Cuvier
"Ossemens Fossiles" tome 1 page 151, from Billing's "Voyage."); and
those islets lie no less than ten degrees of latitude north of the
place where Pallas found the frozen rhinoceros. On the other hand,
a carcass washed by a flood into a shallow part of the Arctic Sea,
would be preserved for an indefinite period, if it were soon
afterwards covered with mud sufficiently thick to prevent the heat
of the summer water penetrating to it; and if, when the sea-bottom
was upraised into land, the covering was sufficiently thick to
prevent the heat of the summer air and sun thawing and corrupting
it.
(PLATE 58. FLORA OF MAGELLAN.)
(PLATE 59. MACROCYSTIS PYRIFERA, OR MAGELLAN KELP.)
RECAPITULATION.
I will recapitulate the principal facts with regard to the climate,
ice-action, and organic productions of the southern hemisphere,
transposing the places in imagination to Europe, with which we are
so much better acquainted. Then, near Lisbon, the commonest
sea-shells, namely, three species of Oliva, a Voluta, and a
Terebra, would have a tropical character. In the southern provinces
of France, magnificent forests, intwined by arborescent grasses and
with the trees loaded with parasitical plants, would hide the face
of the land.
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