MEGATHERIUM CUVIERI.
We pass on into the third and lower division, and an entirely different class of existences now catch the eye. The huge mastodon, with his enormous length of body, and his tusks projecting from both upper and under jaw, stands erect in the middle of the floor,—a giant skeleton. We see beside him the great bones of the megatherium,—thigh bones eleven inches in diameter, and claw-armed toes more than two feet in length. There, too, ranged species beyond species, are the extinct elephants; and there the ponderous skull of the dinotherium, with the bent tusks in its lower jaw, that give to it the appearance of a great pickaxe, and that must have dug deeply of old amid the liliaceous roots and bulbs of the Tertiary lakes and rivers. There also are the massive heads and spreading horn-cores of the Bos primigenius, and the large bones and broad plank-like horns of the great Irish elk. And there too, in the same apartment, but leaning against its further wall,—last, as most recent, of all the objects of wonder in that great gallery,—is the famous human skeleton of Guadaloupe, standing out in bold relief from its slab of gray limestone. It occurs in the series, just as the series closes, a little beyond the mastodon and the mammoths; and, in its strange character as a fossil man, attracts the attention scarce less powerfully than the great Palæozoic plants, the great Secondary reptiles, or the great Tertiary mammals.
SKULL OF DINOTHERIUM GIGANTEUM.
(Miocene.)
I last passed through this wondrous gallery at the time when the attraction of the Great Exhibition had filled London with curious visitors from all parts of the empire; and a group of intelligent mechanics, fresh from some manufacturing town of the midland counties, were sauntering on through its chambers immediately before me. They stood amazed beneath the dragons of the Oolite and Lias; and, with more than the admiration and wonder of the disciples of old when contemplating the huge stones of the Temple, they turned to say, in almost the old words, "Lo! master, what manner of great beasts are these?" "These are," I replied, "the sea monsters and creeping things of the second great period of organic existence." The reply seemed satisfactory, and we passed on together to the terminal apartments of the range appropriated to the Tertiary organisms. And there, before the enormous mammals, the mechanics again stood in wonder, and turned to inquire. Anticipating the query, I said, "And these are the huge beasts of the earth, and the cattle of the third great period of organic existence; and yonder, in the same apartment, you see, but at its further end, is the famous fossil man of Guadaloupe, locked up by the petrifactive agencies in a slab of limestone." The mechanics again seemed satisfied. And, of course, had I encountered them in the first chamber of the suite, and had they questioned me respecting the organisms with which it is occupied, I would have told them that they were the remains of the herbs and trees of the first great period of organic existence. But in the chamber of the mammals we parted, and I saw them no more.
There could not be a simpler incident. And yet, rightly apprehended, it reads its lesson. You have all visited the scene of it, and must all have been struck by the three salient points, if I may so speak, by which that noble gallery lays strongest hold of the memory, and most powerfully impresses the imagination,—by its gigantic plants of the first period (imperfectly as these are represented in the collection), by its strange misproportioned sea monsters and creeping things of the second, and by its huge mammals of the third. Amid many thousand various objects, and a perplexing multiplicity of detail, which it would require the patient study of years even partially to classify and know, these are the great prominent features of the gallery, that involuntarily, on the part of the visitor, force themselves on his attention. They at once pressed themselves on the attention of the intelligent though unscientific mechanics, and, I doubt not, still dwell vividly in their recollections; and I now ask you, when you again visit the national museum, and verify the fact of the great prominence of these classes of objects, to bear in mind, that the gallery in which they occur represents, both in the order and character of its contents, the course of creation. I ask you to remember that, had there been human eyes on earth during the Palæozoic, Secondary, and Tertiary periods, they would have been filled in succession by the great plants, the great reptiles, and the great mammals, just as those of the mechanics were filled by them in the museum. As the sun and moon, when they first became visible in the heavens, would have seemed to human eyes—had there been human eyes to see—not only the greatest of the celestial lights, but peculiarly the prominent objects of the epoch in which they appeared, so would these plants, reptiles, and mammals, have seemed in succession the prominent objects of the several epochs in which they appeared. And, asking the geologist to say whether my replies to the mechanics were not, with all their simplicity, true to geological fact, and the theologian to say whether the statements which they embodied were not, with all their geology, true to the scriptural narrative, I