HISTORY OF THE WORKS OF CUVIER. 159 



TI. — RESEARCHES ON FOSSIL BONES.* 



Tile first object of this work is the comp.arison of fossil with living species; 

 and this coni]-)aris()n bears principally on two classes of vertebrate animals : mam- 

 mals and rcptUcs. The author commences this comparative history of the 

 species of the ancient and the actual world, with the pachydermata ; he contin- 

 u(?s it with the ruminants, the carnivora, the rodentia, the edeutata, and the ceta- 

 cea; and concludes with the reptiles. The fundamental result of the whole 

 work is, that no fossil spoci(^s, or scarcely any, at least in the two classes of uiam- 

 mifers and reptiles, has its analogue among living species. It has been already 

 fjaid that io arrive at this result, it \vas necessary that the author should review 

 all the fossil species, that he should compare them all, and one by one, with all 

 the living species, and it has been shown to what precise, rigorous, and almost 

 infallible laws he has sttbjccted the admirable art of reconstructing all theA* 

 lost species froui their scattered remains. I shall apply myself here chiefly +1 

 another point : that of the particular and detailed comparison of fossil with exidt- 

 ing species. 



I begin, as M. Cuvier hae done, with the pachydermata. This family, natural 

 as it is, was almost entirely overlooked by Linnaeus. Storr, who had clearer 

 conceptions of it, characterizes it by this definition : mammals with hoofs tciih 

 more then two toes. Btit Avithout speaking of the anoplotherhun, a fossil species 

 which has only two toes, and which is not the less a tj'ue pachyderm, it is 

 evident, from a consideration of the whole structure, that the solipcds should be 

 united to the ordinary pachydermata. The number of the toes, therefore, can 

 no more bo taken into consideration in this family than in the others. Cuvier 

 defines it: animals with hoofs, non-ruminants. Before him, the order or family 

 of pachydermata comprised bitt live genera: the elephant, the rhinoceros, the 

 hippopotamus, the tajjir, and the hog. M. Cuvier introdu.ced into it two other 

 genera, the horse and the daman. * * * Considered in their relations to the 

 revolutions of the gU)be, the fossil pachydermata form two groups : the pachy- 

 dermata of loose and alluvial formations, and those of the plaster quarries, so 

 abuijdantly accumulated in the epvirons of Paris. To the former pertain the 

 fossil elephant, mastodon, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, horse, &c. ; to the second, 

 the palaBOtherium, the anoplotherium, the lophiodon, the anthracotherium, the 

 chajropotanms, the adapis. All the species of the first of these two groups are 

 now lost ; but the greater part of its genera subsists. Not so with the second, 

 in which both genera and species arc equally extinct. * * * Beginning 

 with the pacliydermata of loose and alluvial formations, the first of these animals 

 which M. Cuvier studied under this new point of view, of the conq)arison of 

 fossil with living species, was the elephant. 



Till then, almost everything relative to this singular quadruped was alike 

 unknown. It was not known, at least with any precision, whether there was 

 only a single species of ele|)hant or several species, nor, with stronger reason, 

 whether the fossil bones might be refeiTcd or not to the living s})ecies. The first 

 truly specific distinction of these animals, that which is founded on the structuic 

 of their molar teeth, only goes l)ack to Camper. Blumenbach had also seen this 

 difference in the iorm and nimiber of the lamina; of the molar teeth, which dis- 

 tinguishes the elephant of Africa from that of the Indies ; but so far this was 

 all, and it is to Cuvier that we owe the determination of all the other differ- 

 ences, derived from the l>ones of the skull, from those of the face, and of the 



'The first edition ol" this great work, published iu 18J2, was scarcely more than the 

 reunion of the memoirs, inserted successively by tiio autiior, iu the Annales du Miiscutn 

 d'luhtoire nalurcKe. The second edition appeared from 1BI2 to 1824. It is uot only enriched 

 with a prcat number ol' new facts, but tlio entire work is recast throuphoul;, and arraiif^ed in 

 more uu^thodical order. The third edition is of JB'iS, and is dist.nfjiiislied from the secinid 

 by certaiu additions to the Inlroduction, which latter has been oiien printed separately, and 

 has become celebrated under the title of Discours sur tes r^colutions de la surj'uca d it globe. 



