The nearest approach among living animals to the form of these extinct aquatic quadrupeds, is found in the Tapirs that inhabit the warm regions of South America, Malacca, and Sumatara, and in the Daman of Africa. It is not easy to find a more eloquent and striking acknowledgment of the regularity and constancy of the systematic contrivances that pervade the animal remains of the fossil world, than is contained in Cuvier's Introduction to his account of the bones discovered in the gypsum quarries of the neighbourhood of Paris. It affords to persons unacquainted with the modern method of conducting physical researches, an example of the kind of evidence on which we found our conclusions, as to the form, character, and habits of extinct creatures that are known only through the medium of their The posterior molar teeth in the genus Anoplotherium resemble those of the rhinoceros; their feet are terminated by two large toes, like the ruminating animals, whilst the composition of their tarsus is like that of the camel. The place of this genus stands, in one respect, between the rhinoceros and the horse; and in another, between the hippopotamus, the hog, and the camel. Lophiodon. The Lophiodon is another lost genus, allied most nearly to the tapir and rhinoceros, and, in some respects, to the hippopotamus, and connected closely with the Palæotherium and Anoplotherium. Fifteen species of Lophiodon have been ascertained. Anthracotherium. The genius Anthracotherium was so called from its having been first discovered in the Tertiary coal, or Lignite of Cadibona in Liguria: it presents seven species, some of them approximating to the size and character of the hog; others approaching nearly to that of the hippopotamus. Cheropotamus. The Cheropotamus was an animal most nearly allied to the hogs; in some respects approaching the Babiroussa, and forming a link between the Anoplotherium and the Peccary. Adapis. The last of the extinct Pachydermata found in the gypsum quarries of Montmartre, is the Adapis. The form of this creature most nearly resembled that of a hedgehog, but it was three times the size of that animal: it seems to have formed a link connecting the Pachydermata with the Insectivorous Carnivora. 1 fossil remains. After stating by what slow grees the cabinets of Paris had been filled with innumerable fragments of bones of unknown animals, from the gypsum quarries of Mont Martre, Cuvier thus records the manner in which he applied himself to the task of reconstructing their skeletons. Having gradually ascertained that there were numerous species, belonging to many genera, "I at length found myself," says he, " as if placed in a charnel house, surrounded by mutilated fragments of many hundred skeletons, of more than twenty kinds of animals, piled confusedly around me: the task assigned me, was to restore them all to their origi nal position. At the voice of comparative anatomy, every bone, and fragment of a bone, resumed its place. I cannot find words to express the pleasure I experienced in seeing, as I discovered one character, how all the consequences, which I predicted from it, were successively confirmed ; the feet were found in accordance with the characters announced by the teeth; the teeth in harmony with those indicated beforehand by the feet; the bones of the legs and thighs, and every connecting portion of the extremities, were found set together precisely as I had arranged them, Defore my conjectures were verified by the discovery of the parts entire in short, each species was, as it were, reconstructed from a single one of its component elements." (Cuvier's Ossemens Fossiles, 1812, tom. iii. Introduction, p. 3, 4.) Thus, by placing before his readers the progress of his discovery, and restorations of unknown species and genera, in the same irregular succession in which they occurred to him, he derives from this disorder the strongest demonstration of the accuracy of the principles which formed his guide throughout the whole inquiry; the last found fragments confirming the conclusions he had drawn from those first brought to light, and his retrograde steps being as nothing, in comparison with his predictions which were verified. Discoveries thus conducted, demonstrate the constancy of the laws of co-existence that have ever pervaded all ani mated nature, and place these extinct genera in close connexion with the living orders of Mammalia. We may estimate the number of the animals collected in the gypsum of Mont Martre, from the fact, stated by Cuvier, that scarcely a block is taken from these quarries which does not disclose some fragment of a fossil skeleton. Millions of such bones, he adds, must have been destroyed, before attention was directed to the subject. The subjoined list of fossil animals found in the gypsum quarries of the neighbourhood of Paris, affords important information as to the population of this first lacustrine portion of the tertiary series.