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Show 150 THEORY OF by," the carcasses of lions, deer, and the other wild tenants of the forest and the plain, the fiction would have been deemed unworthy of the genius of Shakspeare. So daring a disregard of probability, so avowed a violation of ana. logy, would have been condemned as unpardonable even where the poet was painting those incongruous images which present themselves to a disturbed imagination during the visions of the night. But the cosmogonist is not amenable, even in his waking hours, to these laws of criticism; for he assumes either that the order of nature was formerly distinct, or that the globe was in a condition to which it can never again be reduced by changes which the existing law of nature can bring about. This assumption being once admitted, inexplicable anomalies and violations of analogy, instead of offending his judgment, give greater consistency to his reveries. The organic contents of the secondary strata in general con-sist of corals and marine shells. Of the latter, the British strata (from the inferior oolite to the chalk inclusive) have yielded about six hundred species. Vertebrated animals are very abundant, but they are almost entirely confined to fish and reptiles. But some remains of cetacea have also been met with in the oolitic series of England *, and the bones of two species of warm-blooded quadrupeds of extinct genera allied to the Opossum t. The occurrence of one individual of the higher classes of mammalia, whether marine or terrestrial, in these ancient strata, is as fatal to the theory of successive :development, as if several hundreds had been discovered. The tertiary strata, as will appear from what we have already stated, were deposited when the physical geography of the northern hemisphere had been entirely altered. Large inland lakes * On the authority of Dr. Buckland. Trans. Geol. Soc. vol. i. part 2, second series, p. 394. t The mammiferous remains of the Stonesfield slate, near Oxford, consist of three or perhaps four jaws, one of which, now in the Oxford Museum, has been examined by M. Cuvier, and pronounced to belong to a species of Didelphis. Another of these valuable fossils in the possession of my friend Mr. Broderip, appears .to be not only specifically, but generically distinct, from that shewn to M. CuVler. See Observations on the Jaw of a fossil Mamrniferous Animal found in the Stonesfield Slate, by W. J. Broderip, Esq., Sec. G.S., F.R.S., F.L.S., &c., Zool. Journ., vol. iii., p. 408; 1827. SUCCESSIVE DEVELOPMENT. 151 had become numerous as in t countries. There were gulfs 0~e~1:al F:ance a~d many other emptied themselves where t t sea mto wluch large rivers Paris basin. Th;re s raha were fo~med like those of the were t en also litt 1 ~ · progress, such as are indicated b the ?ra ormatiOns in Faluns of the Loire. 'rhe state ~f Engh~h Crag, and the remains of this period is d'ffi preservatiOn of the organic the older rocks, the colo:::y f I t~re~ ~rom that of fossils in laginous ligaments uniting toh el s e s, ~nd even the carti- . e va ves bemg in retamed. N 0 less tllan t we I ve h undred · sof me cases have been found in the beds of the p . sp~Cies o testacea number in the more modern ~ . ans basm, and an equal hills ; and it is a most curi orm~tiOns of the Subapennine zoologist has already acquoi~s dfact m natural history, that the . re more exte · · ~ . concermng the testacea wh'I c h m. h a b1' ted thn sive ·m wrmatiOn northern latitudes at that era than f h e anCI:~t s~as of same parallels in Euro e Th o t ose now hvmg m the partly of fresh-water o~i~in an~ ~~~a~a o~ ~h\Paris .basin are land. They have afforded ' e Wit t e spoils of the quadrupeds but these r l' a great nfiumber of skeletons of land small memb' er of th e Ics are con ned a1 m ost enti· rely to one considered as havinO' :r·~rof, and their conservation may be bination of circumsfanc~sen ~om ~orne local and accidental comterrestrial mammalia . . bn t .e other hand, the scarcity of . m su marme d' · . m a striking manner b t se Iment IS eluCidated, remains hitherto ro~ur~d ~e extremely small number of such facilities of inves~gation . rtohm the Subapennine hills. The d . . . m esc strata whi h d · lsmtegratlon, are perh ~ c un ergo rapid and they have been ex:!~n~~exampled m the rest of Europe, years. .But, although the ha:~ ~llectors _for three hundred dred species of testacea t~ h r:ady yielded twelve hunciated remains of terres;riale aut en~~cated examples of assoand several of those h' h h mambma I~ are extremely scanty. b I . w 1c ave een c1t d b ·li · ' e ongmg to the elephant h' e y ear er writers as b b or r moceros h · b y a le anatomists t b th b ' ave smce een declared In about five or te'n? et e ones of whales and other cetacea' h r m. oceros and ms anhc es ' pe. rh aps, b ones of the mastodon · h t I.s forma't ion ws'tohm e o.t er ammal s, h ave b een observed in' been washed int~ th:~r~e ;he~ls att~ched. These must have e o t e ancient sea when the strata |