222 TYPES OF ORGANIZATION CONSTANT. 



how a large quadruped could so lately have sub- 

 sisted, in lat. 49° 15', on these wretched gravel 

 plains, with their stunted vegetation ; but the rela- 

 tionship of the Macrauchenia to the guanaco, now 

 an inhabitant of the most sterile parts, partly ex- 

 plains this difficulty. 



The relationship, though distant, between the 

 Macrauchenia and the Guanaco, between the Tox- 

 odon and the Capybara — the closer relationship 

 between the many extinct Edentata and the living 

 sloths, ant-eaters, and armadilloes, now so eminent- 

 ly characteristic of South American zoology — and 

 the still closer relationship between the fossil and 

 living species of Ctenomys and Hydrocheerus, are 

 most interesting facts. This relationship is shown 

 wonderfully — as wonderfully as between the fossil 

 and extinct Marsupial animals of Australia — by the 

 great collection lately brought to Em-ope from the 

 caves of Brazil by MM. Lund and Clausen. In 

 this collection there are extinct species of all the 

 thirty-two genera, excepting four, of the terrestrial 

 quadrupeds now inhabiting tlie provinces in which 

 the caves occur ; and the extinct species are much 

 more numerous than those now living : there are 

 fossil ant-eaters, armadilloes, tapirs, peccaries, gua- 

 nacos, opossums, and numerous South American 

 gnawers and monkeys, and other animals. This 

 wonderful relationship in the same continent be- 

 tween the dead and the living, will, I do not doubt, 

 hereafter throw more light on the appearance of 

 organic beings on our earth, and their disappear- 

 ance from it, than any other class of facts. 



It is impossible to reflect on the changed state of 

 the American continent without the deepest aston- 

 ishment. Formerly it must have swarmed with 

 gi'eat monsters : now we find mere pigmies, com- 

 pared with the antecedent allied races. If Buffon 



