"What next?" cried Media.

"The Ool, or Oily sandwich:--rare gormandizing then; for oily it was
called, because of fat old joints, and hams, and rounds, and barons of
sea-beeves and walrusses, which then crowned the stratum-board. All
piled together, glorious profusion!--fillets and briskets, rumps, and
saddles, and haunches; shoulder to shoulder, loin 'gainst sirloin,
ribs rapping knuckles, and quarter to none. And all these sandwiched
right over all that went before. Course after course, and course on
course, my lord; no time to clear the wreck; no stop nor let; lay on
and slash; cut, thrust, and come.

"Next the Chalk, or Coral sandwich; but no dry fare for that; made up
of rich side-courses,--eocene, miocene, and pliocene. The first was
wild game for the delicate,--bantam larks, curlews, quails, and flying
weazels; with a slight sprinkling of pilaus,--capons, pullets,
plovers, and garnished with petrels' eggs. Very savory, that, my lord.
The second side-course--miocene--was out of course, flesh after fowl:
marine mammalia,--seals, grampuses, and whales, served up with sea-
weed on their flanks, hearts and kidneys deviled, and fins and
flippers friccasied. All very thee, my lord. The third side-course,
the pliocene, was goodliest of all:--whole-roasted elephants,
rhinoceroses, and hippopotamuses, stuffed with boiled ostriches,
condors, cassowaries, turkeys. Also barbacued mastodons and
megatheriums, gallantly served up with fir-trees in their mouths, and
tails cock-billed.

"Thus fared the old diluvians: arrant gormandizers and beef-bolters.
We Mardians famish on the superficial strata of deposits; cracking our
jaws on walnuts, filberts, cocoa-nuts, and clams. My lord, I've done."