MIOCENE CONTINENTS. 



321 



Past Changes of the Great Eastern Continent. — 

 Having thus briefly sketched the main features of the 

 existing faunas of Europe, Asia, and Africa, it will be 

 well, while their resemblances and differences are fresh 

 in our memory, to consider what evidence we have of 

 the changes which may have resulted in their present 

 condition. All these countries are so intimately con- 

 nected, that their past history is greatly elucidated by 

 the knowledge we possess of the tertiary fauna of 

 Europe and India ; and we shall find that when we 

 once obtain clear ideas of their mutual relations, we 

 shall be in a better position to study the history of 

 the remaining continents. 



Let us therefore go back to the Miocene or middle 

 tertiary epoch, and see what was then the distribution 

 of the higher, animals in these countries. Extensive 

 deposits, rich in animal remains of the Miocene age, occur 

 in France, Switzerland, Germany, Hungary, Greece; and 

 also in North- Western India at the Siwalik Hills, in 

 Central India in the Nerbudda Valley, in Burmah, and 

 in North China ; and over the whole of this immense 

 area we find a general agreement in the fossil mammalia, 

 indicating that this great continent was probably then, 

 as now, one continuous land. The next important geo- 

 graphical fact that meets us, is, that many of the largest 

 and most characteristic animals, now confined to the 

 tropics of the Oriental and Ethiopian regions, were then 

 abundant over much of the Palsearctic region. Elephants, 

 rhinoceroses, tapirs, horses, giraffes, antelopes, hysenas, 

 lions, as well as numerous apes and monkeys, ranged all 

 over Central Europe, and were often represented by a 

 greater variety of species than exist now. Antelopes 



Y 



