1G4 
FOSSIL IMAMMALIA. 
Crocodile? Secure within the panoply of his 
bony annour, where was the enemy that would 
dare encounter this Leviathan 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 Avhich they were constructed. 
Each limb, and fragment of a limb, forming 
co-ordinate parts of a well adjusted and perfect 
wdiole; 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. 
