[Footnote 2: The huge fossil known as "Irish elk" is really a fallow deer and in no way nearly related to the moose.

A hundred years ago the singular insight of Linnaeus enabled him to say that "fossils are not the children but the parents of rocks," and the whole effect of the discoveries made since his time has been to compile a larger and larger commentary upon this text.

The opinion that the oldest known fossils are the earliest forms of life has no solid foundation.

He saw, being somewhat of a geologist and chemist, that they were not, as fossils usually are, carbonate of lime, but phosphate of limebone-earth.

These fossils are objects of adoration to the Hindoos: they fall on the S.W. side of the Himala mountains from an altitude which exceeds that of perpetual congelation: they are picked up by the natives, and religiously preserved, being concealed as much as possible from the scrutiny of Europeans.