Some account of the fossil remains of an animal more nearly allied to fishes than any of the other classes of animals / by Sir Everard Home.

  • Home, Everard, Sir, 1756-1832.
Date:
1814
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Some account of the fossil remains of an animal more nearly allied to fishes than any of the other classes of animals / by Sir Everard Home. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    ACCOUNT, ire. Read before the ROYAL SOCIETY, June 23, 1814. The study of comparative anatomy is not confined to the animals that at present inhabit the earth, but extends to the remains of such as existed in the most remote periods of an- tiquity; among these may be classed the specimen which forms the subject of the present Paper. That the bones of the elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, crocodile, and of many other animals should be met with in a fossil state in this island, in such numbers as to make it ap- pear that at some distant period they were inhabitants of Great Britain, is perhaps one of the most wonderful circumstances that occurs in the history of the earth. To discover the changes that have taken place in our globe, which can account for the remains of animals only fitted to live in warm climates being found in so northern a situa- tion ; and to explain the circumstance of human bones never having been met with in a fossil state, is the province of the geologist. To examine such fossil bones, and to determine the class to which the animals belonged, comes within the sphere of inquiry of the anatomist, and considerably increases its extent. B