250 



the do^, the sheep, the goat, and the domestic horse ; afterwards it became wild 

 and spread over Europe as our own horses are now spreading over Australia. A 

 very near relation of the animal still lives in the small hill cattle of South Wales. 



I regret the tooth of the Rhinoceros tichorinus has been mislaid or lost ; but 

 at the time of its discovery I showed it to Mr. Symonds, who recognised it at 

 once. 



The remains of this species of rhinoceros, from their numbers and wide dis- 

 tribution, having roamed through the forests and perished in the floods of that 

 portion of the ancient continent which now forms the British Isles, the Rhinoceros 

 tichorinus, is characterised by the possession of a septum which insulates the one 

 nostril from the other, and stands in direct relation to the development of a very 

 large horn. 



The discovery of the carcass of this animal in 1771, preserved in the frozen 

 sand of the Wilouji, a tributary of the Lena, proves that, unlike all existing 

 species of the genus, its hide was without folds, and that it was fitted to endure a 

 climate of considerable severity by its clothing of hair. The remains swept down 

 by the Pleistocene floods, and stored away in the dens of the Carnivora, prove 

 that the animals of this species ranged in considerable numbers throughout the 

 continent of which the British Isles formed then a part. 



There is every reason to infer that it was during the glacial epoch, when 

 Europe was covered with ice, that Britain was separated from the Continent, and 

 that the floating ice of that period transported the Boulders, which we find strewn 

 over the country. The famous Pierre k Bot, 50 feet long by 20 feet wide, and 40 

 feet in height, weighing 3,000 tons, forms one of a great belt of moraine blocks at 

 a height of 800 feet above the level of the lake of Neuchatel. 



The general result has been that the whole of the regions of Britain have 

 literally been moulded by ice. That is to say, the country in many parts was bo 

 much ground by glacier-action on a continental scale that, though in later times 

 it has been scarred by atmospheric denudation, enough remains of the effects to 

 tell the greatness of the power of moving ice. 



Suddenly strip Greenland of its ice sheet and it would present a picture 

 something like Britain immediately after the close of this glacial period. We 

 have lately witnessed, on a small scale, an ice sheet that will help one to realise 

 the glacial period. 



To the lover of Nature it is interesting to know the forms of animals and 

 vegetable life which lived on the earth before the present genera and species ap- 

 peared ; to trace the likeness of an animal or plant in one that lived in far off 

 times (the units of the scale to measure such periods would be millions of years), 

 and to note the marvellous adaptation and fitness of every creature to the circum- 

 stances which prevailed during the epoch in which it had existence. 



And to the philosopher, and I would also say to the theologian, is it not 

 interesting and of the highest import to examine the evidences of the consistency 



