Returning now to our subject from this geological digression—which will hardly be deemed unprofitable, since I have given you in few words the results of a great deal of my own hard mountain work—let us consider the Tertiary mammals, as we know them front the remains already discovered, and attempt to trace the history of each order down to the present time. We have seen that a single small Marsupial, from the Trias, is the only mammal found in all the American rocks below the Eocene; and yet in beds of this age, immediately over the Chalk, fossil mammals of many different kinds abound.
The Marsupials, strange to say, are here few in number, and diminutive in size; and have as yet been identified only by fragmentary specimens, and most of them are too imperfect for accurate description. In the higher Eocene deposits, this group is more abundant, but still represented by small animals, most of them insectivorous, or carnivorous in habit, like the existing opossum. From the Miocene and Pliocene, no remains of Marsupials have been described. From the Post-Tertiary, only specimens nearly allied to those now living are known, and most of these were found in the caves of South America.
The Edentate[1] Mammals are evidently an American type, and on this continent attained a great development in numbers and size. No Eocene Edentates have been found here, and, although their discovery in this formation has been announced, the identification proves to have been erroneous. In the Miocene of the Pacific coast, a few fossils have been discovered which belong to animals of this group, and to the genus Moropus. There are two species, one about as large as a tapir, and the other nearly twice that size. This genus is the type of a distinct family, the Moropodidæ. In the lower Pliocene above, well-preserved remains of Edentates of very large size have been found at several widely-separated localities in Idaho and California. These belong to the genus Morotherium, of which two species are known. East of the Rocky Mountains, in the lower Pliocene of Nebraska, a large species apparently of the genus Moropus has been discovered. The horizon of these later fossils corresponds nearly with beds in Europe that have been called Miocene. In the Post-Pliocene of North America, gigantic Edentates were very numerous and widely distributed, but all disappeared with the close of that period. These forms were essentially huge sloths, and the more important genera were Megatherium, Mylodon, and Megalonyx. The genera Megalocnus and Myomorphus have been found only in Cuba.
In South America, during the Pliocene or Post-Pliocene, enormous Edentates were still more abundant, and their remains are usually in
- ↑ The Edentates are an order of Mammals, in which the teeth are imperfect or wanting. The teeth when present are without enamel, or true roots. This order includes the sloths, armadilloes, ant-eaters, etc.
