GEOLOGY. 599 



of a legion of frightful rej)tiles : in the tertiary epoch these 

 had disappeared into the abysses of the globe, and peace- 

 ful and luxuriant nature was animated for the first time 

 with varied races of inoffensive mammals, which spread 

 over the whole earth from pole to pole. Among the 

 remains of these animals, dug out of the soil and recon- 

 structed by the skill of the anatomist, some astonish us 

 by their singular forms, others by their colossal size. The 

 creation of the present time seems to have quite degen- 

 erated when compared to these giants of the animal king- 

 dom! Hence, looking at its predominant feature, this 

 epoch might be called the epoch of the mammals. They 

 predominate throughout. 



In the course of ages the crust of the earth, augment- 

 ing in thickness as it steadily cooled down, had become 

 compact enough to intercept the central heat, and hence 

 the solar influence, making itself more and more felt, now 

 began to mark out the separate climates. 



The tertiary fauna displayed extreme richness, and 

 among the animals it ofters in profusion, the list of tliose 

 belonging to contemporary genera is visibly increased. 

 We find monkeys, bats, genets, marmots; and now for the 

 first time cetaceans appeared in the seas. 



But the most remarkable of all the animals of that day 

 were the Palseotheria and Anoplotheria, curious pachy- 

 derms which belong solely to this epoch and vanish utterly 

 with it. 



The Palgeotheria, with their heavy forms and small 

 trunk, resembled our tapirs. According to C-uvier, they 

 lived like them on the banks of rivers and lakes, as is 

 shown by the remains of lacustrine and fluviatile animals 

 scattered amid their calcareous winding-sheets. These 

 mammals, remarkable for having three toes on each foot, 



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