THEORY OF THE EARTH. 279 



of elevated chains, in which we do not find 

 that our animals have left any traces of their ex- 

 istence. 



The researches of M. Adolphe Brongniart have 

 also made known to us the nature of the vege- 

 tables which covered those countries. In the 

 same strata with our palaeotheria, there have been 

 found trunks of palms, and many others of those 

 beautiful plants whose genera now only grow in 

 warm climates. Palms, crocodiles, and trionyces 

 always occur in greater or less abundance where- 

 ever our ancient pachydermata are found *. 



The sea which had covered these lands and 

 destroyed their animals, left large deposits, which 

 still form at the present day, at no great depth, 

 the basis of our great plains : it had then retired 

 anew, and left immense surfaces to a new popula- 

 tion, whose remains are found in the sandy and 

 muddy deposits of all countries known. 



It is to this deposition from the sea, made in a 

 state of quiet, that certain fossil cetacea, very 

 much resembling those f our own days, should, 

 in my opinion, be referred ; a dolphin, allied to 

 our epaulard f , and a whale very like our ror- 

 quals |, both discovered in Lombardy by M. Cor- 



* See my " Researches/' vol. iii. p. 35}. et seq. 

 t Id. vol. v. part i. p. 309. J Id. p. 390. 



