d then, in his terror, he would plunge and flounder, getting
more and more deeply bemired, till at length he could struggle no more,
and the bog would close over him, and he would be no more seen till some
spectacled geologist of this nineteenth century, note-book in hand,
would go and dig up his remains, marvelling at the freshness with which
they had been preserved in the antiseptic peat.

But let us look at South America, where, as the great back-bone chain of
the Andes is being elevated out of the sea, the torrents and cataracts
are pouring down from its sides immense quantities of crumbled rock and
pasty mud, which, deposited upon the vast tabular field, brought by the
upheaving just to the level of the sea, forms that grand alluvial plain
unequalled on the face of the globe for extent, which is clothed with
the mighty forests of Guiana and Brazil, or with the tall grass and
thistles of the Pampas. The torrents still fall; and, meandering through
this glorious plain, unite and form the most majestic of rivers, ever
depositing the rich alluvium, and thus sensibly augmenting, to this day,
the breadth of their noble continent, and their own length.

Strange creatures riot here in these primal ages. The young land, hot
and moist,--moist with the unevaporated water of the depositing rivers,
and hot with the influence of the submarine volcano which is lifting it,
as well as with the beams of the tropical sun,--brings forth from its
steaming bosom, the most gigantic trees in the most profuse luxuriance.
And animal life teems too, in this riant vegetation. Millions of
insects,--ants, and termites, and beetles,--are busy at work upon the
trunks of the great trees, eating them down, and swarming in their
immense populous nests, beyond all imaginings. Surely they will soon eat
up the entire forest, dense and rapid as it grows, and there will be
nothing left but cities of insects. No fear! See those great waddling
beasts[4] with stout short legs, and enormous hoof-like claws so bent
inward that the creatures are obliged to walk on the edge of their
paws,--they are equally busy with the insects, tearing apart with their
powerful claws the earthy nests as fast as they are built, and devouring
the makers themselves by wholesale. Here is a wonderful creature, a vast
armadillo, with a body as big as a rhinoceros, covered with a convex
oval shield, formed of hexagonal plates accurately fitted to each other.
See how he approaches a f