FOSSIL MAMMALIA. 99 



the equator. They are not all the same, and no well authen- 

 ticated fact authorises us to believe that such transformations 

 ever take place, more especially in wild animals. Neither is 

 there any decided proof that the temperature of the northern 

 climates has changed very materially, since the era in which 

 those animals existed. The fossil species do not differ less 

 from the living, than certain existing animals of the north differ 

 from their congeners of the south. There is even proof that 

 some of them were destined to inhabit a cold climate, from their 

 having had, hke all northern animals, two sorts of hair, and a 

 wool next the skin. 



All these results, which hold good respecting the animal re- 

 mains discovered in the ancient alluvial strata, will not apply 

 to the lophiodons. Most part of their remains, perhaps all, 

 appertain to rocky strata of more ancient date. They form, 

 too, a connecting link between the tapirs and those more extra- 

 ordinary and ancient pachydermata, which it now becomes our 

 business to describe. 



CcvrEEiAN Fossil Pachydermata. 



Under this general title we shall describe the remaining ex- 

 tinct genera of this order, characterizing them by the name of 

 their illustrious and indefatigable describer, to whom all our 

 knowledge of them is exclusively due. In doing so, we only 

 mean to offer a small tribute of respect to one, to whose labo.- 

 rious researches, and invaluable services to the cause of science, 

 no language of ours can render adequate justice. 



The Baron declares, that when his attention was originally 

 drawn to the subject of fossil osteology, by the accidental view 

 of the remains of the elephant and bear, and the idea suggested 

 itself of applying the general rules of comparative anatomy to 

 the reconstruction and determination of the fossil species, he had 

 little notion that he was then treading on a soil replete with 

 relics of a far more extraordinary description than any he had 

 hitherto witnessed. He httle imagined that his labours were 



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