PAL^OZOOLOGY : FOSSIL ANIMALS. 261 



remains of their undigested food (coprolites). Some strata 

 furnish only the impression of a shell ; but if it be one of 

 a characteristic kind, ( 298 ) we are able, on its production, 

 to recognise the formation in which it was found, and 

 to state other organic remains which were buried with it. 

 Thus the shell brought home by the distant traveller ac- 

 quaints us with the geological character of the countries 

 which he has visited. 



The analytical study of the animal and vegetable king- 

 doms of the primitive world has given rise to two distinct 

 branches of science ; one purely morphological, which oc- 

 cupies itself in natural and physiological descriptions., and 

 in the endeavour to fill up from extinct forms the chasms 

 which present themselves in the series of existing species ; 

 the other branch, more especially geological, considers the 

 relations of the fossil remains to the superposition and rela- 

 tive age of the sedimentary beds in which they are found. 

 The first long predominated; and the superficial manner 

 which then prevailed of comparing fossil and existing spe- 

 cies, led to errors of which traces still remain in the strange 

 denominations which were given to certain natural objects. 

 Writers attempted to identify all extinct forms with living 

 species ; as, in the sixteenth century, the animals of the New 

 World were confounded by false analogies with those of the 

 Old Continent. Camper, Sommering, and Blumenbach, 

 were the first to enter on a more rational course, and have 

 the merit of having first applied the resources of compara- 

 tive anatomy, in a strictly scientific manner, to that part of 

 palaeontology (the archseology of organic life), which treats 

 of the bones of the larger vertebrated animals. But it is 

 pre-eminently to the admirable works of George Cuvier and 



