Another part of the site was a former gypsum and limestone quarry mined for the construction of buildings in Paris and in the United States. This raw material was used for a long time to produce plaster and lime. In order to make lime, gypsum was heated in furnaces. This activity was maintained until the second half of the 19th century. By the end of the 1850s, the quarry was exhausted. That quarry also yielded Eocene mammal fossils, including "Palaeotherium", which were studied by Georges Cuvier. This not-very-promising site was chosen by Baron Haussmann, the Prefet of Paris, for the site of a new public park for the recreation and pleasure of the rapidly growing population of the new 19th and 20th arrondissements of Paris, which had been annexed to the city in 1860.