PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS, 



BY M. FREDERIC CUVIERfa). 



I have felt it incumbent upon me to superintend the publication of 

 this new edition of the " Researches on Fossil Bones," as I have 

 already considered it my duty to do with respect to the other works 

 of my brother. My only object, in assuming this laborious office, 

 was to take care that whatever he published should be promulgated 

 with good faith, and with that stamp of truth which is so indelibly 

 impressed on all his works. This is the character which, in the 

 midst of the destructive revolutions that in after-times natural history 

 must have to encounter, will secure these works from all violence, 

 however it may originate, that may be directed against them. 



The paramount determination, which uniformly actuated my bro- 

 ther in the composition of these works, was to lay beneath the edifice 

 of the natural history of Animals such a solid foundation, as that the 

 materials of which it was composed, rendered less capable of degene- 

 ration by the wasting power of time, would communicate their dura- 

 bility to the fabric that reposed upon them. 



Such a perspective as this before the view of my brother ; the deep 



{£3=> (a) In the present edition of the original work, we find, in the early pages of the 

 first part, a very interesting panegyric on our immortal naturalist, which, on its 

 presentation to the Academy of Sciences, of Besan£on, caused its author, Mr. Lau- 

 rillard, to he crowned on the 24th of the present month (August) in the year that 

 has just passed. We have deemed it the hest policy, on mature deliberation, to post- 

 pone this admirable emanation of eloquence and truth to some later numbers of the 

 series of parts which are to compose our first volume; our sole object being to so 

 accommodate our readers, as that they should enjoy the earliest opportunity of be- 

 coming acquainted with the merits of the great author. — Eng. Ed. 



VOL. I. B 



