periods which have been assigned to the extinct races 
of animals with the present received chronology. 
It would be impossible, in the present review, to give our 
readers a detailed account of any of the extraordinary animals 
that have been restored again to life, as it were, by the genius 
and industry of our author, and others who have preceded him ; 
for to do this, we should require the assistance of some of the 
splendid engravings which occupy the whole of the 2d volume, 
and which contains more than seven hundred figures, beautifully 
executed. 
In plate No. 5, we have a splendid engraving of that most ex- 
traordinary fossil creature, the Megatherium : the following con- 
cise description must suffice. The size of this extinct animal 
exceeds that of the existing Edentata, to which it is most nearly 
