GEOLOGY. 319 



of the chief forms of the terrestrial mammalia known in other parts of the 

 globe. 



The professor, in conclusion, referred to the character, as one natural con- 

 tinent, of the vast tract of dry land now artificially divided into Europe and 

 Asia; and he showed that all the fossil remains of quadrupeds from caves 

 and recent, tertiary strata in Europe, coeval with the ossiferous caA*es and 

 strata in Australia, belonged to genera which still had existing representa- 

 tives in Europe or Asia, such, e. g.,as the horse, the elephant, the rhinoceros, 

 oxen, deer, bears, hyaenas, felines, etc. The hippopotamus, indeed, had 

 become extinct in Asia, as in Europe, but still existed in Africa. He then 

 made a similar comparison between the aboriginal quadrupeds of South 

 America now living, such as the sloths, armadillos, ant-eaters, platyrhine, 

 monkeys, llamas, peccaris, and the fossil megatheroids, glyptodons, glosso- 

 theres, large fossil monkeys, MacranchenitE, and peccaris. Australia had 

 already yielded evidence of an analogous correspondence between its latest 

 extinct and its present mammalian fauna; and this was the more interesting 

 and striking on account of the very peculiar organization of the native quad- 

 rupeds of that division of the globe. The marsupials there represent analo- 

 gously the chief land quadrupeds of the larger continents; the Dasyures, 

 e. </., play the parts of the foxes and marten-cats ; the bandicoots (Perameles), 

 of the hedgehogs and shrews; the phalangers and koolas, of the squirrels 

 and monkeys; the wombats, of the beavers; the kangaroos, of the deer 

 tribe. 



The first collection of the mammalian fossils from the bone breccias of 

 the Australian caves had brought to light the former existence of large 

 species of existing marsupial genera, some of which, for example, the Tlnjla- 

 cinus and Sarcophilus, though now seemingly extinct in Australia proper, are 

 still represented by species in the adjacent island of Tasmania; the others 

 were fossil wombats, phalangers, potoroos, and kangaroos, but of different 

 species. The fossils of the herbivorous marsupialia were of young, or not 

 full-grown, animals, whence the Professor interred that they had been dragged 

 into the cave to be devoured. Subsequently, and at short intervals, fossils 

 had been obtained from pliocene strata, and these had demonstrated the 

 former existence of marsupial animals representing the great pachyderms 

 of Asia and the Megatherium of America, together with a marsupial beast 

 of prey, rivalling the lion or tiger in size, and equal to cope with the Dipro- 

 todon or Notothcriiun. 



Thus, it was shown that, with regard to the last extinct (pliocene) kinds, 

 as with the existing kinds of mammalia, particular forms were assigned to 

 particular continents or provinces; and, what was still more interesting and 

 suggestive, the same forms were restricted to the some provinces at a former 

 geological period as they are at the present day. 



ON THE PLEISTOCENE HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. 



In a communication by T. F. Jamieson, recently presented to the London 

 Geological Society by Sir R. I. Murchison, he expresses his opinion that the 

 following course of events may be supposed to have occurred in the Pleisto- 

 cene history of Scotland : First, a period when the country stood as high 

 as, or probably higher than, at present, with an extensive development of 

 glaciers and land ice, which polished and striated the subjacent rocks, trans- 

 ported many of the erratic blocks, destroyed the preexisting alluvium, and 



