A HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



and there are none equal to those furnished by the 

 Egyptians, both in regard to their antiquity and abun- 

 dance. They have not only left us representatives of 

 animals, but even their identical bodies embalmed and 

 preserved in the catacombs. 



" I have examined, with the greatest attention, the 

 engraved figures of quadrupeds and birds brought 

 from Egypt to ancient Rome, and all these figures, one 

 with another, have a perfect resemblance to their in- 

 tended objects, such as they still are to-day. 



"From all these established facts, there does not 

 seem to be the smallest foundation for supposing that 

 the new genera which I have discovered or established 

 among extraneous fossils, such as the pale <zther turn, 

 anoplotherium, megalonyx, mastodon, pterodactylis, etc., 

 have ever been the sources of any of our present animals, 

 which only differ so far as they are influenced by time 

 or climate. Even if it should prove true, which I am 

 far from believing to be the case, that the fossil ele- 

 phants, rhinoceroses, elks, and bears do not differ 

 further from the existing species of the same genera 

 than the present races of dogs differ among themselves, 

 this would by no means be a sufficient reason to con- 

 clude that they were of the same species ; since the races 

 or varieties of dogs have been influenced by the tram- 

 mels of domesticity, which those other animals never 

 did, and indeed never could, experience." 3 



To Cuvier's argument from the fixity of Egyptian 

 mummified birds and animals, as above stated, La- 

 marck replied that this proved nothing except that the 

 ibis had become perfectly adapted to its Egyptian sur- 



158 



