Alcide iVOrhigny. 15 



the money enclosed, / The first instalment of these Models may 

 be seen in Paris, at the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle du Jardin 

 du / Roi, and at M.M. ...../ Tlie Subscribers will receive 



with the fourth instalment the ' Tableau method ique ' of the 

 distribution of tliese Cepha / lopods, which will indicate by 

 numbers corresponding^ with those of the Models the name of the 

 individuals sent / and tlie order of their classification. / 1st (2nd, 

 3rd, or -Ith) Instalment. / Nota. The coloured Models represent 

 the fossil shells, and the wliite ones the livin£>'. Tlie position and 

 the form / of the Syphons are indicated upon them by black lines 

 or spots." 



We learn from this label that the whole plan or catalogue of 

 the four instalments was settled as early as 1823, that d'Orbigny 

 was already in correspondence with Baron de Fei'ussac at the 

 Museum de I'Histoire N'atu]'elle, and that the title of his work 

 was already determined upon ; but there is no indication at this 

 date that the " Tableau Methodique " was to be merely the 

 " Prodrome" of a larger work (^oide post, p 19). His use of the 

 word " Syphons " would seem to denote that he had not at this 

 date separated the Foraminifera (Asiphoniferes) from the Siphoni- 

 feres. He tells us ^ that he issued the first instalment at the end 

 of four years of work (whicli gives us, as above related, the year 

 1819 for the commencement of his studies), and that from that 

 moment he " devoted himself more particularly to the study of 

 the relationships on which to found their classification, regard 

 being had to the work of previous workers on the same subject." 

 The fact that the third and fourth instalments are fully accounted 

 for in the " Tableau Methodique " proves that they were ready 

 for issue when his work was read before the Academic des Sciences 

 (November 7, 1825) ; therefore, as Parker and Jones properly 

 observe :^ " the Models having been published in 1823, the type- 

 forms represented by them take precedence of identical forms 

 subsequently ])ublished in the ' Tableau Methodique ' or else- 

 where." (See Appendix C.) This, however, aji-plies, sensurestricto, 

 to the first and second instalments only. 



The original Models cut by the hand of d'(^rbigny, from which 

 the matrices were made for multiplying them, are in the cabinet 

 of the Director of the Musee de Paleontologie in Paris. They 

 are apparently cut in a brown gypsum, and are still covered with 

 traces of the white plaster used for making the moulds. They 

 were presented to the Museum about the year 1894 by his son 

 Henri d'Orbigny, who was an entomologist, and who died in 

 Paris in 1915. (See Appendix A.) 



The boxes in which the Models were sent out were divided 

 into thirty compartments, twenty-five occupied by the Models, 



» I., p. 124. 2 XVIII., p. 430. 



