remains of at least three different genera are known. The Dryopithecus, or "Tree-ape," lived in France. It was arboreal in its habits, and in stature was equal to that of a man-in fact, it was even a more man-like ape than any now existing. In Greece there lived a genus called Semnopithecus, and in the forests where the Pyrenees now rise was another, named Pliopithecus. Huge tigers Huge tigers (Machairodus) haunted the thickets, scaring the light antelopes and deer. Along with the tree-monkeys were species of Opossum, not much unlike those now living on the same trees in the United States. Huge Deinotheria frequented the marshy swamps-creatures with downward-bent tusks, and, in natural history position, perhaps intermediate between the Tapir and Elephant families. The Mastodon was the characteristic and commonest type of the elephants, noticeable chiefly for its straighter tusks, and more particularly for the mammilated shape of its huge teeth, which, however, were only employed on vegetable diet. The rivers swarmed with many species of river or wart hogs, associated with Hippopotami, Tapirs, &c. Herds of wild oxen roamed over the plains, their weaklier members falling a prey to the huge tigers, bears, and hyænas which had appeared on the stage of creation by this time. The Deer family had also come into existence, and abounded in great numbers. What was said of the mammalia of the Eocene period-viz., that some of these species combined characters which are now distributed among three or four, is more or less true of many of the Miocene animals. I have mentioned the Deinotheria as instances. The Hipparion, or three-toed horsevery numerous at this time-was another, inasmuch as it possessed affinities with the ruminantia. In the Miocene deposits of the Sewalik Hills, in India, the "missing links are even more numerous: chief among the forms there to be met with, is the Sivatherium, a huge four-horned deer, which connected the ruminant family with the pachyderms. It had a long snout, or proboscis, like the elephant, which creature it nearly equalled in size and bulk. But the most remarkable animal which then lived in India was a huge Tortoise, now extinct, whose entire length was over eighteen feet, breadth eight feet, and height over seven feet! I doubt whether the whole records of geology can bring forth a reptile more peculiar, or built on a huger scale, than this. Associated with it are the remains of several species of crocodiles, which then, as now, lived in Indian rivers. The Giraffe, Camel, &c., were then Indian mammals, although they are now limited to Africa. In North America you may find other strata of Miocene age, as in Virginia, Nebraska, &c. Most remarkable there are the fossil remains of animals which afterwards became locally extinct; as, for instance, the Horse, Ox, &c. These active creatures swarmed over American plains at the time I am speaking of, just as the Bisons and Wild Horse now do further south. But the latter have thus run wild since their introduction by the Spaniards, whereas during the Miocene period they were natives of the New World, and lived on the same areas with Mastodons, Hippopotami, and Elephants. You will have seen that the peculiarity I mentioned earlier in my story, as to the chief feature of the Miocene flora being its extended geographical distribution since it grew so luxuriantly in Europe, applies almost equally to the animals. It seems so strange to imagine native horses and elephants in America, and native monkeys and tapirs in England! But I am speaking of facts about which there can be no possibility of mistake. I have only briefly glanced at the chief vital features of this interesting epoch, but my hearers will admit the world was then anything but a desert, although its most highly-endowed tenant--that which then occupied the place now maintained by man-was only a longarmed monkey! The familiarity of the animal and vegetable types of the Miocene epoch, and their great resemblance to, if not identity with, species now living, will cause you to think that it was not so far removed in time as it really was. It is only when your attention is drawn to the physical changes which have gone on since then, that you grasp the idea of unlimited time more fully. Great mountains have been upheaved from the sea-bottom, and continents depressed to form sea-beds, since the events occurred which I have been describing. It was a period when volcanoes were active in Great Britain, and when, in Central France, they threw up great cones of ashes, lava, and scoria, nearly equal in height to Vesuvius or Etna! The Alps, Pyrenees, Himalayas Andes, and other great mountain-chains were then either not elevated at all, or much below their present loftiness. The area of the Swiss fresh-water lakes and of the dense Miocene forests became gradually depressed, until it was a sea-bed, tenanted by hosts of marine mollusca, fish, cetaceans, &c. This great change took place even within Miocene times, for the marine deposits just mentioned belong to the uppermost division of the formation. I cannot speak of the great changes which subsequently swept over the northen hemisphere, of the formation of the great Arctic ice-cap, which spread over temperate latitudes, and drove animals and plants as from another violated Eden, this way and that, until they ultimately occupied their present habitats! All this is matter of fact, as well as matter of geological history; but I cannot be supposed to remember everything that took place since I was born! Fig. 144. Skeleton of the Mytodon, a fossil American Sloth of Pliocene age. "Fens, marshes, bog, and heath all intervene; For there are blossoms rare, and curious rush, T may be that some of the friends who are good enough to listen to what we have to say, do not understand what is meant by the term "Crag." Some of our fellow storytellers have already remarked, that many of the terms used in geology have been borrowed from vulgar use |