134 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK 
and their relations to geology may be seen in his 
later memoirs, Sur les Fosstles des environs de Paris.* 
“ The determination of the characters, both generic 
and specific, of animals of which we find the fossil 
remains in almost all the dry parts of the continents 
and large islands of our globe will be, from several 
points of view, a thing extremely useful to the prog- 
ress of natural history. At the outset, the more this 
determination is advanced, the more will it tend to 
complete our knowledge in regard to the species 
which exist in nature and of those which have ex- 
isted, as it is true that some of them have been lost, 
as we have reason to believe, at least as concerns the 
large animals. Moreover, this same determination 
will be singularly advantageous for the advancement 
of geology; for the fossil remains in question may be 
considered, from their nature, their condition, and 
their situation, as authentic monuments of the rev- 
olutions which the surface of our globe has under- 
gone, and they can throw a strong light on the nature 
and character of these revolutions.” 
This series of papers on the fossils of the Paris 
tertiary basin extended through the first eight vol- 
umes of the Aznales, and were gathered into a 
volume published in 1806. In his descriptions his 
work was comparative, the fossil species being com- 
pared with their living representatives. The thirty 
plates, containing 483 figures representing 184 species 
(exclusive of those figured by Brard), were afterwards 
published, with the explanations, but not the descrip- 
tions, as a separate volume inj1823.17 This (the text 
* Annales du Muséum a’ Histoire Naturelle, vi., 1805, pp. 222-228. 
t Recueil de Planches des Coguilles fossiles des environs de Paris 
(Paris, 1823). There are added two plates of fossil fresh-water shells 
(twenty-one species of Limnzea, etc.) by Brard, with sixty-two figures. 
