APPENDIX. 347 



in all parts of the world that have been well explored, 

 including the Australasian continent. This last fact, 

 which has been confirmed by Professor Owen, is very 

 remarkable.* All the existing Mammals of that country 

 belong to the group of the Marsupials, and the fossil 

 Fauna presents the same character in all its species, 

 with the exception of the Mastodons, which thus seem 

 to have been true Cosmopolitans. This genus com- 

 prises, in the present day, about a dozen species, one 

 of which, the great Mastodon (M. giganteus,) was at 

 least as large as our largest elephants. The fossil 

 remains of Mastodons are of common occurrence ; and 

 the skeleton is often found entire, and in a vertical 



* Richard Owen, a corresponding member of the Institute, has 

 earned for himself the first rank among naturalists for his dis- 

 coveries in Anatomy and in Palaeontology. The nature, number, 

 and value of his labours have gained for him among his country- 

 men the title of the English Cuvier, by a similar figure of speech to 

 that which makes us name Laplace the French Newton. Professor 

 Owen's studies have been directed to nearly every department of the 

 animal kingdom ; and, amongst many other valuable contributions, 

 we are indebted to him for some very curious researches on several of 

 the rarest of our Molluscs, whose organisation was scarcely, if at all 

 understood. He has also made us completely acquainted with the 

 anatomical characters of the Marsupial Mammals ; but of all the 

 works of this learned naturalist, the most important perhaps are 

 those which refer to the history of fossil vertebrate animals, which 

 have placed their author at the head of all living palaeontologists. 

 In addition to a great number of special memoirs on the four 

 classes of this sub-kingdom, Professor Owen has published, under 

 the title of Odontography, a magnificent work on the teeth. In 

 studying the minute structure of these organs he has shown that we 

 may recognise the family, not unfrequently the genus, and some- 

 times even the species of a fish by the mere fragment of a tooth, 

 even where the original shape had been entirely destroyed by 

 friction. 



