THE NEOZOIC AGES. 249 



indicating their existence before the close of the 

 Mesozoic. 



The researches of Baron Cuvier in the bones col- 

 lected in the quarries of Montmartre were regarded as 

 an astonishing triumph of comparative anatomy ; and 

 familiar as we now are with similar and yet more dif- 

 ficult achievements, we can yet afford to regard with 

 admiration the work of the great French naturalist 

 as it is recorded in its collected form in his " Re- 

 cherches sur les Ossemens Fossiles," published in 

 1812. His clear and philosophical views as to the 

 plan perceptible in nature, his admirable powers of 

 classification, his acute perception of the correlation 

 of parts in animals, his nice discrimination of the 

 resemblances and differences of fossil and recent 

 structures, and of the uses of these, all mark him 

 as one of the greatest minds ever devoted to the 

 study of natural science. It is obvious, that had 

 his intellect been occupied by the evolutionist meta- 

 physics which pass for natural science with too many 

 in our day, he would have effected comparatively 

 little ; and instead of the magnificent museum in the 

 " Regne Animal " and the " Ossemens Fossiles," we 

 might have had wearisome speculations on the de- 

 rivation of species. It is reason for profound thank- 

 fulness that it was not so; and also that so many 

 great observers and thinkers of our day, like Sedg- 

 wick, Murchison, Lyell, Owen, Dana, and Agassiz, 

 have been allowed to work out their researches almost 

 to completion before the advent of those poisoned 



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