the grand progress of comparative anatomy, its pioneer being the immor- 

 tal naturalist of the present memoir. 



In the last years of the late, and during the early part of the present 

 century, the professors of the Garden of Plants, and of most other estab- 

 lishments of Paris, where the teaching of comparative anatomy formed a 

 part of the sciences which were taught, had frequently brought to their at- 

 tention either skeletons, or detached portions of skeletons, dug up from 

 beneath the soil of the city, evidently the relics of animals, and, in com- 

 parison with which, the bony structures of the present race of living 

 beings were altogether on a different scale. The comparative anatomists 

 of the Parisian schools would have lost their reputation, as well as their 

 hearers, were they to allow these discoveries to pass for objects inexpli- 

 cable by human penetration, particularly as every day brought forth, in 

 the neighbourhood of the city, some object that was calculated still further 

 to perplex the mystery of its origin. At last, the multitude of these spe- 

 cimens was such as to reach the power of irritating the pride of Cuvier; 

 and that chivalrous champion of Nature's jurisdiction said that there was 

 no alternative but to grapple with the apparition, and ascertain at once its 

 nature and properties. Cuvier, in association with M. A. Brongniart, 

 proceeded to the investigation of the soil, and, after many a laborious year 

 of toil and fatigue in quarries, caverns, &c., after many a tedieus ascent 

 up the heights of Montmartre, the indefatigable inquirers collected such 

 a body of information, as at once shed abundant light upon the phe- 

 nomena that had perplexed the scientific world so long. The results 

 were published in 1812, in a large work on the fossil bones, which 

 has since been reproduced with such improvements as to render it, ac- 

 cording to the opinion expressed by one of the most celebrated of the 

 geologists of this country (Mr. Bakewell), '• the most luminous and inte- 

 resting exposition of local geology ever presented to the world." The 

 great authority just mentioned adds, that it is from the era of this publi- 

 cation that we are to date the first accurate knowledge, of what is called 

 by geologists, the " tertiary strata*." 



From the work on fossil organic remains just mentioned, the conclusion 

 is obvious, that Cuvier was the first, who, by the application of the rarest 



• The high place assigned by the learned of all countries to this great composi- 

 tion, has induced the proprietor of the present translation of the " Animal Kingdom," 

 to prepare a version of the last edition of the " Fossil Bones" of the same cele- 

 brated author. This is the work which exhibits the wonderful genius of Cuvier in 

 its most triumphant exertion; and it is only surprising that British enterprize, in ail- 

 that regards the advancement of science, should not, ere this, have secured to our 

 scientific literature a soiu'ce of knowledge of so much consequence. The translation 

 here :innounccd, and its multitude of graphic illustrations, will be on the same ex- 

 pensive scale to the proprietor, and the same ecououiical one to the public, as have 

 been adopted in the present work. 



