THE
OR,
FIRST LESSONS IN GEOLOGY,
AND
THE STUDY OF ORGANIC REMAINS.
VOL. I.
"If we look with wonder upon the great remains of human works, suchas the columns of Palmyra, broken in the midst of the desert; the templesof Pæstum, beautiful in the decay of twenty centuries; or the mutilatedfragments of Greek sculpture in the Acropolis of Athens, or in our ownmuseums, as proofs of the genius of artists, and power and riches of nationsnow past away; with how much deeper feeling of admiration must we considerthose grand monuments of nature which mark the revolutions of theGlobe; continents broken into islands; one land produced, another destroyed;the bottom of the ocean become a fertile soil; whole races of animals extinct,and the bones and exuviæ of one class covered with the remains of another;and upon the graves of past generations—the marble or rocky tombs, as itwere, of a former animated world—new generations rising, and order andharmony established, and a system of life and beauty produced out of chaosand death; proving the infinite power, wisdom, and goodness of the GreatCause of all things!"—Sir H. Davy.
MEDALS OF CREATION
THE
OR,
FIRST LESSONS IN GEOLOGY,
AND
THE STUDY OF ORGANIC REMAINS.
BY
GIDEON ALGERNON MANTELL, LL.D. F.R.S. V.P.G.S.
PRESIDENT OF THE WEST LONDON MEDICAL SOCIETY, ETC.AUTHOR OF THE WONDERS OF GEOLOGY, ETC.
"Voilà! une nouvelle espèce de médailles, beaucoup plus importantes,et incomparablement plus anciennes, que toutes celles des Grecs et desRemains!"—Knorr, Monumens des Catastrophes.
Gideon Algernon Mantell
IN TWO VOLS.—VOL. 1.
CONTAINING