tance only of a few yards in the same earthy mass. No sensible
difference in their state of decay could be perceived ;
they were both tender, and partially stained red. If the
horse did not coexist with the Toxodon, the tooth must by
some accident, not very easily understood, have been embedded
within the last three centuries (the period of the introduction
of the horse), with the remains of those animals,
which ages since perished, when the Pampas was covered by
the waters of the sea. Now, I may ask, will any one credit
that two teeth of nearly equal size, buried in the same substance
close together, after a period of so vast an inequality,
could exist in the same condition of decay ? We must conclude
otherwise. Certainly it is a marvellous event in the
history of animals, that a native kind should have disappeared*
to be succeeded in after ages by the countless herds
introduced with the Spanish colonist ! But our surprise
shoidd be modified when it is already known, that the remains
of the Mastodon angustidens (the tooth formerly alluded
to as embedded near that of the horse, probably belonged
to this species) have been found both in South America,
and in the southern parts of Europe.
AATth regard to North America, Cuiner saysf the Elephas
primigenius “ has left thousands of its carcasses from Spain
to the shores of Siberia, and it has been found in the whole
of North America.” The fossil ox, in a like manner, he
writes,! is buried “ dans toute la partie boréale des deux
continens, puisque on en a d’Allemagne, d’Italie, de Prussie,
de la Sibérie occidentale et orientale, et de l’Amérique.” I
may here add that horses’ bones, mingled with those of the
mastodon, have several times been transmitted for sale from
North America to England ; but it has always been imagined,
from the simple fact of their being horses’ bones, that they
had been accidentally mingled with the fossils. Among the
* I n e e d n o t h e re s ta te , t h a t th e r e is n o k in d o f e v id e n c e to s u p p o r t th e
be lief, th a t a h o rse e x is te d in A m e ric a p re v io u s ly to th e a g e o f C o lum b u s .
■f T h e o ry o f th e E a r th , p . 28 1 (E n g lis h tr a n s la tio n ) .
! Os sem en s F o ssile s, v o l. iv., p . 147.
remains brought home by Captain Beechoy from the west
coast of the same continent, in the frozen region of 66°
north. Dr. Buckland* has described the astragalus metacarpus,
and metatarsus of the horse, which were associated
with the remains of the Elephas primigenius, and of the
fossil ox. Thus we have an elephant, an ox, and a horse
(the species of the latter is only presumed to be identical),
common to Europe and to North America.
Very few species of living quadrupeds,! which are altogether
terrestrial in their habits, are common to the two continents,
and these few are chiefly confined to the extreme frozen regions
of the north. The separation, therefore, of the Asiatic and
American zoological provinces appears formerly to have been
less perfect than at present. The remains of the elephant and
of the ox have been found on the banks of the Anadir (long.
1 7 5 ° E.), on the extreme part of Siberia, nearest the
American coast: and the former remains, according to Cha-
misso, are common in the peninsula of Kamtschatka. On the
opposite shores, likewise, of the narrow strait which divides
these two great continents, we know, from the discoveries of
Kotzebue and Beechey, that the remains of both animals
occur abundantly: and as Dr. Buckland has shown they are
associated with the bones of the horse, the teeth of which
animal in Europe, according to Cuvier, accompany by thousands
the remains of the pachydermata of the later periods.
With these facts, we may safely look at this quarter, as
the line of communication (now interrupted by the steady
progress of geological change) by which the elephant, the
ox, and the horse, entered America, and peopled its wide
extent.!
* S e e th e a dm ira b le A p p e n d ix to B e e c h e y 's Voyage, p . 5 9 2 ( q u a r to
e d itio n ).
! S e e D r . R ic lia rd so n ’s v e ry in te r e s tin g R e p o r t o n N o r th A m e ric a n
Z o o lo g y fo r th e B r itish A s so c ia tio n o f 1836.
! 1 do n o t h e r e m e a n to fix o n th e m o re n o r th e r n p a r ts o f th e o ld
w o rld as th e p a r e n t c o u n try o f th e s e tw o a n im a ls . I o n ly w a n t to
p o in t o u t th e c h a n n e l o f c om m u n ic a tio n— n o t th e c o u rs e o f tlie s tr e am —