Chap. XX.J GENERAL SUCCESSION OF FORMER LIFE. 
483 
cliffs near Swanage. Though it is not in my power to enter into details 
illustrative of the characters of these curious little animals*, some of which 
have been described by that great authority, Owen, I may refer the reader 
to a lucid memoir by the late Dr. Falconer, in which, besides describing 
his Plagiaulax Becklesii and PI. minor, referred by him to herbivorous or 
frugivorous Marsupials, such as Hypsiprymnus Gaimardi f , he announced 
that the three Purbeck genera known up to that time were Spalacotherium 
and Triconodon, Owen, and Plagiaulax, Falconer. He further stated his 
belief in the existence of "at least seven or eight genera of Mammalia, 
some of them unquestionably Marsupialia, both predaceous and herbivorous, 
and others of them," he said, " conveying to my mind the impression, so 
far as the evidence goes, that they belong to the Placental Insectivora, 
having affinities more or less remote to existing types " i. 
Willingly granting to Sir C. Lyell great credit for having anticipated the 
advent § of the Mammals disinterred by Mr. Beckles, I must be permitted 
to say that, in my opinion, this discovery does not in any way invalidate 
the general inference of an advance in creation, as based upon the broad 
data reiterated in this work, and derived from observation in many parts 
of the world. 
Let me entreat the reader not to be led, by the reasoning of physiolo- 
gists, and through any appeal to minute structural affinities, to impugn the 
clear and broad facts of a succession from lower to higher grades of life in 
each formation. Let no one imagine that, because the bony characters in 
the jaw and teeth of the Purbeck Plagiaulax are " such as the comparative 
anatomist might have expected to find among existing Marsupials," and 
the animal is therefore far removed from the first or embryonic idea 
of the archetype, or is a specialized rather than a generalized form, such 
an argument disturbs the successional order of distinct Classes as seen in 
the crust of the earth. 
Leaving, however, the physiological doctrine to be worked out by others, 
I repeat that the Stonesfield and Purbeck discoveries are directly in accord- 
ance with the views of those geologists who, like myself, recognize distinct 
proofs of the successive appearance of each great Class of Animals. The 
reader must therefore recollect that, whilst the most laborious endeavours 
during the last thirty-three years have failed to detect the trace of a 
Mammal in the earlier formations treated of in this volume, the Purbeck 
strata, in which the remains of minute creatures of that class are first 
found in abundance, are as modern in the eyes of a ' Pakeozoic ' inquirer, 
as they are venerable in the estimation of the geologist whose studies of the 
* One of these little creatures was stated by 
the late Dr. Falconer to be of about the size of 
the Pigmy Flying Opossum. I was informed by 
Dr. Falconer that he found among the Purbeck 
fossils collected by Mr. Eeckles abundant remains 
of a Thecodont Saurian, to which he applied the 
designation of Sauraschumodon. We thus learn 
that the mere presence of a Thecodont Saurian is 
no proof of the age of the deposit, since remains 
of this family of Eeptiles range from the Permian 
to the termination of the Oolitic series. 
t Quart. Journ. G-eol. Soc. 1857, p. 261. 
I Loc. cit. p. 262. 
\ See 'Manual of Elementary Geology,' 3rd 
edit. p. 236. 
2 i 2 
