THE SURFACE OF THE GLOBE. 77 



merits, having- been discovered in caverns in our southern provinces ; 

 but it suffices to say, that, though they have been found, in such a 

 situation, yet they must be admitted into our general law*. 



Yet human bones preserve equally well with those of animals under 

 similar circumstances. There is no difference between the human 

 mummies found in Egypt, and those of quadrupeds I collected in the 

 excavations made some years since in the old church of Saint Gene- 

 vieve, some human bones interred beneath the first race, which may 

 have belonged to some prince of the family of Clovis, and which have 

 still preserved their forms very accurately f . We do not find in ancient 

 fields of battle that the skeletons of men are more altered than those of 

 horses, if we allow for the difference of size ; and we find among the 

 fossils animals as small as rats still very perfectly preserved. 



All these tend to confirm the assertion, that the human race did not 

 exist in the countries where fossil bones are found, at the epoch of the 

 revolutions which buried these bones ; for there cannot be assigned 

 any reason why mankind should have escaped such overwhelming 

 catastrophes, nor why human remains should not now be discovered as 

 well as those of other animals ; but I do not wish to conclude that man 

 did not exist previously to this epoch. He might have inhabited some 

 confined tract of country, whence he re-peopled the world after these 

 terrible events ; perhaps the places in which he dwelt have been 

 entirely swallowed up, and his bones buried at the bottom of the 

 present seas, with the exception of the small number of individuals 

 who have propagated the species. However it may be, the establish- 

 ment of man in the country where we have said that the fossil remains 

 of land animals are found, that is, in the greatest part of Europe, 

 Asia, and America, is necessarily posterior, not only to the revolutions 

 which have covered these bones, but even to those which have laid 

 open the strata which envelope them, and which are the last which the 

 globe has been subjected to ; whence it is clear that we can neither 

 draw from the bones themselves, nor from the more or less consider- 

 able masses of rock or earth which cover them, any argument in 

 favour of the antiquity of the human species in these different 

 countries. 

 Physical Proofs of the Newness of the Present State of the Continents. 



On the contrary, in closely examining what has taken place on the 

 surface of the globe, since it was left dry for the last time, whence 

 continents have assumed their present form, at least in the highest 



* An attentive examination of the situation of these bones, afterwards made, has, 

 in effect, proved that they were not fossils. 

 f Fourcroyhas given an analysis. Ann. du Museum, tome x. p. 1. 



