THE FARMERS' REGISTER. 



431 



THE GEOLOGICAL. HISTOaY OF THE HORSE. 



By Mr. W. C. Karkeek, V. S., Truro. 



(From the Veterinarian,) 



To (race the history of remote events, and to 

 investigate the oritrin olonr domesiicaled animals, 

 has given occupation to the highest talents ; and 

 in this interesting inquiry, mouldering records, 

 decaying monuments, labulous legends, and the 

 sibylline leaves of tradition, have yielded their 

 respective tributes. But still the details, even 

 of probable history, carry us back but a little way 

 jiito the dark recesses of antiquity, and we soon 

 reach the epoch when truth and table are inse- 

 parably blended. 



The natural historian and natural theologian 

 have hitherto exclusively confined their attention 

 to one volume of nature's history — that which 

 relates to the present order of things ; and man is 

 regarded by them as the undisputed sovereign 

 of the world around him -the cattle on a thousand 

 hills are supposed to be at his disposal — the 

 mighty deep yields its treasures to his skill — the 

 savage denizens of the mountain and the forest 

 are tributary to his power, and the magna charta 

 for these vested rights they find in the inspired 

 page. From the command to subdue the earth 

 and to exercise dominion over its tenants, they 

 draw the inference, that their only purpose was 

 to increase his luxuries, and that they were 

 created for no other use than that they might be 

 subservient to his destructive propensities. 



These views of the uses of the animal world, 

 so long universally received, have been of late 

 singularly modified by the light of modern science ; 

 lor within the bowels of the earth the geologist 

 has discovered a series of engravings, more or less 

 injured and imperfect, yet all executed by the 

 same hand, and bearing the manifest impress of 

 the same mighty mind, which distinctly inform 

 us of the characters and habits of races, some of 

 ihem extinct and some still existing, which occu- 

 pied its surface for many thousands of years ere 

 man ever placed his foot on this wondrous soil, 

 or contended with them for dominion. 



To trace, then, the ancient history of the horse 

 and his contemporary congeners, we must first 

 take a slight glance at those engravings which 

 have been discovered in the different strata of the 

 earth, and which, like the brain ol Toiuihstone, 

 J' is crammed with observation, the which it vents 

 in mangled form." 



Without embarrassing ourselves with the his- 

 tory of the geological epocJis, we will briefly 

 advert (0 a few facts— that certain families of or- 

 ganic remains are found pervading strata of every 

 age, under nearly the same generic form which 

 they present amongst existing organizations. 

 Again, that other families, both of animals and 

 vegetables, are limited to particular formations, 

 there being certain points where entire groups 

 ceased to exist, and were replaced by others of a 

 different character. Ft is also a fact well to be ac- 

 quainted with, that animals and vegetables of the 

 lower classes prevailed chiefly at the commence- 

 ment of organic life, and that the more perfect 

 animals became more gradually abundant as the 

 world grew older. 



If we pass in succession from the ancient to the 

 modern epoch— from the regions of sterility and 



desolation to that in which animal and vegetable 

 lile were profusely developed, we find that the 

 first evidence of organic existence was, setting 

 aside the infusoria, a few/«a, mollusca, and poly- 

 pariaj these were followed by a large develope- 

 ment of the same order. In the succeeding pe- 

 riod, reptiles and insects appear, with sauroid 

 fishes, and an immense develo[)eraent of vegeta- 

 ble, iili', particularly ilie cryplogamia class, such 

 as mosses, ferns, &c. Large reptiles did not then 

 prevail to an extraordinary degree at this epoch, 

 in what are now the temperate regions ofsouthern 

 England, the weald nf Sussex and Dorsetshire for 

 example; but a very long time afterwards these 

 spots were peopled by monsters of an extraordi- 

 nary character, which stalked amid marshy forests 

 of a luxuriant tropical vegetation, or floated on 

 the genial waters. This state continued for a long 

 period of time, when another change took place, 

 and the country and its inhabitants were swept 

 away. An ocean had usurped its place ; and then 

 after ano'her long period of time, and the dry land 

 had again appeared, it became covered with 

 groves of forests, and herds of deer, and of oxen 

 of enormous size. Groups of elephants, masto- 

 dons, horses, and other herbivorous animals, oc- 

 cupied its plains; its rivers and marshes were 

 crowded with the hippopotamus, the tapir and 

 rhinoceros; and its forests afforded shelter to the 

 hyaena, the bear and the tiger. 



This is the period when the horse first appeared 

 on the stage of life, being the one subsequent to 

 the last grand catastrophe, as it is frequently but 

 incorrectly called, by which the earth was said to 

 be overwhelmed. 



"Ere Adam was, or Eve the apple ate." 



We must now confine ourselves more closely 

 to this particular period, being the one immedi- 

 ately antecedent to the present order of things. 



In almost every part of the globe, beneath the 

 present or modern alluvial soil, (which is a loose 

 strata constantly deposited by streams and rivers,) 

 extensive beds ofgravel, clay, and loam, are found 

 spread overthe plains, or in the flanksofthe moun- 

 tain chain, or in the crest ofranges of low elevation: 

 and in these accumulations of water-worn mate- 

 rials — termed by Dr. Buckland, diluvium, and 

 by Cuvier, alluvium— nre immense quantities of 

 the bones of large mammalia. These remains 

 belong principally to the mastodon and the ele- 

 phant, to various species of hippopotamus and 

 rhinoceros, to the horse, ox, deer, and many ex- 

 tinct genera ; while in caverns and fissures ofrocks, 

 filled with calcareous breccia, the skeletons of ti- 

 gers, boars, gigantic hyaenas, and other carnivo- 

 rous animals are imbedded. They have been 

 found alike in the tropical plains of India, and in 

 the frozen regions of Siberia, while there is no 

 considerable district of Great Britain in which some 

 traces of them do not occur. These remains are 

 not always found foorether. Cuvier, whose autho- 

 rity I quote, says, that the remains of the horse 

 have been found with the mastodon (an extinct 

 animal allied to the elephant) in America; with 

 the mastodon in Little Tartary, Siberia, Italy, and 

 France ; with the rhinoceros in France, Italy, 

 and Germany ; and with the rhinoceros, hip- 

 popotamus, hyaena, tiger, elephant, and a gigantic 

 species of cervus, in Great Britain. Capt. W. S- 

 Webb discovered the remains of the horse in a 



