INTRODUCTION. 5 



range was raised several feet or yards higher. All this we learn 

 from the testimony of the rocks beneath our feet. It only 

 requires the use of a little imagination to conjure up scenes of 

 the past, and paint them as on a moving diorama. 



We shall not, however, dwell at any length on the scenery, or 

 the vegetation that clothed the landscape at different periods; 

 for these features are sufficiently indicated in the beautiful 

 drawings of extinct animals by our artist, Mr. J. Smit. 



The researches of the illustrious Baron Cuvier, at Paris, as 

 embodied in his great work, Ossemens Fossiles, gave a great 

 impetus to the study of organic remains. It was he who laid the 

 foundations of the science of Palaeontology, 1 which, though much 

 has already been accomplished, yet has a great future before it. 

 Agassiz, Owen, Huxley, Marsh, Cope, and others, following in his 

 footsteps, have greatly extended its boundaries ; but he was the 

 pioneer. 



Before his time fossil forms were very little known, and still 

 less understood. His researches, especially among vertebrates, 

 or back-boned animals, revealed an altogether undreamed-of 

 wealth of entombed remains. It is true the old and absurd notion 

 that fossils were mere "sports of Nature," sometimes bearing 

 more or less resemblance to living animals, but still only an 

 accidental (!) resemblance, had been abandoned by Leibnitz, 

 Buffon, and Pallas ; and that Daubenton had actually compared 

 the fossil bones of quadrupeds with those of living forms ; while 

 Camper declared his opinion that some of these remains belonged 

 to extinct species of quadrupeds. 



It is to Cuvier, however, that the world owes the first systematic 

 application of the science of comparative anatomy, which he 

 himself had done so much to place on a sound basis, to the 

 study of the bones of fossil animals. He paid great attention to 



1 Palaeontology is the science which treats of the living beings, whether 

 animal or vegetable, which have inhabited this globe at past periods in its 

 history. (Greek palaios, ancient ; onta, beings ; logos, discourse.) 



