PALAEONTOLOGY. 281 



hills which have been so zealously investigated by Cap- 

 tain Cuutlcy* and Dr. Falconer, and the Corderillas, whose 

 elevations are, probably, of very different epochs, contain 

 besides numerous Mastodons, the Sivatherium, and the gigantic 

 land tortoise of the primitive world (Colossochelys], which is 

 twelve feet in length, and six in height, and several extant 

 families, as elephants, rhinoceroses, and giraffes; and it is 

 a remarkable fact, that these remains are found in a zone 

 which still enjoys the same tropical climate, which must be 

 supposed to have prevailed at the period of the Mastodons. f 



Having thus passed in review both the inorganic forma- 

 tions of the earth's crust and the animal remains which 

 are contained within it, another branch of the history of 

 organic life still remains for our consideration, viz., the epoch of 

 vegetation, and the successive floras that have occurred 

 simultaneously with the increasing extent of the dry land and 

 the modifications of the atmosphere. The oldest transition 

 strata, as we have already observed, contain merely cellular 

 marine plants, and it is only in the devonian system that a few 

 cryptogainic forms of vascular plants (Calamites and Lyco- 

 podiacere), have been observed.;]; Nothing appears to corro- 

 borate the theoretical views that have been started regarding 

 the simplicity of primitive forms of organic life, or that 

 vegetable preceded animal life, and that the former was neces- 

 sarily dependent upon the latter. The existence of races of 

 men inhabiting the icy regions of the North Polar lands, and 

 whose nutriment is solely derived from fish and cetaceans, 

 shows the possibility of maintaining life independently of 

 vegetable substances. After the devonian system and the moun- 

 tain limestone, we come to a formation, the botanical analysis 



* [The fossil fauna of the Sewalik range of hills, skirting the southern 

 base of the Himalaya, has proved more abundant in genera and species 

 of mammalia than that of any other region yet explored. As a general 

 expression of the leading features, it may be stated, that it appears to 

 have been composed of representative forms of all ages, from the oldest 

 of the tertiary period down to the modern; and of all the geographical 

 divisions of the Old Continent grouped together into one comprehensive 

 fauna. Fauna Antigua Sivaliensis, by Hugh Falconer, M.D., and 

 Major P. T. Cautleyj 2V. 



t Journal of the Asiatic Society, 1844, N"o. 15, p. 109. 



Beyrich, in Karsten's Archiv fur Mineralogie, 1844, bd. xviii. 

 s. 218. 



