18701882] PALEONTOLOGY 375 



been very different to what it now is ; and that new genera Letter 285 

 and families may have been developed on the shores of 

 isolated tracts in the south, and afterwards spread to the 

 north. 



To J. W. Judd. Letter 286 



Down, June 27th, 1878. 



I am heartily glad to hear of your intended marriage. A 

 good wife is the supreme blessing in this life, and I hope 

 and believe from what you say that you will be as happy 

 as I have been in this respect. May your future geological 

 work be as valuable as that which you have already 

 done ; and more than this need not be wished for any 

 man. The practical teaching of Geology seems an excellent 

 idea. 



Many thanks for Neumayr, 1 but I have already received 

 and read a copy of the same, or at least of a very similar 

 essay, and admirably good it seemed to me. 



This essay, and one by Mojsisovics, 2 which I have lately 

 read, show what Palaeontology in the future will do for the 

 classification and sequence of formations. It delighted me 

 to see so inverted an order of proceeding viz., the assuming 

 the descent of species as certain, and then taking the 

 changes of closely allied forms as the standard of geological 

 time. My health is better than it was a few years ago, but 

 I never pass a day without much discomfort and the sense of 

 extreme fatigue. 



1 Probably a paper on "Die Congerien und Paludinenschichten 

 Slavoniens und deren Fauna. Ein Beitrag zur Descendenz-Theorie,' 

 Wien. Geol. AbhandL, VII. (Heft 3), 1874-82. Melchior Neumayr 

 (1845-90) passed his early life at Stuttgart, and entered the University 

 of Munich in 1863 with the object of studying law, but he soon gave up 

 legal studies for Geology and Palaeontology. In 1873 he was recalled 

 from Heidelberg, where he held a post as Privatdocent, to occupy the 

 newly created Chair of Palaeontology in Vienna. Dr. Neumayr was a 

 successful and popular writer, as well as "one of the best and most 

 scientific palaeontologists" ; he was an enthusiastic supporter of Darwin's 

 views, and he devoted himself " to tracing through the life of former 

 times the same law of evolution as Darwin inferred from that of the 

 existing world." (See Obit. Notice, by Dr. W. T. Blanford, Quart. 

 Joiim. GeoL Soc., Vol. XLVI., p. 54, 1890.) 



2 See note to Letter 285. 



