It is a far cry back, against the sun's path, from Wyoming and the flanks of the Rocky Mountains to the sacred Himalayas--the "abode of snow"--of Northern India. But if the reader will follow us to that country, we will endeavour to describe two or three out of many strange and now lost forms of life brought to light from the famous Sivalik Hills, on the southern border of the Himalayas, for the knowledge of which Science is greatly indebted to a very distinguished palæontologist, the late Mr. Hugh Falconer. Together with his friend Captain Cautley (afterwards Sir Proby Cautley), he explored this region, and their joint arduous labours show that it was at one time inhabited by a very large and varied group of quadrupeds, together with many birds, reptiles, fishes, mollusca, and crustaceans.
In this region there lived, throughout a considerable part of the Tertiary period, elephants, of various species, whose skulls and bones were found in great numbers; mastodons (a closely allied form); and several species of hippopotamus, rhinoceros, and horse: among ruminants, species of the camel, the ox, the stag, and the antelope, together with a colossal creature unknown before, the Sivatherium, which has never been found elsewhere; a huge tortoise, and various species of carnivora, rodents, and apes.
With regard to the geography of the region, it appears that the continent of India, at an early period of the Tertiary era, was a large island, situated in a bight, or bay, formed by the Himalayas and the Hindoo Koosh range. The valleys of the Ganges and Indus formed a long estuary, into which the drainage of the Himalayas poured its silt and alluvium. Later on, an upheaval took place, converting these straits into the plains of India, connecting them with the ancient island, and forming the existing continent. The large and varied forms whose remains now lie "sealed within the iron hills" then spread over the continent, from the Irrawaddi to the mouths of the Indus, two thousand miles; and north-west to the Jhelum, fifteen hundred miles. After a long interval of repose, another great upheaval took place, which threw up a strip of the plains of India, crumpled and ridged it up to form the Sivalik Hills, and at the same time increased the elevation of the Himalayas by many thousands of feet.