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by mankind, are for the most part abundantly stocked with animated beings, that exult in the pleasure of existence, independent of human control, and no way subservient to the necessities or caprices of man. Such is, and has been for several thousand years, the actual condition of our planet; nor is the consideration foreign to our subject, for hence we may feel less reluctance in admitting the prolonged ages or days of creation, when numerous tribes of the lower orders of aquatic animals lived and flourished, and left their remains imbedded in the strata that compose the outer crust of our planet." Bakewell's Introduction to Geology, 4th edit. p. 6.

CHAPTER XI.

Supposed Cases of Fossil Human Bones.

BEFORE we enter on the consideration of the fossil remains of other animals, it may be right to inquire whether any traces of the human species have yet been found in the strata of the earth.

The only evidence that has yet been collected upon this subject is negative; but as far as this extends, no conclusion is more fully established, than the important fact of the total absence of any vestiges of the human species throughout the entire series of geological formations.* Had the case been otherwise, there would indeed have been great difficulty in reconciling the early and extended periods which have been assigned to the extinct races of animals with our received chronology. On the other hand, the fact of

* See Lyell's Principles of Geology, vol. i. pp. 153 and 159, first edit. 1830.

no human remains having as yet been found in conjunction with those of extinct animals, may be alleged in confirmation of the hypothesis that these animals lived and died before the creation of man.

The occasional discovery of human bones and works of art in any stratum, within a few feet of the surface, affords no certain evidence of such remains being coveal with the matrix in which they are deposited. The universal practice of interring the dead, and frequent custom of placing various instruments and utensils in the ground with them, offer a ready explanation of the presence of bones of men in situations accessible for the purposes of burial.

The most remarkable and only recorded case of human skeletons imbedded in a solid limestone rock, is that on the shore of Guadaloupe.* There is, however, no reason to consider these bones to be of high antiquity, as the rock in which they occur is of very recent formation, and is composed of agglutinated fragments of shells and corals which inhabit the adjacent water. Such kind of stone is frequently

stone.

* One of these skeletons is preserved in the British Museum, and has been described by Mr. König, in the Phil. Trans. for 1814, vol. civ. p. 101. According to General Ernouf, (Lin. Trans. 1818, vol. xii. p. 53,) the rock in which the human bones occur at Guadaloupe, is composed of consolidated sand, and contains also shells, of species now inhabiting the adjacent sea and land, together with fragments of pottery, arrows, and hatchets of The greater number of the bones are dispersed. One entire skeleton was extended in the usual position of burial; another, which was in a softer sandstone, seemed to have been buried in the sitting position custom. ary among the Caribs. The bodies thus differently interred, may have belonged to two different tribes. General Ernouf also explains the occurrence of the scattered bones, by reference to a tradition of a battle and massacre on this spot, of a tribe of Gallibis by the Caribs, about the year 1710. These scattered bones of the massacred Gallibis were probably covered, by the action of the sea, with sand, which soon after became converted to solid

stone.

On the west coast of Ireland, near Killery Harbour, a sand bank, which is surrounded by the sea at high water, is at this time employed by the natives as a place of interment.

formed in a few years from sand-banks composed of similar materials, on the shores of tropical seas.

Frequent discoveries have also been made of human bones, and rude works of art, in natural caverns, sometimes enclosed in stalactite, at other times in beds of earthy materials, which are interspersed with bones of extinct species of quadrupeds. These cases may likewise be explained by the common practice of mankind in all ages, to bury their dead in such convenient repositories. The accidental circumstance that many caverns contained the bones of extinct species of other animals, dispersed through the same soil in which human bodies may, at any subsequent period have been buried, affords no proof of the time when these remains of men were introduced.

Many of these caverns have been inhabited by savage tribes, who, for convenience of occupation, have repeatedly disturbed portions of soil in which their predecessors may have been buried. Such disturbances will explain the occasional admixture of fragments of human skeletons, and the bones of modern quadrupeds, with those of extinct species, introduced at more early periods, and by natural

causes.

