Vill MEMOIR. 
the grand progress of comparative anatomy, its pioneer being the immor- 
tal naturalist of the present memoir. 
In the last years of the late, and during the early part of the present 
century, the professors of the Garden of Plants, and of most other estab- 
lishments of Paris, where the teaching of comparative anatomy formed a 
part of the sciences which were taught, had frequently brought to their at- 
tention either skeletons, or detached portions of skeletons, dug up from 
beneath the soil of the city, evidently the relics of animals, and, in com- 
parison with which, the bony structures of the present race of living 
beings were altogether on a different scale. ‘The comparative anatomists 
of the Parisian schools would have lost their reputation, as well as their 
hearers, were they to allow these discoveries to pass for objects inexpli- 
cable by human penetration, particularly as every day brought forth, in 
the neighbourhood of the city, some object that was calculated still further 
to perplex the mystery of its origin. At last, the multitude of these spe- 
cimens was such as to reach the power of irritating the pride of Cuvier; 
and that chivalrous champion of Nature’s jurisdiction said that there was 
no alternative but to grapple with the apparition, and ascertain at once its 
nature and properties. Cuvier, in association with M. A. Brongniart, 
proceeded to the investigation of the soil, and, after many a laborious year 
of toil and fatigue in quarries, caverns, &c., after many a tedious ascent 
up the heights of Montmartre, the indefatigable inquirers collected such 
a body of information, as at once shed abundant light upon the phe- 
nomena that had perplexed the scientific world so long. The results 
were published in 1812, in a large work on the fossil bones, which 
has since been reproduced with such improvements as to render it, ac- 
cording to the opinion expressed by one of the most celebrated of the 
geologists of this country (Mr. Bakewell), “‘ the most luminous and inte- 
resting exposition of local geology ever presented to the world.” The 
great authority just mentioned adds, that it is from the era of this publi- 
cation that we are to date the first accurate knowledge, of what is called 
by geologists, the “ tertiary strata*.” 
From the work on fossil organic remains just mentioned, the conclusion 
is obvious, that Cuvier was the first, who, by the application of the rarest 
* The high place assigned by the learned of all countries to this great composi- 
tion, has induced the proprietor of the present translation of the “ Animal Kingdom,” 
to prepare a version of the last edition of the ‘ Fossil Bones” of the same ceie- 
brated author. This is the work which exhibits the wonderful genius of Cuvier in 
its most triumphant exertion; and it is only surprising that British enterprize, in all 
that regards the advancement of science, should not, ere this, have secured to our 
scientific literature a source of knowledge of so much consequence. ‘The translation 
here snnounced, and its multitude of graphic illustrations, will be on the same ex- 
pensive scale to the proprietor, and the same economical one to the public, as have 
een adopted in the present work. 
