NEW SCIENCE OF PALEONTOLOGY 



Europe, Asia, and Africa. The puma, the jaguar, the 

 tapir, the capybara, the llama, or glama, and vicuna, 

 and the whole tribe of sapajous, were to them entirely 

 new animals, of which they had not the smallest 

 idea. . . . 



" If there still remained any great continent to be 

 discovered, we might perhaps expect to be made ac- 

 quainted with new species of large quadrupeds, among 

 which some might be found more or less similar to those 

 of which we find the exuviae in the bowels of the earth. 

 But it is merely sufficient to glance the eye over the 

 maps of the world and observe the innumerable direc- 

 tions in which navigators have traversed the ocean, 

 in order to be satisfied that there does not remain any 

 large land to be discovered, unless it may be situated 

 towards the Antarctic Pole, where eternal ice neces- 

 sarily forbids the existence of animal life." l 



Cuvier then points out that the ancients were well 

 acquainted with practically all the animals on the con- 

 tinents of Europe, Asia, and Africa now known to 

 scientists. He finds little grounds, therefore, for belief 

 in the theory that at one time there were monstrous 

 animals on the earth which it was necessary to destroy 

 in order that the present fauna and men might flourish. 

 After reviewing these theories and beliefs in detail, he 

 takes up his Inquiry Respecting the Fabulous Animals 

 of the Ancients. "It is easy," he says, "to reply to 

 the foregoing objections, by examining the descriptions 

 that are left us by the ancients of those unknown ani- 

 mals, and by inquiring into their origins. Now that 

 the greater number of these animals have an origin, 



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