ask further, whether (of course, making due allowance for the laxity of the terms botanic and zoological of a primitive language unadapted to the niceties of botanic or zoologic science) the Mosaic account of creation could be rendered more essentially true, than we actually find it, to the history of creation geologically ascertained. If, taking the Mosaic days as equivalent to lengthened periods, we hold that, in giving their brief history, the inspired writer seized on but those salient points that, like the two great lights of the day and night, would have arrested most powerfully, during these periods, a human eye, we shall find the harmony of the two records complete. In your visit to the museum, I would yet further ask you to mark the place of the human skeleton in the great gallery. It stands—at least it stood only a few years ago—in the same apartment with the huge mammifers. And it is surely worthy of remark, that while in both the sacred and geologic records a strongly defined line separates between the period of plants and the succeeding periods of reptiles, and again between the period of reptiles and the succeeding period of mammals, no line in either record separates between this period of mammals and the human period. Man came into being as the lastborn of creation, just ere the close of that sixth day—the third and terminal period of organic creation—to which the great mammals belong. Let me yet further remark, that in each of these three great periods we find, with respect to the classes of existences, vegetable or animal, by which they were most prominently characterized, certain well marked culminating points together, if I may so express myself,—twilight periods of morning dawn and evening decline. The plants of the earlier and terminal systems of the Palæozoic division are few and small: it was only during the protracted eons of the Carboniferous period that they received their amazing development, unequalled in any previous or succeeding time.[16] In like manner, in the earlier or Triassic deposits of the Secondary division, the reptilian remains are comparatively inconsiderable; and they are almost equally so in its Cretaceous or later deposits. It was during those middle ages of the division, represented by its Liassic, Oolitic, and Wealden formations, that the class existed in that abundance which rendered it so peculiarly, above every other age, an age of creeping things and great sea monsters. And so also, in the Tertiary, regarded as but an early portion of the human division, there was a period of increase and diminution,—a morning and evening of mammalian life. The mammals of its early Eocene ages were comparatively small in bulk and low in standing; in its concluding ages, too, immediately ere the appearance of man, or just as he had appeared, they exhibited, both in size and number, a reduced and less imposing aspect. It was chiefly in its middle and latter, or Miocene, Pliocene, and Pleistocene ages, that the myriads of its huger giants,—its dinotheria, mastodons, and mammoths,—cumbered the soil. I, of course, restrict my remarks to the three periods of organic life, and have not inquired whether aught analogous to these mornings and evenings of increase and diminution need be sought after in any of the others.
Such are a few of the geological facts which lead me to believe that the days of the Mosaic account were great periods, not natural days; and be it remembered, that between the scheme of lengthened periods and the scheme of a merely local chaos, which existed no one knows how, and of a merely local creation, which had its scene no one knows where, geological science leaves us now no choice whatever. It has been urged, however, that this scheme of periods is irreconcileable with that Divine "reason" for the institution of the Sabbath which he who appointed the day of old has, in his goodness, vouchsafed to man. I have failed to see any force in the objection. God the Creator, who wrought during six periods, rested during the seventh period; and as we have no evidence whatever that he recommenced his work of creation,—as, on the contrary, man seems to be the last formed of creatures,—God may be resting still. The presumption is strong that his Sabbath is an extended period, not a natural day, and that the work of Redemption is his Sabbath day's work. And so I cannot see that it in the least interferes with the integrity of the reason rendered to read it as follows:—Work during six periods, and rest on the seventh; for in six periods the Lord created the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh period He rested. The Divine periods may have been very great,—the human periods very small; just as a vast continent or the huge earth itself is very great, and a map or geographical globe very small. But if in the map or globe the proportions be faithfully maintained, and the scale, though a minute one, be true in all its parts and applications, we pronounce the map or globe, notwithstanding the smallness of its size, a faithful copy. Were man's Sabbaths to be kept as enjoined, and in the Divine proportions, it would scarcely interfere with the logic of the "reason annexed to the fourth commandment," though in this matter, as in all others in which man can be an imitator of God, the imitation should be a miniature one.