1855-56 HUNTER ON FOSSIL BONES 3 



with one small exception, relating to the verte- 

 brated province of the series arranged according to 

 the classes of animals. ... In the session of last 

 year I concluded the series of lectures in which the 

 animal organisation was treated of according to 

 the classes of animals, beginning with the lowest 

 and ending with the highest, .... 



1 Now John Hunter had not neglected the field 

 of anatomical inquiry presented by fossil organic 

 remains. He lived to publish little respecting 

 them. The scientific world probably first became 

 aware of the fact that he had paid any attention 

 at all to them when Hunter communicated to 

 the Royal Society of London, in 1793, his paper 

 on the fossil bones presented to that Society 

 by His Most Serene Highness the Margrave of 

 Anspach. . . . Those men accustomed to think, 

 who heard or read that paper, would recognise in 

 it the mind of the great Master. It is character- 

 ised by the same broad views and acute insight 

 into the phenomena under review, by the same 

 unexpected illustrations, which only a wide em- 

 brace of facts could have suggested, by the same 

 bold excursions into fields stretching away far 

 beyond the immediate subject of the memoir, which 

 peculiarly mark all the papers from Hunter's pen. 



' In those letters which are introduced into the 

 life of John Hunter prefixed to Palmer's edition 

 of his works, scarcely one of them omits a recom- 

 mendation to Jenner to secure for his correspon- 



B 2 



