- means in the pafanaton = of the e most important phenomena 
connected with the natural history of our earth. It is, there- 
fore of the utmost importance that we should be familiar 
with the whole series of organic remains, before we form 
our ideas upon the subject in its full extent, and before we 
allow ourselves to undertake an explanation of the apparent 
fab rinth. 
scceete my — of the great utility of a 
wledge of organic remains, as connected with 
‘and pad to which they belong; the a 
speaks of the high importance of ogee remains. 
* Why—do we not perceive, that to “fossil remains alone, is 
due the origin of the theory of the earth; and, that without 
them, we should ibly have never dreamed, that there 
ad been in the formation of the globe, successive epochs, 
and a series of different operations ?” 
aaa truly, a position which allows of infinitely more 
les than 
zeal of the theory of the earth re roe then every other 
consideration for such a theory is excl a to 
the position of M. Cuvier, there exists but one cause from 
which the theory of the earth has taken its origin ; and that 
is, the study of fossil bones 
Such a position it seems to me proves too much, and there- 
fore nothing, decidedly. 
After having read and meditated much upon it, Ttake the 
liberty to ask M. Cuvier if the knowledge we possess concern- 
re a various rock | format tions,—the manifest differences in 
succession, alternation and reg- 
alae: recurrence of shew strata; that relating also, to the obvi- 
ous order which reigns in the superposition of rocks, and the 
sotking instances of conformity, of indentity, of equivalence 
and nets cornet in —_ superpos! speapeeP? ie the re- 
theory of the earth—and whether we should not add to it 
whatever may be derived from the study of fossil remains, 
