Peter Parley's Wonders of the Earth, Sea, and Sky

by Samuel G. Goodrich

I shall show you a picture representing a state of things much more like the present, than the one we looked at before. It existed at a later period, though still a great many years ago; and if you wish to know why we conclude it to be later, since it is the other side of the water and we are therefore prevented from distinctly tracing the succession of the strata, I will tell you.

After leaving the formations of Dorsetshire, in which the great saurian or lizard-like reptiles are found, we come to chalk in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight; and after the chalk, to some beds of clay, and then some beds of limestone. The formations above the chalk, are those called tertiary; those from the chalk down to the lowest containing animal and vegetable remains, are the secondary; and all below that, consisting mainly of various sorts of granite, are the primary.

Now all this occurs in the same order in France, and the neighbourhood of Paris consisting of tertiary formations, just corresponds with the tertiary strata of the Isle of Wight, and them we know to be more recent than the secondary formations of Dorsetshire. Of course, therefore, the animals found at Paris, must be more recent than those found at Lyme Regis.

The largest of the animals represented in the plate, is called the Palæotherium.

The following is a picture of his skeleton, as it has been made out, bone by bone. A single tooth was first discovered, and the French naturalist, Cuvier, was able to determine from this alone, a great many particulars which have now been proved by the subsequent discovery of the bones; such was the knowledge he had acquired by comparing the bones of different animals. He thus discovered that a certain shape of tooth always accompanied a certain shape of foot, as well as indicated what kind of food the animal lived upon. From this might be judged a great deal about the organs of digestion, and the internal structure, and something of its habits and disposition. In all these points and several others, Cuvier predicted from a single bone of the Palæotherium, what has been exactly confirmed by the entire skeleton.

It was about the size of a small horse, and must have possessed a little trunk, or proboscis, like the modern Tapir, to which indeed it must have borne a great resemblance.

American Tapir.

The reason for thinking that it had a trunk, is because there is a peculiar contrivance in the bones to give strength to the neck, which only exists in animals that have a proboscis. There are some Tapirs in the Zoological Gardens, and if you have seen them, you will be able to form a pretty good notion of what the Palæotherium must have been. It had perhaps rather more of the hog about it, than the Tapir has, with a more dull heavy expression of countenance.