The Sun.
London, England, 1822-12-31 00:00:00

NATURAL HISTORY OF CHILI.

Dr MuNno) Professor of Anatomy in our Uni-
versity, has had transmitted to him by one of his old students,
a Chilian Government Gazette, of the 12th July last. It con-
tains an interesting communication addressed to the Supreme
Diredor of the Chilian Government by Don J. J. Dauxion
Lavayase, Director of the Museum of Natural Ilistory
at Santiago, relative to the fossil bones recently found
in South. America and other parts of the globe. He first
alludes to the human skeletons' which were dug out, of
a morass in the Province of . Conception, together with
the bones of some gigantic animals, whose species are
now extinct, and the bones of the Mammoth' discovered in a
similar situation near Philadelphia, in North America. Many
Celebrated naturalists, who have during the last 40 years, been
engaged in studying the comparative anatomy of these extinct
species, argue from the circumstance of no human bones hav-
ing been found under similar circumstances, that the Almighty
had created man at a period subsequent to the creation of the
brutes; and extending their theory yet farther, they assert,
that quadrupeds were not in existence for a considera-
ble time after vegetables, fishes, and reptiles were creat-
ed, thus impugning the revelation contained in the book
of Genesis. The most learned defenders of the Mosaic
and Christian revelations, however,' among whom 21.
Lavaysse places Bighop Horsley, Professor Eichhorn, of
Gottingen, and Mr. Jameson; our eminent Professor of Na-
tural History at Edinburgh, have shown, that the discoveries in
Astronomy and Natural History equally tend to-. corroborate
the acknowledged authenticity of the Scriptures. The author
of the communication, who appears to be a man of considerable
erudition andresearch, says, that he, along with 21. Gerard,
of Brussels, found, in the year 1804, by the sea shore,
in the Island of Guadaloupe' certain petrified human ske-
letons in a mass of the hardest calcareous carbonate, in-
terspersed with particles of coral. ill. Cuvier, the cele-
brated author of the Theory of the Eartt, ridicules the idea,
and says it was impossible; that they had been deceived by
Mistaking incrustations for' petrifactions ; that the best thing
they could do was to say they had merely found the fossil
man of Sehenzer ; and that it most have been nothing
else than a large Species of salaniander. But subsequent
diScoveries, and the specimens sent by 'Sir Alexander I.
Cochrane to the British Museum from Guadaloupe, in
1809, prove that Cuvier was himself mistaken. Ile then
mentions it as a fact sufficiently notorious at Buenos Ayres,
that when' the river Idgan overflows its banks, it washes
. up, near its confluence with the river' Plate, a bony shell,
or crustaceous case of a 'species of armadillo (tatou arrna-
dilla) of more than three yards in length (nms de tres varas de
largo) a species totally extinct in that country; In the peculiarstyle of Spanish composition, the author of the communication
concluiles that those Governments who patronise the sciences,
might immortalize thethselves by encouraging the investiga-
tion of the natural history of that part of the globe, which oars
to naturalists and philosophers a harvest equally rich and no.
vel. Ile therefore prays the assistance of the Chilian Govern-
ment to. furnish him with the means of investigating the natural
history of its provinces, not Merely beeause it would tend to
throw light on, and perhaps settle one of the most important
questions in geology and the theory of the earth, but because
they might thereby 'soon become independent of other States,
for various productions with which nature has so richly gifted
that fine Country. We understand a complete translation of
the whole of this curious article will appear' in the transactions
of the Wernerian Natural History Society.—( Edinburgh
Evening Courant.)