creation, and had a structure in conformity with their high office.
Since then the class has increased in its species, but has degenerated
to a less noble type.

In the next formation, the New Red Sandstone, reptiles make their
appearance. They are considered next to fishes in the zoological scale.
So nearly are they sometimes connected, that it is doubtful to which
class they belong. Many reptiles are also amphibious, adapted either to
water or land. The surface of the globe abounded in large flat, muddy
shores, and was suited to the new order of visitants called into
existence.

In the Oolite System, mostly consisting of calcareous beds, mammals make
their appearance. Some additions were made to the reptile form. One
animal (the behemite) appeared, but terminated in the next era. In the
following series of rocks mammals increase in abundance. The advance in
land animals is less marked, but considerable in the tertiary strata.
The tapir forms a conspicuous type. One animal of the kind was eighteen
feet long, and had a couple of tusks turning down from the lower jaw, by
which it could attach itself, like the walrus, to a bank, while its body
floated in the water. Many animals of a former period disappear, and are
replaced by others belonging to still existent families--elephant,
hippopotamus, and rhinoceros--though extinct as species. Some of these
forms are startling from their size. The great mastadon was a species of
elephant living on aquatic plants, and reaching the height of twelve
feet. The mammoth was another elephant, and supposed to have survived
till comparatively recent times. The megatherium is an incongruity of
nature, of gigantic proportions, yet ranking in a much humbler order
than the elephant, that of the edenta, to which the sloth, ant-eater,
and armadilla belong. The megatherium had a skeleton of enormous
solidity, with an armour-clad body, and five toes, terminating in huge
claws to grasp the branches on which it fed. Finally, beside the dog,
cat, squirrel, and bear, we have offered to us, for the first time,
oxen, deer, camel, and other specimens of the rumantia. Traces of the
quadrumane, or monkey, have been found in the older tertiaries of
France, India, and England. So that we may now be said to have arrived
at the zoological forms not long antecedent to the appearance of the
chief of all, bimana, or man, and shall here pause to consider the
conclusions of the author of the _Vestiges of Creati