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if the skeletons of some species, such as the Isa t is, chacal du Cap, had 
been examined. An astragalus was also found of some carnivorous 
animal, and which was a third smaller than it should be, to accord 
with the jaw just mentioned. Remains of tortoises, lacertse, and of 
other animals, have also been found in these quarries. 
It is a most important remark of M. Cuvier, that in a country so ex- 
tensive as that in which the quarries exist, and which reach more than 
twenty leagues from East to West, hardly any bones have been found 
but of one family, the pachydermata ; and that the small number of 
species not of this family should be there so extremely rare. 
Looking at the actual state of the globe, we find, as M. Cuvier ob- 
serves, that the countries which constitute the two great continents, 
taking, for example, the different countries of Europe and America, 
are inhabited by all the families of quadrupeds, according to the lati- 
tude and the nature of the soil, &c. 
But it is not so in the large islands ; and New Holland, in parti- 
cular, may, by its actual state, teach us what may have been the state 
of the country which was inhabited by the fossil animals of these 
quarries. Five-sixths of the quadrupeds of New Holland belong to 
one family only, Pedimanes, or marsupial quadrupeds. This exten- 
sive, but insulated region, shows us therefore, in the proportion of 
the several families of quadrupeds which inhabit it, something very 
similar to what existed formerly in the countries which were inha- 
bited by the animals of these quarries. In New Holland, besides the 
marsupial animals, a wild dog, two species of rats, and some bats 
only, have been found ; and in these quarries one carnivorous animal 
only has been found, and eight pachydermata. 
The following recapitulation, by M. Cuvier, of the history of fossil 
bones of pachydermata, found in alluvial soil, is, I conceive, suffi- 
ciently interesting, to authorize my placing it before you without 
abridgment. 
“ The loose soil which fills the bottom of valleys, and which covers 
