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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
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