754 
AN ESSAY ON THE FUTURE EXISTENCE 
Let us, for a moment, view the scenes in which these monsters 
lived*. “ A higher temperature, and swarming with life in its 
various modifications and elements ; its shores were covered with 
waterfowl, its waters filled with the mollusca and the insect tribes. 
It was diversified by hill and dale, fountain and fresh shade, whilst 
the hollow roaring cataracts from the hills, and the mountain tor- 
rents from the rocks, and the countless streams from the forests, 
became tributaries to the rivers. Colossal palms and yuccas con- 
stituted its groves ; and forests, and ferns, and grasses the delicate 
clothing of its soil. Whilst through the air flitted the monster bat, 
in immense shoals, darkening the sky in their flight, and winging 
their way in dense masses across the pathless solitude/’ And 
amid this scene, which the voice of the earth has declared to be 
true, the iguanodon raises his stately form, with a head surmounted 
by an elliptical horn, a body encompassed in a case of armour, and 
feet of uncommon length, terminated by gigantic claws. What 
must have been its power] Its expansive jaws, its colossal frame, 
secure within the panoply of its cuirass — its sharply pointed teeth, 
— its paw, carrying death to every weaker animal — its tail, more 
than seventy feet in length, and whose very movement would de- 
molish a crocodile. Likewise the gigantic dinotherium, a lacustrine 
herbivorous quadruped, eighteen feet in length, and of a propor- 
tionate bulk and height. The megatherium , or fossil sloth, whose 
bulky size may be inferred by a tail six feet in circumference, and, 
like the rhinoceros, armed with a coat of mail, and extracting with 
a single delve of his talons the roots of gigantic trees. The mas- 
todon, allied to the elephant ; the plesiosaurus, with a lizard’s head 
and the teeth of a crocodile, having a neck of enormous length, 
like the body of a serpent, and with the trunk and tail of a quadru- 
ped. The megalosaurus, or great lizard ; the palceotherium, re- 
sembling a pig or tapir, but of immense size ; and the hylceosaurus, 
or forest lizard : these are among the countless inhabitants of the 
infant world. 
Some of my readers may wonder what these fossil remains have 
to do with our subject, — •“ the future existence of the brute crea- 
tion.” We answer, much; for is not the thought overwhelming, 
that these monstrous shapes, that one time walked the earth, should 
have been created but to die. 
“ They roamed, they fed, they slept, they died, and left 
Race after race, to roam, feed, sleep, then die, 
And leave their like through endless generations.” 
* “Wonders of the World, edited by Henry Ince, M.A.” We would refer 
our readers to this excellent publication for a more detailed history of these 
fossil remains. 
