Note 325 — Chapter VIII

Comptes Rendus, vol. iv, p. 58. Perhaps the only logical deduction which we can really draw from the greater size of these animals, is the greater extent of the continents which they inhabited. The belief in the gigantic dimensions of the fossil fauna and flora, is also a remains of the marvels which the first inquirers into science involuntarily reported. In examining matters nearer and more impartially, we see that certain zoological groups have been, in fact, formerly represented by larger species than at the present day; but until we arrive at some new discovery, we have the right to think that the other groups of animals, on the contrary, have a class of larger representatives than in former times; like the quadrumana, the cetacea, insects, cephalopods, acephalous mollusks, etc. But this pretended decay is especially false as regards plants; if we find in the ground some large ferns, or enormous grasses, we must subtract a good deal from those so-called antediluvian forests, which many have not hesitated to bring forward in support of their ideas. All the fossil plants that we know are, without exception, extremely wretched in comparison with the gigantic conifers and dicotyledons in the forests of the old and new world.