PALEONTOLOGICAL DISCOVERY. 363 



HISTORY A>TD METHODS OF PALEONTOLOGICAL 

 DISCOVERY.* 



By Pkofessob 0. C. MAKSH. 



II. 



WHILE the Paris Basin was yielding such important results for 

 paleontology, its geological structure was being worked out with 

 great care. The results appeared in a volume by Cuvier and Alex- 

 andre Brongniart, chiefly the work of the latter, published in 1808.f 

 This was the first systematic investigation of Tertiary strata. Three 

 years later, the work was issued in a more extended form. The sepa- 

 rate formations wei'e here carefully distinguished by their fossils, the 

 true importance of which for this purpose being distinctly recognized. 

 This advance was not accepted without some opposition, and it is an 

 interesting fact that Jameson, who claimed for Werner the theory 

 here put in practice, rejected its application, and wrote as follows : 

 " To Cuvier and Brongniart we are indebted for much valuable in- 

 formation in theii- description of the country around Paris, but we 

 must protest against the use they have made of fossil organic remains 

 in their geognostical descriptions and investigations." J 



William Smith (1769-1839), "the father of English geology," had 

 previously published a " Tabular View of the British Strata." He 

 appears to have arrived independently at essentially the same view as 

 Werner in regard to the relative position of stratified rocks. He had 

 determined that the order of succession was constant, and that the 

 different formations might be identified at distant points by the fossils 

 they contained. In his later works, " Strata identified by Organized 

 Fossils," published in 1816-20, and " Stratigraphical System of Or- 

 ganized Fossils," 1817, he gave to the world results of many years of 

 careful investigations on the Secondary formations of England. In 

 the latter work, he speaks of the success of his method in determining 

 strata by their fossils, as follows : " My original method of tracing 

 the strata by the organized fossils imbedded therein is thus reduced 

 to a science not difficult to learn. Ever since the first written account 

 of this discovery was circulated in 1799, it has been closely investi- 

 gated by my scientific acquaintances in the vicinity of Bath, some of 

 whom search the quarries of different strata in that district with as 

 much certainty of finding the characteristic fossils of the respective 

 rocks as if they were on the shelves of their cabinets." 



The systematic study of fossils now attracted attention in England 

 also, and was prosecuted with considerable zeal, although with less 



* President's address delivered before the American Association for tbc Advance- 

 ment of Science, at Saratoga, New York, August 28, 1879- 



f " Essai sur la Geographic Mineralogique des Environs de Paris," 4to, 1808. 

 X Translation of Cuvier's discourse. Note K. (B.), p. 103, 1817, 



