The palaeontologist
was, by this time, able to speak as confidently about the animal
of the Belemnite, as Zadig was respecting the queen's spaniel.
He could give a very fair description of its external
appearance, and even enter pretty fully into the details of its
internal organisation, and yet could declare that neither he,
nor any one else, had ever seen one. And as the queen's spaniel
was found, so happily has the animal of the Belemnite; a few
exceptionally preserved specimens have been discovered, which
completely verify the retrospective prophecy of those who
interpreted the facts of the case by due application of the
method of Zadig.
These Belemnites flourished in prodigious abundance in the seas
of the mesozoic, or secondary, age of the world's geological
history; but no trace of them has been found in any of the
tertiary deposits, and they appear to have died out towards the
close of the mesozoic epoch. The method of Zadig, therefore,
applies in full force to the events of a period which is
immeasurably remote, which long preceded the origin of the most
conspicuous mountain masses of the present world, and the
deposition, at the bottom of the ocean, of the rocks which form
the greater part of the soil of our present continents.
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