Theory Of The Earth from The Edinburgh Review, January 1814
Theory Of The Earth from The Edinburgh Review, January 1814
In giving to the treatise here announced the name of an Essay on the Theory of the Earth, the Editor has taken a liberty that is certainly not warranted by the original. The title of the French work makes no mention whatever of the theory of the earth. The fact is, that M. CUVIER having published, in the Annales de Museum, a succession of memoirs on the fossil remains of animals found in the strata around Paris, (of which an account was given in the 20th vol. of this Journal), was very naturally led to extend an inquiry, that became ever moment more interesting, to the fossil remains of land animals, wherever they had been found. His subject being thus enlarged, he has united the parts of a most ingenious and laborious investigation, in one work, comprehending four volumes in quarto, under the title of Recherches sur les Ossemens Fossiles des Quadrupedes. To this valuable and interesting book he has prefixed a Dissertation, (Discours Preliminaire), the same that appears here as an Essay on the Theory of the Earth. We are not sure that the author himself will be very thankful for this change of appellation. The preliminary discourse is a general view of the conclusions derived from certain animal remains, compared with the mineral beds in which they are contained, and with the principles of comparative anatomy. This subject, though of great importance, and of no small extent, is yet of too limited a nature to be regarded as a theory of the earth. A name that would have more exactly described the work, without departing from the conciseness essential to a title-page, might easily have been devised. Considerations, for instance, on the Fossil Remains of Quadrupeds, would have been a title much more appropriate.
This translation has been made with singular expedition. The work was received about the middle of last summer; and the translation made its appearance in the beginning of winter. It seems, notwithstanding this haste, to be executed not only with fidelity, but with some degree of elegance; and the editor, Professor Jameson, has added notes, besides giving a very distinct and concise view of Cuvier's principal geological discoveries, which cannot fail to be very acceptable to those who have not an opportunity of perusing the large work and which will be found very...