United States or Cameroon ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Ces grands ossemens, tantôt épars tantôt entassés par squelettes, et même par hécatombes, considérée dans leurs sites naturels, m'ont sur-tout convaincu de la réalité d'un déluge arrivé sur notre terre, d'une catastrophe, dont j'avoue n'avoir pu concevoir la vraisemblance avant d'avoir parcouru ces places, et vu, par moi-même, tout ce qui peut y servir de preuve
The principal metacarpal and metatarsal bones are flatter than they are in any of the Equidoe; and the metacarpal bones are longer than the metatarsals, as in the Paloeotheria. In its general form, Plagiolophus resembles a very small and slender horse, and is totally unlike the reluctant, pig-like creature depicted in Cuvier's restoration of his Paloeotherium minus in the "Ossemens Fossiles."
But hardly more than two centuries have elapsed since this fundamental problem was first exhaustively treated; it was only in the last century that the archaeological value of fossils their importance, I mean, as records of the history of the earth was fully recognised; the first adequate investigation of the fossil remains of any large group of vertebrated animals is to be found in Cuvier's "Recherches sur les Ossemens Fossiles," completed in 1822; and, so modern is stratigraphical palaeontology, that its founder, William Smith, lived to receive the just recognition of his services by the award of the first Wollaston Medal in 1831.
Cuvier, in the "Discours sur les Revolutions de la Surface du Globe," strangely credits himself, and has ever since been credited by others, with the invention of a new method of palaeontological research. But if you will turn to the "Recherches sur les Ossemens Fossiles" and watch Cuvier, not speculating, but working, you will find that his method is neither more nor less than that of Steno.
"Dans ces mêmes dépôts sableux et souvent limoneux, gisent les restes des grands animaux de l'Inde: ces ossemens d'éléphans, de rhinocéros, de buffles monstrueux, dont on déterre tous les jours un si grand nombre, et qui font l'admiration des curieux. En Sibérie, où l'on
During the last three or four years the skins of these animals have been sent to England for the sake of the fur. Journal of Asiatic Soc., vol. v. p. 363. I need hardly state here that there is good evidence against any horse living in America at the time of Columbus. Cuvier. Ossemens Fossils, tom. i. p. 158.
Search the eight volumes of the "Recherches sur les Ossemens Fossiles" from cover to cover, and nothing but the application of the method of Zadig will be found in the arguments by which a fragment of a skeleton is made to reveal the characters of the animal to which it belonged. There is one well-known case which may represent all.
In the "Ossemens Fossiles" Cuvier leaves his paper just as it first appeared in the "Annales du Museum," as "a curious monument of the force of zoological laws and of the use which may be made of them." Zoological laws truly, but not physiological laws.