Part 15

It was upwards of five and twenty feet long; its large jaws were armed with very strong conical teeth, a little arcuate, and marked with a ridge, and it had also some of these teeth in the palate. Upwards of a hundred and thirty vertebræ were counted in its spine; they were convex before, and concave behind. Its tail was deep and flat, and formed a large vertical oar (or organ of swimming).[262] Mr Conybeare has recently proposed to name it _Mosasaurus_.

The clays and lignites which cover the upper part of the chalk, I have only found to contain crocodiles[263]; and I have every reason to think that the lignites which in Switzerland have afforded beaver and mastodon bones, belong to a later epoch. Nor has it been at an earlier period than that of the coarse limestone which rests upon these clays that I have begun to find bones of mammifera; and still do they all belong to marine mammifera, to dolphins of unknown species, lamantins and morses.

Among the dolphins, there is one, the muzzle of which, more elongated than that of any known species, has the lower jaw united in a considerable part of its length, nearly as in a gavial. It was found near Dax by the late president of Borda[264].

Another species, from the cliffs of the Department de l’Orne, has the muzzle also long, but somewhat differently shaped[265].

The entire genus of lamantins is at the present day confined to the seas of the torrid zone; and that of the morses, of which only a single living species is known to exist, is limited to the frozen ocean. Yet we find skeletons of these two genera side by side in the coarse limestone strata of the middle of France; and this association of species, the nearest allied to which are, at the present day, found in opposite zones, will again make its appearance more than once as we proceed.

Our fossil lamantins differ from those known to exist at present, in having the head more elongated, and of a different form[266]. Their ribs, which are easily recognised by their being of a thick and rounded form, and of dense texture, are not of rare occurrence in our different provinces.

With regard to the fossil morse, small fragments only have as yet been found of it, which are insufficient for characterising the species[267].

It is only in the strata that have succeeded the coarse limestone, or, at most, those which may have been of contemporaneous formation with it, but deposited in fresh-water lakes, that the class of land mammifera begins to shew itself in any quantity.

I consider as belonging to the same period, and as having lived together, but perhaps in different spots, the animals whose bones are deposited in the molasse and old gravel beds of the south of France; in the gypsums mixed with limestone, such as those of Paris and Aix; and in the fresh-water marly deposits covered with marine beds, of Alsace, the country of Orleans and of Berry.

This animal population possesses a very remarkable character in the abundance and variety of certain genera of pachydermata, which are entirely awanting among the quadrupeds of our days, and whose characters have more or less resemblance to those of the tapirs, the rhinoceroses, and camels.

These genera, the entire discovery of which is my own, are the _palæotheria_, _lophiodonta_, _anaplotheria_, _anthracotheria_, _cheropotami_, and _adapis_.

The _Palæotheria_ have resembled the tapirs in their general form, and in that of the head, particularly in the shortness of the bones of the nose, which announces that they have had a small proboscis like the tapirs, and, lastly, in their having six incisors and two canine teeth in each jaw; but they have resembled the rhinoceros in their grinders, of which those of the upper jaw have been square, with prominent ridges of various configuration, and those of the lower jaw in the form of double crescents, as well as in their feet, all of which have been divided into three toes, while in the tapirs the fore feet have four.

It is one of the most extensively diffused genera and most numerous in species that occur in the deposits of this period.

Our gypsum quarries in the neighbourhood of Paris are full of them. Bones of seven distinct species are found there. The first (_P. magnum_) is as large as a horse. The three next are of the size of a hog, but one of them (_P. medium_) has narrow and long feet, another (_P. crassum_) has the feet broader, and a third (_P. latum_) has them still broader, and especially shorter. The fifth species (_P. curtum_), which is of the size of a sheep, is much lower, and has the feet still broader and shorter in proportion than the last. The sixth (_P. minus_) is of the size of a small sheep, and has long and slender feet, the lateral toes of which are shorter than the rest. The seventh (_P. minimum_), which is not larger than a hare, has also the feet slender[268].

Palæotheria have also been found in other districts of France: at Puy in Valey, in strata of gypseous marl, a species (_P. velaunum_)[269], much resembling (_P. medium_), but differing from it in the form of its lower jaw; in the neighbourhood of Orleans, in strata of marly rock, a species (_P. aurelianense_)[270], which is distinguished from the others by having the re-entering angle of the crescent of its lower grinders split into a double point, and by some differences in the necks of the upper grinders; near Issel, in a bed of gravel or molasse, along the declivities of the Black Mountain, a species (_P. isselanum_)[271], which has the same characters as the Orleans species, but is of smaller size. It is more particularly, however, in the molasse of the Department of the Dordogne, that the palæotherium occurs not less abundantly than in our gypsum deposits in the neighbourhood of Paris.

