gO ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF 



fable was occasioned by tbe discovery of the bones, like that of the 

 inhabitants of Siberia and their mammoth, which they pretend lives 

 under ground like moles ; and like all those of the ancients about the 

 tombs of the giants, which they placed wherever they found the bones 

 of elephants. 



Thus we may believe, that if, as we shall prove hereafter, any of the 

 great species of quadrupeds now embedded in regularly stony layers, 

 are not found similar to the living species that we are acquainted 

 with, — it is not the effect of chance, nor because these species, of which 

 we have only fossil bones, are hidden in deserts, and have escaped all 

 travellers to the present time ; we ought, on the contrary, to regard 

 this phenomenon as tending to general causes ; and the study of 

 it as one of the most proper to lead us to the origin and nature of 

 these causes. 



The Fossil Bones of Quadrupeds are difficult to determine. 



But if this study is more satisfactory in its results than that of the 

 fossil remains of other animals, it is also beset with infinitely greater 

 difficulties. The fossil shells generally present themselves entire, and 

 with all the characteristics which admit of their being analogously 

 arranged in collections or works of naturalists ; fish even present their 

 skeletons more or less entire ; we generally trace the original form of 

 their bodies, and frequently their generic and specific characteristics, 

 which are drawn from their solid parts. In quadrupeds, on the con- 

 trary, although we should meet with the whole skeleton, we should 

 have great difficulty in applying to it the characteristics for the most 

 part derived from the hair, colour, and other marks, which disappear 

 before the incrustation ; and it is uncommonly rare to find a fossil 

 skeleton at all perfect ; bones isolated and confusedly intermingled, 

 most frequently broken and reduced to fragments ; this is all with which 

 our layers furnish us in this class, and is the sole resource of the natu- 

 ralist. Thus we may say that the majority of observers, frightened at 

 these difficulties, have passed lightly over the fossil bones of quadrupeds ; 

 have classed them very vaguely, after superficial resemblances : or 

 have not even hazarded the giving a name to them ; so that this part 

 of the fossil history, the most important and instructive of all, is of all 

 others the least cultivated *. 



* I do not pretend by this remark, as well as those already made, to detract from 

 the merit of the observations of Messrs. Camper, Pallas, Blumenbach, Soemmering, 

 Merk, Faugas, Rosen Miiller, Home, &c. ; but their estimable labours, which have 

 been very useful to me, and which I have cited everywhere, are only partial, and many 

 of these labours even published after the first editions of this Discourse. 



