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with me, that such industry and well-applied perseverance should 
have been rewarded with so much success. 
From these facts he deduces the following inferences. 
“ These different bones are buried almost every where, in nearly 
similar beds : they are often blended with some other animals re- 
sembling those of the present day. 
“ These beds are generally loose, either sandy or marly ; and always 
neighbouring, more or less, to the surface. 
“ It is then probable, that these bones have been enveloped by the 
last, or by one of the last catastrophes of this globe. 
“ In a great number of places they are accompanied by the accu- 
mulated remains of marine animals ; but in some places, which are 
less numerous, there are none of these remains : sometimes the sand 
or marl, which covers them, contains only fresh-water shells. 
“ No well authenticated account proves that they have been covered 
by regular beds of stone, filled with sea shells ; and, consequently, 
that the sea has remained on them, undisturbed, for a long period. 
“ The catastrophe which covered them was, therefore, a great, but 
transient inundation of the sea. 
“ This inundation did not rise above the high mountains ; for we 
find no analogous deposits covering the bones, nor are the bones 
themselves there met with, not even in the high vallies, unless in 
some in the warmer parts of America. 
“ These bones are neither rolled nor joined in a skeleton, but scat- 
tered, and in part fractured. They have not then been brought from 
afar bv inundation, but found by it in the places where it has covered 
them, as might be expected, if the animals to which they belonged 
had dwelt in these places, and had there successively died. 
“ Before this catastrophe, these animals lived, therefore, in the cli- 
mates in which we now dig up their bones : it was this catastrophe 
which destroyed them there ; and, as we no longer find them, it is 
evident that it has annihilated those species. The northern parts of 
