422 JOSEPH FOURIER. 



One must be blind to all reason not to find, in these 

 enormous dimensions, a new proof of the high tempera- 

 ture enjoyed by our country before the last irruptions of 

 the ocean ! 



The study of fossil animals is no less fertile in results. 

 I should digress from my subject if I were to examine 

 here how the organization of animals is developed upon 

 the earth ; what modifications, or more strictly speaking, 

 what complications it has undergone after each cataclysm, 

 or if I even stopped to describe one of those ancient 

 epochs during which the earth, the sea, and the atmos- 

 phere had for inhabitants cold-blooded reptiles of enor- 

 mous dimensions ; tortoises with shells three feet in di- 

 ameter ; lizards seventeen metres long ; pterodactyles, 

 veritable flying dragons of such strange forms, that they 

 might be classed on good grounds either among reptiles, 

 among mammiferous animals, or among birds. The ob- 

 ject, which I have proposed, does not require that I 

 should enter into such details ; a single remark will 

 suffice. 



Among the bones contained in the strata nearest the 

 present surface of the earth, are those of the hippopota- 

 mus, the rhinoceros, and the elephant. These remains 

 of animals of warm countries are to be found in all lati- 

 tudes. Travellers have discovered specimens of them 

 even at Melville Island, where the temperature descends, 

 in the present day, 50 beneath zero. In Siberia they 

 are found in such abundance as to have become an arti- 

 cle of commerce. Finally, upon the rocky shores of the 

 Arctic Ocean, there are to be found not merely frag- 

 ments of skeletons, but whole elephants still covered with 

 their flesh and skin. 



I should deceive myself very much, Gentlemen, if I 



