Notices of New Books. 



8267 



" The systematic order in the epoch of each class of animals. — It 

 is well known that each class of animals had its peculiar epoch, in 

 which it was supreme over other classes, and in which its forms or 

 kinds had the highest development of the organic structure of its own 

 class. In the following periods, up to the present one, the class above 

 mentioned reappeared successively in other species, which were smaller 

 in size or less highly endowed than those of its especial or most charac- 

 teristic epoch."— (P. 16). 



In connexion with this subject are several facts which scarcely 

 accord with the theory here explained, or at anyrate stand as stumbling- 

 blocks in the way of our accepting it in all its entirety, for instance 

 Dr. Lund, in his ' Brazilian Researches among Fossil Bones,' found 

 those of a diminutive sloth closely resembling, if not identical with, 

 the species still inhabiting the same regions ; hence we cannot consider 

 our diminutive sloths as Megatheriums and Mylodons reappearing of 

 a smaller size, but more probably the lineal descendants of those small 

 sloths which Lund assumes were synchronous with the gigantic Mega- 

 therium. In continuation and amplification of our author's view, he 

 thus continues : — 



" The connexion between the present epoch of animals and the 

 former epochs. — Geology has not only very much increased the know- 

 ledge of nature, by the discovery of many thousands of kinds of crea- 

 tures that have passed away, but has also enlarged the knowledge of 

 living animals, by showing that the latter, in their progressive growth, 

 have suppressed resemblances of the structures that were perfectly 

 developed in extinct creatures. Thus the knowledge of beings now 

 existing is incomplete without the knowledge of the beings of former 

 epochs ; and the transitory state of later creatures may be most com- 

 pletely studied in the permanent state of earlier creatures. 



" The change in structure. — The earlier change is most complete 

 and most outwardly manifest in a large part of the animal kingdom, 

 such as insects generally and some reptiles, in which the two successive 

 forms of the same creature seem to be completely different from each 

 other, and in which the transitory form appears for a long while to be 

 the final and perfect form. This change becomes successively more 

 and more inward throughout the ascending scale of creation." — 

 (Pp. 16—17)/ 



The next subject may be said to have been well " ventilated it is 

 now as trite and threadbare as it was once novel and glittering. 



" The earlier form of the higher creature corresponds with the 

 final form of the lower creature. — This discovery was made by John. 



