ancient lands. As the forces of rains, torrents*
and inundations have conveyed this detritus into
lakes, estuaries, and seas, it is probable that
many carcases of terrestrial and amphibious
animals, should also have been drifted to great
distances by currents which swept such enormous
quantities of abraded matter from the lands; and
accordingly we find, that strata of aqueous formation
have become the common repository not
only of the Remains of aquatic, but also of
terrestrial animals and vegetables.
The study of these Remains will form our
most interesting and instructive subject of inquiry,
since it is in them that we shall find the
great master key whereby we may unlock the
secret history of the earth. They are documents
which contain the evidences of revolutions and
catastrophes, long antecedent to the creation of
the human race; they open the book of nature,
and swell the volumes of science, with the
Records of many successive series of animal
and vegetable generations, of which the Creation
and Extinction would have been equally unknown
to us, but for recent discoveries in the
science of Geology.
C h a p t e r XIII.
Aggregate o f Animal Enjoyment increased, and
that o f P ain diminished, by the existence o f
Carnivorous Races.
Before we proceed to consider the evidences
of design, discoverable in the structure of the
extinct carnivorous races, which inhabited our
planet during former periods of its history; we
may briefly examine the nature of that universal
dispensation, whereby a system of perpetual destruction,
followed by continual renovation, has
at all times tended to increase the aggregate of
animal enjoyment, over the'entire surface of the
terraqueous globe.
Some of the most important provisions which
will be presented to us in the anatomy of these
ancient animals, are found in the organs with
which they were furnished for the purpose of
capturing and killing their prey; and as contrivances
exhibited in instruments formed expressly
for destruction, may at first sight, seem
inconsistent with the dispensations of a creation
founded in benevolence, and tending to
produce the greatest amount of enjoyment to
G. K