OF CREATION. 391 



of beings; or that, in other words, the indigenous 

 mammalian animals or quadrupeds existed in a con- 

 dition less removed from that of birds and rep- 

 tiles in Australia than in South America, in South 

 America than in Europe, in Europe than in South 

 Africa, and in South Africa than in Asia, since, in 

 the first-named district, he would find the marsupial 

 or pouched animals exclusively present, in the next 

 the edentates most characteristic,* in the third the 

 ruminants, in the fourth the pachyderms and car- 

 nivorous animals, and in the last the pachyderms, 

 Carnivora, and monkeys. Would he for this reason, 

 however, be justified in concluding that in either 

 case the kind of progress exhibited in Nature's works 

 would gradually bring out edentates from marsupials, 

 ruminants from edentates, carnivora from ruminants, 

 or monkeys from carnivora? We may safely o/sert 

 that such a conclusion would be false; nor is there, 

 in any case, the shadow of probability that progress 

 or development of this nature has ever existed. And 

 when, in examining rocks of different age, we dis- 

 cover marsupials in the oolite, what is the actual 

 evidence with regard to the other groups of quadru- 

 peds ? It is simply this, that in the next newer beds 

 in which the remains of quadrupeds appear, there are 

 marsupials, ruminants, pachyderms, carnivores, and 

 monkeys, indiscriminately mixed together; and with 

 regard to the three latter groups, it is not easy to de- 

 termine which of them was the truly characteristic 



* In Scnith America there is now not one indigenous species of the 

 hollow-horned ruminants (ox, sheep, goats, &c.), and the pachyderms 

 and Carnivora are few in number of species, and of small size. Thi? was 

 not the case, however, during the Tertiary period. 





