RESEARCHES 



ON 



FOSSIL BONES. 



A DISCOURSE 



ON 



THE REVOLUTIONS OF THE SURFACE OF THE GLOBE, 



AND THE CHANGES THEREBY PRODUCED IN THE 

 ANIMAL KINGDOM. 



In my work on Fossil Remains, I proposed to determine to what 

 animals those fragments of bones should be assigned which occupy 

 the superficial strata of the globe. This was an attempt to traverse the 

 whole of a region of which as yet the first approaches were scarcely 

 known. Being an antiquary of a new kind, it was necessary at the 

 same time to restore those monuments of past revolutions and to ex- 

 pound their meaning. I had to collect and arrange in their original order 

 the componing relics ; to re-model the creatures to whom the frag- 

 ments belonged ; to reproduce them in their just proportions and with 

 their proper characteristics ; and then to compare them with those 

 beings now existing — an art almost unknown, and which implies a 

 science scarcely before even glanced at, that of the laws which pre- 

 side at the co-existence of the forms of the various parts of organized 

 beings. In such an attempt it was necessary to prepare myself by 

 long and indefatigable researches into the structure of living animals ; 

 for a survey only of nearly the whole mass of created beings now 

 existing could lead me to a certain and determinate result in my 

 speculations on the ancient creation this would at the same time 

 afford me a great result of rules and affinities not less useful, and the 

 whole animal kingdom would thus, in some measure, become subjected 

 to new laws resulting from this essay on a small portion of the theory 

 of the earth. 



I was supported in my two-fold labours by the interest which it 

 seemed to evince, both for anatomy — the essential basis of all those 

 sciences which treat of organised bodies, and for the physical history 

 of the globe, the foundation of mineralogy, of geography, and, we 



