246 Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



Diprotodon and Nototherium afford a similar contrast with the 

 Kangaroos of Australia, and the towering Dinornis and Palapteryx 

 with the small Apteryx of New Zealand. But the comparatively 

 diminutive aboriginal animals of South America, Australia and New 

 Zealand, which are the nearest allies of the gigantic extinct species 

 respectively characteristic of such tracts of dry land, are specifically 

 distinct, and usually by characters so well marked as to require a 

 subgeneric division, and such as no known or conceivable outward 

 influences could have progressively transmuted. Moreover, as in 

 England, for example, our Moles, Water-voles, Weasels, Foxes ^nd 

 Badgers, are of the same species as those that co-existed with the 

 Mammoth, Tichorrine Rhinoceros, Cave Hyaena, Bear, &c. ; so like- 

 wise the remains of small Sloths and Armadillos are found associated 

 with the Megatherium and Glyptodon in South America; the fossil 

 remains of ordinary Kangaroos and Wombats occur together with 

 those of gigantic herbivorous marsupials; and there is similar evidence 

 that the Apteryx existed with the Dinornis: and the author offered 

 the following suggestions as more applicable to or explanatory of the 

 ph'enomena than the theory of transmutation and degradation. He 

 observed, that in proportion to the bulk of an animal is the difficulty 

 of the contest which, as a living being, it has to maintain against 

 the surrounding influences which are ever tending to dissolve the 

 vital bond and subjugate the organised matter to the ordinary che- 

 mical and physical forces. Any changes, therefore, in the external 

 circumstances in which a species may have been created to exist, 

 will militate against that existence in probably a geometrical ratio 

 to the bulk of such species. If a dry season be gradually prolonged, 

 the large mammal wi:l suffer from the drought sooner than the 

 small one ; if such alteration of climate aft'ect the quantity of 

 vegetable food, the bulky Herbivore will first feel the effects of the 

 stinted nourishment ; if new enemies are introduced, the large and 

 conspicuous quadruped or bird will fall a prey, whilst the smaller 

 species might conceal themselves and escape. Smaller quadrupeds 

 are usually, also, more prolific than larger ones. The actual presence 

 therefore of small species of animals in countries where the larger 

 species of the same natural families formerly existed, is not to be 

 ascribed to any gradual diminution of the size of such larger animals, 

 but is the result of circumstances which may be illustrated by the 

 fable of the * oak and the reed ' ; the small animals have bent and 

 accommodated themselves to changes under which the larger species 

 have succumbed. 



XXXVI. Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



ON THE ARTIFICIAL PRODUCTION OF CRYSTALLIZED MINERALS. 

 BY M. EBELMEN*. 



nj'^HE author has continued his experiments upon the artificial pro- 



■^ duction of minerals. In his recent experiments, instead of the 



porcelain furnace he made use of one of Bapterosse's furnaces, the 



* An abstract of the author's former experiments was given in the April 

 Number for 1848. 