Several accounts have been published within the last few years of human remains discovered in the caverns of France, and the province of Liège, which are described as being of the same antiquity with the bones of Hyænas, and other extinct quadrupeds, that accompany them. Most of these may probably admit of explanation by reference to the causes just enumerated. In the case of caverns which form the channels of subterranean rivers, or which are subject to occasional inundations, another cause of the admixture of human bones, with the remains of animals of more ancient date, may be found in the movements occasioned by running

water.*

* Since this work was in the press, the author has seen at Liège the

CHAPTER XII.

General History of Fossil Organic Remains.

As "the variety and formation of God's creatures in the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms" are specially marked out by the founder of this Treatise, as the subjects from which he desires that proofs should be sought of the power, wisdom, and goodness of the Creator; I shall enter at greater length into the Evidences of this kind, afforded by fossil organic remains, than I might have done, without such specific directions respecting the source from which my arguments are to be derived. I know not how I can better fulfil the object thus proposed, than by attempting to show that the extinct species of Animals and Vegetables which

very extensive collection of fossil Bones made by M. Schmerling in the caverns of that neighbourhood, and has visited some of the places where they were found. Many of these bones appear to have been brought together like those in the cave of Kirkdale, by the agency of Hyænas, and have evidently been gnawed by these animals; others, particularly those of Bears, are not broken, or gnawed, but are probably collected in the same manner as the bones of Bears in the cave of Gailenreuth, by the retreat of these animals into the recesses of caverns on the approach of death; some may have been introduced by the action of water..

The human bones found in these caverns are in a state of less decay than those of the extinct species of beasts; they are accompanied by rude flint knives and other instruments of flint and bone, and are probably derived from uncivilized tribes that inhabited the caves. Some of the human bones may also be the remains of individuals who, in more recent times, may have been buried in such convenient repositories..

M. Schmerling, in his Recherches sur les Ossemens Fossiles des Cavernes de Liège, expresses his opinion that these human bones are coeval with those of the quadrupeds, of extinct species, found with them; an opinion from which the Author, after a careful examination of M. Schmerling's collection, entirely dissents.

have, in former Periods, occupied our Planet, afford in their fossil remains, the same evidences of contrivance and design that have been shown by Ray, Derham, and Paley, to pervade the structure of existing Genera and species of organized Beings.

From the high preservation in which we find the remains of animals and vegetables of each geological formation, and the exquisite mechanism which appears in many fossil fragments of their organization, we may collect an infinity of arguments, to show that the creatures from which all these are derived were constructed with a view to the varying conditions of the surface of the Earth, and to its gradually increasing capabilities of sustaining more complex forms of organic life, advancing through successive stages of perfection.*

* When we speak of different forms of animal life, as possessing various degrees of perfection, we do not impute to any creature the presence of absolute imperfection, we mean only, that animals of more simple structure discharge a lower office in the gradually descending scale of animated beings.. All perfection has relation to the object proposed to be attained by each form of organization that occurs in nature, and nothing can be called imperfect which fully accomplishes the end proposed thus, a Polype, or an Oyster, are as perfectly adapted to their functions at the bottom of the sea, as the wings of the Eagle are perfeet, as organs of rapid passage through the air, and the feet of the stag perfect, in regard to their functions of affecting swift locomotion upon the land.

Unusual deviations from ordinary structure appear monstrosities only, until considered with reference to their peculiar use, but are proved to be instruments of perfect contrivance, when we understand the nature of the service to which they are applied: thus; the beak of the CrossBill (Loxia curvirostra, Linn.) would be an awkward instrument if applied to the ordinary service of the beaks of the Passerene Order, to which this bird belongs; but viewed in relation to its peculiar function of extracting seeds from between the indurated scales of Fir cones, it is at once seen to be an instrument of perfect adaptation to its intended work.

The Perfection of an organized Body is usually considered to be in proportion to the Variety and compound Nature of its parts, as the imperfection is usually considered to be in the Ratio of its Simplicity.

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