CORRESPONDENCE* 
527 
place in the Miocene to true ruminants, and to mammalia more closely resem- 
bling the existing fauna. It is not until the Pliocene period that we find mam- 
malia of the same species as the present. Some of the extinct forms, as the 
rhinoceros, elk, and ha?yna of Europe, lived down to the period when man existed 
with, and probably extu-pated them. At Abbeville, in France, and Kostritz, in 
Saxony, the remains of man are found in the same strata as the remains of thoso 
animals which are now confined to more tropical regions. The antiquity of the 
human race, as proved by the discoveries of M. Boucher de Perthes, is thus thrown 
back to a historically distant period, though a recent one geologically. As Prof. 
Owen says, " There seems to have been a time when life was not ; there may 
therefore be a period when it will cease to be" (p. 412). 
Professor Owen, after recapitulating the order in wliich animal hfe made its 
appearance upon earth, devotes much space to the subject of the extinction of 
■species, and points out many species of animals which are vanishiug befoi'e the 
!iward march of civilized man. The dodo has disappeai^ed from the Mascarene 
i slands within the last two hundred yeai's. The beaver, once common in Wales 
in the historical pei'iod, survives stiU in the back woods of America, and is rapidly 
becoming extinct. The chase in Europe has almost extirpated the races of bears, 
wild boars, wolves, elks, and wild oxen, which peopled om* Enghsh plains within 
liistoric times. The aurochs, descendant of the once formidable Bison prisons, 
is only preserved in Lithuania thi'ough the careful protection of the Emperor of 
Russia. The author of the present paper has been personally assured by an 
intelligent Moor, Hadj Ai'abi Ben-Is, that the breed of lions is rapidly verging 
towards extinction on the slopes of the greater and lesser Atlas. The elephants 
and rhinoceroses of Abbeville were contemporary with man, and most probably 
were extirpated by him. In the last century a colossal cetacean existed in enormous 
shoals in Behring's Straits, but lias since succumbed to the i-avages of the 
whalers. On the other hand, many species,of domestic animals, as, e. g., the 
horse, ox, sheep, &c., have been introduced by man into geographical situations 
remote from their original habitat. 
With respect to the momentous subject of the " mysterious coming into being" 
of species, which has been canvassed amongst scientific men for the last hundred 
years, it is my object to endeavour to lay the present state of the question clearly 
before your readers. 
The position in which the contending forces of special creationists and progres- 
sionists rest at present has little changed from those occupied by the great chiefs 
and antagonists of past science, Cuvier and Geoffrey St. Hilaire amongst palas- 
ontologists, Lvell and Sedgwick amongst geologists. The same creeds and 
watchwords are maintained by the hierarchs and generals of the day. But they 
are professed and given by different disciples, and by less obedient and even 
more nmtinous sentinels. It is impossible for the most " prepossessed unifoi-mi- 
tarian" to contend that there is not springing up at the present day a vast sec- 
tion of geologists who agree with Baden Powell in his memo fable declaration 
that " while those argmnents most commonly relied upon against transmutation 
are completely refuted, there is still no positive evidence to establish it as a 
demonstrated theory. Yet, as a mere philosopliical conjecture, the idea of 
transmutation of species, under adequate changes of condition, and in incalcu- 
lably long periods of time, seems supported by fair analogy aj;d probability." 
Whether obscured by the dazzling sophisms of over-zealous teleologists, or muti- 
lated in the corrupt elementary treatises of the day, the great morphological 
piinciples of unity of, and adherence to, archetype, and successional decelopment 
throughout geological time, proclaimed by Owen, St. Hilau'e, and De Blainville, 
seem fairly to have maintained their claim to be treated as legitimate postulates. 
The successive and special creations, "invented by Cuvier as Ovid invented 
metamorphoses," are no longer universally regarded as the way by which the 
enormous phenomena of living beings have been produced. The belief is rapidly 
increasing amongst biologists that the true appreciation of the causes which have 
originated such changes is to be arrived at by a careful examination of the phe- 
nomena exliibited by the lower animals; e. y., partheaoge^aesis^ and the alteniation 
