150 FOSSIL MAMMALIA. 



discovery of which we are also indebted to the researches of 

 M. Cortesi. 



But what is far more singular than all this is, that there are 

 among the fossils three or four species so utterly dissimilar to 

 all the other cetacea, that it has been found necessary to form 

 them into a separate genus. 



The ziPHius, as we have seen, comprehended animals neither 

 altogether balaenae, nor cachalots, nor hyperoodontes. They 

 hold in the order cetacea a place analogous to that which the 

 mastodons, the palaeotheria, the anoplotheria, and the lophio- 

 dons hold among the pachydermata, and the megatherium and 

 the megalonyx among the edentata. Like these, they are, in 

 all probability, the relics of a destroyed creation, whose living 

 types it would be vain to seek for in our present world. 



These researches on the lost cetacea tend more and more to 

 confirm the opinion to which the examination of the fossil shells 

 had already conducted naturalists. From them it is still more 

 evident, that not only have the productions of the earth changed 

 with the revolutions of the globe, but also that the sea itself, 

 the principal agent of these revolutions, has not preserved the 

 same inhabitants : that when it formed those immense calca- 

 reous beds, replete with shells, almost all unknown in the 

 present day, the large mammifera which it supported were 

 different from its modern tenants of the same class. It appears 

 that their gigantic size and tremendous force did not avail them 

 better in resisting the catastrophes of their native element, than 

 did the robust proportions of the mastodon, the elephant, the 

 rhinoceros, or any other of those monstrous quadrupeds avail 

 their possessors in resisting the revolutions of the land. Whe- 

 ther it is in the power of man, or not, completely to extirpate 

 any race of animals, is doubtful ; but it is evident that where 

 man was not, nothing could have destroyed these numerous 

 and powerful tribes, but a grand and general convulsion of 

 nature. 



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