The Duke Decaze has discovered in the quarries of a single field, bones of three species which appear different from all those of our neighbourhood[272].

The _Lophiodons_ approach still somewhat nearer to the tapirs than the palæotheria do, inasmuch as their lower false grinders have transverse necks like those of the tapirs.

They differ, however, from these latter, in having the fore ones more simple, the backmost of all with three necks, and the upper ones rhomboidal, and marked with ridges very much resembling those of the rhinoceros.

We are still ignorant what the form of their snout, and the number of their toes, may have been. I have discovered not less than twelve species of this genus, all in France, deposited in marly rocks of fresh-water formation, and filled with lymneæ and planorbes, which are shells peculiar to pools and marshes.

The largest species is found near Orleans, in the same quarry as the palæotheria; it approaches the rhinoceros.

There is a smaller species in the same place; a third occurs at Montpellier; a fourth near Laon; two near Buchsweiler in Alsace; five near Argenton in Berry; and one of the three occurs again near Issel, where there are also two others. There is also a large one near Gannat[273].

These species differ from each other in size, the smallest being scarcely so large as a lamb of three months, and in various circumstances connected with the form of their teeth, which it would be too tedious and minute to detail here.

The _Anoplotheria_ have hitherto been discovered nowhere but in the gypsum quarries of the neighbourhood of Paris. They have two characters which are observed in no other animal; feet with two toes, the metacarpal and metatarsal bones of which are separate in their whole length, and do not unite into a single piece, as in the ruminantia; and teeth placed in a continuous series without any interruption. Man alone has the teeth so placed in mutual contiguity, without any interval. Those of the anaplotheria consist of six incisors in each jaw, a canine tooth and six grinders on each side, both above and below; their canine teeth are short and similar to the outer incisors. The three first grinders are compressed; the four others are, in the upper jaw, square, with transverse ridges, and a small cone between them; and, in the lower jaw, in the form of a double crescent, but without neck at the base. The last has three crescents. Their head is of an oblong form, and does not indicate that the muzzle has terminated either in a proboscis or a snout.

This extraordinary genus, which can be compared to nothing in living nature, is subdivided into three subgenera: the _Anaplotheria_, properly so called, the anterior molares of which are still pretty thick, and the posterior ones of the lower jaw have their crescents with a simple ridge; the _Xiphodons_, of which the anterior molares are thin and sharp on the edges, and the under posterior, have, directly opposite the concavity of each of their crescents, a point, which, on being worn, also assumes the form of a crescent, so that then the crescents are double as in the ruminantia; lastly, the _Dichobunes_, the outer crescents of which are also pointed at the beginning, and which have thus points disposed in pairs upon their lower posterior grinders.

The most common species in our gypsum quarries (_An. commune_), is an animal of the height of a boar, but much more elongated, and furnished with a very long and very thick tail, so that altogether it has nearly the proportion of the otter, but larger. It is probable that it was well fitted for swimming, and frequented the lakes in the bottom of which its bones have been incrusted by the gypsum which was deposited there. We have one a little smaller, but in other respects pretty similar (_An. secundarium_.)

We are as yet acquainted with only one _xiphodon_, which, however, is a very remarkable animal: it is that which I have named _An. gracile_. It is slender, and delicately formed, like the prettiest gazelle.

There is one _dichobune_, nearly of the size of a hare, to which I have given the name of _An. leporinum_. Besides its subgeneric characters, it differs from the anaplotheria and xiphodons, in having two small and slender toes on each foot, at the sides of the two large toes.

We do not know if these lateral toes exist in the two other dichobunes, which are small, and scarcely exceed in size the common Guinea pig[274].

The genus of _Anthracotheria_ is in some degree intermediate between the palæotheria, anaplotheria, and hogs. I have named it so, because two of its species have been found in the lignites of Cadibona, near Savone. The first approached the rhinoceros in size; the second was much smaller. They have also been found in Alsace, and in the Vélay. Their grinders are similar to those of the anaplotheria; but they have projecting canine teeth[275].

The genus _Cheropotamus_ is found in our gypsum deposits, where it accompanies the palæotheria and anaplotheria, but where it is of much rarer occurrence. Its posterior grinders are square above, rectangular below, and have four large conical eminences surrounded with smaller ones. The anterior molares are short cones, slightly compressed, and with two roots. Its canine teeth are small. Neither its incisors nor its feet are yet known. I possess only one species, which is of the size of a Siam hog[276].

The genus _Adapis_ has also but one species, which is at most of the size of a rabbit: it is also from our gypsum quarries, and must have been nearly allied to the anaplotheria[277].

We have thus nearly forty species of pachydermata belonging to genera now entirely extinct, and presenting forms and proportions to which there is nothing that can be compared in the present animal kingdom, excepting two tapirs and a daman.

