According to
these views, the chalk and Jura constitute the upper, and the keuper, the
muschelkalk, and the bunter sandstone the lower secondary formations, while
the Permian system and the carboniferous limestone are the upper, and the
devonian and silurian strata are the lower palaeooic formation. The
fundamental principles of this general classification are developed in the
great work in which this indefatigable British geologist purposes to
describe the geology of a large part of Eastern Europe.
Then follow, in the alluvial beds, the colossal bones of the mammalia of the
primitive world, as the mastodon, dinothrium
p 278
missurium, and the megatherides, among which is Owen's sloth-like mylodon,
eleven feet in the length.*
[footnote] *[See Mantell's 'Wonders of Geology', vol. i., p. 168.] -- Tr.
Besides these extinct families, we find the fossil remains of still extant
animals, as the elephant, rhinoceros, ox, horse, and stag. The field near
Bogota, called the 'Campo de Gigantes', which is filled with the bones of
mastodons, and in which I caused excavations to be made, lies 8740 feet
above the level of the sea, while the osseous remains, found in the elevated
plateaux of Mexico, belong to true elephants of extinct species.
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