292 Senry ^Yood'ward—Dawn of Life on the Earth. 



evidence in the remains of Elephants, Rhinoceroses, Hippopotami, &c., 

 that the Eastern Counties were stocked with herds of quite another 

 order from those which now occupy our pastures. 



Again, in the Suffolk and Antwerp Crag are preserved immense 

 stores of the bones of Whales and other Cetaceans, also remains of the 

 huge Dinotherium, with Tapirs and other land quadrupeds; whilst in 

 the London Clay we have relies of abundant subtropical vegetation, 

 evidenced by Palm-wood and fruits, with remains of numerous 

 extinct genera of animals, such as the Palceotherium, Anoplotheriiim, 

 and Xiphodon, allied to the Tapir, Horse, Hyrax, &c., with many 

 birds, including a large Struthious bird of the size of the living 

 Ostrich (Dasornis Londiniensis) , and an aquatic bird with dentigerous 

 mandibles, the Odontopteryx toliapicus; whilst the shores of the estuary 

 and sea into which these remains of terrestrial life were carried 

 was the home of Grocodilia, Chelonice, and Sharks ; with a Molluscan 

 Fauna rich in Volutes and other sea-snails, and teeming with Nautili, 

 Squids, and Cuttle-fishes, like the warmer subtropical seas of the 

 present day. 



We have in the Eocene series in this country only a trace of the 

 great Nummulitic formation which plays a far more conspicuous 

 part than any other Tertiary rock in the solid framework of the 

 earth's crust. On the Continent it becomes a great limestone for- 

 mation, and attains a thickness of many thousand feet, rising in the 

 Swiss Alps to a height of 10,000 feet above the sea. It occurs also 

 in the Pyrenees, and extends from the Alps to the Carpathians, and 

 is in full force in the North of Africa, as, for example, in Algeria 

 and Morocco. In Egypt, the quarries in this rock near Cairo 

 furnished the Pharoahs with building-stone for the Pyramids.^ It 

 extends into Asia, and across Persia, by Bagdad, to the mouths of 

 the Indus. It occurs in Cutch, and in the mountain ranges which 

 separate Scindefrom Persia,^,and forms tlie passes leading to Caboul. 

 In Thibet it has been found at an elevation of 16,500 feet above the 

 sea, and it has been followed as far as Eastern Bengal and the 

 frontiers of China. 



These vast masses of strata have resulted almost wholly from the 

 accumulation of the shells of Eoraminifera, one of the lowest forms 

 of animal life belonging to the Protozoa, and to. the same class as 

 the Eozoon Canadense, to be alluded to presently. 



Beneath these Tertiary beds, which partake most largely of the 

 forms of life we see around us to-day, we come upon a series of 

 strata known as the Cretaceous series, the thickest bed of which is 

 the Chalk, which at some places attains a depth of more than a 

 thousand feet, and covers an area as great as that of Europe.^ 



1 Herodotus mistook the Nummulites in the limestone of the Pyramids for Beans. 

 See also Exodus v. 12. 



2 A gigantic oval Nummulite (as large as a hen's egg), named Loftusia Persica 

 hy Messrs. Carpenter and Brady, was obtained in abundance by "W. K. Loftus, Esq., 

 in 1849-52 (during the progress of the commission appointed to demark the Turko- 

 Persian Frontier), at Kellapstun Pass near Du Pulun Bakhtiyari Mountains, Persia. 

 —Phil. Trans. ]869, p. 739, pi. 77-80. 



^ In the youngest bed, the Maestricht-chalk, we find the Mosasaurus, a great lizard, 



