TIIE GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE HORSE. 73 
ally retiring. Then all the valleys were tidal lakes, as evidenced 
by the remains, which consist of crocodile, nautilus, turtles, Crus- 
tacea, and testacea ; and as the hills were uncovered vegetation 
succeeded, consisting of plants, the seeds and fruits of which are 
analogous to those growing in much warmer latitudes than ours 
at the present day, perhaps resembling that of Southern Africa. 
Thence he infers that the evidence bears out or supports the con- 
clusions at which he arrives, namely, that with the decrease of the 
level of the waters, the heat of the climate increased, until in the 
succeeding period, when the first of mammalia or hot-blooded animals 
appeared ; these are the palteotherium, anoplotherium, chiropothe- 
rium, lophiodon, &c., mostly resembling the tapir of the present day. 
Again a change : the ocean returned. Marine beings innumerable 
are found at this epoch, with the bones of the walrus and the whale. 
This in regular sequence again changed. The waters receded, and 
we then recognise that interesting period when the huge mastodon, 
the noble elephant, the rhinoceros, hippopotamus, hyena, tiger, boar, 
bear, wolf, deer, and horse, were the inhabitants of our now northern 
clime*. 
I have already illustrated in this paper the change from this epoch 
to the present, in attempting to unravel the history of the horse. 
The remarkable change of character in the British strata has 
for a long period attracted great attention with geologists ; but no 
one has brought forward such an interesting and satisfactory 
theory as Mr. Saull. He considers also that, in astronomy, he 
has both an explanation and a proof of his views, that, in the 
northern and southern hemispheres there is an alternate increase 
and diminution of the waters of the earth in successive periods of 
25,800 years, being those of the precession of the equinoxes, and 
arising from the same cause ; and he has satisfactorily established 
the proof of the change of situation in the pole of the earth by a 
number of places, which have changed their latitude and longitude 
within the last 200 years. 
It would be foreign to the subject to enter into the astronomical 
calculations by which Mr. Saull so easily solves enigmas that have 
for a long time embarrassed the geological world ; for it must be 
confessed that they account for, and are fully equal to explain, all 
the geological phenomena — all the formations, all the variety of 
strata, all the fossil remains, and all those circumstances which are 
inexplicable without it. 
The motions of the earth are still going on silently around us, 
like those that have passed ; and the fair regions which we now 
inhabit must, in the regular course of nature, be covered again by 
* Mr. Saull’s interesting museum, supposed to contain the largest private 
collection of fossil remains in the kingdom, is liberally opened to the public 
everyThursday morning at eleven o’clock : no introduction whatever is required. 
