preserved, not for their
scientific value, but as precious relics of the Flood, and described in
a separate pamphlet, entitled, "Homo Diluvii Testis." Among the Tertiary
Reptiles the Turtles seem to have been a very prominent type, by their
size as well as by their extensive distribution. Their remains have been
found both in the far West and in the East. The fossil Turtles of
Nebraska are well known to American naturalists; but the Oriental one
exceeds them in size, and is, indeed, the most gigantic representative
of the order known thus far. A man could stand under the arch of the
shield of the old Himalayan Turtle preserved in the British Museum.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
It would carry me too far, were I to attempt to give anything more than
the most cursory sketch of the animals of the Tertiary age; and, indeed,
they are so well known, and have been so fully represented in
text-books, that I fear some of my readers may think even now that I
have dwelt too long upon them. Monkeys were unquestionably introduced
upon earth before the close of the Tertiaries; some bones have been
found in Southern France, and also on Mount Pentelicus in Greece, in the
later Tertiary deposits; but these remains have not yet been collected
in sufficient number to establish much more than the fact of their
presence in the animal creation at that time. I do not offer any opinion
respecting the fossil human bones so much discussed recently, because
the evidence is at present too scanty to admit of any decisive judgment
concerning them. It becomes, however, daily more probable that facts
will force us sooner or later to admit that the creation of man lies far
beyond any period yet assigned to it, and that a succession of human
races, as of animals, have followed one another upon the earth. It may
be the inestimable privilege of our young naturalists to solve this
great problem, but the older men of our generation must be content to
renounce this hope; we may have some prophetic vision of its fulfilment,
we may look from afar into the land of promise, but we shall not enter
in and possess it.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
The other great types of the Animal Kingdom are very fully represented
in the Tertiaries, and in their general appearance they approach much
more closely those of the present creation than of any previous epochs.
Professor Heer has collected and described the Tertiary Insects in great
num
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