Gideon Algernon Mantell

"Ce que nous connaissons est peu de chose; ce que nous ignorons est immense."

La Place.

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We have now arrived at the close of this argument; we have taken a general survey of the fossilized relics of the various classes of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, and have explained the methods by which the inscriptions on these "Medals of Creation" may be deciphered.

But numerous as are the facts that have passed in review before us, and great as the accession of geological knowledge has been during the last fifty years, the data hitherto obtained are insufficient to elucidate many of the obscure pages of the earth’s physical history; and to future discoveries must be left the full interpretation of many phenomena as yet obscurely presented to us.

In vain we endeavour to penetrate the veil which shrouds from our view many of the mighty events that preceded the history of our race, for,—although the shades of colossal and unknown forms belonging to the remote ages of a past eternity obey the spell of the true magician Science,—yet of the innumerable beings which through countless centuries

how few, comparatively, could even the transcendent genius of Cuvier reveal!

If we endeavour to trace the order of succession, in which the extinct and existing types of animal and vegetable organization have appeared upon the face of our globe, as demonstrated by fossil remains, we at once perceive how imperfectly our knowledge enables us to present a true picture of the development of organic life as it existed in the remotest ages. Ascending from the Granite—that shroud which conceals for ever from human ken the earliest scenes of the earth’s physical drama—the first glimpses we obtain of animated nature are a few sea-weeds, shells, and Crustacea. But can we doubt for a moment that that ancient sea had its boundaries and its shores—that then, as now, there were islands and continents, and hills and valleys, and streams and rivers, teeming with appropriate inhabitants? The little Lycopodiaceous seed-vessels in the Ludlow bone-bed afford as certain indication of dry land, as the olive branch which the dove brought back to the Ark; one fact of this kind overthrows a host of theories based upon negative evidence.

Throughout the lower palÆozoic rocks organic life presents numerous modifications; and the remains of small placoid fishes appear in the uppermost Silurian. In the Devonian we meet with rare reptilian remains and foot-prints. In the Carboniferous rocks the sauroid Batrachians have left their relics and their foot-tracks. In the succeeding period these reptiles predominate; and on the sands of the Triassic ocean we have the foot-prints of monster reptiles and the tracks of bipeds—colossal bird-footed creatures—of which no other vestiges remain, and to which the existing order of creation affords no parallel.

The last bed of the Trias affords the first indication of Mammalian life.

We now enter upon that marvellous epoch, during which reptilian organization obtained its fullest development—when the Iguanodon and Megalosaurus—

were the principal inhabitants of vast islands and continents. But here, as at an earlier period, we have proof that warm-blooded animals existed; and the diminutive marsupial insectivorous Mammalia of the Oolite and the birds of the Wealden attest that the system of animal creation was complete.

Leaving behind us the Age of Reptiles, we approach that of the colossal Mammalia, when extensive countries were peopled by the enormous herbivorous Megatheres, the Mastodons, and gigantic Pachyderms, long since become extinct. But with these lost forms many existing races were contemporary; including the Monkey tribes, which, of all animals, approach nearest to man in their physical organization. Thus, by slow and almost insensible gradations, we arrive at the present state of animate and inanimate nature. But even after the existing continents had attained their present configuration, in the period immediately antecedent to the human epoch, innumerable tribes of carnivorous animals swarmed throughout the temperate climates of Europe; the Tiger, HyÆna, and Bear prowled through the woods and inhabited the caverns; and the Horse and Elephant, with gigantic Deer and Oxen, tenanted the plains.

But of Man and of his works not a vestige appears throughout the vast periods embraced in this review. Yet were any of the existing islands or continents to be engulphed in the depths of the ocean, and loaded with marine detritus, and in future ages be elevated above the waters, covered with consolidated mud and sand, how different would be the characters of those strata from any which have preceded them! Their most striking features would be the remains of Man, and the productions of human art—the domes of his temples, the columns of his palaces, the arches of his stupendous bridges of iron and stone, the ruins of his towns and cities, and the durable remains of his earthly tenement imbedded in the rocks and strata—these would be the "Medals of Creation" of the Human Epoch, and transmit to the remotest periods of time a faithful record of the present condition of the surface of the earth, and of its inhabitants.[781]