18 ADVERTISEMENT. 



by M. Beudant and de Ferussac, and, by tbe latter, as far as the 

 extremities of Spain and Silesia. It has been ascertained, that, in an 

 infinite number of places, it is covered by earths of purely marine 

 origin, a circumstance which removes all doubt as to the great fact — 

 as important in the history of man as in that of the earth — that, at a 

 certain epoch, the terrestrial continents, formerly inhabited by quad- 

 rupeds and birds, covered with vegetables, and watered with fresh 

 water, have been invaded by the sea. 



The other auxiliary science to that of the fossil bones, the osteo- 

 logy of animals, has received additions no less important than those 

 of the strata of the globe. The efforts which the author has been con- 

 stantly making to add to the great collection of skeletons, which he 

 has made in the Museum of Natural History, have been warmly se- 

 conded by the travellers recently sent by the King into all parts of 

 the world, such as M. Leschenault de la Tour, Milbert, Lesueur, 

 de Lalande, Auguste de Saint Hilaire, Diard, Duvaucel, &c. He has 

 thus obtained skeletons of several species of rhinoceroses, tapirs, 

 tigers, hyenas, dogs, bears, stags, and fourmiliers, of which he was 

 not in possession at the time of his early labours ; and it is thus 

 that he has procured, on the bones of almost all those animals, at the 

 different periods of their growth, notions, without which his results 

 could not have attained all the solidity desirable. 



While he was occupied in writing this first volume, M. de Lalande 

 brought from the Cape of Good Hope the complete skeletons of the 

 hippopotamus, the two-horned rhinoceros, the orycterope, and of 

 many other species of great importance to this work. At the same 

 time, MM. Diard and Duvaucel sent from Batavia the skeleton of a 

 new species of rhinoceros belonging to the Island of Java, that of the 

 large and fine species of tapir discovered by them in Asia, and of 

 some others equally unknown. 



The labours of several other anatomists who have been engaged in 

 the philosophical study of comparative osteology, such as MM. Geof- 

 froy, Saint Hilaire, Spix, Oken, Bojanus, Ulrich, Tiedeman, &c.,have 

 also made known or promoted a more minute examination of the 

 bones and parts of bones of divers animals, and from which great 

 advantages were to be derived in the explanation of fossil oste- 

 ology. 



The profound study of the teeth of quadrupeds, undertaken by 

 M. Frederic Cuvier, and the objects of comparison that have been 

 thus obtained, have been no less useful, more especially on account 

 of the facility thus acquired of recognising each quadruped, in some 

 degree, from the inspection of a single tooth. 