This large number of pachydermata is so much the more remarkable, that the ruminantia, which are at present so numerous in the genera of deer and antelopes, and which attain so great a size in those of the oxen, giraffes, and camels, scarcely make their appearance in the deposits of which we are speaking.

I have not seen the slightest trace of them in our gypsum quarries; and all that has come to my hands consists of some fragments of a deer, of the size of the roe, but of a different species, collected among the palæotheria of Orleans[278]; and of one or two other small fragments, from Switzerland, which, however, are perhaps of doubtful origin.

But our pachydermata have not for all this been the only inhabitants of the countries in which they lived. In our gypsum deposits, at least, we find along with them carnivora, glires, several sorts of birds, crocodiles, and tortoises; and these two latter genera also accompany them in the molasse sandstones and marly deposits of the middle and south of France.

At the head of the carnivora, I place a Bat, very recently discovered at Montmartre, and which belongs to the proper genus Vespertilio[279]. The existence of this genus, at an epoch so remote, is so much the more surprising, that, neither in this formation, nor in those which have succeeded it, have I seen any other trace, either of cheiroptera or of quadrumana: no bone or tooth of either monkey or maki has ever presented itself to me, in the course of my long researches.

Montmartre has also furnished the bones of a fox different from ours, and which also differs from the jackals, isatises, and the various species of foxes peculiar to America[280]; those of a carnivorous animal allied to the raccoons and coaties, but larger than any known species[281]; those of a particular species of civet[282]; and of two or three other carnivora, which it has not been possible to determine, from the want of tolerably complete portions.

What is still more remarkable, is, that there are skeletons of a small sarigue, allied to the marmose, but different, and consequently of an animal belonging to a genus which is at the present day confined to the New World[283]. Skeletons of two small glires, of the genus myoxus[284], and a skull belonging to the genus sciurus[285], have also been collected.

Our gypsum deposits are more fertile in bones of birds than any of the other strata either anterior or posterior to it. Entire skeletons, and parts of at least ten species belonging to all the orders, are found there[286].

The crocodiles of the period in question approach our common crocodiles in the form of the head, while, in the deposits of the Jura period, we find only species allied to the gavial.

A species has been found at Argenton, which is remarkable for its compressed, sharp teeth, having their edges dentated like those of certain monitors[287]. Some remains of it also occur in our gypsum quarries[288].

The tortoises of this period are all fresh-water ones: some of them belong to the subgenus _Emys_; and there are species, both at Montmartre[289], and still more especially in the molasse sandstones of the Dordogne[290], which are larger than any living species known; the others are Trionyces or soft tortoises[291]. This genus, which is easily distinguished by the vermiculate surface of the bones of its shell, and which at present exists only in the rivers of warm countries, such as the Nile, the Ganges, and the Orinoko, has been very abundant in the places where the palæotheria lived. Vast quantities of its remains are found at Montmartre[292], and in the molasse sandstones of the Dordogne, and the other gravel deposits of the south of France.

The fresh-water lakes, around which these various animals have lived, and which had received their bones, nourished, besides the tortoises and crocodiles, some fishes and testaceous mollusca. All that have been collected of these two classes of animals, are as foreign to our climate, and even as much unknown in our present waters, as the palæotheria, and other quadrupeds which were coeval with them[293].

The fishes have even in part belonged to unknown genera.

Hence, it cannot be doubted that this race of inhabitants, which might be termed the population of the middle age, this first great production of mammifera, has been entirely destroyed; and, in fact, in all places where remains of them have been discovered, there are great deposits of marine formation above them, so that the sea has overwhelmed the countries which these races inhabited, and has rested upon them during a long period of time.

Have the countries inundated by it at this period been of great extent? This is a question which the examination of those ancient deposits formed in their lakes do not enable us to answer.

To this period I refer the gypsum beds of Paris and those of Aix, several quarries of marly stones, and the molasse sandstones, at least those of the south of France. I am of opinion that we should also refer to it the portions of the molasse sandstones of Switzerland, and of the lignites of Liguria and Alsace, in which quadrupeds are found of the families enumerated above; but I do not find that any of these animals have been also found in other countries. The fossil bones of Germany, England, and Italy, are all either older or newer than those of which we have been speaking, and belong either to those ancient races of reptiles of the juraic and copper-slate formations, or to the deposits of the last universal inundation, the diluvial formations.

We are, therefore, authorised to believe, until the contrary be proved, that at the period when these numerous pachydermata lived, the globe had only presented for their habitation a small number of plains sufficiently fertile for them to multiply there, and that perhaps these plains were insulated regions, separated by pretty large spaces of elevated chains, in which we do not find that our animals have left any traces of their existence.

