OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 343 



a pupil of Des Hayes, who directed his paleontological studies, and who 

 gave a marked bias to his subsequent career by infusing him with 

 his zeal for the paleontology of invertebrates. In the field of fossil 

 invertebrates from the secondary period, De Verneuil stood, when in 

 his prime, without an equal. Being independent in his circumstances, he 

 was able to spend a great part of his time in geological explorations in 

 the field. His first studies were made in Wales. Subsequently he visited 

 the Bosphorus, the Danubian provinces, and in 1836 he made an ex- 

 haustive exploration of the Ciimea. In the published Reports of these 

 jouruej^s, his pre-eminence in paleontology soon became ajjpareut. 

 From 1840 to 1842 he spent all his time, associated with Murchi- 

 son and Keyserling, in the extensive explorations of the Russian 

 Empire, from which he established, in connection with his colleagues, 

 the identity of the deposits of Russia with those of Western Europe. 

 The most important feature, however, of this great exploration, was 

 the introduction of the Permian system in our geological nomen- 

 clature. 



In 1846 he spent six months in the United States, where he attempted 

 to establish the first parallelism between the dej)osits of North America 

 and Europe, and thus extended to the two worlds the general paral- 

 lelism he had helped to establish between the strata of Eastern and 

 Western Europe. 



From 1850 to 1866 he took part in several geological explorations 

 of Spain, in company with Columb, De Loriere, and Ernest Favre. 

 The result of their explorations was an excellent geological map of 

 Spain, at that time in, geology a terra incognita. During the last ten 

 years of his life he made many excursions to Vesuvius, and at the time 

 of the last eruption incurred considerable risk to obtain the possible 

 solution of some problem in which he was interested. 



In 1854 he was elected a "membre libre" of the Academie des Sciences. 

 De Verneuil was three times chosen president of the French Geologi- 

 cal Society, in 1846, in 1853, and in 1867. His independent position, 

 his entire unselfishness and devotion to his favorite science, gave him 

 an exceptional place among his scientific associates in Paris. As a fit 

 closing of a life devoted to scientific pursuits, in which he had attained 

 great distinction, he left his paleontological collections to the Ecole des 

 Mines. This collection is almost unique. It was brought together from 

 his extensive travels, and, containing as it does the types of all the 

 fossils he desci-ibed, its value as a monument of the early history of 

 paleontology is very great. 



