Rudwick 1997 Selections

8/8/2019 Rudwick 1997 Selections

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C I I A P T E R T W O

known fossil peciesnd Ihosenow alive, n fact,when he 6rstpresenredhispaper, emadehisclaimevenmoresweepinghan t appearedn prinr,because e cxtended his absolure ontrastberweenossiland iving spe-cies o marineanimals swell assuch errestrial pecies s he eiephantsBut afterhis ecture he "learnedconchologists"e had citedmust havercjected hat claim, insisting hat somemarinemollusksdid haveexact"analogues"mong ossil hells.5venwith an mplicit estrictiono rer-rcstrial nimals, owever, ispublished laimwas triking nough.Cuvierclaimed-though withourdetailed rgument-that the evi-dencepointed to an earlier and. rehaman world" that had been de-stroyed y some ind ofcatastrophe." his wasa theme hat' thoughnotoriginal to him, was o pervadshis geologicalheorizing or the restofhis ife. Although he did not explainwhy the eventmust havebeensud-den,he did imply that t wasnot unique,and that t might be epeatednthe 6rture.Bur hedeftly drew back rom Furrher peculation f this kind,lcaving such matter! to a bolder-or pe haps more foolhardy-"ge-nius." This wasa neat*'ay ofdeferring, thoughwith more rhana touchof irony, o his seniorcolleague anhClemy aujas e Saint-Fond r74r-r8l9), who had boldly adoptedDeluc'sneologism geologv'as he ritleof hisprofessorshiphen the Musium *as reconstituted.

T f , X T 3

Memoir on the Species f ff[""*, Both Living and lbssilRead at thr puhl ic session f the National lnst i tu le on

r5 Oerminal , ear lV [4 Apri l 1796] ' br C Curicr 'c o N s T D E R A B L E D I F F E n E N C E s h a v e l o n g b e e n n o t e d b e t w e e n t h e e l e -phants of Asia and those of lUrica, with regard to their size, their habits,

l. Thc rclcvanrpaisag. n rh. rnanusriPrNlS 618,Bihliothtq,-rcCtnrale, Musium Natronald Histoire Narurclle,Prris)wasonined fromthclirsr publishcdrexr frhepaper (ranslatcdbelowasrext ) rnd its subsequently nlargcd erions: sc


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/.i;, t t.lF ,/ lLi.tat ,1.,' tt,t..' I1in, t:.i. t:iit'L,,",i,,',i)"' 'u '/: '?l l"t.".t, lh"\'! ls

ofelep-hantsrap)lomceylon nowsrianka), ourh frhe n-ofan mafnrand, znd (bottom) trcm rhe Cape of Good Hope (now in South Africa;, en_graved from Cuvier's drawings and published in 1799 wirh the full te;


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a subterraneannimal ik c ou r moles'whichnever et s tselfbe akenalivc;thevname t "mammoth,"and mammoth usks, l 'hichare similar o ivory'are for them a quite ilnPortant item ol comnterce'

None of this could satisfyan enlightenedmind /un esprit 1clatril Btf-fon'shrpothesis15asmore plausible,f we assumeha t it wasnot conten-tious fbr rcasonsof another kind. Accordingto him, the e:rrth had emcrgedburning ro m he mass l the sun,an d had started o cool ro m the polcs; tras therc that living naturc had bcgun.The spccieshat formed first' whichhatl morenecdo{ warmth,had been :hased uccessivelyoward he equa-to r by th e increasing old;an d since he y had raversetl l l the latitudes' t,n rs u tsr r rpr i s inghat he i r cmain .were ounr l verruher '

A ."..rp,rlo.trl "r.u.rtinationof thesebones,madeby anatorny, 'ill relieveus of havingrecourse o any of theseexplanations,by teachingus that thcyarc not similar entlugh to those of the elephant to be regardcd as ah-solutelv from the same specie-s.he teeth and jaws of the marnmoth doDot exactly resemble hose of the elephant [fig 5]; uhile as or the sameparts o{ the Ohio animal, a glanr:e s sulficient to see hat

they differ stilllurther.t6'l'heseflbssil] animals hus differ lrom thc elephantas nu' h as' or morethan, the dog riiffers frorn the jat:kal and the hyena Since the dog toler-ates the cold of the north, while the other two only live in the south' itcould be the samewith theseanimals,of which only the ltrssil rernainsareknown.

