4TS 



VERTEBRATA. 



in South America. To these facts we mav add, in the words of the intelligent English traveler 

 Darwin, that "the Pampas may be regarded as one great sepulcher of lost quadrupeds." From 

 an examination of the soil, it appears that this immense prairie — now exhibiting a sea of waving 

 grass for eight hundred miles — occupies the site of what was once an immense bay or arm of the 

 M\i. In the countless ages of the past this has gradually been tilled by soil, and in this are em- 

 he. Ided the relies of these various races which have passed away. Not only are here found the 

 relics we have described, hut many others, including those of the Toxodon, strangely blending in 

 it-- structure some of the organic features of the rodentia, ruminantia, and cetacea, — those of 

 the Macra iifln aid, which alike resembled the tapir, the camel, and the giraffe; and many others 

 equally strange and wonderful. 



In listening to these and similar accounts, especially those which relate to the Mastodon, the 

 Mammoth, the Megalonix, the Iguanodon, and other giants of the geological ages, it is natural to 

 ask by what means did these creatures, the seeming masters as well as monsters of the world, 

 cease to exist? The answer is for the most part supplied by well known facts. In some 

 cases the earth has been Mihmergcd by convulsions of nature, sudden or slow, and its tenants 

 have been swallowed up in the sea; in others, there have been great changes of climate, render- 

 ing whole regions unlit, alike by their temperature and their productions, to sustain the animals 

 which before inhabited them. And, finally, it may he stated that all very large animals seem 

 destined, by a sort of necessity, to pass away. These enormous creatures were few in number 

 for the earth could not sustain many, and multitudes of smaller animals combined for the de- 

 struction of such as did exist, as they do now. It is true that in the eras to which we refer, Man, 





THE GLYPTODON ACCORDING TO THE DESIGNS OF W. HAWKINS. 





the great destroyer, was not there, hut there were lions, tigers, hyenas, and bears, to devour the 

 young, to attack and destroy the sick and disabled. There were myriads of animals to penetrate 

 the bowels and perforate the skin, to inflict disease and occasion death. "With combinations of 

 these and other creatures lay the strength of the world, and to them its dominion gradually 

 tends. In short, these enormous animals were not adapted to the earth, in its actual state 

 and so, by the laws of nature, some in one way and some in another, — they ceased to exist, leav- 

 ing no record but their bones. 



