On the yalcnonotologt/ of South America. 8?1 



ceeded from general ones, whose influence has extended over 

 the whole globe. 



7. After the examination of the great geological facts of the 

 New World, these general causes, I conceive, may easily be 

 apprehended. In the last elevation of the Cordilleras, and 

 in the distribution of the fauna which has resulted therefrom, 

 we may from analogy conclude, that the annhilation of the 

 faunas, partial or complete, peculiar to each period or forma- 

 tion, always results from the amount of the dislocations at the 

 surface of the globe, caused by the retreat of matters result- 

 ing from the cooling down of the central parts of the earth, 

 and from the disturbance which these dislocations produced. 

 A system like that of the Andes, for example, 50^ in length, 

 of which we form our judgment from its height above the sur- 

 face, without dwelling upon the corresponding extent of its 

 sinking and depression in the depths of the ocean, must have 

 produced such a commotion in the water, from the displace- 

 ment of matter, that its effect must have been universal both 

 over sea and land. The latter must have been ravaged by the 

 removal of all terrestrial beings ; and the former, by the trans- 

 port of terrestrial debris, which must have suffocated not only 

 the animals desporting in the wide ocean, but also those which 

 were sedentary and on the coasts, by the deposit with which 

 they must have been covered. This explains at once the sepa- 

 ration of fossils into systems, and the separate extinction of 

 these, at each great geological formation. 



8. M. Elie de Beaumont has thrown out the sublime idea, 

 that the conclusion of each geological period was invariably 

 produced by the elevation of the different systems which fur- 

 row the surface of the globe. It will be observed, that the 

 several pala?ontological results observed in the New and Old 

 World, would entirely corroborate this opinion; that, more- 

 over, the results of these dislocations being so general through- 

 out the globe, and manifesting themselves at immense 

 distances, we ought to inquire, in these systems, ancient or 

 modern, for the causes of the annihilation of the numerous 

 fauna which have succeeded each other on the surface of our 

 planet. When in the neighbourhood of the localities in which 

 we now find these distinct faunas, nothing can be found in the 



