the Academy, and
announced them as belonging to some creation preceding the present,
since no such animals had ever existed in our own geological period.
Such a statement was a revelation to the scientific world: some looked
upon it with suspicion and distrust; others, who knew more of
comparative anatomy, hailed it as introducing a new era in science; but
it was not till complete specimens were actually found of animals
corresponding perfectly to those figured and described by Cuvier, and
proving beyond a doubt their actual existence in ancient times, that all
united in wonder and admiration at the result obtained by him with such
scanty means.

It would seem that the family of Pachyderms was largely represented
among the early Mammalia; for, since Cuvier named these species, a
number of closely allied forms have been found in deposits belonging to
the same epoch. Of course, the complete specimens are rare; but the
fragments of such skeletons occur in abundance, showing that these
old-world Pachyderms, resembling the Tapirs more than any other living
representatives of the family, were very numerous in the lower
Tertiaries.

There is, however, one animal now in existence, forming one of those
singular links before alluded to between the present and the past, of
which I will say a few words here, though its relation is rather with a
later group of Tertiary Pachyderms than with those described by Cuvier.
On the coast of Florida there is an animal of very massive, clumsy
build, long considered to be a Cetacean, but now recognized, by some
naturalists at least, as belonging to the order of Pachyderms. In form
it resembles the Cetaceans, though it has a fan-shaped tail, instead of
the broad flapper of the Whales. It inhabits fresh waters or shoal
waters, and is not so exclusively aquatic as the oceanic Cetaceans. Its
most striking feature is the form of the lower jaw, which is bent
downward, with the front teeth hanging from it. This animal is called
the Manatee, or Sea-Cow. There are three species known to
naturalists,--one in Tampa Bay, one in the Amazon, and one in Africa. In
the Tertiary deposits of Germany there has been found an animal allied
in some of its features to those described by Cuvier, but it has the
crown of its teeth folded like the Tapir, while the lower jaw is turned
down with a long tusk growing from it. This animal has been called the
Dinotherium. A part of the head, showing the heavy jaws and the
f