FOSSIL MAMMALIA. 115 



sheep, goats, antelopes, camelopards, camels, &c., the Baron 

 declares, that in his researches he has been able to meet with 

 none. He does not say that, among such abundance of frag- 

 ments, there may not be some isolated piece belonging to one 

 of these genera, because from such pieces a genus cannot be 

 determined ; but he asserts that, in the course of twenty years 

 of constant research, both by himself and others, no frontal 

 bone, no nucleus of horn, no front part of the jaw, no occiput, 

 in short, no bone characteristic of one of these genera has been 

 discovered. This could never have happened, had they been but 

 a tenth part as numerous among the fossils as the deer or oxen. 



Pallas, indeed, mentions the horn of the antelope among the 

 Siberian fossils in the academy of St. Petersburgh ; and at the 

 British Museum, Camper took a drawing of a fragment of the 

 lower-jaw, which he judged to belong to the camel. But there 

 is no authentic testimony that these were genuine fossils, and 

 most probably they got into these respective collections by 

 some mistake. 



There is nothing in the actual state of the globe which can 

 explain the absence of these genera among the fossils. Climate 

 will not do it : for the antelopes, like the elephant and rhino- 

 ceros, are the natives of warm countries ; and the mouflon, the 

 chamois, and the wild goat, hke the ox and deer, are inhabi- 

 tants of the north. Nor is it difference of size, for there are 

 antelopes superior in stature to the stag, and the wild goat and 

 the mouflon are larger than the fossil roebuck ; to say nothing 

 of the diminutive rodentia and insectivora, whose littleness did 

 not prevent their detection. 



Amongst all these singularities, there is a fact perhaps still 

 more singular than the rest. The fossil ruminants appertain 

 precisely to the genera and sub-genera at present most common 

 in the northern climates ; to the aurochs, the musk-ox, the elk, 

 and the rein-deer : while the fossil pachydermata, the elephant, 

 the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, and the tapir, are limited at 

 present to the torrid zone. 



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