454 Baron Cuvier on the Oxteulugy of Reptiles, 



the Lizards, especially the Monitors, having well-marked 

 epiphyses appended to their long bones. 



It is in each genus, after having thus studied and brought 

 as far as practicable under genei'al rules the osteology of 

 living reptiles, that I pass to the examination of the fossil bones 

 most analogous ; and in this part of my labour I am equally 

 led into considerations of a much more extended nature than 

 had been suggested by investigating the osseous structures of 

 the Mammifera. 



The Mammalia, as they are the last, so they are the most 

 perfect products of creative power. 



The existence of Reptiles commenced much earlier : the 

 vestiges of these latter are imbedded in formations of a more 

 ancient date, and the naturalist is obliged to follow their re- 

 mains through strata of greater depth. 



It has been seen, in my preceding volumes, that beyond 

 comparison the greatest number of viviparous quadrupeds have 

 left vestiges of their bones in the last alluvial beds or in ca- 

 verns, or lastly in breaks or openings of rocks, that the sea, 

 which has flowed over them, has scarcely had time sufficient 

 allowed it to deposit the traces of its influx ; or at least, that 

 it has not covered them anew with any solid and regular 

 beds. Some local formations only, and which appear to be 

 of a more ancient date, include principally unknown genera, 

 and are in some places overlaid by marine strata. But in 

 our calcairc grassier, our calcaire a ccrithcs, we hitherto dis- 

 cover no other Mammifera than those of the Lea, — Phocae, 

 Lamantines, and Cetacea. One sole exception, probably the 

 result of mistake, invades this rule : these are the plastic clay 

 beds, the lignites which they contain, and some other lignites 

 contemporary with these, in which bones, incontestably those of 

 Mammalia, are observed ; in which I have indeed found my 

 Antracotheriums, and some Pala^otheriums, accompanied, as 

 in our gypsums, with the Trionyx and Crocodile; in which I 

 have recently recognised the bones and teeth of the Mastodon, 

 and the jaw of the Beaver*. These beds, these lignites would 

 be, it is urged, uniformly inferior to our calcaire grassier ; but 

 this inferiority, were it as well ascertained as it appears doubt- 

 ful, and were it true that lignites and their containing strata 

 of two distinct epochs have not been confounded together, we 



• I owe tiie communication of the fragments of tlie Mastodon to the 

 roant Vitalicn Borromeo, of Milan, and that of the jaw of the Beaver to my 

 Bcientific friend M. Brongniart. AH these remains are derived from the hg- 

 nites of Morgen. It is Professor Muissiier, of Bern, who appears to have 

 been the first to discover in tlicin tlic existence of fossil bones. 



should 



