Essay on the Theory of the Earth

Translated by Robert Kerr, with a preface and notes by Robert Jameson, this English version of the first essay from George Cuvier's Recherches sur les ossements fossiles de quadrupèdes is an enquiry into the origins of the human race, the formation of the earth, and the interpretation of fossil remains.

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Essay on the Theory of the Earth was the last work of the scientific writer Robert Kerr who translated it from the introductory essay of George Cuvier's four-volume Recherches sur les ossements fossiles de quadrupèdes. Before its first publication in 1813, the essay was partly expanded by the geologist and natural historian Robert Jameson who wrote a preface and included extensive notes on mineralogy. Using geological evidence as its principal source of enquiry, Cuvier's essay attempts to address the questions of the origins of the human race, the formation of the earth, and the correlation between incomplete fossil remains and existing species of animals. Extremely influential in its own time, the essay remains a source of considerable insight into the early development of geological research, examining issues of continued significance today.