Crear iE. Whi 
LAMARCK’S WORK IN GEOLOGY 
WHATEVER may be said of his chemical and phy- 
sical lucubrations, Lamarck in his geological and 
paleontological writings is, despite their errors, al- 
ways suggestive, and in some most important respects 
in advance of his time. And this largely for the rea- 
son that he had once travelled, and to some extent 
observed geological phenomena, in the central regions 
of France, in Germany, and Hungary ; visiting mines 
and collecting ores and minerals, besides being in a 
degree familiar with the French cretaceous fossils, 
but more especially those of the tertiary strata of 
Paris and its vicinity. He had, therefore, from his 
own experience, slight as it was, some solid grounds 
of facts and observations on which to meditate and 
from which to reason. 
He did not attempt to touch upon cosmological 
theories—chaos and creation—but, rather, confined 
himself to the earth, and more particularly to the ac- 
tion of the ocean, and to the changes which he believed 
to be due to organic agencies. The most impressive 
truth in geology is the conception of the immensity 
of past time, and this truth Lamarck fully realized. 
His views are to be found in a little book of 268 
pages, entitled Hydrogéologie. It appeared in 1802 
