SCIENTIFIC LABORS OF EDWARD LARTET. 175 



tauua according to their geological i^eriods ; of their correlation with the 

 temperature, the extent, and the flora of ancient continents, did not 

 occur to his purely analytical mind. It was far otherwise with Geoffroy 

 Saint Hilaire, who, notwithstanding his errors, his obscurity, and the 

 aflectation of his language, boldly sought to penetrate the mystery of a 

 science still in its intancy. Geoftroy called his articles RcniarJxS upon 

 the singular and important fact in natural history of the existence of a 

 species of monlcey found in the fossil state in the south of France. " It has 

 been asserted," he says " that the monkey of Sansan is allied to the ape 

 of the Sunda Islands, and yet the animals thus related, the one so old, the 

 other now existing, are separated by thousands of centuries." We would 

 suppose that, in contemplating fossil bones, the idea of their wonderful 

 antiquity would alone completely absorb the mind. ''The discovery 

 of the fossil jaw of the monkey by M. Lartet seems to me to be the 

 commencement of a new era in the knowledge of the human species; 

 of new research into the distinguishing characteristics of the varions am- 

 bient media ; of closer approximation to the laws which govern those 

 grand domains of the universe, where from age to age the mutation of 

 things is accompli.shed." 



Certainly the successful labors of modern paleontologists in relation 

 to the climate, the fauna, and the flora of the tertiary and quarteruary 

 periods, have realized the aspirations of Geoffroy Saint Hilaire. What 

 progress has been made in this difficult branch in less than thirty years, 

 and how much may be anticipated from the future of a science whose 

 development has been so rapid ! It is easy to foresee the light it will 

 throw upon the history of the evolution of life npon our planet. But 

 Geoflioy Saint Ililaire went still further — the new facts disclosed by 

 paleontology he regarded as so many new arguments against the theory 

 of the fixity of species maintained by Cuvier. " The incessant muta- 

 tion of things," he writes, "is a dominant fact verified by every new 

 geological discovery." We see by a review of these discussions how 

 much the savaus of the Institute were at that time engrossed with the 

 problems of paleontology. Blainville shortly after read before the Insti- 

 tute a report upon a new set of fossils from Sansan, which were described 

 by M. Lartet in a letter to Flourens. 



M. Lartet observed a singular conformation in the stags of Sansan ; 

 the horns seemed the same at every age, and to all appearances were 

 not dropped as those of living deer. M. Lartet proposed the name 

 dicrocerus for this group of ruminants. Blainville approximated them 

 to fC. 7nuntja1cJ the genus cervulus, whose very prominent frontal pro- 

 longations are crowned by horns which are shed every year. 



An accidental discovery, at this time, of a peculiarity in the denti- 

 tion of the ruminants of Sansan will be more fully described elsewhere. 

 The evolution of the second molars is quite complete before the loss of 

 the false molars or milk-teeth, while in living animals of the same group 

 the milk-teeth are replaced before the appearance of the last molar. 



