OF CREATION. 341 



in addition to its numerous marsupial animals, one 

 species which is considered to be a true Mastodon. 

 It is thus brought into relation with distant coun- 

 tries by a genus which forms a link between the 

 tribes inhabiting Europe, Asia, and Africa, and North 

 and South America. This fact is the more interest- 

 ing, since the widely spread and cosmopolitan animal 

 in question seems to have been amongst the last of 

 those mighty tenants of the earth that ceased to exist 

 immediately before man was introduced. 



Very few of the islands near Australia, except 

 Van Diemen's Land, and very few indeed of those 

 other islands which form the numerous archipelagos 

 of the eastern and southern seas, are sufficiently 

 well known, or have such an extent of superficial 

 detritus, that we could with any reason expect them 

 to furnish much palseontological evidence. New Zea- 

 land is, in point of fact, the only island from which 

 such remains have been obtained ; and the condition 

 of the bones, and the circumstances under which they 

 are found, render it impossible to state very decid- 

 edly in what bed they there occur. It is, however, 

 something to know that in these islands there existed 

 formerly, and possibly not very long ago, a consider- 

 able and important group of wingless birds, of which 

 one representative, the Apteryx, still remains, al- 

 though apparently that also will soon be lost. Many 

 extinct species of these strange animals have been 

 found in the gravel of the northern island, and they 

 vary greatly in size, some having been far larger than 

 the largest ostrich, while others were very small. In 

 all these the general character is nearly the same, the 

 animals being much stouter and more powerful in 



