*
[footnote] *Cuvier, 'Ossemens Fossiles', 1821, t. i., p. 157, 261, and 264.
See, also, Humboldt, 'Ueber die Hochebene von Bogota', in the 'Deutschen
Vierteljahrs-schrift', 1839, bd. i., s. 117.
The projecting spurs of the Himalaya, the Sewalik Hills, which have been so
zealously investigated by Captain Cantley* and Dr. Falconer, and the
Cordilleras, whose elevations are probably, of very different epochs,
contain, besides numerous mastodons, the sivatherium, and the gigantic land
tortoise of the primitive world ('Colossochelys'), which is twelve feet in
length and six in height, and several extant families, as elephants,
rhinoceroses, and giraffes; and it is a remarkable fact, that these remains
are found in a zone which still enjoys the same tropical climate which must
be supposed to have prevailed at the period of the mastodons.**
[footnote] *[The fossil fauna of the Sewalik range of hills, skirting the
southern base of the Himalaya, has proved more abundant in genera and
species of mammalia than that of any other region yet explored. As a
general expression of the leading features, it may be stated, that it
appears to have been composed of representative forms of all ages, from the
'oldest of the tertiary period down to the modern', and of 'all the
geographical' divisions of the Old Continent grouped together into one
comprehensive fauna.
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