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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

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The Traces Of Upheavals

Georges Cuvier

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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.

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Mountain Ranges

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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.

If They [enlightened Men] Take Any Interest In Examining, In The Infancy Of Our Species, The Almost Obliterated Traces Of So Many Nations That Have Become Extinct, They Will Doubtless Take A Similar Interest In Collecting, Amidst The Darkness Which Covers The Infancy Of The Globe, The Traces Of Those Revolutions Which Took Place Anterior To The Existence Of All Nations.

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.

Mountain Ranges

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.

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.

It Has Been Long Considered Possible To Explain The More Ancient Revolutions On... The Earth Surface By Means Of These Still Existing Causes; In The Same Manner As It Is Found Easy To Explain Past Events In Political History, By An Acquaintance With The Passions And Intrigues Of The Present Day. But We Shall Presently See That Unfortunately This Is Not The Case In Physical History:-the Thread Of Operation Is Here Broken, The March Of Nature Is Changed, And None Of The Agents That She Now Employs Were Sufficient For The Production Of Her Ancient Works.

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Nurse, It Was I Who Discovered That Leeches Have Red Blood.[]on His Deathbed When The Nurse Came To Apply Leeches

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.

Since Nothing Can Exist That Does Not Fulfil The Conditions Which Render Its Existence Possible, The Different Parts Each Being Must Be Co-ordinated In Such A Way As To Render Possible The Existence Of The Being As A Whole, Not Only In Itself, But Also In Its Relations With Other Beings, And The Analysis Of These Conditions Often Leads To General Laws Which Are As Certain As Those Which Are Derived From Calculation Or From Experiment.

A Famous Anecdote Concerning Cuvier Involves The Tale Of His Visitation From The Devil—only It Was Not The Devil But One Of His Students Dressed Up With Horns On His Head And Shoes Shaped Like Cloven Hooves. This Frightening Apparition Burst Into Cuvier's Bedroom When He Was Fast Asleep And Claimed: 'wake Up Thou Man Of Catastrophes. I Am The Devil. I Have Come To Devour You!' Cuvier Studied The Apparition Carefully And Critically Said, 'i Doubt Whether You Can. You Have Horns And Hooves. You Eat Only Plants.

It Is To Them [fossils] Alone That We Owe The Commencement Of Even A Theory Of The Earth ... By Them We Are Enabled To Ascertain, With The Utmost Certainty, That Our Earth Has Not Always Been Covered Over By The Same External Crust, Because We Are Thoroughly Assured That The Organized Bodies To Which These Fossil Remains Belong Must Have Lived Upon The Surface Before They Came To Be Buried, As They Now Are, At A Great Depth.

[audubon's Works Are] The Most Splendid Monuments Which Art Has Erected In Honor Of Ornithology.

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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.

In Spite Of What Moralists Say, The, Animals Are Scarcely Less Wicked Or Less Unhappy Than We Are Ourselves. The Arrogance Of The Strong, The Servility Of The Weak, Low Rapacity, Ephemeral Pleasure Purchased By Great Effort, Death Preceded By Long Suffering, All Belong To The Animals As They Do To Men.

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