BARON CUVIER. 47 



fer most, the teeth, and dentition, in all its stages, and in all 

 animals gifted with it, are laid open to his view, with the 

 important characters they afford for classification, and the 

 progress made from the concealment of the tooth in its socket 

 at the birth of the infant, to the filling up of the empty sock- 

 et into one solid mass, in the aged person. Close to human 

 teeth are the enormous and solitary grinders of the two 

 living species of elephants, the unchanging ivory of the 

 tusks of the walrus, the fearful weapons of the lion and the 

 tiger, and the sharp incisors of the bat. How surprised will 

 the novice be, to find, that the head, which he has been ac- 

 customed to consider as one mass of bone, is, in mammalia, 

 composed of several parts, and in fishes, divided to infinity. 

 Deeply will he reflect, when, in an adjoining room, he fol- 

 lows, in the entire skull, the gradations of the frontal bone, 

 which mark the most intelligent of mankind, to the animal 

 whose only instinct is that of procuring food ; and on de- 

 scending the staircase, to find himself in the midst of human 

 skeletons, in their varieties, from the Hottentot Venus to the 

 graceful being of a European drawing-room. For a mo- 

 ment, his feeling of admiration at the works of God, are 

 interrupted by a contempt of that external beauty which has 

 hitherto been so precious in his eyes ; but the great room, if 

 i I mistake not, will banish every sentiment but those of awe 

 >' and reverence ; for he will there find himself walking amid 

 the remains of the most gigantic of the earth, and the enor- 

 mous monsters which inhabit the depths of the ocean. 

 The solid and ponderous members of the elephant, the long 

 neck of the giraffe, the massive bulk of the whale, and the 

 hand-like fins of the dolphin, the strength and vigour of the 

 horse, the solemn force of the bull, and the light and ele- 

 gant action of the antelope, may all be traced in these framed 

 works of creation ; and as the visitor quits the galleries, I 

 think I cannot be wrong in supposing, that he will own his 

 personal insignificance in the great scale, his conviction of 

 the adaptation of nature to all the purposes for which it was 

 intended, and will learn to respect that being of his own spe- 

 cies, who, by his influence, his personal exertion, amassed, 

 and, by his wisdom, set before him, the marvellous works 

 which he has just been contemplating. 

 With so perfect a knowledge of the formation of living 



