254 



THE WONDERS OF GEOLOGY. Lect. III. 



and even of the air-tubes. Sometimes the skeleton 

 is wanting, and a pellicle of a dark brown substance 

 alone points out the configuration of the original {Lign. 

 44). Not only are the skeletons and feathers of birds 

 found in the tertiary strata, but even the eggs of aquatic 

 species occur in the lacustrine limestone of Auvergne ; 

 these have probably been formed in loose calcareous debris 

 along the borders of the lakes, in like manner as the eggs 

 of turtles incrusted in the modern travertine, on the shores 

 of the Isle of Ascension (p. 90). 



39. Fossil mammalia of Paris. — We have next to 

 consider the fossil remains of the mammalia, whose 

 skeletons were entombed in the mud of the waters which 

 formerly occupied the site of the metropolis of France, and 

 the surrounding country. The gypsum quarries which are 

 spread over the flanks of Montmartre had long been known 

 to afford fossil bones ; but though specimens occasionally 

 attracted the notice of the naturalists of Paris, and collec- 

 tions were formed, no one appears to have suspected the 

 mine of wonders which the rocks contained, till the curiosity 

 of Baron Cuvier was awakened by the inspection of a large 

 collection of these bones, after he had successfully applied 

 the laws of comparative anatomy to the investigation of the 

 fossil elephants and mammoths. He had previously paid 

 but little attention to the partial accounts of fossil bones 

 found in the vicinity of Paris, although in 1768, M. Guettard 

 had figured and described many bones and teeth. 



M. Cuvier now, however, perceived that a new world 

 was open to his researches, and he soon obtained an exten- 

 sive collection, and found himself, to use his own expression, 

 in an ancient charnel-house, surrounded by a confused mass 

 of mutilated skeletons of a great variety of animals. To 

 arrange each fragment in its proper place, and restore order 

 to these heterogeneous relics, seemed at first a hopeless 

 task ; but a knowledge of the immutable laws by which the 



