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SECOND REPORT- 1832 . 
ings, it cannot fail to command the good wishes, the respect and 
admiration of all, and most especially of those, whose institutions 
have connected them with the duties, and taught them to ap¬ 
preciate the value, of public instruction.” 
In the evening a Lecture was delivered in the Music Room, 
by the President, on the Fossil Remains of the Megatherium, 
recently imported into England from South America. The 
lecture was illustrated with Drawings by Mr. Clift. 
Dr. Buckland began by stating, that the history of this ani¬ 
mal is very remarkable. The Megatherium is most nearly allied 
to the Sloths, a family which presents an apparent monstrosity 
of external form, accompanied by many strange peculiarities of 
internal structure, which, before the discoveries of the immortal 
Cuvier, were but little understood. “ Gentlemen,’’said he, “I 
cannot utter the name of Cuvier, and associate with it the term 
4 immortal’, without being at once arrested and overwhelmed by 
melancholy and painful recollections of mortality. We have at 
this moment to deplore, in common with the whole philosophical 
world, the loss of the greatest naturalist and one of the greatest 
philosophers that have arisen in distant ages, to enlighten and 
improve mankind. The names of Aristotle^ and Pliny, and 
Cuvier, will go down together through every age, in which na¬ 
tural history and physical sciences, in which philosophy and 
learning, and talent, and everything which, next to religion and 
morality, gives dignity and exaltation to the character of man, 
shall be respected upon earth. Gentlemen, I need not state to 
you how voluminous are the works of that exalted and most 
illustrious naturalist, whose recent and irreparable loss we now 
deplore. For nearly thirty years he has been the leader of that 
branch of natural philosophy which comprehends the structure 
and relations of all the kingdoms of animated nature. It was the 
genius of Cuvier that first established the perfect method after 
which every succeeding naturalist will model his researches; 
and which laid the foundation of that analytical process of in¬ 
vestigation, of that most philosophical and accurate and uniform 
system of reducing every organ in every species to a fixed and 
certain type, which will enable his followers to extend their in¬ 
quiries over the almost boundless regions of the organized world. 
He has shown that the frame and mechanism of every animal 
present an uniformity of design and a simplicity of purpose, 
which prove to demonstration that every individual, not only 
of existing species, but of those numerous and still more 
curious races which have lived and perished in distant ages, 
and of which our knovdedge is due to discoveries in geology, 
