Native Forest in Sumatra, with Elegant Specimens of Rafflesia
Hunting Excursion Through a Mangrove Forest
The Wine-Tree or Wine-Bearing Sago-Palm
Gigantic Puff-Ball of One Night's Growth
Panorama of Mont Blanc and Surrounding Mountains
Awful Catastrophe in the Chasms of Mont Blanc.

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The Mer de Glace-Famous Glacier of the Alps
Celebrated St. Bernard Dogs Rescuing a Traveler
Terrific Cyclone Hurling Columns of Desert Sand into the Air
The Huge Cuttle-Fish Attacking a Ship
Monstrous Polypus Met by the Steamship Alecto
A Monstrous Sea-Serpent as Described by Sailors

A Boat's Crew Attacking a Whale
Enormous Whale of the Arctic Regions
In the Jaws of the Great White Shark

The Hammer-Headed Shark .

The Angel Fish

The Pegasus Dragon

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Shower of Brilliant Meteors on the Ocean

Volcanic Craters on the Moon's Surface at Sunset

Part of the Moon's Crescent during the First Quarter
The Earth as Seen from the Moon

Singular Aspect of the Moon's Surface
Brilliant Aurora Borealis in the Arctic Seas
Auroral Flames in the Northern Sky

Ships Painted on the Sky by Atmospheric Refraction

Remarkable Appearances of Cloud-Land

Halos and Parhelia

Parhelia Observed by Gassendi

Parhelia Observed by Hevelius

Parhelia Observed in Tennessee
Intersection of Two Wave Systems
Ancient Sea-Serpent

Monster Attacking a Ship
Marine Dragon

The Bird Tree

Tree Producing Ducks

Carved Mandragora Roots

BOOK I.

THE EARTH.

CHAPTER I.

MARVELS OF THE ANTEDILUVIAN WORLD.

Curious Old Legends and Superstitions-A Chinese Quarryman-A Scandinavian God with his Sledge-Hammer-Strange things Seen by a Sybil-The Crust of the Earth a Museum of Singular Relics-Footprints and Skeletons of Gigantic Birds and Four-Footed Animals-Enormous Sizes and Uncouth Forms-Extinct Species of Animal Life-An Immense Fish Lizzard-Extraordinary Marine Reptile-A Wing-Fingered Monster-A Freak of Nature-A Fossil Reptile Sixty Feet Long-The Scaly Hylæosaurus-Discovery of the Mammoth-An Island of Bones-The Huge Dinotherium-A Bulky Creature that could neither Walk, Leap nor Climb-Natural History Printed on Leaves of Stone-Marks of Raindrops, Trees and Birds on Rocks-Fossil Remains of Myriads of Minute Beings-Layers of Various Kinds of Shells Forming Marble of Great BeautyWonders of a Drop of Water Under the Microscope.

HE scenes of creation astonish us, whether uplifting our look we gaze at the brilliant heavens, or cast our eyes upon the tiniest creatures of this lower realm. Immensity is everywhere. It stands revealed in the azure dome of heaven, where glows a perfect dust of stars, and in the living atom which hides from us the marvels of its organization. The ideas of the ancients respecting the birth of the world, and the origin of its wonderful forms of life, appear to us to be very singular. We find curious old traditions and legends, stories of mighty gods and enormous giants, who had something to do with the work of creation. There were strange fancies, too, concerning the shape of the earth, the boundaries of its lands and seas, the foundation on which it was built, and the movements of the heavenly bodies.

The Grecian picture of the creation, as we see it engraved on the shield of that famous warrior, Achilles, represents the earth as a flattened disk, surrounded everywhere, and in a circular form, by the sea, or rather by the river of ocean which defines the limits of the known world. Above this terrestrial disk the solid sky is outspread like a dome; a dome supported by two massive pillars, which rest on the god Atlas. A similar absurdity prevails among several ancient peoples. The Scandinavians balance the