133 
theory of Descent; as against the doctrine of special 
creation. 
These Edentata range through Asia, Africa, and 
America: and, as their means of progression, especially 
among the Sloths, are of the lowest order, to supply them 
with common ancestors, it would be neccessary to bridge 
the Continents of the hemispheres: and for their sake, 
and that of the Ostriches, which are ina like predicament, 
even this chasm in information has been filled up with 
conjectural’ Continents; such as Wallace’s Continent, 
bridging Celebes, and Madagascar, but not touching (for 
antagonistic reasons) Sumatra: but these tremendous 
necessities, to efface the Evolutionists’ dilemmas, find no 
favour at the Professor’s hands, who remarks, ‘‘ Zhere has 
been no lack of very bold combinations to bridge over the gap to 
cur undiscovered friends: ... but Geology has as yet not been 
able to say her ‘Vea’ to this.” 
Ali he can add for his third group is that many 
Edentates of gigantic size ‘‘¢zhabited the same tracts of 
land which are at present the abode of theiv evident successors, 
tf not descendants,’ and this distinction admitted by the 
most candid writer upon this subject, seems to suggest 
that the extinct species in the case of the Horse, and other 
families, may not be after all ancestors, but only predecessors. 
And lastly the hazarded theory of the Evolution of the 
Brazilian Sloths, from Diluvial giant ancestors, is dismissed 
as untenable with the pregnant remark, which appears 
to strike at the whole Darwinian hypothesis under which 
no ‘variation’ is too great, ‘the dimbs have attained extreme 
formation, which excludes every thought of their having 
been transmitted the one (Bradypode) from the other,” 
(Megatherioids.) 
So the record of the failure of the ancestral descent 
of the fourth group concludes, “We are again referred to 
