Alcide (TOrMgny. 3 



before them, by Carpenter in 1862, who said : " as his labours have 

 contributed far more than those of all his predecessors put together, 

 to the extension of our knowledge of the diversified forms belonging 

 to this group, it was most unfortunate that they should have been 

 commenced and carried on under the influence of views regarding 

 the value of charaders which have since proved to be altogether 

 erroneous." ^ 



The fundamental errors of classification, and his riotous 

 exuberance of nomenclature have, however, long ago ceased to be 

 pitfalls, or even stumbling-blocks in the way of the student. 

 Almost every line that be ever wrote upon the Foraminifera has 

 been subjected to the most minute and learned examination and 

 analysis; as we shall see, the whole of his species, with the 

 exception of three, have been figured or described (or both), and 

 his work stands to-day, as one of his latest biographers has said, if 

 not as the basis, at least as the point of departure of all modern 

 work and research upon the subject.^ 



The ]\Iemoir which follows was originally undertaken under 

 the impression that it might be completed within the recognized 

 compass of a Presidential Address. But very soon I realized that 

 to do anything approaching justice to the task which I had 

 undertaken, the limits T had set myself must be very widely 

 expanded. For many years the somewhat nebulous personality 

 of Alcide d'Orbigny has exercised a significant fascination for me, 

 and I found that I had collected a far larger mass of data and 

 documents than I had any idea of. " Bonum est cribrare modium 

 sabuli ut quis inveniat unam margaritam " — with these words 

 quoted from Averroes, Benvenuto da Imola commences his 

 Commentary upon the Paradiso of Dante,^ and such pearls as I 

 have extracted from many " modia " of sand, are collected in 

 something approaching to order in the following pages. 



I. — Early Years and Studies at La Eochelle. 



Alcide d'Orbigny was born on September 6, 1802, at Coueron 

 (Loire Inf.). His father, Charles Marie Dessalines d'Orbigny, was 

 of West Indian origin, and has been traditionally, but erroneously, 

 reported to have been a " descendant " of Dessalines, the notorious 

 rebel-chief of San Domingo.* He was born in 1770 (January 2) 

 on board ship whilst his parents were travelling to that Island 

 from St. Malo, and his birth was registered at Port Malo in San 



' XVII., p. 5. - XXIII., p. 170. 



' Commentum in Dantis Comoediam, Veruon and Lacaita's ed., Florence, 

 5 vol. (1887), iv., p. 291. 



* See Appendix A for the origin of this legend, and the history of the family. 



B 2 