* (See Pl. 1. Figs. 73 to 96.) * LIST OF VERTEBRAL ANIMALS FOUND IN THE GYPSUM OF THE BASIN Carnivora Large Wolf, differing from any exist- Fox. Coatis (Nasua, Storr,) large Coati, now native of Racoon (Procyon, Storr,) North America. Genette (Genetta, Cuv., Viverra Genetta, Linn.,) Marsupialia. {Opossum, small (Didelphis, Linn.,) allied to the VOL. I.-7 of North and South America. Birds, nine or ten species, referable to the fol- can. Fresh-water Tortoises, Trionyx, Emys. Seven extinct species of extinct Genera. Extinct species belonging to existing genera. Agass. Besides the many extinct species, and existing genera of Mammalia that are enumerated in this list, the occurrence of nine or ten extinct species of fossil Birds in the Eocene period of the tertiary series, forms a striking phenomenon in the history of organic remains.* In this small number of species, we have seven genera; and these afford examples of four, out of the six great Orders into which the existing Class of Birds is divided, viz. Accipitres, Gallinaceæ, Gralla, and Palmipedes. Even the eggs of aquatic birds have been preserved in the lacustrine formations of Cournon, in Auvergne.† It appears that the animal kingdom was thus early established, on the same general principles that now prevail; not only did the four present Classes of Vertebrata exist; and among Mammalia, the Orders Pachydermata, Carnivora, Rodentia, and Marsupialia; but many of the genera also, into which living families are distributed, were associated together, in the same system of adaptations and relations, which they hold to each other in the actual creation. The Pachydermata and Rodentia were kept in check by the *The only remains of Birds yet noticed in strata of the Secondary series are the bones of some Wader, larger than a common Heron, found by Mr. Mantell in the fresh-water formation of Tilgate Forest. The bones at Stonesfield, once supposed to be derived from Birds, are now referred to Pterodactyles. A discovery has recently been made in America by Professor Hitchcock, of the footsteps of Birds in the New Red sandstone of the valley of the Connecticut, which he refers to at least seven species, all apparently Waders, having very long legs, and of various dimensions from the size of a Snipe, to twice the size of an Ostrich. (See Pl. 26a. 26b.) In the same Eocene formation with these eggs, there occur also the remains of two species of Anoplotherium, a Lophiodon, an Anthracotherium, a Hippopotamus, a ruminating animal, a Dog, a Martin, a Lagomys, a Rat, one or two Tortoises, a Crocodile, a Serpent or Lizard, and three or four species of Birds. These remains are dispersed singly, as if the animals from which they were derived had decomposed slowly and at different intervals, and thus fragments of their bodies had been lodged irregularly in various parts of the bottom of the ancient lake: these bones are sometimes broken, but never rolled. Carnivora-the Gallinaceous birds were controlled by the Accipitres. "Le Règne Animal, à ces époques reculées, était composé d'après les mêmes lois; il comprenoit les mêmes classes, less mêmes familles que de nos jours; et en effet, parmi les divers systèmes sur l'origine des êtres organisés, il n'en est pas de moins vraisemblable que celui qui en fait naître successivement les différens genres par des développomens ou des métamorphoses graduelles." (Cuvier, Oss. Foss. t. 3, p. 297.) This numerical preponderance of Pachydermata, among the earliest fossil Mammalia, beyond the proportion they bear among existing quadrupeds, is a remarkable fact, much insisted on by Cuvier; because it supplies, from the relics of a former world, many intermediate forms which do not occur in the present distribution of that important Order. As the living genera of Pachydermata are more widely separated from one another, than those of any other Order of Mammalia, it is important to fill these vacant intervals with the fossil genera of a former state of the earth; thus supplying links that appeared deficient in the grand continuous chain which connects all past and present forms of organic life, as parts of one great system of Creation.* * An account has recently been received from India of the discovery of an unknown and very curious fossil ruminating animal, nearly as large as an Elephant, which supplies a new and important link in the Order of Mammalia, between the Ruminantia and Pachydermata. A detailed description of this animal has been published by Dr. Falconer and Captain Cautley, who have given it the name of Savitherium, from the Sivalic or Sub-Himalayan range of hills in which it was found, between the Jumna and the Ganges. In size it exceeded the largest Rhinoceros. The head has been discovered nearly entire. The front of the skull is remarkably wide, and retains the bony cores of two short thick and straight horns, similar in position to those of the four-horned Antelope of Hindoostan. The nasal bones are salient in a degree without example among Ruminants, and exceeding in this respect those of the Rhinoceros, Tapir, and Palæotherium, the only herbivorous animals that have this sort of struc. |