BARON CUVIER. 7^ 



there. Milk, flesh, beasts of burden, skins for 

 bedding and clothing, at once present them- 

 selves to his view. Furnished with such sources 

 of comfort, he is prepared to avoid the destruc- 

 tive, to ensnare the swift, and to make use of the 

 docile ; and weaker in bodily force, perhaps, 

 than the animals by which he is surrounded in 

 his desolate habitation, yet, by the superiority 

 of his intelligence, he becomes their sovereign. 



To say precisely what this great treatise dis- 

 plays, in an extent of five thick octavo volumes, 

 each containing from five to six liundred pages ; 

 to give an exact list of every thing it embraces, 

 would be to offer a dry catalogue of names, 

 which would not be generally understood; but in 

 order to show the manner in which it is con- 

 ducted throughout, and how thoroughly it 

 carries the student into every portion of an 

 organised body, I submit the way in which the 

 head is treated. The different bones which 

 form the box called the skull, with their shapes, 

 are first detailed ; then follow the articulation of 

 the head upon the spine, and its consequent move- 

 ments ; the muscles which aid these movements, 

 and give force and motion to the jaws ; the un- 

 equal surfaces of the interior of the skull ; the 

 holes of the skull ; the bones of the face ; the 



