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Some, for example, which then lived in Britain are now only found in Norway and Finland, probably implying that the Post-pliocene climate of Britain was colder, especially in the winter.
True, the billiard-tables were of the Old Silurian Period, and the cues and balls of the Post-Pliocene; but there was refreshment in this, not discomfort; for there is rest and healing in the contemplation of antiquities. The most notable absence observable in the billiard-room, was the absence of the river man. If he was there he had taken in his sign, he was in disguise.
These subterranean vaults are usually filled in part with mud, pebbles, and breccia, in which bones occur belonging to the same assemblage of animals as those characterising the Post-pliocene alluvia above described.
In the former, or the Recent, the mammalia as well as the shells are identical with species now living: whereas in the Post-pliocene, the shells being all of living forms, a part, and often a considerable part, of the mammalia belonged to extinct species.
In the fossils of the Post-pliocene period in this same island, there is the like absence of kangaroos, opossums, wombats, and the rest; but in their place a prodigious number of well-preserved specimens of gigantic birds of the struthious order, called by Owen Dinornis and Palapteryx, which are entombed in superficial deposits.
Although few geologists can aspire to such knowledge, which must be the result of long practice and study, they will nevertheless derive great advantage from learning, what is comparatively an easy task, to distinguish the principal divisions of the mammalia by the forms and characters of their teeth. Post-pliocene. a. Grinding surface. b. Elephas antiquus, Falconer.
We are indebted to M. Gaudry, who visited Pikerme, for a treatise on these fossil bones, showing how many data they contribute to the theory of a transition from the mammalia of the Upper Miocene through the Pliocene and Post-pliocene forms to those of living genera and species. The Siwalik Hills lie at the southern foot of the Himalayan chain, rising to the height of 2000 and 3000 feet.
The cold seems to have gone on increasing from the time of the Coralline to that of the Norwich Crag, and became more and more severe, not perhaps without some oscillations of temperature, until it reached its maximum in what has been called the Glacial period, or at the close of the Newer Pliocene, and in the Post-pliocene periods.
Fossil remains of the elephant, and other extinct quadrupeds, have been found in these Post-Pliocene strata, associated with recent shells. There is probably no part of Europe where the Newer Pliocene formations enter so largely into the structure of the earth's crust, or rise to such heights above the level of the sea, as Sicily.
So extensive have been the discoveries of the works of man buried with the bones of the Elephas primigenius and of cavern-bears and extinct hyenas, that we are forced to recognize the fact of the coexistence of man with those ancient animals, for the occurrence of deposits containing the bones of the two cannot any longer be regarded as doubtful; and certainly stone tools fashioned by man have been found so widely spread in the ancient alluviums and deposits of the post-Pliocene age, as to remove all doubt of the fact, and to destroy the objection that they might be local accidents of an equivocal character.
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