Essay on the Theory of the EarthCuvier, Georges, baron
Science
Essay on the Theory of the Earth
Cuvier, Georges, baron
Geology; Paleontology
What New Holland would be, under the circumstances which we have
supposed, Europe, Siberia, and a large portion of America, now
actually are. And, perhaps, when other countries shall have been
examined, and New Holland among the rest, it will one day be found
that they have experienced similar revolutions, I might almost say,
mutual changes, of productions. For, if we push the supposition
farther, and, after the supply of Asiatic animals to New Holland,
admit a second revolution, which destroyed Asia, their original
country, those naturalists who might observe them in New Holland,
their second country, would be equally at a loss to know whence
they had come, as we now are to find out the origin of the races of
animals that inhabit our own countries.
I now proceed to apply this manner of reasoning to the human species.
_Proofs that there are no Fossil Human Bones._
It is certain that no human bones have yet been found among fossil
remains; and this furnishes an additional proof that the fossil races
were not mere varieties of known species, since they could not have
been subjected to human influence.
When I assert that human bones have never been found among fossil
organic remains, (I must be understood to speak of fossils or
petrifactions, properly so called), or, in other words, in the
regular strata of the surface of the globe; for in peat-bogs
(_tourbières_), and alluvial deposits, as in burying-grounds, human
bones might as well be found as bones of horses, or other common
species. They might equally be found in fissures of rocks, and in
caverns, where they may have been covered over by stalactite; but in
the beds which contain the ancient races, among the _palæotheria_,
and even among the elephants and rhinoceroses, the smallest portion
of a human bone has never been discovered. Many of the labourers in
the gypsum quarries about Paris, believe that the bones which occur
so abundantly in them, are in a great part human; but I have seen
several thousands of these bones, and I may safely affirm that not
one of them has ever belonged to our species. I have examined at
Pavia the groups of bones brought by Spallanzani from the Island
of Cerigo; and, notwithstanding the assertion of that celebrated
observer, I equally affirm, that there is not one among them that
could be shewn to be human. The _homo diluvii testis_ of Scheuchzer
has been restored, in my first edition, to its true genus, which
is that of the salamanders; and, in a more recent examination of
it at Haarlem, allowed me by the politeness of Mr Van Marum, who
permitted me to uncover the parts enveloped in the stone, I obtained
complete proof of what I had before announced. Among the bones found
at Canstadt, the fragment of a jaw, and some articles of human
manufacture, were found; but it is known that the ground was dug up
without any precaution, and that no notes were taken of the different
depths at which each article was discovered. Every where else, the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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