were not in the secret of the anagrammatic character of its title; and the
preface and dedication are so worded as, in case of necessity, to give the
printer a fair chance of falling back on the excuse that the work was
intended for a mere _jeu d'esprit_.

The speculations of the suppositious Indian sage, though quite as sound as
those of many a "Mosaic Geology," which sells exceedingly well, have no
great value if we consider them by the light of modern science. The waters
are supposed to have originally covered the whole globe; to have deposited
the rocky masses which compose its mountains by processes comparable to
those which are now forming mud, sand, and shingle; and then to have
gradually lowered their level, leaving the spoils of their animal and
vegetable inhabitants embedded in the strata. As the dry land appeared,
certain of the aquatic animals are supposed to have taken to it, and to
have become gradually adapted to terrestrial and aerial modes of existence.
But if we regard the general tenor and style of the reasoning in relation
to the state of knowledge of the day, two circumstances appear very well
worthy of remark. The first, that De Maillet had a notion of the
modifiability of living forms (though without any precise information on
the subject), and how such modifiability might account for the origin of
species; the second, that he very clearly apprehended the great modern
geological doctrine, so strongly insisted upon by Hutton, and so ably and
comprehensively expounded by Lyell, that we must look to existing causes
for the explanation of past geological events. Indeed, the following
passage of the preface, in which De Maillet is supposed to speak of the
Indian philosopher Telliamed, his _alter ego,_ might have been written
by the most philosophical uniformitarian of the present day:--

"Ce qu'il y a d'etonnant, est que pour arriver a ces connaissances il
semble avoir perverti l'ordre naturel, puisqu'au lieu de s'attacher d'abord