The Age of Mammals : In Europe, Asia and North America (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Age of Mammals: In Europe, Asia and North America

Only a few men of the last century had the gift of speaking in clear language both to the learned and unlearned, and the greatest of these was Huxley. To write both for the man of one's own profession and for the layman, to be accurate and abreast of the specialist who knows as much or more of a subject than you do, while intelligible to the non-specialist there is the difficulty. Many times have I thought to myself in the course of the preparation of these and similar lectures how simple it would be to address either audience separately. Yet I consider it fortunate that both are with us, because I share Huxley's confidence in addressing those who are willing to do a little serious thinking in order to enjoy the vast vistas of interesting truth which come as the reward of effort. I share also his conviction that it is the duty of the man of science to devote a certain part of his time, however absorbed in research he may be, to an honest attempt to scatter scientific truth. Although I may not claim that any parts of this volume are light reading, I have endeavored both to hold the attention of those who are already within the charmed temples of palaeontology and to attract new votaries to its shrines. It should, however, be clearly understood that considerable sections of this work are purely documentary and may be passed over rapidly by the general reader.

Time and place are the main theme of this work rather than descent, which has been the main theme of all previous general treatises on the Caenozoic mammals; it is a study of the sources or birthplaces of the several kinds of mammals, of their competitions, migrations, and extinctions, and of the times and places of the occurrence of these great events in the world's history. To set forth this history in all'its grandeur, it is interesting to consider the question of past environments, such as the past geography (palaeogeography) of the earth, the changes in climate and in the earth's surface which conditioned the evolution of plant life (palaeobotany) as the primary source of food supply for the mammals. Thus geology, geography, botany, and climate are treated as leading to a clear understanding of each of the successive groups and movements of mammalian life.

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