l lorever, vhile relieving s of the necessitvf admittinga gradual ool-ing of thc earth, and while dispellingthe gloomy ideas hat presented heimagination with northern ice and frost cncroachingon countries that to-day arc so pleasant, nto what ne difficulties do thesediscoveriesnot nowthror us?What has becomeof these wo enormousanimalsof whir:h one nolonger fintls any [living] traces,and so many others of which the remainso."-fo.ln,l everyr'r'here n earth and of which perhapsnone still exist'lTheIossil hinocerosof Siberia are very different from all known rhinoceros ltis the samewith the atleged bssilbearsof Ansbach;r7he fossilcrocodileof

,;. tButron, Epoques e a nature" rzz8) tu a eadingphilosopher f the E'nlightenmenr' uffon was n enlighrcned nind" par excellence.lt6. t'Ohio animal refered to bones6ret ound n r71eon the banksofrhe Ohio Rivr in whar;s now Kentucky): he; identity was much disputedduring rhc restofthe eighteenth entury and

wesnor resolved ntil Cuvier aterdefinedand namedhe aalmalMa:todoa)rz. lThe bones ound in cavesn a prrt ofBavaria rhat ar this time was n rhe erriroryofAns-bach,most amouslv n caves roundMugsendorl be$een Erlangn nd Bavieuth

lib . . ,aa./to,i+ iz,/ih&ro le ,natnztoaa ' 't),V",tr",/-. )"V;"a,. /zU7t*'t '/"t ltzL''rrcunE J The lower aw of the mammoth ral comparedwith that of the Indianele-phant bonom),eng;ved rom Cuvier's rawings nd publishedn I799 with the full textofhis paper.


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trlaastricht;he species l deer front the same o


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regarded his as conclusive evidence hat rhe animal had not beensweptin from elsewhere,but had lived where it was found. But he argued 1ir-rher-as he had in his lectures-rhat ir must have beenoverwheimedsudzlenj for any of its soft parts to have been preserved: ts speciesmusthave perished not by "slow and insensible changes, but by a suddenrevolution,"

Cuvier alsopublisheda new and greatlyenlarged ersionofhis earl ierpaper texr3) on living and fbssil lephants, t the conclusionof *hich hereviewed tsgeologicalmplications text rr). This was ollowedby a simi-lar buc broader revie*'ofhis paperson a// the fossil pachyderms, nclud-ing thoseon the rhinoceros, ippopotamus, apir, and mastodon text z) .'fhese summarieswere clearly ntended to present he evidence on whichth e character f the last evolution could ar Ieast e circumscribed.

A new feature of Cuvier's argument referred ro specimenshe may have- acquired only recently. He emphasized hat the fossil bones were oftenfound mixed with zalze di6ris, and that some even had oystersh.lk andother marine organisms cemented to them, so that they had evidentlybeen ying on the seafloor or some time. However, their lrequently per-fect prcserlrationshowed that the animals had lived where the bones arefound, and that the carcassesad nor been swept in from elsewhere,andcertainly not from disanr parts of the earth(Since the bones were con-fined to loose superficial deposits,and were not covered by thick or ex-tensivestrata of marine origin, Cuvier inferred that rhe marine incursronmusr havebeenrelativelybriefin geological erms. Since they were foundonly at low alti tudes, he inundation had probably nor reachedhigherground. Above all, Cuvier claimed rhar rhe climares of the regionswherethe bones were found had been similar before he "catastroohe" to whatLhevhad beensincJOf .ourr. this pi6iureof a transientmarine ncursiononto rhe conri-nents had some formal similarity to the tradirional image of the biblicalFlood or Deluge. However, it is unlikely that Cuvier was trying to lendcovrt support to the historiciry of Genesis,except in rhe sense hat hisconclusion would give equal support ro other ancient accounts of thesamekind. It is clear that he believed that all such records were highlygarbled legends, with only a small core of historical veraciry.So, for ex-ample, Cuvier's inundarion had not covered he whole of rhe earth! sur-face-as a literal reading of the Noah story would assert-but only thelow-lying regions. It should also be noted that Cuvier's new conceptiondistanced him from Deluc, who regarded he last revolution as having ineffect caused a permanenr exchange n the positions of continents andoceans, arher han being merelya nansienlmarine ncursion.

