Bellevue gazette. [volume] (Bellevue City, N.T. [i.e. Neb.]) 1856-1858, 1858-06-10

presents to us, not the details Of iutcrme-
date hfe, but the epochs Of successive cree
atoms and exiinctions. Ii shows US the
shadow Of that august Presence, as from
the secret chamber Of His eternal pur-
poses, lie passed over the face of the
earth, TO create a new race IN place OF n
that has run it's course. We can watch
the awful solitude that perpded what was
then all that existed of the new, busy con-
,inent Of North America. OF Europe
aud Asia, the then sole vestigcs were a
few islands rising above the level Of a
vast and surging sea. The Alps were
still but low ~promontories, and the now
fiery head Of Elna, not yet deserted by
the waters which washed into its crater,
had not commenced TO burn. The main
land of North America stopped at the
East with the A~lleghanles, and the wa
tiers penetrated Northwards into the val
ley of the Mississippi, nearly TO the
mouth OF the Arkansas 1t was in the
valley of the Missouri that life, in this
early tertiary period, first broke. There
in the rank Vegetation Of the river-bottoIn,
and under the shade of mammoth trees,
among swamps from which rose upwards
IN all their coarse strength, obelisk-llke
reeds, or terraces covered with immense
cone.bearing trees, and with forests of
ferns there, with CANNES adapted TO
seize upon the fish with which the waters
were filled, and grinding teeth, like the
elk, only vastly larger, so as TO cut thro'
the huge Vegetation, strobe the Oreodon,
a creature of an order between which
and all others, q definite chasm exists,
which nothing but a new creative power
could have passed. There were to be
seen mammalia of the pa~chydermal tribe,
twenty feet in length, and ten in hight,
with massive scales on their backs, and
Jaws five feet long, armed with teeth for
grinding and cutting flesh and bone as
well as for chewing cud. There, on the
~sem-aqueous earth, gifted with %amphibi-
Gus parts, which even now make the acute
mind of DIR. Leidy to hesitate as to the
order to which they really belonged, wad-
died or wallowed huge turtles (Testudo
Nebrascencis, Leidy), the remains Of
which weigh more than a tun.
All of these species, with their c1ntem-
poraries, preserve their individuality com
plete from the beginning to the end Of
this fossil history. They are identified
with nothing else, either before or after.
They begin with all their idiosyncrasies
entire, and they end with them such,
The last individ ial buried in this tertiary
grave has the same features as the first
but neither of them is the same as anything
else. There is no intermediate stage,
showing how they developed out of some
prior and simpler condition of animal life
or afterwards mstured into something ri.
per and more complex. On the contrary
they leap their individuality complete, into
existence, and leap with their individual
'ity in like manner complete, out of it. L
o is the sharp and clear fiat "AND Coz
MADE IL D%ssr ~ THE EARTH ArrEl
MS KIND" 1t is the history of n miracl,
e,graven by the divine hand upon the per
petual rocks.
1T will be seen, therefore, that there i
one other error which these fossils con
fute-,he theory of physiological develop
ment so wildly flung out by DIR. Oxen, a.
well as that more a~rtfully propounded by
the author Of the Nestiges of Creation
No lineage through prior eras can b
traced for the mammalia of Nebraska
None Of them, or no approaches to ther
have a place in the secondary period of tn
~geologists. When God created them, &
use the strong image of Sir Charles Lyell,
He threw away the die. The race WI
f1rmed on q mould by itself. "There
nothing 10 adopt the language of Agas
siz, when applied to another class, "lIls
parental descent connecting them 9Th
several periods.) The fishes of the Pa
eozoic age are in no respect the ancestor
of the reptiles of the secondary age, nc
does man descend from the mamma.
which preceded him IN the tertiary ag,
The link by which they are connected
of highe. and immateriai nature an
their connection is to be sought in the vie
of the Creator Himself"
OF the continuity, and at the same tin
the identity of the several families of Ii
Nebraska mammalia, the percep,iye ST
gacity of DIR. Leidy has furnished US vii
several illustrations which meet the on
objection which can be urged to the theor
Of miraculous creation. la the bad lands
Nebraska lie, not occasional specimens
animals swept there by some great estu'
ry. but the remains Of an entire rae
They form the family burying-ground
the early eocene tertiary. There is to
traced in their full delicacy all the mod
lalions from childhood to maturity, fro
maturity 10 old age. They venture to q
The limits of family variation, but tbs
never venture out of it. The cub and Il
dame, the infant and the adult, the your
rhinoceros, scarce able to sprawl on Il
ground, and the aged parent, hardly stroI
enough on lis crooked legs 70 support 4