Lull — Development of Vertebrate Paleontology. 195 



American fossil vertebrates, published in 1798, discussed 

 therein the remains of a huge ground-sloth which has 

 since borne the name Megalonyx jeffersoni. Jefferson, 

 however, described the great claws as pertaining to a 

 huge leonine animal which he firmly believed was yet 

 living among the mountains of Virginia. 



Cuvier (1769-1832) has been spoken of as the founder 

 of our science. His opportunity lay in the profusion of 

 bones buried in the gypsum deposits of Montmartre 

 within the environs of the city of Paris. Cuvier 's 

 studies of these remains, done in the light of his very 

 broad anatomical knowledge, enabled him to prepare the 

 first reconstructions of fossil vertebrates ever attempted 

 and to bring before the eyes of his contemporaries a 

 world peopled with forms which were utterly extinct. 

 That these creatures were no longer living, none was a 

 better judge than Cuvier, for his prominence was such 

 that material was sent him from all parts of the world, to 

 which must be added that which he saw in his visits to 

 the various museums of Europe. He felt it safe, there- 

 fore, to affirm the unlikelihood of any further discovery 

 of unknown forms among the great mammals of the pres- 

 ent fauna of our globe, and few indeed have been the 

 additions since his day. To Cuvier is due not alone the 

 masterly contribution to the sister sciences of compara- 

 tive anatomy and vertebrate paleontology — the Osse- 

 ments Fossiles (1812) — but he also announced the 

 presence in continental strata of a series of faunas which 

 showed a gradual organic improvement from the earliest 

 such assemblage to the most modern, an idea of the most 

 fundamental importance and one with which he is rarely 

 credited. He believed in the sudden and complete 

 extinction of faunas, and the facts then known were in 

 accord with this idea, as no common genera nor transi- 

 tional forms connected the creatures of the Paris gypsum 

 with the mastodons, elephants, and hippopotami which 

 the later strata disclosed. It is not remarkable, there- 

 fore, that Cuvier advanced his theory of catastrophism to 

 account for these extinctions. He should not, however, 

 according to Deperet, be credited with the idea of suc- 

 cessive re-creations, such as that held by D'Orbigny and 

 others, but of repopulation by immigration from some 

 area which the catastrophe, be it flood or other destruc- 

 tive agency, failed to reach. 



