26 THE GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE HORSE. 
into the dark recesses of antiquity, and we soon reach the epoch 
when truth and fable are inseparably blended. 
The natural historian and natural theologian have hitherto ex- 
clusively confined their attention to one volume of Nature’s history, 
— that which relates to the present order of things; and man is re- 
garded by them as the undisputed sovereign of the world around 
him — the cattle on a thousand hills are supposed to be at his dis- 
posal — the mighty deep yields its treasures to his skill — the savage 
denizens of the mountain and the forest are tributary to his power, 
and the magna charta for these vested rights they find in the 
inspired page. From the command to subdue the earth, and to exer- 
cise dominion over its tenants, they draw the inference, that their 
only purpose was to increase his luxuries, and that they were 
created for no other use, than that they might be subservient to 
his destructive propensities. 
These views of the uses of the animal world, so long universally 
received, have been of late singularly modified by the light of 
modern science; for within the bowels of the earth the geologist 
has discovered a series of engravings, more or less injured and 
imperfect, yet all executed by the same hand, and bearing the 
manifest impress of the same mighty mind, which distinctly in- 
form us of the characters and habits of races, some of them ex- 
tinct and some still existing, which occupied its surface for many 
thousands of years ere man ever placed his foot on this wondrous 
soil, or contended with them for dominion. 
To trace, then, the ancient history of the horse and his contem- 
porary congeners, we must first take a slight glance at those en- 
gravings which have been discovered in the different strata of the 
earth, and which, like the brain of Touchstone, “is crammed with 
observation, the which it vents in mangled forms.” 
Without embarrassing ourselves with the history of the geolo- 
gical epochs, we will briefly advert to a few facts, — that certain 
families of organic remains are found pervading strata of every age, 
under nearly the same generic form which they present amongst 
existing organizations. Again, that other families, both of animals 
and vegetables, are limited to particular formations, there being 
certain points where entire groups ceased to exist, and were re- 
placed by others of a different character. It is also a fact well to 
be acquainted with, that animals and vegetables of the lower classes 
prevailed chiefly at the commencement of organic life, and that the 
more perfect animals became more gradually abundant as the world 
grew older. 
If we pass in succession from the ancient to the modern epoch — 
from the regions of sterility and desolation to that in which animal 
and vegetable life were profusely developed, we find that the first 
