The Scottish Naturalist. 109 



and distribution in time of the forms of plant and animal life em- 

 bedded in the rocks of the earth's crust." 



The definition is followed by explanatory remarks to which I 

 shall afterwards refer. 



What in the next place is Biology ? How is it defined ? 



I shall cite only Professor Huxley's definition in the article 

 Biology, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9th Ed. It is : — "The Biological 

 Sciences are those which deal with phenomena manifested by 

 living matter." 



The two subjects are obviously not on an equal footing. 

 Palaeontology is a division of Geology, or is, at least, tacked on 

 to that science; Biology on the other hand stands distinct. 



Let us glance briefly at their historical development, and en- 

 deavour to see how that explains their position. 



In considering first of all the science of Geology, we may pass 

 over without remark, as outside our present subject, the long 

 period in its history during which it developed out of a mass of 

 tradition and imagination into a more or less definite body of 

 scientific truth, under the influence of the early Italian school. 



Strangely enough the first memoir which might be termed 

 scientific on a geological subject, was palaeontological, and w T as 

 published by Fracastoro in 1520. His contention was that fossils 

 found in the rocks were the remains of organisms previously 

 existent on the earth's surface, and entombed on their death by 

 natural causes. 



With the exception however of this work, and the observations 

 and opinions of the few Italian thinkers who brought to the study 

 of Geology minds free from prejudice, a sketch of the progress ot 

 geological enquiry from the close of the sixteenth to the middle 

 of the eighteenth century, is the history of a constant and violent 

 struggle of new opinions, which form the most self-evident pro- 

 positions of Geology as we understand it, against doctrines, either 

 emanating from minds to which no propositions however ridi- 

 culous seemed unworthy of the ordeal of argumentation, or sanc- 

 tioned by the implicit faith of many generations, and supposed to 

 rest on Scriptural authority. 



At length towards the end of the eighteenth century the key-note 

 of modern Geology was sounded when Genevelli exclaimed before 

 the Academy of Cremona, " I hold in utter abomination, most 

 learned Academicians ! those systems which are built with their 



