CHAPTER I — INTRODUCTION 



HISTORY OF PALEONTOLOGY — ENVIRONMENT — PAST AND 

 PRESENT GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION OF MAMMALS 



I. Philosophy of the Structure of Mammals 



Rise of Palceontology 



Palaeontology is the zoology of the past. As a science it arose dur- 

 ing the latter part of the eighteenth century in various parts of Europe 

 with the first comparisons of the extinct with existing forms of life. Among 

 the mammals such comparisons were instituted by Buff on and others; 

 Cuvier subsequently formulated these into a complete system of study, 

 and was thus the founder of vertebrate palaeontology; he was also the 

 pioneer in the art of restoration of the extinct forms of mammalian life 

 and the conditions under which they lived. 



Cuvier in his famous Discours ' observed that naturalists recoiled from 

 the difficulties which faced them because of the imperfections of fossils. 



"Even if we should meet with the whole skeleton, '^ he remarked, "we should 

 have great difficulty in applying to it characteristics for the most part derived 

 from the hair, color, and other marks which disajoj^ear before incrustation. It is 

 uncommonly rare to find a fossil skeleton at all perfect; the bones are isolated, 

 confusedly intermingled, most frequently broken, and reduced to fragments ; this 

 is all which our geologic layers furnish us, and is the sole resource of the natural- 

 ist. . . . Frightened at these difficulties, the majority of observers have passed 

 lightly over the fossil bones of quadrupeds, classed them very vaguely after super- 

 ficial resemblances, or have not even hazarded the giving of a name to them, so 

 that this part of fossil history, the most important and instructive of all, is of all 

 others the least cultivated." 



"I do not pretend by this remark," continues Cuvier, " to detract from the obser- 

 vations of Camper or of Pallas, of Blumenbach, Soemmering, Merk, Faujas, Rosen- 

 miiller. Home, and others ; but their assembled labors which have been very use- 

 ful to me and which I have cited elsewhere are only partial." [Footnote to French 

 Edition, p. 47.] 



Among these pioneers of mammalian palaeontology in Europe to whom 

 Cuvier refers were the vertebrate zoologists and comparative anatomists 



' Baron Georges L'.'opold Chr(''tien Fr^>dc>ric Dagobert Cuvier, 1769-1832, Discours sur 

 les Revolutions de la Surface du Globe; et sur les changemcns qu'ellcs out produits dans le 

 regne animal. 4to. Paris, 1826. 



B 1 