on theother ""0, ,n.,.:.*, -;. ':r.";"::;:"';;t'

again to close he door against any transformist interpretation ofhis evr-dence.He argued or example hat the Indian elephantcould not be chedescendantofancient ephants hat escaped he catastropheby being onhigher ground. Pg{g,b-._!1Sy his argument wasweak at this point, for1:_b..\.-,.9. *is,i -q"i:: 1iS::;; dit, nainelyheagieed'lackf anyditlerenceberweir -hi dri irirals ound munrmi6ed in t he tombs of an-cient Egrpt and their l iving counterparts.As mentioned earl ier,Cuvierhad been one of the authors of the official report on the mummified an-imals brought back from the Egyptian expedition, which had concludedthat they all belonged to living species Lamarck had been another oftheauthors, and must haveagreedwith that conclusion). More recently Cu-vier had published a paper in rheAnnalzsdu ll[uslum on the specialcaseofa mummified bird (rhe sacred bis) rhat had apparedro be an excep-tion; he showed t was not, simply becausets living counterpart had beenmisidentified (see igs. 23, z4). Its wider significancewas left implicit inrhat paper,but it is clearthat Cuvier regarded he caseas eliminating anypossible use of the mummified animals as evidencefor the transforma-tion of soecies n the course of timc.

"u l t , t tGeneral Resultsof This [Natural] History of Fossil Elephants

TH DETA Ls with whic h we beganhave hrrs hownus hat he fossil le -phant bones have much resemblance o those of the elephant living todayin India. Howcver,r'e have ust seen hat almost all of the bones hat it hasbeenpossible o examine,and to compare pre


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The firstarticle' hasshownus hat he ossilelephant tonos re usuall i-found in the unconsolidatedImeubles] and superficial layersof the earth,and mostoften in alluvial deposits/terrains d'allutionlthat 6ll the floors ofvallevsor border the beds


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necessaryor their temperamelrt.Moreover, we haveshownthat the mout-tainsof the isthmusof Panarna ould not havebcenan obsta(le o theirpassagento South America.The variousmastodons,he giant rapir, and the lossil hinoceros ived inthe same countries, in the sarncareasas the fossil elephants.since theirbonesare found rr the samebedsand in the

"r.. "onlition.One t.annor

imagine a cause hat would havemadesomeperish while sparing he others.Nerertheless,t i s quite certain hat the animalsmentioned irst no longerexist and in regard to them there can be no argum.nt, aswe shall show rnthe chapters n hem.Thuseverwhing oncurc o makeus hink that he os-sil elephant s, ikc them, an extinct pteinte/ species, lthough it rcsemblesa species xisting oday more than thev do.Dansktedfron Cuuier,"Elephansit'ansetfosiles"(Livingand bsril elcphanx,oal,PP:bt-09.

T E X T I 2

GeneralSunrmaryf tf,. 1ftfJ"4 Historyof FossilBones fPachydermsrom the Superficial)eposits nd {,|luviumTIrE supERFrcrAL Dtposl?s l te rn ia , meu l e :l tha t f i l l the f loors {valleysand cover the surfaceof large plains have hus furnished us, ust rnth e ordersof pachvderms nd elephants. irh the bones f elelen"pecres:namely, ne rhinoceros,wo hippopotamuses.\^o apirs. ne "l.phant, ano6ve mastodons.

,All ht'se eleven speciesare today absotrrtely oreign to the climates rnwhich their bonesare found. The five mastodonsalone can be consideredas orming a separateand unknown genus,althoughvery close o that of theelephant.All the others belongto genera still existing todav in the tropics.Threeof thesegenera-the rhinoccros, ippopotamuscs,nd elephants-are only found in the Old World; the fourth-the tapirs-exists onlv in rneNewVorltl . The samedistribution loes ot appl,vo fossilhones:he boneso{ tapirs have been unearthed in the Old World, and someelephantboreshavebeen ound in the New Vbrld. Thesespecies. lthorrgh elonging oknown genera,nonethel:ssdiffer noticeably rom known species;hcy mustbe consideredas distinct species, nd not just as varitties.This point cannotbe hesubject fany argument n the case fthe smallhippopotamusand the giant tapir. It is evenmore r:ertain or the fossil hi-

A R E v l t w o ! F o s s r L P A c H Y D E R M S g t

FrcuRE 14 Cuvier 's econstrucrionof the skeleronof the largesr pecies fwhat henamed the "mastodon," previously known as rhe "Ohio animal" and often erroneoudyequated rvith the mammoth.

noceros.Although a little lessevident for the elephant and small tapir fos-si ls, hcre are neverthclessmore than adequate easons o convincc hetrained anatomist.Finally, thc large hippopotamus s the only one of theseelevcn lossil quadnrpeds or whicb there are not enough specimens o beable to say positively whether or not it diflered {r


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As for the geologicol result, it consistsmainly of the following remarks.These different bones are buried almost cverywhcre in roughly similarbed"; thel aiF often mixed there with some other animals likewise lairlysimilar tti'ihbie'of-ioaldt These bedsare g"nerally unconsolidated,uhethersandvor silty. and alwavs more or less

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Rudwick 1997 Selections