411 T1IK MAMMALIA. 



tli.- osteology <>f tin- living and fossil Mammalia, 



and tliu- be founder of palaeontology and 



'Method. It was no small ad van - 



to Cuvier that in his immediate neighbourhood 

 were to be found deposits of the Paris Eocene, lime 

 and gypsum, containing the remains of the earliest 

 f. >nns of mammals. It is astonishing what he accorn- 

 plishrd in his ' I!< <]/< ><]/<'* x//r /,-.? osQetnents fossiles,' 

 when- his principle of correlation is so brilliantly 

 i d. 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- 

 vival 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 



rn]>ln s. Cuvier settles in a somewhat cursory 



manner. 'I do not maintain that a new creation 



(|iihvd to produce the present species; I say 



only that tiny 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 



.s vsscmcnts fossiles (1821). 



