4 volumes. 4to. 21 x 27cm, Later qtr, goatskin with matching brown marbled boards. With 152 engraved plates of 154. Fine condition.Contents: T. 1. Discours préliminaire et la géographie minéralogique des environs de Paris.t. 2. Pachydermes des couches meubles et des terrains d'alluvion.t. 3. Os fossiles des environs de Paris.t. 4. Ruminans, les onguiculés et les reptiles fossiles .Vol. 1 includes Discours préliminaire in which Cuvier introduced the idea of geological ?revolutions' to explain mass extinctions of prehistoric species. Other papers include an essay on an Egyptian ibis mummy brought from Thebes during Napoleon's campaign in Egypt; and with Alexandre Brogniart (1770-1847) an updated version of Cuvier's important stratigraphical memoir of 1810, Essai sur la Géographie Minéralogique des Environs de Paris, which contributed to the concept of faunal succession in rock strata of different periods. In Vol. 2 Cuvier describes species of pachyderms found in recent alluvial deposits, including elephants, mastodons, rhinoceros, hippopotamus and tapir. In Vol. 3 Cuvier's recalls the challenges of reconstruing fossils of different species. Vol. 4 concerns fossil horses and pigs, bears, hyenas and big cats and concludes by describing fossil sloths, crocodiles, turtles, and marine dinosaurs.OCLC Number988198; Nissen ZBI 1011; BM(NH) Cat. I, p. 409.Near the end of the eighteenth century, scholars disputed whether fossils represented life forms that no longer existed, or whether?as the Comte de Buffon, at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, believed?the fossils found in Europe and America represented animals that had migrated to the tropics. Buffon argued that God would not have let his creations go extinct. In 1796, Cuvier presented a paper to the National Institute of Sciences and Arts in Paris, in which he compared the anatomy of living and fossil elephants, thus proving extinction to be a fact, as the fossil elephants had not been seen by recent humans. In the following years, Cuvier continued to document the extinction of animals such as the giant ground sloth, the Irish elk, and the American mastodon.Cuvier's research on extinct forms led him to investigate the causes of extinction. He proposed a catastrophist geological history of the earth. Édition originale de cet ouvrage important dans le domaine de la paléontologie. L'illustration se compose de 152 planches gravées (sur 154) d'après les dessins de Cuvier et une très grande carte dépliante en couleurs "Carte géognostique des environs de Paris" Il s'agit d'un recueil d'articles que Cuvier fit paraître de 1795 à 1812 dans de nombreuses revues, et en particulier dans les Annales du Muséum. Il s'ouvre sur un Discours préliminaire dans lequel l'auteur expose ses idées sur les cataclysmes qui ont bouleversé la terre, en particulier le dernier qui coïncide avec le Déluge de la Bible. En français dans le texte, 224. (cartonnages frottés et usés, manque 2 planches, quelques feuillets et planches détachés, intérieur très frais). Expertise by: François Giard