The researches of M. Adolphe Brongniart have also made known to us the nature of the vegetables which covered those countries. In the same strata with our palæotheria, there have been found trunks of palms, and many others of those beautiful plants whose genera now only grow in warm climates. Palms, crocodiles, and trionyces always occur in greater or less abundance wherever our ancient pachydermata are found[294].

The sea which had covered these lands and destroyed their animals, left large deposits, which still form at the present day, at no great depth, the basis of our great plains: it had then retired anew, and left immense surfaces to a new population, whose remains are found in the sandy and muddy deposits of all countries known.

It is to this deposition from the sea, made in a state of quiet, that certain fossil cetacea, very much resembling those of our own days, should, in my opinion, be referred;--a dolphin, allied to our epaulard[295], and a whale very like our rorquals[296], both discovered in Lombardy by M. Cortesi; a large head of a whale found within the very precincts of Paris[297], and described by Lamanon and Daubenton; and an entirely new genus, which I have discovered and named _Ziphius_, and which already contains three species. It is allied to the cachalots and hyperoodons[298].

In the extinct population which fills our alluvial and superficial strata, and which has lived upon the deposit just alluded to, there are no longer either palæotheria or anaplotheria, or, in in fact, any of those singular genera. The pachydermata, however, still predominate; and these are of a gigantic size, elephants, rhinoceroses, and hippopotami, accompanied with innumerable horses and several large ruminantia. Carnivorous animals of the size of the lion, tiger, and hyena, had desolated this new animal kingdom. In general, its character, even in the extreme north, and on the edges of the present frozen ocean, was similar to that which the torrid zone alone now presents, and yet there was no species in it absolutely the same as any of those which are found alive at the present day.

The most remarkable of these animals is the species of elephant named _mammoth_ by the Russians (the _Elephas primigenius_ of Blumenbach), which was fifteen or eighteen feet high, and was covered with coarse red wool, and long, stiff, black hairs, which formed a mane along its back. Its enormous tusks were implanted in alveolæ longer than those of the elephants of the present day; but in other respects it was pretty similar to the Indian elephant[299]. It has left thousands of its carcases from Spain to the shores of Siberia, and it has been found in the whole of North America; so that it had been distributed on both sides of the Atlantic, if, indeed, that ocean had existed in its time, in the place which it occupies at present. It is well known that its tusks are still so well preserved in cold countries, as to be applied to the same uses as fresh ivory; and, as we have already remarked, individuals of it have been found with their flesh, skin, and hair, which had remained frozen since the last general catastrophe. The Tartars and Chinese have imagined it to be an animal which lives under ground, and perishes whenever it perceives the light.

After the mammoth, and almost its equal in size, came also in the countries which form the two presently existing continents, the _narrow toothed mastodon_, which resembled the elephant, and was armed like it with enormous tusks, but with tusks covered with enamel, shorter legs, and whose mamillated grinders, invested with a thick and shining enamel, have long furnished what has been called occidental turquoise[300].

Its remains, which are pretty common in the temperate parts of Europe, are not so much so towards the north; but it has also been found in the mountains of South America, along with two allied species.

In North America immense quantities of the remains of the _great mastodon_ have been found, a species larger than the preceding, as high in proportion as the elephant, with equally huge tusks, and whose grinders, which are covered over with bristling points, made it long be considered as a carnivorous animal[301].

Its bones were of a large size, and very solid. Even its hoofs and stomach are said to have been found in a sufficient state of preservation to be recognisable; and it is asserted that the stomach was filled with bruised branches of trees. The Indians imagine that the whole race was destroyed by the gods, to prevent them from destroying the human species.

Along with these enormous pachydermata, lived the two somewhat inferior genera of the rhinoceroses and hippopotami.

The Hippopotamus of this period was pretty common in the countries which now form France, Germany and England, and was particularly so in Italy. It so closely resembled the present African species, that it is only by an attentive comparison that it can be distinguished from it[302].

There was also at this time a small species of hippopotamus of the size of the wild boar, to which there is nothing similar at present existing.

There were at least three species of Rhinoceros of large size, all of them two-horned.

The most common species in Germany and England (my _Rh. tichorhinus_), and which, like the elephant, is found even to the shores of the frozen sea, where it has also left entire individuals, had the head elongated, the bones of the nose very robust and supported by an osseous and not merely cartilaginous septum narium, and, lastly, wanted incisors[303].

Another species, of rarer occurrence, and peculiar to more temperate climates (_Rh. incisivus_)[304], had incisors like our present rhinoceroses of the East Indies, and, in particular, resembled that of Sumatra[305]; its distinctive characters are derived from some differences in the form of the head.

The third species (_Rh. leptorhinus_) had no incisors, like the first and like the present rhinoceros of the Cape; but it was distinguished by a more pointed muzzle and more slender limbs[306]. The bones of this species have been found more especially in Italy, in the same strata with those of elephants, mastodons, and hippopotami.