.404« Geological Society, 



at first enveloped in a mass of hard stone, which had Iain as a 

 boulder in a water-course, but after much labour the covering of 

 stone was successfully removed, and the huge head now stands out 

 with its two horns in relief, the nasal bones being projected in a 

 free arch, and the molars on both sides of the jaw being singularly 

 perfect. This individual must have approached the elephant in size. 

 The genus Sivatherium, say the authors, is the more interesting, as 

 helping to fill up the important blank which has always intervened 

 between the ruminant and pachydermatous quadrupeds ; for it com- 

 bines the teeth and horns of a ruminant, with the lip, face, and 

 probably proboscis of a pachyderm. They also observe, that the 

 extinct mammiferous genera of Cuvier were all confined to the Pa- 

 chydermata, and no remarkable deviation from existing types had 

 been noticed by him among fossil ruminants, whereas the sivathe- 

 rium holds a perfectly isolated position, like the giraffe and the 

 camels, being widely remote from any other type. 



1 have not space to enter upon the warm discussion which has 

 arisen in France between MM. Blainville and GeofFroy St. Hilaire 

 respecting the amount of analogy which exists between the Siva- 

 therium and the Giraffe ; but I observe with pleasure that in the 

 course of that controversy those distinguished naturalists do justice 

 to the zeal and talents displayed by our countrymen Captain Caut- 

 ley and Dr. Falconer, and to the services which they have rendered 

 to science.* 



While these discoveries were made on the banks of the tributaries 

 of the Indus and the Ganges, Mr. Darwin was employed in col- 

 lecting the bones of large extinct mammalia, near the banks of the 

 Rio Plata, in the Pampas of Buenos Ayres and in Patagonia. Mr. 

 Owen has enabled me to announce to you in a few words some of 

 the most striking results which he has obtained from his exami- 

 nation of the specimens liberally presented by Mr. Darwin to the 

 College of Surgeons, and of which casts will soon be made for our 

 own and other public museums. In the first place, besides a cra- 

 nium with teeth of the Megatherium, Mr. Darwin has brought 

 home portions of another animal as large as an ox, and allied to the 

 Megatherium. Fragments of its armour are preserved, as well as 

 its jaws, femur, and other bones. There is also a third creature of 

 the order Edentata, and belonging to this same family of Dasypo- 

 didae, in the shape of a gigantic Armadillo, as large as a Tapir. Of 

 the ruminant order there is also a no less remarkable representative 

 in the remains of a gigantic Llama from the plains of Patagonia, 

 which must have been as large as a camel and with a longer neck : 

 and lastly, of the Rodentia there is the cranium of a huge animal of 

 the size of a rhinoceros, with some modification in the form of the 

 skull resembling that in the Wombat. 



These fossils, of which a description will shortly be given to the 

 Society by Messrs. Clift and Owen, establish the fact that the pe- 

 culiar type of organization which is now characteristic of the South 

 American mammalia has been developed on that continent for a 



* L. and E. Phil. Mag. vol. ix. p. 193, etseq. 



