Page:Geology and Mineralogy considered with reference to Natural Theology, 1837, volume 1.djvu/75

 The nearest approach among living animals to the form of these extinct aquatic quadrupeds, is found in the Tapirs that inhabit the warm regions of South America, Malacca, and Sumatra, and in the Daman of Africa.

It is not easy to find a more eloquent and striking acknowledgment of the regularity and constancy of the systematic contrivances that pervade the animal remains of the fossil world, than is contained in Cuvier's Introduction to his account of the bones discovered in the gypsum quarries of the neighbourhood of Paris. It affords, to persons unacquainted with the modern method of conducting physical researches, an example of the kind of evidence on which we found our conclusions, as to the form, character, and habits of extinct creatures, that are known only through the medium of their