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Updated: June 11, 2025
The grinding-teeth are in fact very similar in shape and in pattern, and in the absence of any thick layer of cement, to those of some species of Palaeotherium, especially Cuvier's Palaeotherium minus, which has been formed into a separate genus, Plagiolophus, by Pomel.
The progress of research since Cuvier's time has supplied far more striking examples of the long duration of specific forms of life than those which are furnished by the mummified Ibises and Crocodiles of Egypt. A remarkable case is to be found in your own country, in the neighbourhood of the falls of Niagara.
Agardh, and other of the botanists of Cuvier's generation, who occupied themselves with the lower plants, had observed that, under particular circumstances, the contents of the cells of certain water-weeds were set free, and moved about with considerable velocity, and with all the appearances of spontaneity, as locomotive bodies, which, from their similarity to animals of simple organisation, were called "zoospores."
To hydrographical science, if to nothing else, the results of the expedition were remarkable, and no less than forty-five new charts were produced by the indefatigable Messrs. Gressien and Paris. Nothing will better bring before us the richness of harvest of natural history specimens than the following quotation from Cuvier's report:
This class includes the great families of of which there are no less than six hundred and fifty-seven varieties. Reptiles are vertebrated animals belonging to Cuvier's first great section, but distinguished from mammalia and birds, by their cold blood, their oviparous generation, and the absence of either feathers or hair from their bodies.
Cuvier's toucan inhabits the woods of the Upper Amazon. The feathers on its head consist of thin, horny blades of a lustrous black colour, curled up at the ends, and resembling shavings of steel. The curly crest assumes, indeed, the grotesque form of a coachman's wig dyed black, and produced apparently by the tongs of the hair-dresser.
There have been many criticisms on this division of Cuvier's, and many attempts to change it; but though some improvements have been made in the details of his classification, all departures from its great fundamental principle are errors, and do but lead us away from the recognition of the true affinities among animals. Each of these plans may be stated in the most general terms.
To him students flocked from all sides. Among these one of the most brilliant was Agassiz, the Swiss naturalist, who later came to this country, filled with Cuvier's ideas. This great teacher believed that species are fixed. He knew better than any man of his times the wonderful similarity in structure between animals of a given class.
It is deeply to be lamented that so many naturalists have entirely overlooked this significant advice of Cuvier's, to combine zoölogical and anatomical studies in order to arrive at a clearer perception of the true affinities among animals.
This, to be sure, was nothing more than William Smith had tried all along to establish regarding lower forms of life; but flesh and blood monsters appeal to the imagination in a way quite beyond the power of mere shells; so the announcement of Cuvier's discoveries aroused the interest of the entire world, and the Ossements Fossiles was accorded a popular reception seldom given a work of technical science a reception in which the enthusiastic approval of progressive geologists was mingled with the bitter protests of the conservatives.
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