784 KARL ALFRED VON ZITTEL. 



papers, and " those on the Chelonia and pterodactyls from the litho- 

 graphic stone of Bavaria are especially valuable contributions to 

 science'' (A. S. Woodward). 



Zitters great versatility in paleontology sliowed how difficult it was 

 becoming for a person to master this one of the biologic sciences. 

 INIaterial Avas being accumulated in all parts of the world, and results 

 were being published in many languages and in almost unlimited 

 places. A work was needed to orient this great accumulation. In 

 part, this had been accomplished by Bronn in his Lethaea Geognos- 

 tica, and in the text-books of Geinitz, Giebel, Quenstedt, Pictet, 

 cl'Orbigny, Owen, and Nicholson. Some of these Avorks, however, 

 had become antiquated, and none did justice to the growing science 

 of paleontology from the point of view of the paleontologist. Zittel 

 therefore undertook to orient all the material into one work, which 

 should not only be an aid to all expert paleontologists, but should also 

 form a basis of the science. From 187G to 1893 he labored on the 

 animal fossils, wliile the paleobotanical part was undertaken by his 

 friend, W. Ph. Schimper, of Strassburg, and after the hitter's death, 

 by A. Schenk, of Leipzig. Zittel thus gave to the scientific world 

 his greatest and most distinguished work, his Handbuch dei- 

 Palaeontologie. This stupendous undertaking, which resulted in 

 seventeen years of continuous seairh and deliberation, is published in 

 6 volumes, 4 of which are Zittel's, containing ?>,'^^u pages and 2,070 

 figures. Tt is the Encyclopedia of Paleontology and the Dictionary of 

 Extinct Genera of Plants and >Vnimals, including their classification 

 and geological duration. Branco has justly said that it is the " res- 

 cuing deed " in i)al(M)iitology. Later the handbook was translated 

 through the joint work of seven savants, headed l)v Charles Barrois. 

 In 1895 Zittel rewrote and condensed his gi-eat work into one vol- 

 ume — the Grundziige der Taheontologie (Taheozoologie), which has 

 since been translated into English, under the leadershi]) of one of 

 ZitteFs American students, Charles R. P^astman. 



Osboi-n has stated in iscience: '' It is i)robal,>ly not an exaggeration 

 to say that he did more for the pi'omotion aiul difi'usion of j)aleontol- 

 ogy than any other single man who lived during the nineteenth cen- 

 tury. While not gifted with genius, he possessed extraordinary 

 judgment, critical capacity, and untiring industry." 



While Zittel, since 18()8, worked in paleontology along the lines of 

 evohition, he never came to be a sti'ong adhei-enl of the neo- 

 Lamarckian school. In fad, the dev{>lo|)inent of the individual 

 (ontogeny) did not seeui to him to be reliable evidence as indi- 

 cating the phylogeny of the stock and thus leading to a natural clas- 

 sification of oi-ganisms. The teachings of Co])e and Hyatt did not 

 take a strong hold on him, and we see in the second edition of his 



