ANCIENT ZOOLOGY. 
117 
connexion with the marks of teeth upon the bones, still remain¬ 
ing, and we consider further that the cave is so small that it is 
impossible that an elephant, a hippopotamus, or a rhinoceros, 
can have entered it; it is difficult for a candid man to refuse an 
acquiescence in the conclusions of Buckland—that this cave is a 
den of antedeluvian hyenas, who brought the bones into it for 
the purpose of feeding upon them, if so ; it follows that the 
northern part of England was dry land before the flood, and it 
becomes very probable that the same is true of the greater part 
of the existing continents. Caverns containing hones associated 
a good deal in the same way, though not in equal quantities, are 
found in France and Germany. We ma}’’ suppose therefore 
that the deluge destroyed the inhabitants, without altering great¬ 
ly the external features of the earth. 
ANCIENT ZOOLOGY. 
59. The ancient, appears to have been more favourable than the 
present condition of the earth, to the development of certain 
forms of animal life. The largest living lizard is the crocodile of 
the Nile, which when full grown, is from twenty-five to thirty, 
and individuals have been seen that were perhaps forty feet in 
length. The Megalosaurus, or Great Lizard, whose bones are 
imbedded in the strata of Stonesfield, twelve miles from Oxford, 
England, exceeded by one-third, the largest crocodile. The 
bones of the Iguanodon, (so called from the structure of his 
teeth, resembling those of the Iguana, a lizard inhabiting the 
West Indies, and indicating that he was herbivorous,) have been 
found in such numbers, in the south-eastern part of England, in 
Kent, and Sussex, as to furnish data for calculating the average 
size of this reptile. His length must have been upwards of sixty, 
and it is supposed that some individuals may have reached an 
hundred feet. 
Both these are from secondary formations : but it is the ter¬ 
tiary strata that afford the most ample materials for instituting a 
comparison between the zoology of the ancient, and that of the 
present earth. 
In the Eocene strata of the Paris Basin, the remains of Mam¬ 
malia are found in great quantities—first, or lowest, the 
marine races, dolphins, lamantins, and morses, and higher up, 
in the gypsum, terrestrial quadrupeds of the same family, but 
of extinct genera and species. The extinct genera detected and 
brought to light by Cuvier, received from him with reference to 
certain characters they were found to present, the names, of 
Palaeotheriun, Lophiodon, Anoplotheriun, Anthracotheriun, Clioe- 
ropotamus, and Adapis. The remains of extinct species of ex 
isting genera, indicate a great variety and abundance of animals 
of the order Pachydermata, including the elephant, rhinoceros, 
tapir, and camel. 
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