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The observer listens to nature: the experimenter questions and forces her to reveal herself.

Georges Cuvier

It is my object, in the following work, to travel over ground which has as yet been little explored and to make my reader acquainted with a species of Remains, which, though absolutely necessary for understanding the history of the globe, have been hitherto almost uniformly neglected.
GEORGES CUVIER

Exploration Follow Necessary Neglect Object Reading Understand
Thus it cannot be denied that the masses which today form our highest mountains were originally in a liquid state; for a long time they were covered by waters which did not sustain any life.
GEORGES CUVIER

Form Life Mass Mountain Original Sustain Water
It is evident that one cannot say anything demonstrable about the problem before having resolved these preliminary questions, and yet we hardly possess the necessary information to solve some of them.
GEORGES CUVIER

Evidence Information Problem Question Solution
The works which this man [Joseph Banks] leaves behind him occupy a few pages only; their importance is not greatly superior to their extent; and yet his name will shine out with lustre in the history of the sciences.
GEORGES CUVIER

Himself History Leaving Man Name Science Shine Work
Hence the same instant which killed the animals froze the country where they lived. This event was sudden, instantaneous, without any gradual development.
GEORGES CUVIER

Animal Country Development Gradual Kill
Secondly, the nature of the revolutions which have altered the surface of the earth must have had a more decisive effect on the terrestrial quadrupeds than on the marine animals.
GEORGES CUVIER

Animal Decision Earth Nature One Liner Revolution Surface
The appearance of the bones of quadrupeds, especially those of complete bodies in the strata, tells us either that the layer itself which carries them was in earlier times dry land or that dry land was at least formed in the immediate area.
GEORGES CUVIER

Appearance Body Carry Form Time
The lowest and most level land areas show us, especially when we dig there to very great depths, nothing but horizontal layers of material more or less varied, which almost all contain innumerable products of the sea.
GEORGES CUVIER

Areas Greatness Layer Level Low Material Number
Why has not anyone seen that fossils alone gave birth to a theory about the formation of the earth, that without them, no one would have ever dreamed that there were successive epochs in the formation of the globe.
GEORGES CUVIER

Alone Born Dreams Earth Oneself See Theory
My object will be, first, to show by what connections the history of the fossil bones of land animals is linked to the theory of the earth and why they have a particular importance in this respect.
GEORGES CUVIER

Animal Connection History Importance Object Respect
The traces of upheavals become more impressive when one moves a little higher, when one gets even closer to the foot of the great mountain ranges. There are still plenty of shell layers. We notice them, even thicker and more solid ones.
GEORGES CUVIER

Impression Mountain Notice Oneself Solid Trace
Audubon’s works are the most splendid monuments which art has erected in honor of ornithology.
GEORGES CUVIER

Erect Honor Monument Work
Moreover, it thus follows that not a great deal of time was needed for the large animals of the three major parts of the world to become known to the people who spent time on the coasts of those regions.
GEORGES CUVIER

Animal Deal Follow Greatness Known People Region Time
All organs of an animal form a single system, the parts of which hang together, and act and re-act upon one another; and no modifications can appear in one part without bringing about corresponding modifications in all the rest.
GEORGES CUVIER

Animal Oneself Organ System Togetherness
At the sight of a single bone, of a single piece of bone, I recognize and reconstruct the portion of the whole from which it would have been taken. The whole being to which this fragment belonged appears in my mind’s eye.
GEORGES CUVIER

Appearance Eyes Fragment Mindset Pieces Recognition Sight
But the revolutions and changes which are responsible for the present state of the earth are not limited to the upsetting of the ancient strata and to the ebbing of the sea after the formations of new layers.
GEORGES CUVIER

Change Formation Layer Responsibility Revolution

The observer listens to nature: the experimenter questions and forces her to reveal herself.

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The observer listens to nature: the experimenter questions and forces her to reveal herself.

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