but to Cuvier zoology was nothing without comparative anatomy. By founding palæontology, he showed that extinct forms were just as important as living forms in a natural system of classification; and he also showed that the anatomy of recent animals aided in the reconstruction of the fossil forms, these reconstructed extinct animals filling up many morphological gaps.
Cuvier's work in comparative anatomy and allied subjects is a monument of intense labour; his teaching dominated most of the zoology of the first half of the nineteenth century, and his Anatomie Comparée has furnished a model for all students of the science of animal life.
When living at Caen, the digging up of some Terebratulæ proved the necessity of studying fossil with recent forms, and it was these specimens which formed the nucleus of the great collection of natural history objects which he formed, and is now in the Jardin des Plantes. "Palæontological investigations have imparted a vivifying breath of grace and diversity to the science of the solid structure of the earth." says Humboldt in his Cosmos; and if anyone has a right to be called the founder of palæontology, that right belongs to Cuvier, although Lamarck and William Smith were also associated with the foundation of the science of fossil forms. In 1796 Cuvier studied the Tertiary mammals of France, making clear for the first time that fossils were in most cases remains of extinct organisms; and he insisted that
