100 MEMOIRS OF 



ation in the skeleton which could characterise 

 one race or variety. " There is nothing," to 

 use M. Cuvier's own words, ** which can in the 

 least support tlie opinion, that the new genera 

 which I and other naturalists have discovered or 

 established among fossils, the Paleotherium, the 

 Anoplotlierium, &c., have been the parent 

 stocks of some of the present animals, which 

 only differ from them in consequence of other 

 soil, climate," &c. Furtlier on he continues, — 

 ** When I maintain that stony strata contain the 

 bones of several genera, and moveable earths 

 those of several species which no longer exist, I 

 do not pretend that a new creation has been 

 necessary to produce the existing species. I 

 merely say that they did not exist in the places 

 where we now see them, and tliat they liave 

 come from elsewhere. For example, let us sup- 

 pose that a great irruption of the sea shall now 

 cover the continent of New Holland with a 

 mass of sand, or other debris ; the bodies of 

 kangaroos, wombats, dasyuri, perameles, flying 

 pnalangista:?, echidn^e, and ornithorynchi, will 

 be buried under it, and it will entirely destroy 

 every species of these genera, since none of 

 them now exist in other countries. Let this 

 same revolution dry up the sea which covers 



