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THE SURFACE OF THE GLOBE

(P. aurelianense,) (1) distinguished from the others by
having the returning angle of the lower grinders with
the crescent cleft into a double point, and by some
difference in the prominences of the upper grinders;
near Issel, in a layer of gravel, or molasse, along the
declivities of the Black mountain, a species (P.
isselanum,) (2) characterised like those of Orleans, but
smaller; but principally in the molasse of the
department of the Dordogne, the palæotherium occurs
not less abundantly than in the gypsum quarries of
Paris.
The Duke de Caze has discovered in the quarries of
one field, bones of three species which appear
different from all those of our environs.(3)
The lophiodonsresemble the tapirs still more
closely than the palæotheria do, as their lower grinders
have transverse prominences like the tapirs. They
differ from them however because they have the front
teeth more simple, and the back one of all has three
prominences, and the upper ones are rhomboidal and
ridged similarly to those of the rhinoceros.
We are ignorant of the form of their muzzle and the
number of their toes. I have discovered exactly twelve
species, all in France, embedded in the marly stones,
formed by the fresh-water deposites, and filled with
lymneæ and planorbes, shells which are peculiar to
pools and marshes.
The largest was found near Orleans, in the same
quarry as the palæotheria. It closely resembles the
rhinoceros.
There is another smaller species, in the same

(1) See Recherches, vol. iii. p. 254, and v. iv. pp. 498 and 499.
(2) Thid. vol. iii. p. 258.
(3) Ibid. p. 505.

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ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF

place; a third is to be found at Montpelier; a fourth
near Laon; two near Buchsweiler, in Alsace; five near
Argenton, in Bern; and one of the three is again found
near Issel, where there are two others. There is also a
very large species near Gannat.(1)
These species differ in size, which in the smallest is
scarcely equal to that of a lamb three months old; and
in details in the formation of their teeth, which it
would be tedious to enter upon here.
The anoplotheriaare at present only found in the
gypsum quarries in the environs of Paris. They have
two characteristics not observed in any other animals;
feet, with two toes, of which the metacarpus and
metatarsus are distinct, and not joined in one solid
piece, as in ruminating animals; and teeth in a
continuous series, without any space intervening; man
alone has teeth so closely placed without any gap
between. Those of the anoplotheria consist of six
incisores in each jaw; one canine and seven grinders on
each side, as well above as below; their canine are
short, and resemble the exterior incisores. The first
three grinders are compressed; the other four are in the
upper jaw, square, with transverse ridges, and a small
cone between them; and in the lower jaw, shaped like a
double crescent, but without any prominence at the
base. The last has three crescents. Their head is
oblong, and does not announce that the muzzle has
terminated either with a proboscis or a snout.
This extraordinary species, comparable to no species
now existing, is subdivided into three sub-genera. The
anoplotheria, properly so called, the anterior grinders
of which are still tolerably thick,

(1) Recherches, vol. ii. first part, pp. 177 and 218; vol. iii. p. 394; and
vol. iv. p. 498.

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THE SURFACE OF THE GLOBE

and the posterior of the lower jaw have a plain ridge in
the crescent. The xiphodons, whose anterior grinders
are thin and cutting, and whose posterior in the lower
jaw have, immediately opposite to the concavity of
each of their crescents, a point which by use assumes
the form of the crescent, so that there the crescents are
double, as in ruminating animals. The dichobunes,
whose exterior crescents are also pointed at the
beginning, and which thus havc points arranged in
pairs on the back grinders of the lower jaw.
The anoplotheria, the most common in our gypsum
quarries, (A. commune,) is an animal as tall as a wild
boar, but much larger, and with a very long and very
thick tail, so that as a whole it has nearly the
properties of the otter, but much larger.
It is probable that it swam well, and frequented
lakes, at the bottom of which the bones have become
incrusted by gypseous deposites. We have one smaller
species, but otherwise quite similar (An.secundarium.)
We have as yet found only one xiphodon, a very
remarkable animal, which I have named An. gracile. It
is slender and slightly formed, like the most beautiful
gazelle.
There is one dichobune, nearly the size of a hare,
which I call An. leporinum. In addition to its sub-
generic characteristics, it differs from the anoplotheria
and xiphodons by having two small and slender toes on
each foot on the sides of the two large toes.
We are not aware whether these lateral toes existed
in the two other dichobunes, which are small, and
scarcely exceed the Guinea pig in size.(1)

(1) Recherches, vol. iii. pp. 250 and 396.

