Page:Geology and Mineralogy considered with reference to Natural Theology, 1837, volume 1.djvu/119

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It will be my present object to enter into such a minute investigation of some of the more remarkable parts of this animal, viewing them with a constant reference to a peculiar mode of life, as may lead to the recognition of a system of well connected contrivances, in the mechanism of a creature apparently the most monstrous, and seeming to present the most ill-assorted proportions, that occur throughout the entire range of the animal kingdom.

We have here before us a gigantic quadruped, (see Pl. 5, Fig. 1,) which at first sight appears not only ill-proportioned as a whole, but whose members also seem incongruous, and clumsy, if considered with a view to the functions and corresponding limbs of ordinary quadrupeds: let us only examine them with the aid of that clue, which is our best and essential guide in every investigation of the mechanism of the animal frame; let us first infer from the total composition and capabilities of the machinery, what was the general nature of the work it was destined to perform; and from the character of the most important parts, namely, the feet and teeth, make ourselves acquainted with the food these organs were adapted to procure and masticate; and we shall find every other member of the body acting in harmonious subordination to this chief purpose in the animal economy.

In the case of ordinary animals, the passage from one

in 1789 from Buenos Ayres to Madrid. Dr. Mitchell and Mr. Cooper have described, in the Annals of the Lyceum of Nat. Hist. of New York, May, 1824, some teeth and bones found in the marshes of the Isle of Skiddaway, on the coast of Georgia, which correspond with the skeleton at Madrid. Cuvier, Vol. V. part 2, p. 519.—In the year 1832, many parts of another skeleton were brought to England by Woodbine Parish, Esq. from the bed of the river Salado, near Buenos Ayres: these are placed in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in London, and will be described in the Trans. Geol. Soc. Lond. Vol. III. N. S. Part 3, by my friend Mr. Clift, a gentleman from whose great anatomical knowledge, I have derived most important aid, in my investigation of this animal.