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Ch. IV.] 



STUDY OF ORGANIC REMAINS. 



87 



the growth of these several departments of geology was at 

 different times promoted. Many names of simple minerals 

 and rocks remain to this day German ; while the European 

 divisions of the secondary strata are in great part English, 

 and are, indeed, often founded too exclusively on English 

 types. Lastly, the subdivisions first established in the Paris 

 basin have served as normal groups to which other tertiary 

 deposits throughout Europe have been 

 cases where this standard was wholly inapplicable. 



No period could have been more fortunate for the discovery, 

 in the immediate neighbourhood of Paris, of a rich store of 

 well-preserved fossils, than the commencement of the present 



com 



even m 



century; for at no 



Natural History been 







cultivated with such enthusiasm in the French metropolis. 

 The labours of Cuvier in comparative osteology, and of La- 

 marck in recent and fossil shells, had raised these departments 

 of study to a rank of which they had never previously been 



Their investigations had eventually a 



long 



deemed susceptible. 



powerful effect in dispelling the illusion which had 



prevailed concerning 



modern 



the absence of analogy between the 

 jate of our planet. A close comparison 

 of the recent and fossil species, and the inferences drawn in 

 regard to their habits, accustomed the geologist to contem- 



plate the earth 



as having been at 



successive periods the 



some 



some 



terrestrial, and others aquatic- 

 others in the waters of lakes and rivers. By the consideration 

 of these topics, the mind was slowly and insensibly withdrawn 

 from imaginary pictures of catastrophes and chaotic confu- 

 sion, such as haunted the imagination of the early cosmogo- 

 nists. Numerous proofs were discovered of the tranquil 



sedimentary 



of organic life. 



many 



maintain 



tion was broken/ * yet, in reasoning by the strict rules of 

 induction from recent to fossil species, they in a great measure 

 disclaimed the dogrma which in theorv thev professed. 



The 





same generic, and, m some 



* Discours sur les Revolutions cle la mer. 



