CH. xxxix. FOSSIL ANIMALS. 435 



by Mr. Darwin's observations, which we shall examine 

 by and by. 



Cuvier Studies and Restores the Remains of Fossil 

 Animals, 1812. We have seen that Cuvier's knowledge of 

 the agreement between the different parts of an animal was 

 so great that from even one bone he could tell what the other 

 parts of the body must be. The use which he made of this 

 knowledge enabled him to reveal a wonderful history about 

 the fossils buried in the crust of our earth. 



When he first came to Paris, and for many years after- 

 wards, a number of skeletons and parts of skeletons of ani- 

 mals were being dug up round about Paris. These were a 

 great puzzle to anatomists, for the bones were many of them 

 immensely large, and none of them seemed to agree exactly 

 with those of any known animals. Cuvier no sooner heard 

 of these fossils than he set to work to study them, making 

 use of his great knowledge of anatomy to sort out the con- 

 fused mass. His practised eye could detect from among 

 a heap of bones those which belonged to each other, and 

 out of a mere handful of fragments he could make an 

 ideal restoration of the animal from which they must have 

 come. It was like the work of an enchanter's wand. 



' At the voice of comparative anatomy,' he writes, ' each 

 bone, each fragment, regained its place. I cannot describe 

 the pleasure I felt in finding that, as I discovered one cha- 

 racter, all its consequences were gradually brought to light ; 

 the feet agreed with the history told by the teeth ; the bones 

 of the legs and thighs, and those parts which ought to unite 

 them, agreed with each other. In a word, each one of the 

 species sprang from its own fragments.' 



And so month after month he worked on, and then to 

 the great astonishment of naturalists he told them that 

 all these animals were of species which are found nowhere 

 30 



