46 THE MAMMALIA. 



the osteology of the living and fossil Mammalia, 

 and thus stands as the founder of palaeontology and 

 its comparative method. It was no small advan- 

 tage to Cuvier that in his immediate neighbourhood 

 were to he found deposits of the Paris Eocene, lime 

 and gypsum, containing the remains of the earliest 

 forms of mammals. It is astonishing what he accom- 

 plished in his ' Recherches sur les ossements fossiles,' 

 where his principle of correlation is so brilliantly 

 proved. The imperfectly observed geological facts 

 and the imperfect discoveries led him, nevertheless, 

 to the conviction that from time to time sudden con- 

 vulsions, catastrophes, had transformed the earth's 

 crust, and destroyed the living creatures, either 

 completely or with the exception of a small re- 

 mainder ; he further thought that those which sur- 

 vived were obliged often to seek a new home far 

 from their original abodes. The question as to 

 whence came the new inhabitants of the succeeding 

 peaceful period, after each of the great murderous 

 catastrophes, Cuvier settles in a somewhat cursory 

 manner. ' I do not maintain that a new creation 

 was required to produce the present species ; I say 

 only that they did not live in the same regions, and 

 that they must have come from elsewhere.' 1 This 



1 The quotation is from Cuvier 's book referred to above his 

 Becherches sur les ossements fossiles (1821). 



