WORK IN PALZONTOLOGY 139 
ogy, had meanwhile established the fact that there 
were two species of fossil cave-bear, which he named 
Ursus speleus and U. arctoideus. He began to pub- 
lish his Arch@ologia telluris,* the first part of which 
appeared in 1803. 
From Blainville’s useful summary we learn that 
Blumenbach, mainly limiting his work to the fossils 
of Hanover, aimed at studying fossils in order to ex- 
plain the revolutions of the earth. 
‘Hence the order he proposed to follow was not 
that commonly followed in treatises on oryctology, 
namely, systematic, following the classes and the or- 
ders of the animal and vegetable kingdom, but in a 
chronological order, in such a way as to show that the 
classes, so far as it was possible to conjecture with any 
probability, were established after or in consequence 
of the different revolutions of the earth. 
“Thus, as we see, all the great questions, more or 
less insoluble, which the study of fossil organic bodies 
can offer, were raised and even discussed by the cele- 
brated professor of Géttingen as early as 1803, be- 
fore anything of the sort could have arisen from the 
essays of M. G. Cuvier; the errors of distribution in 
the classes committed by Blumenbach were due to 
the backward state of geology.” 
The political troubles of Germany, which also bore 
heavily upon the University of Géttingen, probably 
brought Blumenbach’s labors to an end, for after a 
second “specimen” of his work, of less importance 
than the first, the Arch@ologia telluris was discon- 
tinued. 
* Specimen archeologia telluris terrarumgue imprimis Hannove- 
ran@, pts.i., ii. Cum 4 tabl. aen. 4 maj. Gottinge, 1803. 
