On Mastodontoid and Megatherioid AnimaU, 135 



This, gentlemen, is the true Cuvierian style, in which, as 

 in numberless parts of his works. Professor Owen has conti- 

 nued to breathe out the very spirit of the founder of palaeon- 

 tological science. 



It is by such labours that geology is steadily gaining a high- 

 er place among the sciences. Comparative anatomy has truly 

 been our steadiest auxiliary, and well may we do honour to 

 those who impart to us such truthful records ; for, whilst the 

 histories of the earlier beings of our own race are shrouded in 

 obscurity, whilst the first chronicles of ancient Rome and 

 Greece are now admitted to be exaggerated, and often even 

 fabulous, we turn back the leaves of far more antique lore ; 

 and, not trusting to perishing inscriptions, mutilated by suc- 

 cessive conquerors, and assuming a hundred meanings under 

 the eyes of doubting antiquaries, we appeal only to the proofs 

 in Nature's book, and find that their reading is pregnant with 

 evidences which must be true, because they are founded on 

 unerring general laws. 



5. The chief aim of the Geological Society of London, — The 

 chief aim of this Society hasbeen to gather sound data for classi- 

 fication ; and, followingout this principle, I have endeavoured to 

 shew, how the order of succession established in our own isles, is 

 now extended eastwards to the confines of Asia, and westwards 

 to the back- woods of America. From such researches, and 

 by contributions from our widely-spread colonies, we have at 

 length reached nearly all the great terms of general com- 

 parison. 



Besides ascertaining where the great masses of combustible 

 matter lie, we can now affirm, that, during the earliest period of 

 life, conditions prevailed, indicating a prevalence over enor- 

 mous spaces — if not almost universally — of the same climate, 

 involving a very wide diffusion of similar inhabitants of the 

 ocean. We have learned, that, in the earliest of these stages 

 of animal life, no vestige of the vertebrata has yet been found ; 

 whilst in the succeeding epochs of Palaeozoic age singular fishes 

 appear, which, in proportion to their antiquity, are more re- 

 moved from all modern analogies. In each of these early and 

 long-continued periods, the shells preserving on the whole a 



