Gideon Algernon Mantell

“ Their most striking features would be the remains of Man, and the productions of human art—the domes of his temples, the columns of his palaces, the arches of his stupendous bridges of iron and stone, the ruins of his towns and cities, and the durable remains of his earthly tenement imbedded in the rocks and strata—these would be the "Medals of Creation" of the Human Epoch, and transmit to the remotest periods of time a faithful record of the present condition of the surface of the earth, and of its inhabitants. ”

“ Not a mote in the beam, not an herb on the mountain, not a pebble on the shore, not a seed far-blown into the wilderness, but contributes to the lore that seeks in all the true principle of life—the beautiful—the joyous—the immortal. ”

“ How marvellous are those laws, by which even the humblest types of organic existence are preserved though born amidst the sources of their destruction; and by which a species of immortality is given to generations, floating, as it were, like evanescent bubbles on a stream raised from the deepest caverns of the earth, and instantly losing what may be called its spirit in the atmosphere! ”

“ Slowly, imperceptibly, but incessantly, are the vital energies of the feeblest and minutest animal and vegetable existences separating from the element in which they live, the most enduring of mineral substances, silex—fabricating it into structures of the most exquisite forms and sculpturing, and thus adding to the accumulations of countless ages, which make up the sedimentary strata of the crust of the globe. ”

“ The proofs adduced of the remarkable characters impressed on the deposits that have been formed since the various races of mankind were distributed over the earth's surface, forbid the supposition that the absence of such vestiges can be attributable to their subsequent obliteration. While, therefore, we may reasonably expect to find fossil human remains in strata of much higher antiquity than those in which they have hitherto been observed, it does not seem probable that traces of man's existence will be met with in the most ancient tertiary formations. ”

“ If we endeavour to trace the order of succession, in which the extinct and existing types of animal and vegetable organization have appeared upon the face of our globe, as demonstrated by fossil remains, we at once perceive how imperfectly our knowledge enables us to present a true picture of the development of organic life as it existed in the remotest ages. Ascending from the Granite—that shroud which conceals for ever from human ken the earliest scenes of the earth’s physical drama—the first glimpses we obtain of animated nature are a few sea-weeds, shells, and Crustacea. ”

“ To the natural philosopher there is no natural object that is unimportant or trifling. From the least of Nature's works he may learn the greatest lessons. The fall of an apple to the ground may raise his thoughts to the laws which govern the revolutions of the planets in their orbits; or the situation of a pebble may afford him evidence of the state of the globe he inhabits, myriads of ages before his species became its denizens. ”

“ But whatever may be the result of future discoveries as to the relative age of the bone-deposits, or the existence or extinction of any of the colossal species of Moa, or the former extension of the race over countries now submerged, one astounding fact must ever remain unassailable—the vast preponderance of the class Aves or Birds, that prevailed, and which still prevails, in the fauna of New Zealand, to the almost entire exclusion of mammalia and reptiles. ”

“ Other discoveries of a like nature justify the conclusion, that at a period nearly as remote as historic chronology will permit us to assume, there must have been a human population spread over the British Isles. Their rude canoes, for the most part formed out of an oaken trunk, have been found in various parts of the country many feet below the accumulated alluvium, and accompanied with the rude tools of the fabricators, proving them to be the work of the aboriginal races, destitute of metallurgic arts, and supplying their simple wants with imperfect implements of horn and flint. ”

“ Deeply impressed with the conviction that it is of the highest importance the young and inquiring mind should have a correct idea of natural phenomena—that it should not be left to its own unaided efforts to unravel the mysteries of the beautiful world in which this first state of being is destined to be passed—or have its curiosity stifled or misled by unsatisfactory or erroneous conjectures—I have endeavoured in this little work to explain in a simple and attractive guise, some of the grand truths relating to the ancient physical history of our planet, which modern geology has established. ”

“ Every one knows that Sheppey is a small island about ten miles in length, lying at the mouth of the Thames, at the distance of between forty and fifty miles east from London; but every one does not know that the Isle of Sheppey is an inexhaustible mine of fossil treasures; and that from its cliffs, and on its shores, may be gathered innumerable relics of tropical plants, of quadrupeds, birds, serpents, turtles, fishes, crabs, lobsters, shells, &c. all belonging to species that now no longer exist. ”

“ The bones of the Irish Elk occur in the beds of marl which underlie the peat-bogs, and are generally very perfect, being stained more or less deeply by tannin and iron, and sometimes partially incrusted with pale blue phosphate of iron: even the marrow occasionally remains in the state of a fatty substance, which will burn with a clear lambent flame. Groups of skeletons have been found crowded together in a small space, with the skulls elevated and the antlers thrown back upon the shoulders, as if a herd of deer had fled for shelter, or been driven into a morass and perished on the spot. ”

“ In consequence of this deficiency of the essential characters on which the determinations of the botanist are founded, there exists a necessity for examining more minutely and accurately than has yet been done, the internal structure of recent plants; their habits of growth, the cicatrices or scars left on the stem by the leaves that are spontaneously shed, the different appearances which their fruits exhibit in their various stages of development—all these points must be minutely studied before we can obtain any certainty as to the identity of fossil and living species of plants. ”