CUVIER. 153 



means extinct, nor are their labours by any means to be 

 despised. Recent zoology, also, has as one of its 

 departments the * Geographical Distribution of Animals ;' 

 but no one for this reason would think of asserting that 

 zoology was only a branch of geography. The sole 

 relations between the subjects of geology and palaeon- 

 tology arise from the fact that fossils occur in rocks. 

 Geology is to palaeontology almost precisely what 

 geography is to zoology. In its essence, however, 

 palaeontology is concerned entirely with the study of 

 the remains of animals and plants ; and in its two 

 divisions of palaeozoology and palaeobotany, it is a 

 branch of zoology on the one hand, or of botany on the 

 other hand. The very use of the separate term 'palae- 

 ontology ' is a misfortune and a cause of error. The truth 

 is, that all that part of palaeontology which is concerned 

 with animals is a branch of zoology; and just as a man 

 cannot be a good palaeontologist unless he is first a good 

 zoologist, so it may be safely stated that a man cannot 

 be a good zoologist, unless he has at least a good general 

 knowledge of palaeontology. 



Cuvier's palseontological researches were mostly carried 

 out in connection with the numerous remains of animals, 

 chiefly Vertebrates, which had been met with in the strata 

 of the neighbourhood of Paris. With his usual love of 

 thoroughness in all he did, Cuvier undertook, in conjunc- 

 tion with Alexander Brongniart, an investigation into the 

 arrangement of the Tertiary strata round Paris, in which 

 these fossil remains abounded, and the results of this 

 investigation were published in 1808, in the famous joint 

 memoir, entitled ' Essai sur la Ge'ographie mine'ralogique 



