Mobile register and journal., 1845-02-15
THE PREprorssoRs OF THE HUMAN RACE

meIt pilns tile uuNH ol tndt uhy more near.
 [Fnzers Magazine. | THE PREDEcEssoRs OF THE HUMAN RACE
 An article in the first number of the North British | Review has recently appeared, ascribed to Dr. Pye Smith. IL brings before us striking facts and solemn reasoning the various creations which phi-
 osophers suppose To have preceded the formation of | man. The doctor refers To the memoir read by Cu- ver in l7s6, al the first sitting of the National Inst- | Wte. "Oh the species of Fossil Elephants, com pared win Living Species," in winch he demon- states tha the fossil elephant differs from all living species, and that it is an extinct species now lost
 He undertook 10 prove the like with respect 10 other animals "May we ask," said he "why we find so many remins of unknown animals, whilst we can find none which we rank among the species which weknow? We may how probable it s that they nave all belonged to The bengs of world anterior ours-lo beings destroyed by revolutions of the earth, and to beings which have been replaced l by eXisttg species" t1 .Jf tHI ti .t -|-,
 Surrounded by the exuvioe of former creations, the task assigned to Cuvier, the article goes on to state, WIS to restore the fragments to their former positions. By great labor he succeeded in tracing their c'anectinn, and re established l68 vertebrated animals, which form fifty distinct genera, of which
 fifteen ale entire, new and reckoning the adtli, tons which have since been made. there IS reason to be- ieve Una the species of extinct animals are more nu- 1 merous tan the living ones. I..|
 But C,yer found that the differences of structure between ossis and recent animals increase with the age of the deposit in which the former are found and that these differences mark the age of the deposits themselves. As the primitive rocks exhibit no tra- ces of paits or animals, he concluded that there was a time wen no living beings existed upon the earth and tIat beIore the creation of man, the world was inhabitedby at least fhree different generations ol animals, which had been successyely created and | destroyed ....
 It is supposed with reason, if the subject be not too grand for feeble reason, that the creation of I1~ L..l. | .l.- that to devonr them. The stately Dine the 2 gantic eqaisetacee, and the lofty pam waved in the primeval forests, and the and the land were in- l iabited cnly by small number of marine mamma iia, and scarcely any of the terresial mammalia.
 We then srrIve al this startling conclusion, tha, among the earliest inhabitants of the globe were rep. tiles of enormous magnitude, the MegalosaurIs be- ing upwards of seventy feet long the lchyosaurus above thirty feet in length; the Ples,osaurus an ani- maj combining the trunk of ordinary quadruped, with neck like the body of serpent, the head of lizard, the teeth of crocodile and the paddles of \, whale; and the Pterodactyle the most extraordinary of extinct animals, uniting the character of bird, bat, d reptile, aud quaoruped! ~ In the second period the terrestrial mammalia in crease in number, and we have along with them nu merous Pachydermata animals with thick skins. other genera of aquatic animals, which dwelt on the margin of lakes and In the first of these ex tnct genera these species vary in sze from the Rhi- nocerus to 'he hog These and other species nea, ly hfiy m number, were discovered by Cuvcr in the fresh water formations of Montmarlre near Parls.
 In the third period lived the Mammoth the Mas todon the Hippopotamus, and those huge Sloths the Magatherium and the Megaonyx, the giants of the natural world, the grandest and the last specimens of that extraordinary population over which man ne- yer swayed the sceptre. lA'
 The lion and the tiger are supposed 10 be the sue cessers of the creatures last mentioned. Up 10 thIs stage, no of man or of his labors can be de- fasaf lad anIfh three periods have been succeeded by fourth, in which the Almighty placed man upon ihe earth, and created, his subjects and his servants those races of living beings which occupy the surface of our globe, and inhabit the depths of it's oceans.
 Referring 10 the Mosaic record of the creation the article to which have referred comes to this con- cuson: "The records of faith now stand on the sane level with the records of reason. Truth brought down from on high, llarnonses with truth excavated from below; and the humble Christian who refused to surrender his cherished volume to the taunts of reason, now holds it with firn,e, grasp, and the series of creations winch Science has revealed, but the hamburger of that latest exercise of divine power which gave birth to man. and placed hun over new anima world. IHlf's raf
 ''But the confirmation of the MosaIc account ofthS is not ihe only, ihe chief Jesuit of geological discovery The commencement of organ- c life in plants and animals of the first period and it's higher and progressive development in different orders of beings, leads us back to that beginning winch was SO long yelled from human reason: while the successive destruction of successive creations car ries forward to the terminus of our own period-to that sday of the Lord, when the heavens sha pass away with great noise and the elem shall melt with feryept heat, and the earth aIso and the works which are therein, shall be burned up'"
 The OmnipOtent may have designs to work out, of which we and all we hshold are but the preliminary instruments To US. il is possible, commanding be- ings will succeed,as different from us as the lion is from the megalosaurus, more superior to us than we are to the monkey. lNn1F
 We need say nothing to fix the readers mind on the reflections which follow: tF'i'ti '' ''
 'Should his apparently last period of animal life, be one in which man is to exercise his faculties in the investigation of his Makers works, the fossil geology ol the world we now inhabit will exhibit deposits no less interesting than those which embo- som tiie gigantic framework of mammolhs and mas- todons How interesting will be he excavations in which the bul jed cities of modern Europe will re ap pear in thelr ruined grandeur; how strange the dis covery of submerged naves embalmed in their ocean bedsI or the foundered ship with it's imprisoned skeetons or the battle field, with it's prosrats war rorsj or the hallowed cemelry, crowded with the relics of youth and age, and crushed beneath their tablets of marble. and their monuments of bronze''
 CHINESE DIPLOMATIC STYLE.-The following