482 



OEIGIN AND DISTRIEUTION OF MAN. 



[Ch. XLIII. 



Miocene 



J k 



antecedent species nearly allied in bodily strncture, offers at 

 present to tlie geologist a field of somewhat unprofitable 

 speculation^ so long as the Pliocene and Post-Pliocene for- 

 mations of tropical Africa and India are still unexplored. 



r 



We are only beginnings by aid of paleontology^ to trace back 

 tlie passage through a series of gradational forms from 

 the living mammalia to those of the Pliocene and still 



period. But in this department of osteology^ 

 the evidence already obtained since the time of Cuvier, in 

 favour of transmutation^ is certainly very striking. By no 

 naturalist ha& its bearing been more clearly pointed out than 

 by M. Gaudry, who^ under the influence of the great teachers 

 who preceded him^ entered on the enquiry with a theoretical 

 bias directly opposed to the conclusions which he now so 

 ably advocates. In his b 

 found at Pikermi, near 



memoir 



Mount Pentelicus^ fourteen miles 

 east of Athens, he has pointed out the transition through 

 many intermediate forms of Upper Miocene species to others 

 of Pliocene and Post-Pliocene date, showing how each suc- 



iev many gaps 



ago. 



Having 



which existed only twenty or thirty years 

 myself had the advantage of seeing the original specimens 

 collected by this zealous geologist and now in the museum 

 of Paris, and having had the connecting links supplied by 



s 



om 



mor 



the evidence appealed to in favour of transmutation. But 



idy M. Gattdry's memoir 

 ' themselves, by a glance 

 family tvpes, in which i 



Miocene 



through Pliocene and Post-Pliocene to living genera and 



species is traced. 



In the list of proboscidians, for example, we behold chro- 

 nologically arranged more than thirty distinct species, be- 

 ffinnino* with the mastodons of the Middle Miocene Period, 



^ XT 



found in T'rance, and continued through those of the Upper 

 Miocene of Ava, the Sewalik Hills, Pikermi, and Eppelsheim, 

 to the Pliocene forms of Southern India, Italy, and England, 

 where both the mastodons and elephants occur. Finally we 



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