XVI PREFACE TO THE 



the great work of Cuvier. The subject of 

 the deluge forms a principal object of this 

 elegant discourse. After describing the 

 principal results at which the theory of the 

 earth, in his opinion, has arrived, he next 

 mentions the various relations which con- 

 nect the history of the fossil bones of land 

 animals with these results ; explains the 

 principles on which is founded the art of as- 

 certaining these bones, or, in other words, 

 of discovering a genus, and of distinguish- 

 ing a species, by a single fragment of bone : 

 and gives a rapid sketch of the results to 

 which his researches lead, of the new genera 

 and species which these have been the 

 means of discovering, and of the different 

 formations in which they are contained. 

 Some naturalists, as Lamarck, having main- 

 tained that the present existing races of 

 quadrupeds are mere modifications or va- 

 rieties of those ancient races which we now 

 find in a fossil state, modifications which 

 may have been produced by change of cli- 



