LECTURES ON PALAEONTOLOGY, 
353 
indented with capes of basaltic boulders. The fossil in ques¬ 
tion included part of the right maxillary bone, with the last 
two molar teeth. The first of these presented the trenchant 
or carnassial type of crown ; the second was a small tuber¬ 
cular tooth, situated, as in the lion and tiger, on the inner 
side of the back part of the carnassial. The crown of the 
carnassial was two and a quarter inches in extent, that of 
the largest lion being one and a half inch ; the margin of this 
flesh-cutting tooth is straight in the fossil, not indented as in 
the lion. A portion of the right ramus of the lower jaw con¬ 
tained two teeth answering to those above, the carnassial 
with an even-cutting edge of one and a half inch in length; 
the tubercular, which is directly behind, is only half an inch 
long, and it is followed by the socket of a second still smaller 
molar. On closely comparing this fossil with the skulls of 
existing carnivorous animals of the placental and marsupial 
orders, Professor Owen concluded from the structure of the 
occiput, of the organ of hearing, and of the bony palate, and 
of the orbit in reference to the position of the lacrymal hole, 
that the large carnivora represented by that fossil belonged 
to the marsupial, not to the placental, order. He had pro¬ 
posed for it the name Thylacoleo, or (i lion with a pouch.” 
Thus were completed by evidence of species of quadrupeds 
that appear to have become extinct in Australia, the repre¬ 
sentatives in the marsupial series of the chief forms of the 
terrestrial Mammalia known in other parts of the globe. 
The Professor, in conclusion, referred to the character, as 
one natural continent, of the vast tract of dry land now 
artificially divided into Europe and Asia, and he showed 
that all the fossil remains of quadrupeds from caves and 
recent tertiary strata in Europe, coeval with the ossiferous 
caves and strata in Australia, belonged to genera which still 
had existing representatives in Europe or Asia, such, e.g., as 
the horse, the elephant, the rhinoceros, oxen, deer, bears, 
hyaenas, felines, &c. The hippopotamus, indeed, had become 
extinct in Asia as in Europe, but still existed in Africa. He 
then made a similar comparison between the aboriginal quad¬ 
rupeds of South America now living, such as the sloths, 
armadillos, ant-eaters, platyrhines, monkeys, llamas, peccaries, 
and the fossil megatheroids, glyptodons, glossotheres, large 
fossil monkeys, Macranchentce and peccaries. Australia had 
already yielded evidence of an analogous correspondence 
between its latest extinct and its present mammalian Fauna, 
and this was the more interesting and striking on account of 
the very peculiar organization of the native quadrupeds of 
that division of the globe. The marsupials there represent 
