[4] "In tracing the series of fossiliferous formations, from the most ancient to the more modern, the first deposits in which we meet with assemblages of organic remains having a near analogy to the _Fauna_ of certain parts of the globe in our own time, are those commonly called tertiary. Even in the Eocene, or oldest subdivision of these tertiary formations, some few of the testacea belong to existing species, although almost all of them, and apparently all the associated vertebrata, are now extinct. These Eocene strata are succeeded by a great number of modern deposits, which depart gradually in the character of their fossils from the Eocene type, and approach more and more to that of the living creation. In the present state of science, it is chiefly by the aid of shells that we are enabled to arrive at the results; for, of all classes, the testacea are the most generally diffused in a fossil state, and may be called the medals principally employed by nature in recording the chronology of past events. In the Miocene deposits, which succeed next to the Eocene, we begin to find a considerable number, although still a minority, of recent species intermixed with some fossils common to the preceding epoch. We then arrive at the Pliocene strata, in which species now contemporary with man begin to preponderate, and in the newest of which nine-tenths of the fossils agree with species still inhabiting the neighbouring sea. "In thus passing from the older to the newer members of the tertiary system, we meet with many chasms; but none which separate entirely, and by a broad line of demarcation, one state of the organic world from another. There are no signs of an abrupt termination of one _Fauna_ and _Flora_, and the starting into life of new and wholly distinct forms. Although we are far from being able to demonstrate geologically an insensible transition from the Eocene to the recent _Fauna_, yet we may affirm that the more we enlarge and perfect our survey of Europe, the more nearly do we approximate to such a continuous series, and the more gradually are we conducted from times when many of the genera and nearly all the species were extinct, to those in which scarcely a single species flourished which we do not know to exist at present."--LYELL'S _Principles of Geology_. Vol. i. p. 283. [5] This lower jaw is described in another part of the work as showing in the human embryo the last trace of the monkey. [6] Printed at Dublin for Philip Dixon Hardy & Sons, 1842. [7] A place in Ireland? [8] We subjoin the original Etruscan text as read by our author, with its alleged Irish equivalents. BUCUCUM : IUBIU : PUNE : UBEF : FURFATH : TREF : BITLUF : TURUF : | MARTE : THURIE : FETU : PUPLEEPER : TUTAS : HUBINAS : TUTAPER : ICUBINA : | BATUBA : FERINE : FETU : PUNI : FETU : ARBIC : USTENTU : CUTEP : PES- NIMU.