Alcidc cCOrhvjny. 75 



For the verdict of posterity, then, we come back to the opening 

 paragraph of the present work. Many have been the eulogies 

 Ijronounced upon him by writers of a later age by no means blind 

 to his faults. Their views are summed up by von Zittel, who is 

 unsparing of whatever praise is due to him, when he says, " The 

 chief merit of d'Orbigny's works is their remarkable precision and 

 lucidity of statement w^hich opened their contents to Geologists of 

 all nations, and enabled them to exert a great influence upon 

 literature." ' At the present day the general tendency among 

 Geologists in France is to adhere firmly to d'Orbigny's sub-divisions 

 and nomenclature, and where necessary to form sub-groups and 

 sub-stages.'- Even though the bases of his classification be 

 panoplied with the dim magnificence of myth, even though his 

 system of nomenclature has j^roduced results which strike terror 

 to the heart of the most sturdy systematist, so long as the 

 Foraminifera engage the attention of Zoologists, of Geologists, of 

 Biologists, one name must always stand at the head of those of 

 their predecessors, one name must recur continually in their work, 

 one name must always be held in an esteem which may be 

 described as affectionate, and that is the name of Alcide d'Orbigny. 



XVI. — Some d'Oebignyan Species." 



It is not necessary to refer further than has been done in the 

 foregoing pages, and in Appendices E, F, to the genera which, 

 originally instituted by d'(Jrbigny, have disappeared by absorption 

 into other well-known genera ; but there are a few which fill the 

 Systematic Ehizopodist with a justifiable curiosity, species of 

 highly typical appearance which he figured adequately in his 

 Memoirs, but which, as such, have disappeared excepting as herein- 

 after noted. These are the genera Conulina, Cuneolina, Unilo- 

 culina, and Cruciloculina ; and to them may be added a fifth — 

 Iloialia duhia, a species which has recently made a sensational 

 reappearance after suffering an eclipse of ninety years. 



Into this category also might have entered Paronina flahdli- 

 formis, of which he not only gave a figure in the Atlas to the 

 "Tableau Methodique " (pi. x., figs. 10, 11), but also supplied a 

 Model (No. 5()). He recorded it from Madagascar in 1826, and 

 described it as not having been found elsewhere in 1839,* and 

 again in 184G, when he figured it once more. He described it as 



' XXV., p. 507. 



" Ibid., p. 525. See also Marcellin Bovile, " The divisions which he cstabli.shed 

 in the series of the Secondary Epoch have been but slightly modified ; his nomen- 

 clature is still universally adopted" (Revue Scientifique, May 28, 1904). 



= This section is written in collaboration with mv friend Arthur Earland. 



* I., p. 260, No. 1 ; VII., p. 25 ; XII., p. 72. 



