Germinal Year IV of the Revolutionary Calendar. Cuvier, of the Natural History Museum in Paris, presents the results of an analysis of animal remains found in Siberia (of a mammoth). He concludes that they resemble those of an elephant, but are clearly different. The molars, in particular, reveal that it is certainly another species: especes perdues, an extinct species. A few weeks earlier, he had also received drawings of a Megatherium from Buenos Aires, the American Mastodon from Ohio, and the Maastricht Animal (a Mosasaurus). This, Cuvier continues, is therefore not an isolated case, but a common occurrence: animal species become extinct. It means that a world existed before ours. It is a revolution. Science is beginning to discover the evolution of species.
