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CUVIER (G., Baron). DISCOURS sur les Révolutions de la Surface du Globe et sur les Changemens qu’elles ont produits dans le Régne Animal. A Paris. 1825. - CUVIER (G., Baron) DISCOURS sur les Révolutions de la Surface du Globe et sur les Changemens qu’elles ont produits dans le Régne Animal . Troisiéme édition française. A Paris: Chez G. Dufour et Ed. d' Ocagne, 1825. [4], II, 400 pp., 6 gravs.: il.; 215 mm. This is the third French edition and the first separate edition of the text, revised, corrected, and augmented by the author himself, published at the request of numerous readers on the occasion of the third edition of Recherches sur les ossemens fossiles des quadrupèdes . The text was first printed in 1812 as Discours préliminaire introdutório a esse grande tratado de paleontologia, and republished in 1821 under the title Discours sur la théorie de la terre . The 1825 edition, with its definitive title, is the first in which the text circulated independently, featuring an iconographic apparatus of six fold-out plates and two comparative charts. The Discourse expounds Cuvier's catastrophist theory on the geological history of the Earth: the surface of the globe would have been subjected, over time, to abrupt and violent revolutions that extinguished the existing animal species, replaced by others after each cataclysm. The work had an extraordinary impact on the scientific and philosophical debate of the 19th century, being translated into English and German, and republished in French until the eighth edition of 1840. It constitutes one of the founding texts of historical paleontology and geology. Estimated. ⚑ Auto-translated via Google Translate