2 FAUNA ANTIQUA SIVALENSIS, 



can admit of comparison with the valley of the Ganges. 

 Sugar, rice, cotton, and the golden fleece of the silkworm, 

 with numerous other industrial products, have from the 

 remotest antiquity been the common staples of the country, 

 and have been brought forth in such surprising abundance, 

 that other less-favoured nations could only embody the idea 

 by conceiving that the sands of India were strewed with gold. 

 So far down even as the days of the Roman empire, we find 

 Pliny describing siigar as a kind of honey which exuded natu- 

 rally from reeds in India, like a gum, but assuming the form 

 of a ciystal. To benefit suitably from such favoured circum- 

 stances, we find that the Indian variety of the Caucasian 

 branch of the human family has the most perfect develop- 

 ment of that physical conformation which is observed to be 

 associated with the highest capability for mental improvement. 



It is beside my object, on the present occasion, to do more 

 than barely allude to this line of research and its bearings, as 

 introductory to the subject I am desirous to bring before 

 you this evening, which is to take up the antiquarian history 

 of the animal races of India, back from the epoch where we 

 lose all indications of mankind. 



There is a point up to which we can follow man back 

 through the records of language and art and the shadowy 

 indications of mythology and tradition, but beyond which we 

 cannot go. Every trace of the human race then fails us; and 

 if we wish to dive further into remote antiquity we have to 

 fall back on another order of antiquarian research, of the 

 highest interest, resting on monuments and inscriptions con- 

 structed by nature, more enduring than the colossal sculpture 

 of Elephanta, as legible as the scroll on the Bactrian coins, 

 and infinitely more certain in then- indications than language, 

 tradition, or mythology. 



The Colossochelys Atlas, or gigantic fossil tortoise of India, 

 discovered by Captain Cautley and myself, supplies a fit repre- 

 sentative of the tortoise, which sustained the elephant and the 

 infant world in the fables of the Pythagorean and Hindu cos- 

 mogonies. It is a point of great interest to trace back to a pro- 

 bable source a matter of belief like this, so widely connected 

 with the speculations of an early period of the human race. 



You are aware that at the present day every climate and 

 every great division of the globe are characterized by their 

 peculiar race of animals. So constant are the laws which 

 regulate this distribution that, if told of the existence of 

 certain species, we can predicate with confidence regarding 

 the temperature of a country, and the general character of 

 the vegetation with which they are associated. ISTature, uni- 

 form in the operation of her laws, has followed the same 



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