[218] This figure (No. 8) is from a drawing by Professor C. Prevost, published Ann. des Sci. Nat. Avril, 1825. The fossil is a lower jaw, adhering by its inner side to the slab of oolite, in which it is sunk. The form of the condyle, or posterior process of the jaw, is convex, agreeing with the mammiferous type, and is distinctly seen, an impression of it being left on the stone, although in this specimen the bone is wanting. The anterior part of the jaw has been partially broken away, so that the double fangs of the molar teeth are seen fixed in their sockets, the form of the fangs being characteristic of the mammalia. Ten molars are preserved, and the place of an eleventh is believed to be apparent. The enamel of some of the teeth is well preserved.
[219] A colored figure of this small and elegant quadruped is given in the Trans. Zool. Soc. vol. ii. pl. 28. It is insectivorous, and was taken in a hollow tree, in a country abounding in ant-hills, ninety miles to the southeast of the mouth of Swan River in Australia.—It is the first living marsupial species known to have nine molar teeth in the lower jaw, and some of the teeth are widely separated from others, one of the peculiarities in the thylacotherium of Stonesfield, which at first induced M. Blainville to refer that creature to the class of reptiles.
[220] This figure (No. 10) was taken from the original, formerly in Mr. Broderip's collection, and now in the British Museum. It consists of the right half of a lower jaw, of which the inner side is seen. The jaw contains seven molar teeth, one canine, and three incisors; but the end of the jaw is fractured, and traces of the alveolus of a fourth incisor are seen. With this addition, the number of teeth would agree exactly with those of a lower jaw of a didelphis. The fossil is well preserved in a slab of oolitic structure containing shells of trigoniæ and other marine remains. Two or three other similar jaws, besides those above represented, have been procured from the quarries of Stonesfield.—See Broderip, Zool. Journ. vol. ii. p. 408. Owen, Proceedings Geol. Soc., November, 1838.
[221] Darwin's Journal, chap. 19. Lyell's Manual of Geol. chap. 21, p. 279.
[222] Taylor's Annals of Nat. Hist. Nov. 1839.
[223] See notice by the Author, and Professor Owen, Taylor's Annals of Nat. Hist. Nov. 1839.
[224] See Principles of Geology, 1st ed. 1830, vol. i p. 152.
[225] The first quadrumanous fossils discovered in India were observed in 1836 in the Sewalik Hills, a lower range of the Himalayan Mountains, by Lieutenants Baker and Durond, by whom their osteological characters were determined (Journ. of Asiat. Soc. of Bengal, vol. v. p. 739), and in the year following, other fossils of the same class were brought to light and described by Capt. Cantley and Dr. Falconer. These were imbedded, like the former, in tertiary strata of conglomerate, sand, marl, and clay, in the Sub-Himalayan Mountains. (Ibid. vol. v. p. 379. Nov. 1836; and vol. vi. p. 354. May, 1837.)
The Brazilian quadrumane was found, with a great many other extinct species of animals, by a Danish naturalist, Dr. Lund, between the rivers Francisco and Velhas, in 1837.
The gibbon of the South of France was found by M. Lartet in the beginning of 1837, and determined by M. de Blainville. It occurred near Auch, in the department of Gers, about forty miles west of Toulouse, in freshwater marl, limestone, and sand. They were accompanied by the remains of the mastodon, dinotherium, palæotherium, rhinoceros, gigantic sloth, and other extinct quadrupeds. (Bulletin de la Soc. Geol. de France, tom. viii. p. 92.)