A HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



the descriptions given of them bear the most unequivo- 

 cal marks ; as in almost all of them we see merely the 

 different parts of known animals united by an unbridled 

 imagination, and in contradiction to every established 

 law of nature." 2 



Having shown how the fabulous monsters of ancient 

 times and of foreign nations, such as the Chinese, were 

 simply products of the imagination, having no proto- 

 types in nature, Cuvier takes up the consideration of the 

 difficulty of distinguishing the fossil bones of quadru- 

 peds. 



We shall have occasion to revert to this part of Cu- 

 vier 's paper in another connection. Here it suffices to 

 pass at once to the final conclusion that the fossil bones 

 in question are the remains of an extinct fauna, the like 

 of which has no present-day representation on the 

 earth. Whatever its implications, this conclusion now 

 seemed to Cuvier to be fully established. 



In England the interest thus aroused was sent to 

 fever-heat in 1821 by the discovery of abundant beds 

 of fossil bones in the stalagmite-covered floor of a cave 

 at Kirkdale, Yorkshire, which went to show that Eng- 

 land, too, had once had her share of gigantic beasts. 

 Dr. Buckland, the incumbent of the chair of geology 

 at Oxford, and the most authoritative English geologist 

 of his day, took these finds in hand and showed that 

 the bones belonged to a number of species, including 

 such alien forms as elephants, rhinoceroses, hippo- 

 potami, and hyenas. He maintained that all of these 

 creatures had actually lived in Britain, and that the 

 caves in which their bones were found had been the 

 dens of hyenas. 



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