As far as his own knowledge
went, he probably had but a very confused idea. And if we refer to the
poetic description in Psalm civ. 25, 26, we find "leviathan," though
distinctly a sea creature, still one of which the writer had only a
vague traditional idea, certainly not a _known_ Mediterranean dolphin,
for in Job xli. the same term is applied to the crocodile.]
We have every right, then, to say that the "tanninim" of the text may be
taken to refer to that great and remarkable age of Saurians which is not
only of very great importance in itself, but becomes doubly so when we
see its connection backward with the fishes, and forward through the
Pterodactyles to Odontoformae (_Apatornis_ and _Icthyornis_) and modern
winged birds (_Hesperonis_ for the Penguins); and through the
Dinosaurs[1] with the Saurornithes, with the _Dinornis_ and the
struthious birds; and through the Theriodonts with the mammalian
_carnivora_.
[Footnote 1: And perhaps the pachydermatous mammals (Nicholson,
"Zoology," p. 566).]
In that case the sequence of the two groups, plants and aquatic
animal-forms, is explained. They come almost together--plants being
probably actually the first, and mollusca, fishes, and saurians.
There is, further, no real dispute that the Saurians led up to the Aves,
and that the third group (of mammals) follows all the members of the
second group.
Pages:
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223