204

ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF

The genus of anthracotheriais nearly the medium
between the palæotheria, the anoplotheria, and hogs. I
have thus named it, because two of its species have
been found in the lignites of Cadibona, near Savone.
The first was nearly as large as the rhinoceros; the
second was smaller. They are also found in Alsace and
Velay. Their grinders are similar to those of the
anoplotheria, but they have projecting canine teeth.(1)
The genus cheropotamusis found in our gypsum
quarries, together with the palæotheria and
anoplotheria, but it is much more rare. The back
grinders are square at top, rectangular at bottom, and
have four large conical projectiotis surrounded by
some smaller. The front grinders are short cones,
slightly compressed with double roots; its canine teeth
are small. We are not yet acquainted with its incisores
nor its feet. I have only one species, of the size of a
Siam hog. (2)
The genus adapishas in the same way but one
species at most, not larger than a rabbit. This is also
found in our gypsum quarries, and must have had a
close alliance with anoplotheria. (3)
Thus we have mentioned nearly forty species of
pachydermata, belonging to genera now quite extinct,
to the sizes and shapes of which we have no closer
existing resemblance than in the tapirs and a daman.
This great number of pachydermata is the more
remarkable, as the ruminantia, now so numerous, in
the genera of stags and gazelles, and which attain so
vast a size in those of oxen, giraffes, and

(1) Recherches, vol. iii. pp. 398 and 404; vol. iv. p. 501; vol. v. second
part, p. 506.
(2) ibid. vol. iii. p. 260.
(3) ibid. p. 265.

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THE SURFACE OF THE GLOBE

camels, are rarely to be found in the strata to which we
have been alluding.
I have never detected the smallest relic in our
gypsum-quarries, and all that has come to me consists
of some fragments of a stag, of the size of the
roebuck, but of another species, collected from the
palæotheria of Orleans,(1) and in one or two other
small fragments from Switzerland, both perhaps of
equivocal origin.
But our pachydermata were not consequently the
only inhabitants of the countries where they lived. In
our gypsum-quarries, at least, we find with them
carnivora, glires, many sorts of birds, crocodiles and
tortoises, and these two latter also accompany them in
the molasse and marly rock of the middle and south of
France.
At the head of the carnivora I place a bat very
recently discovered at Montmartre, and of the proper
genus vespertilio. (2) The existence of this genus at so
remote an epoch is the more surprising, as neither in
this formation, nor in those which follow it, have I
been able to discover any trace either of cheiroptera
nor of quadrumana. No bones, no tooth or monkey nor
maki, however, presented tbemselves to me in my long
researches.
Montmartre has also produced for me the bones of
a fox different from ours, and equally different from
the jackals, isatises, and the various species of foxes
which are known in America;(3) also the bones of a
carnivorous animal, akin to the racoon and

(1) Recherches, vol. iv. p. 103.
(2) I am indebted to the Count de Bournon for my knowledge of this,
and as it is not described in my great works I give the preceding drawings of
it.
(3) Recherches, vol. iii. p. 267.

206

ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF

coaties, but larger than any of the known species,(1)
those of a peculiar species of civet cat;(2) and of two
or three other carnivora which could not be determined
for want of parts sufficiently perfect.
What is yet more singular is, that there are skeletons
of a small sarigue, a-kin to the marmoset, but
different, and consequently of an animal whose genus
is now confined to the new world.(3) We have also
collected skeletons of two small glires, or the genus of
the dormouse;(4) and a head of the squirrel genus. (5)
Our gypsum-quarries are more prolific in bones of
birds than any of the other layers, either anterior or
subsequent to its deposite. We find whole skeletons,
perfect skeletons, and parts of at least ten species of
all the orders.(6)
The crocodiles of that age resembled our common
crocodiles, in the form of the head, whilst in The
layers of the epoch of the Jura formation, we only
discover the species a-kin to the gavial.
There has been found at Argenton a species
remarkable for its compressed teeth, with sharp edges,
cutting like the dentated teeth of certain monitors.(7)
We also see some remains in our gypsum-quarries. (8)
The tortoises of this age are all of fresh-water
production; some belong to the sub-genus of emydes;
and there are some as well at Montmartre,(9) as in

(1) Recherches, p. 269.
(2) Ibid. vol. iii. p. 272.
(3) Ibid. vol. iii. p. 284.
(4) Ibid. pp. 297 and 300.
(5) Ibid. vol. v. second part, p. 506.
(6) Ibid. vol. v. iii. pp. 304, et seq.
(7) Thid. vol. v. second part, p. 166.
(8) Ibid. vol. iii. p. 335~; vol. v. second part, p. 166.
(9) Ibid. vol. iii. p. 333.

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THE SURFACE OF THE GLOBE

the molasse of the Dordogne,(1) of a greater
magnitude than any now existing; the others are
trionyces, or soft tortoises. (2)
This genus, which is easily distinguished by the
vermiculated surface of the bones of its shell, and
which now only exists in the rivers of hot countries,
such as the Nile, the Ganges, and the Oronooco, was
very plentiful in the same formation as the
palæotheria. There are a vast quantity of these remains
at Montmartre,(3) and in the molasse sand stone of the
Dordogne, and other gravelly deposites of the south of
France.
The fresh water lakes about which these animals
lived,and which received their bones, nourished,
besides tortoises and crocodiles, some fishes and some
shelly animals. All that have been collected are as
foreign to our climate, and even as unknown in our
present waters, as the palæotheria and other
contemporary quadrupeds. (4)
The fish even belong partly to unknown species.
Thus we cannot doubt but that this population,
which may be termed that of the middle age, — this
first great production of mammifera, has been entirely
destroyed; and in fact, wherever we discover their
remains, there are above them vast marine deposites,
so that the sea must have overwhelmed the countries
which these races inhabited, and has covered them for
a very considerable period.
Were the countries thus inundated vast in extent?
The investigation of the ancient beds formed in their
lakes has not yet enabled us to decide this question

(1) Recherches, vol. v. second part, p. 232.
(2) ibid. vol. iii. p. 329, and vol. v. second part, p. 222.
(3) Ibid. vol. v. second part, pp. 223 — 227.
(4) Ibid. vol.  iii. p, 338.

