a cavil, by the remains, deeply imbedded in the hard blue lias
rocks, and which remains are now in our possession. What a terrific
monster it must have been! We look with horror at an alligator of
twenty or thirty feet, but imagine an animal of that species extending
his huge bulk to one hundred and twenty feet. Were they all destroyed
when the waters were separated from the hand, or did they gradually
become extinct when the earth was no longer a suitable habitation for
them, and no longer congenial to those properties with which they had
been endowed when ordered into existence by the Almighty power? The
description of the Behemoth, by Job, has long been a puzzle to the
learned; we have no animal of the present time winch will answer to it,
but in many points, this description will answer to what may be supposed
would be the appearance, the muscular power, and the habits of this huge
denizen of a former world.

"His force is in the navel of his belly.
He moveth his tail like a cedar.
His bones are as strong pieces of brass.
His bones are like bars of iron.
He lieth under the shady trees in the covert of the reeds and fens.
The shady trees cover him with their shadow.
The willows of the brook compass him about."

It may be a matter of deep surmise, whether all animals were created as
we now find them, that is, whether the first creation was final--or how
far the unerring hand has permitted a change to take place in the forms
and properties of animals, so as to adapt them to their peculiar
situations. I would say, whether the Almighty may not have allowed the
principle of vitality and life to assume, at various epochs, the form
and attributes most congenial to the situation, either by new formation
or by change.

May not the monster of former worlds have dwindled down to the alligator
of this--the leviathan to the whale? Let us examine whether we have any
proofs in existing creation to support this supposition. We all know
that the hair of the goat and sheep in the torrid zones will be changed
into wool when they are taken to the colder climes, and that the reverse
will also take place--we know that the hare and weazel tribes, whose
security is increased from their colour so nearly approaching to that of
the earth in temperate latitudes, have the same protection afforded to
them when they are found in the regions of snow, by their changing to
white--and we know that the _rete mucosum_ of the Afr