WORK IN PALZONTOLOGY 135 
published in 1806) is the first truly scientific paleon- 
tological work ever published, preceding Cuvier’s 
Ossemens fossiles by six years. 
When we consider Lamarck’s 
rivalled—knowledge of molluscs, his philosophical 
treatment of the relations of the study of fossils to 
geology, his correlation of the tertiary beds of Eng- 
land with those of France, and his comparative de- 
scriptions of the fossil forms represented by the exist- 
ing shells, it seems not unreasonable to regard him 
as the founder of invertebrate paleontology, as Cuvier 
was of vertebrate or mammalian paleontology. 
We have entered the claim that Lamarck was one 
of the chief founders of palazontology, and the first 
French author of a genuine, detailed paleontological 
treatise. It must be admitted, therefore, that the 
statement generally made that Cuvier was the founder 
of this science should be somewhat modified, though 
he may be regarded as the chief founder of vertebrate 
palzontology. 
In this field, however, Cuvier had his precursors 
not only in Germany and Holland, but also in France. 
Our information as to the history of the rise of 
vertebrate paleontology is taken from Blainville’s 
posthumous work entitled Cuvzer et Geoffroy Saznt- 
Hilaire.* In this work, a severe critical and perhaps 
not always sufficiently appreciative account of Cuvier's 
character and work, we find an excellent history of 
the first beginnings of vertebrate paleontology. Blain- 
ville has little or nothing to say of the first steps in 
atanicm time Azn- 
* Cuvier et Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. Biographies scientifiques, par 
Ducrotay de Blainville (Paris, 1890, p. 446). 