208

ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF

To the same epoch I attribute our gypsum beds and
those of Aix, many of the quarries of marly stones and
the molassic sand-stones, at least those of the south of
France. I am also disposed to assign to the same
period, portions of the molasses of Switzerland, and
the lignites of Liguria and Alsace, in which are found
quadrupeds of the families above described; but I do
not learn that any of these arlimals are found in other
countries. The fossil bones of Germany, England, and
Italy, are all either older or more recent than those we
have enumerated, and belong either to that ancient race
of reptiles of the Juraic and copper-slate formations,
or to the deposites of the last general deluge, — the
diluvial layers.
We may then believe, as there is no proof of the
contrary, that at the epoch when these numerous
pachydermata existed, the globe only afforded them, as
habitations, a small number of tolerably fertile plains,
wherein they could multiply; and perhaps these plains
were insulated regions, separated by considerable
spaces of lofty chains, where we do not find that our
animals have left any vestiges of their existence.
We have, through the researches of M. Adolphe
Brongniart, become acquainted with the nature of the
vegetables which covered these few countries. In the
same layers with our paheotheria are collected trunks
of palm trees, and many other beautiful plants whose
genus is now only to be found in hot climates; palm
trees, crocodiles, and trionyces are always found in
greater or lesser numbers wherever the ancient
pachydermata are discovered. (1)
But the sea, which had covered these countries

(1) Recherches, vol. iii. pp. 351, et seq

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THE SURFACE OF THE GLOBE

and destroyed their animals, left great deposites, which
still form, at a trifling depth, the basis of our great
plains: then it retired again, and yielded vast surfaces
to a new population, of which the relics are to be
found in the sandy and muddy layers of all known
countries.
It is to this tranquil deposite of the sea that we
should ascribe some cetacea very much like those of
the present time; a dolphin similar to our epaulard,(1)
and a whale(2). very similar to our rorquals, both
exhumed in Lombardy by M. Cortesi; a large whale's
head found in the very centre of Paris,(3) and
described by Lamanon and by Daubenton; and a genus
entirely new, which I discovered and named ziphius,
and which at least consists of three species. It is allied
to the cachalots and hyperoodons. (4)
In the population which fills our post-diluvial and
superficial strata, and which has existed in the deposite
we have just mentioned, there are no longer
palæotheria, anoplotheria, nor any of this peculiar
genus. The pachydermata, however, still were found
there; the gigantic pachydermata, elephants,
rhinoceroses, hippopotami, accompanied by
innumerable horses, and many large ruminantia.
Carnivora of the size of lions, tigers, and hyænas,
desolated the new animal kingdom. Its general
character, even in the extreme north, and on the banks
of our Icy Sea, was similar to that now only presented
by the torrid zone; and yet there was no species exactly
similar to those of the present day.
Amongst these animals, in particular, was the
elephant, called by the Russians the mammoth

(1) Recherches, vol. v. part first, p. 309
(2) Ibid. p. 390.
(3) Ibid. p. 393.
(4) Ibid. pp. 352-357.

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ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF

(elephas primigeniusof Blumenbach) from fifteen to
eighteen feet in height, covered, with a coarse red
wool, and long black bristly hairs, which formed a
mane along its back; its enormous tusks were
implanted in alveolæ longer than those of the elephants
of our times; otherwise it was very similar to the
elephant of India.(1) It has left thousands of its
carcases from Spain to the borders of Siberia, and has
been discovered throughout North America; so that it
was spread over the two coasts of the Atlantic ocean, if
indeed the ocean was at that time in the place where it
now flows. It is well known that its tusks are still so
well preserved in cold countries, that they are used for
the same purpose as new ivory, and, as we before
remarked, individuals have been found with the flesh,
skin, and hair, which had been frozen since the final
catastrophe of the globe. The Tartars and Chinese have
imagined it to be an animal which lives under ground,
and perishes when ever it appears in daylight.
After it, and nearly equal to it, came also in the
countries forming the two present continents, the
narrow-toothed mastodon, which resembled the
elephant, being armed, like it, with enormous tusks,
but these tusks covered with enamel; lower in the legs,
and with grinders mamillated and cased with a thick
and shining enamel, which have long supplied what is
called the occidental turquoise. (2)
Its remains, so common in the temperate parts of
Europe, are not found so generally in the north; but we
discover them in the mountains of South America, with
two kindred species.

(1) Recherches, vol. i. p.75 to 195 and 335; vol. iii. pp. 371 — 405; vol.
iv. p. 491.
(2) Ibid. pp. 250 to 265 and 335; and vol. iv. p. 493.