M. Blainville on Ichthyolites. 121 
theory is as purposeless as the voyage of the living fish itself to th 
Seine would be at this day, unless his object were to attract the 
praises, in a Bechamel sauce, of the Gastronomes who sit in judgment 
at the tables of Beauvilliers. The very theory of the Paris basin, to 
speak seriously, renders this supposition nearly as impossible as it is 
unreasonable, and it would-surely be a more rational conclusion that 
the fish in question was either a lost native of the Parisian seas, or that 
the imperfection of the specimen was the cause of a resemblance far 
too slight and doubtful to give the slightest justification to such a 
useless and violent supposition. 
We are fully aware at the same time of the argument in favour of 
such a view, which may be founded on the existence of vegetables 
with intertropical characters or analogies, in the same climates in 
which the Paris basin is situated, But this whole question, as far as 
it relates to change of climate, or an alteration in the position of the 
earth’s axis, is very obscure, or more than obscure: and were it not 
so, it must be remembered that the coal strata belong to a far remote 
period of the earth, antecedent by many and by millenarian revolu- 
tions to the basin and deposit in question. We have no right to argue 
thus, and it is only to perpetuate the vice from which geology has 
already suffered so severely. 
But it is time for us to bring this article to a close, and to take our 
leave of Mons. Blainville and his ichthyolites. We wish that we could 
have spoken more favourably of a performance which contains far 
more of conjecture and trifling than of useful and solid information, 
and which is not calculated to add much to our stock of knowledge. 
We do not undervalue this particular pursuit; on the contrary, we 
think it highly desirable that every organic fragment of a former world, 
in every department, should be collected, studied, and described: but 
geology, geology itself, the history of the structure and revolutions of 
the earth, has also its claims; and such collections and systems more 
than double their value when they are caused to bear and throw 
light on this important subject. This is what Mons. Blainville has yet 
tolearn, We still hope and expect that he will look at his subjectin 
this view; that he willturn from the poor ambition of shining in a 
catalogue of new and useless names, to that of improving the sciences 
which he has undertaken; and that, substituting study for guessing, 
and close investigation and careful reasoning for compilation and ca- 
talogue, he will appear before us again, at some future day, a new 
man, to receive the praise which we shall give with far more pleasure 
than we have passed the censure. 
