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EXTINCT MONSTERS 
the excitement of that in which, bit by bit, and year after year, 
one captures the elements for reconstructing the entire creature 
of which a single tooth or fragmentary bone may have initiated 
the quest ; in the course of which one fully realises, with more 
or less exactitude, the picture which the laws of correlation had 
led one to frame of an animal which may have passed out of 
existence long ages ago.” ^ Owen’s restoration, published in the 
Fig. 113. — Skeleton of a huge extinct marsupial, Diprotodon australis. 
(Restored after Owen.) 
above paper, is shown in Fig. 113. But, in the year 1893, a 
wonderful find was reported from Australia, which will, doubt- 
less, in time lead palaeontologists to a complete and thorough 
knowledge of this great and mysterious marsupial. The first 
announcement was a brief telegram in The Times ; but, later on, 
a letter appeared in The Scotsman, of September 14th, from 
Mr. William Kinmont. In the same enterprising newspaper 
1 Philosophical Transactions of the Boyal Society, vol. 160 (1870), p. 519. 
