T1IKORY OF THE EARTH. 113 



Farther, when I maintain that the rocky beds 

 contain the bones of several genera, and the allu- 

 vial strata those of several species which no longer 

 exist, I do not assert that a new creation was re- 

 quired for producing the species existing at the 

 present day. T only say that they did not origi- 

 nally inhabit the places where we find them at 

 present, and that they must have come from some 

 other part of the globe. 



Let us suppose, for instance, that a great irrup- 

 tion of the sea were now to cover the continent of 

 New Holland with a coat of sand or other debris ; 

 it would bury the carcases of animals belonging 

 to the genera Kangurus, Phascolomys, Dasyu- 

 rus 9 Perameles, flying phalanger, echidna, and 

 ornithorynchus, and it would entirely destroy the 

 species of all these genera, since none of them ex- 

 ist now in any other country. 



Were the same revolution to lay dry the nu- 

 merous narrow straits which separate New Hol- 

 land from the continent of Asia, it would open a 

 road to the elephants, rhinoceroses, buffaloes, 

 horses, camels, and tigers, and to all the other 

 Asiatic quadrupeds, which would come to people 

 a land where they had been previously unknown. 



Were some future naturalist, after having 

 made himself well acquainted with this new race 

 of animals, to search below the surface on which 

 they live, he would find remains of quite a diffe- 

 rent nature. 



H 



