"Palaeontology" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... beings as the results of the gradual modification of a primitive type, the facts receive a meaning, and you see that these older conditions are the necessary predecessors of the present. Viewed in this light the facts of palaeontology receive a meaning—upon any other hypothesis, I am unable to see, in the slightest degree, what knowledge or signification we are to draw out of them. Again, note as bearing upon the same point, the singular likeness which obtains between the successive Faunae and Florae, ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... sub-genus and genus,—as varieties of merino-sheep,—varieties of British and Indian cattle. Fresh species might go on forming and others become extinct and all might become extinct, and then we should have extinct genus; a case formerly mentioned, of which numerous cases occur in Palaeontology. But more often the same advantages which caused the new species to spread and become modified into several species would favour some of the species being preserved: and if two of the species, considerably different, each gave rise to group of new species, you would have ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... may infer that the mammals were the last of the three groups, of which we have taken types, to appear upon the earth, and that the fishes preceded, the amphibia. Workers in an entirely independent province, that of palaeontology, completely endorse this supposition. The first Vertebrata to appear in the fossil history of the world are fishes; fish spines and placoid scales (compare dog-fish) appear in the Ordovician rocks. In the ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells
... bestows particular attention upon history, and it is not only to the annals of the human race that it directs its investigations. Geology and palaeontology dive into the bowels of the earth in order to ask of the ground which carries us testimony as to what it carried of old. Astronomy goes yet further. It endeavors to conjecture what was the condition ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... me away amongst the wonderful speculations of palaeontology. Though awake I fell into a dream. I thought I could see floating on the surface of the waters enormous chelonia, preadamite tortoises, resembling floating islands. Over the dimly lighted strand there trod the huge mammals of the first ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... of the place, this Palace of Green Porcelain had a great deal more in it than a Gallery of Palaeontology; possibly historical galleries; it might be, even a library! To me, at least in my present circumstances, these would be vastly more interesting than this spectacle of oldtime geology in decay. Exploring, I found another short gallery running transversely to the first. This appeared to be devoted ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... science exists in that application of the principles of biology to the interpretation of the animal and vegetable remains imbedded in the rocks which compose the surface of the globe, which is called Palaeontology. ...
— On the Method of Zadig - Essay #1 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... mind and turn south—come and see these extraordinary caves. Are you interested in palaeontology?" (David hesitates) "What careless people call 'prehistoric animals' or 'prehistoric man.' They have been ridiculously misled by comic artists in Punch who imagine a few thousand years of Prehistory would take us back ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston |
