350 Cuvier as a Naturalist. 



there existed so necessary a corelation of form between these 

 parts, that none of them could be modified without influencing 

 all the others, and that each modification was in itself sufficient 

 to make known all the rest ; he thence concluded, that every 

 bone of the skeleton of an animal bears the character of the 

 class, order, genus, and even of the species. Applying this doc- 

 trine to determine the bones scattered among the different strata 

 of the earth, he discovered what had escaped the observation 

 of Camper and Daubenton, who likewise applied comparative 

 anatomy to the determination of fossil bones, that these remains 

 of animals belong to extinct races, different from those which 

 now exist. * 



This discovery, in the sequel of his researches, -f led to the 

 knowledge of another fact not less unexpected, that the differ- 

 ences between fossil and living animals, increased in proportion 

 to the age of the deposit which contains them, in such a manner 

 that the exposition of these differences becomes a kind of chro- 

 nological table of the deposits. 



Let us take a rapid survey of the most general consequences 

 which flow from these new facts. 



As the primitive rocks, on which all the others repose, con- 

 tain no remains of living beings, we thence infer that the latter 

 did not always exist on our planet. Whether the too high tem- 

 perature prevented it, or the materials necessary to organic exist- 

 ence were not prepared, there was a time when physical forces 

 acted alone on the rocks and on the seas, where the wonders of 

 organization were developed at a later period. 



All organized beings have not been created together ; vege- 

 tables seem to have preceded animals ; the moUuscae and fishes 



• The number of the species dT the fossil Vertebral Animals recognised by 

 M. Cuvier, amount to 1G8, and form about 50 genera, of which 15 at least are 

 new. Many new genera have since been discovered ; and when we reflect 

 how few localities have been examined with care, we are led to believe that 

 the lost species are perhaps more numerous than the living ones. The ex- 

 tensive labours now making on fishes, on shells, on the madrepores, and on 

 fossil plants, yield truths of the same kind with those of Cuvier on the raam- 

 mifera and reptiles. 



•f- Published in separate Memoirs in the Annals of the Museum, from their 

 commencement to the year 1811, and collected in 4 vols. 4to. in 1812, and in 

 ' 5 vols, in 1821. 



