BARON CUVIEB. 75 



" We are quite well, my good friend ; we have 

 crossed an agreeable country ; and we are in a 

 tolerable inn. Our carriage appears to be quite 

 able to bear the journey ; thus, up to this mo- 

 ment, all goes well. Pray to God that this may 

 last ; thou art so good that he cannot refuse thee. 

 Adieu. A thousand tender kisses. G. C." 



This year, 1811, appeared one of his most im- 

 portant works that on " Fossil Remains," which 

 wrought a revolution in the study of geology. By 

 comparing living and fossil animals, Cuvier showed 

 that huger creatures had lived on the earth and 

 become extinct before the creation of man. In the 

 first epoch he found great reptiles, like the 

 Ichthyosaurus, thirty feet long, and the Megalo- 

 saurus, seventy feet long. In the second epoch, he 

 found the Paleotherium ; in the third, the Mam- 

 moth, Mastodon, and gigantic sloth; and in the 

 fourth epoch, man. So closely had he stiidied the 

 relations of the organs of animals, that he could 

 reconstruct the extinct fossil from a single bone. 

 He had already prepared, at the request of Napo- 

 leon, a brilliant " Report on the Progress of Natural 

 Sciences from the year 1789." 



In 1813, though a Protestant, he was sent to 

 Rome to organize a university, and was made 

 Master of Requests in the Council of State. Napo- 

 leon also appointed him Commissaire Imperial 

 Extraordinaire, and sent him to endeavor to raise 

 the people on the left bank of the Rhine in favor 

 of France, against the invading troops then march- 



