Mr. Clift many years ago showed that the fossil mammals from the
Australian caves were closely allied to the living marsupials of that
continent. In South America, a similar relationship is manifest, even
to an uneducated eye, in the gigantic pieces of armour like those of
the armadillo, found in several parts of La Plata; and Professor Owen
has shown in the most striking manner that most of the fossil mammals,
buried there in such numbers, are related to South American types.
This relationship is even more clearly seen in the wonderful
collection of fossil bones made by MM. Lund and Clausen in the caves
of Brazil. I was so much impressed with these facts that I strongly
insisted, in 1839 and 1845, on this "law of the succession of
types,"--on "this wonderful relationship in the same continent between
the dead and the living." Professor Owen has subsequently extended the
same generalisation to the mammals of the Old World. We see the same
law in this author's restorations of the extinct and gigantic birds of
New Zealand. We see it also in the birds of the caves of Brazil. Mr.
Woodward has shown that the same law holds good with sea-shells, but
from the wide distribution of most genera of molluscs, it is not well
displayed by them. Other cases could be added, as the relation between
the extinct and living land-shells of Madeira; and between the extinct
and living brackish-water shells of the Aralo-Caspian Sea.
Pages:
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408