THROUGH THE LOWER AND UPPER STRATA. 25 



extinct species, and several of them belong to extinct genera. A 

 very considerable number of the large fossil bones belong to the dif- 

 ferent genera and species of the order named by Cuvier Pachyder- 

 mata, or thick-skinned non-ruminant animals ; as the elephant, the 

 mastodon, the tapir, the hippopotamus, the rhinoceros, and the pa- 

 laeotherium. As these bones are found, very abundantly, in many 

 countries in northern Europe, the fact proves, either that the animals 

 were natives of cold and temperate climes, or that the temperature 

 of the earth has decreased. The entire body of an elephant, em- 

 bedded in ice, in Siberia, was found in the year 1799. Its skin was 

 covered with two kinds of coarse hair and a soft fur beneath, which 

 affords almost certain proof that the animal was an inhabitant of a 

 cold climate, or at least of one in which the winters were severe. 

 A similar defence against cold is provided for terrestrial quadrupeds 

 that inhabit cold countries, but is never observed in tropical climates, 

 except in mountainous regions that have a low temperature. The 

 author's attention was directed to this subject many years since ; and 

 in his " Observations on the Effect of Soil and Climate on Wool,^^ 

 he has stated instances of English long-woolled sheep casting their 

 fleece in hot climates, and becoming clothed with short coarse hair 

 like bristles. Bishop Heber, in his travels in the Himalayan moun- 

 tains, mentions a species of elephant which he saw there, not larger 

 than an ox, and " as shaggy as a poodle." He further states, " that 

 English dogs, brought to those mountains, acquire, in a winter or 

 two, the same short fine shawl wool, mixed with their own hair, 

 which distinguishes the indigenous animals of the country: the same 

 is, in a considerable degree, the case with horses." The fossil ele- 

 phant that was once a native of Europe, according to Cuvier, differ- 

 ed as much from the Asiatic or the African elephant as the horse 

 differs from the ass. Bones and teeth of extinct species of carnivo- 

 rous quadrupeds are most frequently found in caverns intermixed in 

 a broken slate, with bones of herbivorous animals. Since the time 

 that these bones have been examined by naturalists who have at- 

 tended to comparative anatomy, no vestiges of human remains have 

 been discovered ; nor have any of the bones of the animals which 

 approach nearest to man in structure, the Qitadrumana or monkeys, 

 been yet found with those of the more ancient inhabitants of the globe. 

 The vast diluvial beds of gravel and clay, and the upper strata in 

 Asia,* have, however, not yet been scientifically explored ; and both 

 sacred and profane writers agree in regarding the temperate regions 

 of that continent, as the cradle of the human race.f 



* In the diluvium near the river Irrawaddy, in Ava, Mr. Crawford has, recent- 

 ly, discovered numerous bones and teeth of two new species of mastodon, inter- 

 mixed with bones of the rhinoceros and hippopotamus. The bones are penetra- 

 ted with iron. 



t It has been conjectured, that the bones of man are more fragile and perisha- 

 fele than those of land quadrupeds; but this is contrary to experience: for it has 



4 



