98 SKETCH or THE HISTORY OF MAMMALIA. 



of the molar teeth of the upper jaw ; Fig. 56, the lower 

 jaw and molar teeth, imperfect. 



The restoration of the skeletons of these extinct forms 

 is one of the triumphs of science ; and, by persons unac- 

 quainted with the law of harmonious dependence which 

 reigns throughout the structure and organization of 

 animal bodies, might be deemed an improbability, or at 

 least, an uncertain process : not so — the bones of the 

 feet, the teeth, the spine, or of the limbs, are to the 

 comparative anatomist a foundation upon which he can 

 rear a superstructure, a clue to the recom position of the 

 fabric. Speaking of the accumulated stores of fossil 

 relics at his command, Cuvier thus writes: — " I at length 

 found myself, as if placed in a charnel-house, surrounded 

 by mutilated fragments of many hundred skeletons of 

 more than twenty kinds of animals piled confusedly 

 around me ; the task assigned to me was to restore them 

 all to their original position. At the voice of compara- 

 tive anatomy every bone and fragment of a bone resumed 

 its place. I cannot find words to express the pleasure I 

 experienced in seeing, when I discovered one character, 

 how all the consequences which I predicted from it were 

 successively confirmed. The feet accorded with the 

 characters announced by the teeth ; the teeth were in 

 harmony with those indicated previously by the feet. 

 The bones of the legs and thighs, and every connecting 

 portion of the extremities, were seen joined together 

 precisely as T had arranged them before my conjectures 

 were verified by the discovery of the parts entire. Each 

 species was, in short, reconstructed from a single unit of 

 its component elements." The relics of the Palaeotheria 

 are found mingled with those of many other extinct 

 forms in a stratum of fresh- water formation, as is evi- 

 denced by the shells it contains : it is the first of the 

 great fresh-water formations of the Eocene period of 

 Lyell, a deposit in which nearly fifty extinct species 

 were discovered by Cuvier. We cannot doubt but that, 

 like the tapir and rhinoceros of the present day, the Pa- 

 laeotheria frequented the borders of lakes and large rivers, 

 feeding upon the leaves and twigs of brushwood : there 



