REVIEW— THE NATURALISTS LIBRARY. 
&c., and, he might have added, on the continents of North and 
South America. In South America, the bones of horses of a 
large size were discovered by Mr. Charles Darwin, naturalist to 
the “ Beagle,” in company with the remains of the megatherium, 
of immense bulk, and a huge mastodon, also parts of rodents, and 
a llama fully as large as the camel. Dr. Buckland discovered 
an astragalus, metacarpus, and metatarsus of the horse, in 
company with the remains of the elephas, primogenus, and of the 
fossil ox, that were brought home by Captain Beechy from the 
west coast of North America. 
To attempt, then, to prove the primitive seat of the first pair 
of horses by reference to the birth-place of man, would be quite 
unphilosophical, when it can be shewn that his introduction was 
of a far more recent period ; that, in fact, they occupied the 
earth’s surface for many thousands of years ere man ever placed 
his foot on the wondrous soil, or contended with them for do- 
minion. 
Col. Hamilton Smith does not appear to be aware of the fact, 
so plainly and distinctly stated by Darwin, that thousands of 
fossil bones of the horse have been found in the pampas of South 
America, that it is, in fact, the great sepulchre of their remains. 
And here he meets with the same difficulty in satisfactorily ex- 
plaining the death of the now fossil horse, while his contempo- 
rary congeners were left behind and are now found inhabiting 
the same plains, as he had in persuading himself that the destruc- 
tion of the mastodon, elephant, &c., during the post-tertiary 
period in England, was the effect of the simple and general laws 
of nature ; while their contemporaries, such as the horse, ox, and 
deer, the progenitors of the present existing races, are still found 
inhabiting its surface. It is a well known fact, beyond all 
question of dispute, that, when Columbus first visited the 
American shores, there was not a single animal found there 
having any reference to those in the old world ; and yet, in but 
a very few years afterwards, its plains were overrun with thou- 
sands and tens of thousands of horses, the successors of the stock 
introduced by the Spanish colonist. 
Without entering farther into the question, we may safely con- 
clude that certain races of living beings, suitable to peculiar con- 
ditions of the earth, have been created ; and when those types 
became no longer favourable to the continuance of such forms 
or organization, according to the natural laws by which the 
conditions of their races were determined, they disappeared, and 
were succeeded by new forms. 
Hence, at the period when the plains of our native country 
were occupied with elephants, mastodons, and horses, its rivers 
