. The testimony of the rocks; . forms of the existing animals. The London Clay andthe Eocene of the Isle of Wight have also yielded numer-ous specimens of those pachyderms, whose identity withthe Continental ones has been established by Owen; butthey are more fragmentary, and their state of keepingless perfect, than those furnished by the gypsum quarries ofVelay and Montmartre. In these the smaller animals occuroften in a state of preservation so peculiar and partial as toexcite the curiosity of even the untaught worlanen. Onlyhalf the skeleton is present. The limbs and ribs of the underside a
. The testimony of the rocks; . forms of the existing animals. The London Clay andthe Eocene of the Isle of Wight have also yielded numer-ous specimens of those pachyderms, whose identity withthe Continental ones has been established by Owen; butthey are more fragmentary, and their state of keepingless perfect, than those furnished by the gypsum quarries ofVelay and Montmartre. In these the smaller animals occuroften in a state of preservation so peculiar and partial as toexcite the curiosity of even the untaught worlanen. Onlyhalf the skeleton is present. The limbs and ribs of the underside are found lying in nearly their proper places; while ofthe limbs and ribs of the uj^per side usually not a trace canbe detected, — even the upper side of the skull is often HISTORY OF ANIMALS. 121 awanting. It would almost seem as if some pre-Adamitebutcher had divided the carcasses longitudinally, and carriedaway with him all the upper halves. The reading of theenigma seems to be, that when the creatures lay down and Fig ANIMALS OF THE PARIS BASIN,* (Eocene.) died, the gypsum in which their remains occur was softenough to permit their under sides to sink into it, and thatthen gradually hardemng, it kept the bones in their places;while the uncovered upper sides, exposed to the disinte-grating influences, either mouldered away piecemeal, orwere removed by accident. The bones of the larger ani-mals of the basin are usually found detached; and ere theycould be reconstructed into perfect skeletons, they taxedthe extraordinary powers of the greatest of comparativeapj^*«mists. Rather more than twenty different species of * 6, Palaeotherium minus, c, Anoplotheriuracopimune. 11 122 THE PAL^ONTOLOGICAL extinct mammals have been detected in the Paris basin, —not a great number, it may be thought; and yet for solimited a locality we may deem it not a very small one,when we take into account the fact that all our nativemammals of Britain and Ireland amount
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