INTKODUCTION. 3 



order in past time as we observe at present, and thrifty in 

 lier handiwork, has not merely created and extinguished 

 numerous successions of beings, but at the same time left 

 indelible records of each in the strata which constitute the 

 surface of the globe. We can trace by their fossil remains 

 the difiFerent faunas, from the oldest up to the existing crea- 

 tures. The further we go back into antiquity, we find the 

 animated races to differ more and more from what they are 

 at present ; and as we descend toward the human period, we 

 detect a progressive approach to the existing kinds of beings. 

 The order of succession has been followed out in Europe by 

 the concurrent labours of a vast number of observers, with 

 wonderful precision ; and the changes in the animals have 

 been shown to have been accompanied by corresponding al- 

 terations of climate, or of other physical conditions. We 

 have the most certain proofs that England had at one time 

 the heat of the tropics with a similar vegetation and tropical 

 animals ; and there are the strongest grounds to believe that 

 at a later period it was either covered with glaciers or 

 sheeted over with the drift-ice of an Arctic ocean. 



The smaller number of observers in tropical countries has 

 necessarily led to our knowledge in regard to them being in- 

 finitely less advanced than as regards Europe. But much 

 has been done lately in America and in India. Passing over 

 more remote periods, we shall now proceed to consider what 

 was the condition of the animated creation in the latter 

 country during the period which preceded the appearance of 

 the human race upon it. When the plains of Europe fed the 

 Mammoth, the Elasmotherium, and the Rhinoceros, and 

 America the Mastodon and the Megatherium, what were the 

 kinds of animals that then peopled India ? 



The evidences emj)loyed in inquiries of this nature, in lieu 

 of the monuments and inscriptions used by the ordinary an- 

 tiquary, are the fossil remains of extinct animals found in the 

 newer strata of the earth. But before entering upon them it 

 may be well to say a few words regarding the method uj)on 

 which the evidence is worked out. Every organised being is 

 made of a number of parts, which have a definite and con- 

 stant relation to each other and to the common functions of 

 the aggregate form. For instance, a predaceous animal like 

 the tiger can only live on flesh ; its alimentary apparatus is 

 constructed to digest this kind of food ; its jaws and teeth 

 are formed to act like a scissors in cutting it up ; its claws to 

 seize its prey and tear it to pieces ; its extremities are built 

 to enable it to spring; and in connection with the rest, it has 

 an instinct which leads it to lie in wait, or come stealthily 

 on its victim, and so on throughout its system. On the 



B 2 



