OP PLANTS AND ANIMALS. 177 



Many of the animals peculiar to former eras have passed 

 away. The two great families of Ammonites and Belem- 

 nites are no more. A multitude of species of molluscs are 

 however found, which more or less resemble those of the 

 present era, some of them being in fact identical with those 

 in the adjacent seas. 



The most ancient of the tertiary deposits is characterized 

 by the presence of great pachyderms, or thick-skinned ani- 

 mals, among which we may mention the Paleotherium and 

 Anoplotherium, creatures which approached the rhinoceros 

 and tapir in the peculiarities of their organization. These 

 fossil mammalia were first found in the gypsum beds of the 

 Paris basin. Their bones were brought to Cuvier, who 

 re-constructed them, and thus laid the foundations of the 

 science of Paleontology. In these ancient tertiary deposits 

 the earliest remains of monkeys have also been detected. 



The animals of the most recent tertiary formations re- 

 semble, still more closely, those of the present epoch. The 

 fossil remains represent all the terrestrial and aquatic spe- 

 cies now living around us, and besides these, many -types 

 now extinct, some of them of monstrous size, such as the 

 mastodon, or fossil elephant, which is probably the last 

 large animal which became extinct prior to the creation of 

 man. 



By these revolutions of organic and inorganic nature 

 was the world finally fitted for the abode of man. In the 

 tertiary formations, which preceded the AGE OF MAN, no 

 human remains have been discovered, no skeletons except 

 those of the hitherto irrational denizens of the earth. Man 

 is, therefore, comparatively speaking, a recent creation. 



If we consider the men of the earliest time as children 

 in intellectual capacity, gradually advancing from a state 

 of the most brutal ignorance, to a clear and rational per- 



