72 



GEOLOGY AND NATURAL HISTORY. 



In the fourteenth year of his age 

 he was appointed president of a 

 society of his school-fellows, which 

 he was the means of organizing, 

 and of which he drew up the rules; 

 and seated on the foot of his bed, 

 which was the president's chair, he 

 first showed his oratorical powers 

 in the discussion of various ques- 

 tions, suggested by the reading of 

 books of natural history and tra- 

 vels, which was the principal object 

 of the society. 



"When at the age of nineteen, the 

 casual dissection of a colmar, a 

 species of cuttle-fish, induced Cuvier 

 to study the anatomy of the mol- 

 lusca ; and the examination of some 

 fossil terebratula?, which had been 

 dug up near Fecamp, in June, 1791, 

 suggested to him the idea of com- 

 paring fossil with living animals; 

 and thus, as he himself said, " the 

 germ of his two most important 

 labours the comparison of fossil 

 with living species, and the reform 

 of the classification of the animal 

 kingdom had their origin at this 

 epoch." 



CUVIER'S RECONSTRUCTION OP 



ORGANIC REMAINS. 

 This philosopher achieved his 

 greatest discoveries by following 

 the guidance of the principle of de- 

 sign in the structure of animal bo- 

 dies. The following singularly 

 interesting account, by himself, of 

 the application of this principle to 

 the reconstruction of the fossil re- 

 mains of extinct animals, is without 

 a parallel in the hi story of science : 

 " When the sight of some bones of 

 the bear and ^the elephant, twelve 

 years ago, inspired me with the 

 idea of applying the general laws 

 of comparative anatomy to the re- 

 construction and the discovery of 

 fossil species when I began to 

 perceive that these species were 

 not perfectly represented by those 

 of our day which resembled them 

 the most, I did not suspect that I 



was every day treading upon a soil 

 filled with remains more extraor- 

 dinary than any that I had yet 

 seen ; nor that I was destined to 

 bring to light whole genera of ani- 

 mals unknown to the present world, 

 and buried for (incalculable ) ages 

 at vast depths under the earth. It 

 was to M. Veurin that I owed the 

 first indications of these bones fur- 

 nished by our quarries. Some 

 fragments which he brought me 

 one day having struck me with 

 astonishment, I made inquiries re- 

 specting the persons to whom this 

 industrious collector had sent any 

 formerly. What I saw in these 

 collections served to excite my 

 hopes and increase my curiosity. 

 Causing search to be made at that 

 time for such bones in all the quar- 

 ries, and offering rewards, to arouse 

 the attention of the workmen, I 

 collected a greater number than 

 any person who had preceded me. 

 After some years, I was sufficiently 

 rich in materials to have nothing- 

 further to desire ; but it was other- 

 wise with respect to their arrange- 

 ment and the construction of the 

 skeletons, which alone could con- 

 duct me to a just knowledge of the 

 species. From the first moment, I 

 perceived that there were many 

 different species in our quarries, 

 and soon afterwards that they be- 

 longed to various genera, and that 

 the species of the different genera 

 were often of the same size ; so 

 that the size alone rather confused 

 than assisted my arrangement. I 

 was in the situation of a man who- 

 had given to him, pale mele, the 

 mutilated and incomplete fragments 

 of a hundred skeletons, belonging 

 to twenty sorts of animals ; and 

 it was required that each bone 

 should be joined to that which it 

 belonged to. It was a resurrec- 

 tion in miniature ; but the im- 

 mutable Jaws prescribed to living 

 beings were my directors. At 

 the voice of comparative anatomy, 



