516 HISTORY OF GEOLOGY. 



strata of that district, which contained the gerrn of his subsequent di 

 eoveries. Finding in the north of England the same strata and 



O O 



associations of strata with which he had become acquainted in the 

 west, he was led to name them and to represent them by means of 

 maps, according to their occurrence over the whole face of England. 

 These maps appeared 17 in 1815 ; and a work by the same author, 

 entitled The English Strata identified by Organic Remains, came forth 

 later. But the views on which this identification of strata rests, belong 

 to a considerably earlier date ; and had not only been acted upon, but 

 freely imparted in conversation many years before. 



In the meantime the study of fossils was pursued with zeal in vari- 

 ous countries. Lamarck and Defrance employed themselves in 

 determining the fossil shells of the neighborhood of Paris ; 18 and the 

 interest inspired by this subject was strongly nourished and stimulated 

 by the memorable work of Cuvier and Brongniart, On the Environs 

 of Paris, published in 1811, and by Cuvier's subsequent researches on 

 the subjects thus brought under notice. For now, not only the dis- 

 tinction, succession, and arrangement, but many other relations among 

 fossil strata, irresistibly arrested the attention of the philosopher. 

 Brongniart 19 showed that very striking resemblances occurred in their 

 fossil remains, between certain strata of Europe and of North Ameri- 

 ca ; and proved that a rock may be so much disguised, that the identity 

 of the stratum can only be recognized by geological characters. 20 



The Italian geologists had found in their hills, for the most part, 

 the same species of shells which existed in their seas ; but the German 

 and English writers, as Gesner, 21 Raspe, 28 and Brander," 3 had perceived 

 that the fossil-shells were either of unknown species, or of such as 

 lived in distant latitudes. To decide that the animals and plants, of 

 which we find the remains in a fossil state, were of species now ex- 

 tinct, obviously required an exact and extensive knowledge of natural 

 history. And if this were so, to assign the relations of the past to 

 the existing tribes of beings, and the peculiarities of their vital processes 

 and habits, were tasks which could not be performed without the most 

 consummate physiological skill and talent. Such tasks, however, have 

 been the familiar employments of geologists, and naturalists incited and 



1T Brit. Assoc. 18S2. Conybeare, p. 373. w Hvmboldt, Gisx. d. R. p, 35. 

 19 Hist. Nat. des Crustaces Fossiles, pp. 57, 62. 



10 Humboldt, Giss. d. R. p. 45. 



11 Lyell, i. 70. M Ib. 74. " Ib. 76 



