48 LECTURES 



but the great length of their account renders it impossi- 

 ble for me to enter upon such an extensive subject here. 



In this country we find the fossil or preserved remains 

 of mammals that flourished during the Quarternary 

 period in, first, marshes and bogs, where the heavier herbi- 

 vores were frequently mired; secondly, in the bone caves 

 where the carnivorous types most often occur, together 

 with the other large species as ungulates, rodents and 

 edentates. Lastly, many various species have been discov- 

 ered in the river gravels, especially in those of California. 

 Most of the Quarternary mammals are now extinct; they 

 were notably peculiar and often of great size. Some were 

 the direct ancestors of the mammalian types that now 

 exist; others had run their race and passed away without 

 leaving any descendants. Great mastodons and elephants 

 roamed over various parts of what is now the United 

 States. Superb specimens of these most perfectly pre- 

 served in their skeletal structure, have been taken in 

 New Jersey, New York and elsewhere. In one locality in 

 Kentucky over one hundred skeletons of mastodons were 

 obtained. Enormous bisons or buffaloes also existed over 

 the same areas, together with ponderous beavers and 

 gigantic horses. A great lion also roamed over the same 

 region, as did also a great elk, much exceeding in size 

 our now-existing elk of the Rocky Mountains. Many 

 other very remarkable forms also flourished, making to- 

 gether a list of far too great length for enumeration in the 

 present connection. 



Passing down rapidly next through the Tertiary sys- 

 tem of the Cenozoic age, we discover that the first mam- 

 mals of all arose at its dawn. They came in immense 

 numbers, in swarms, indicating that the revolutions then 

 going on on the earth gave rise to a marked rapidity of 

 change in the varied representatives of that group. Dur- 

 ing those times climates were adjusting themselves; 

 enormous and extensive migration of species was going 

 on; and as a result thereof an extinction of all those 

 forms which could not withstand the commingling of the 

 various geographical faunas. Herbivorous animals pre- 

 dominate but others are not wanting, and a vast array of 

 orders and species ranged over the central portion of this 

 country. Lemurne monkeys were even to be seen, though 

 the earlier forms of men had apparently not yet made 

 their appearance. Indeed it is the mid-regions of the 

 United States, and in the freshwater basins there found 

 that we find the very richest deposits wherein occur the 

 fullest records of the mammalian faunas of the Cenozoic 



