358 ANNUAL OP SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



Macacus, (Macacus cocenus.) About the same time, the tertiary deposits 

 from the Himalayan mountains gave further evidence of the quadrumana ; 

 jaws, astragali, and some other parts of the skeleton having been found 

 completely petrified, and referable to the genus called Semnopithecus, 

 which was now restricted to the Asiatic continent. Dr. Lund discovered 

 in Brazil fossil remains of an extinct platyrhine monkey, surpassing any 

 known cebus or mycetes, in size similar to the platyrhines which were 

 now peculiar to South America. Lastly, in the middle of the tertiary 

 series in the south of France was discovered a fragment of the lower jaw, 

 proving that at that period some species of the long-armed ape (Hylo- 

 bates) must have existed. But no fossil human remains had been found 

 in the regularly deposited layers of any of the divisions of the tertiary 

 series. Human bones had been found in doubtful positions, geologically 

 considered, such as deserted mines and caves in the detritus at the bottom 

 of cliffs, but never in tranquil, undisturbed deposits participating in the 

 mineral characters of the undoubted fossils of those deposits, the petrified 

 negro skeletons in the calcareous concretes of Guadaloupe being un- 

 doubtedly of comparatively recent origin. Thus, therefore, (concluded 

 the professor,) in reference both to the unity of the human species, and to 

 the fact of man being the latest, as he was the highest, of all animal forms 

 upon our planet, the interpretations of God's works coincided with what 

 had been revealed to us as to our own origin and zoological relations in his 

 word. Of the nature of the creative acts by which the successive races 

 of animals were called into being we were ignorant. But this we know : 

 that, as the evidence of unity of plan testified to the oneness of the Crea- 

 tor, so the modifications of the plan for different modes of existence illus- 

 trated the beneficence of the Designer. Those structures, moreover, which 

 were at present incomprehensible as adaptations to a special end, were 

 made comprehensible on a higher principle, and a final purpose was 

 gained in relation to human intelligence ; for, in the instances where the 

 analogy of humanly-invented machines failed to explain the structure of a 

 divinely- created organ, such organ did not exist in vain, if its truer com- 

 prehension in relation to the divine idea led rational beings to a better con- 

 ception of their own origin and Creator. 



GUANO DEPOSITS OF THE ATLANTIC. 



It is now well known that the guano of the Chincha Islands and other 

 sources, under rainless skies, is a product of a peculiar fermentation, in 

 which ammoniacal salts and nitrogenoiis products are formed from a variety 

 of animal matter. Not only the dung, bodies and eggs of several varieties 

 of birds, but a large amount of flesh and bones of seals, make up the sub- 

 stance of the decomposing mass. 



On the islands of the Atlantic, the dung, bodies and eggs of birds are 

 found ; but the frequency of rain modifies the decomposition, so that the 

 resulting matter differs essentially from that of the Peruvian shores. It 



