GEOFFHOY 



GEOGRAPHICAL 



139 



_ 



fifteenth year was married to a very rich citi/en 



iholirg Si Alltoilie, wllO (lied Mot long 



after, leaving her an immense fortune. Madame 



hiii, though herself Init imiierfectly educated, 

 li i.l ,i u'Miuinc lo\e HI learning ana art, and lier house 



soon Kcramc a icnde/voiis of the men of letters mill 

 - of I'm is. Kveiy illustrious foreigner \va.s 

 ..med to her circle, init her dearest friends were 

 tin- /1/ii/nmifi/n-x. and upon tin-in in their necessities 

 she showered her money with equal delicacy and 

 liberality. Among licr friends she numbered 

 Montesquieu, Marmontel, Morellet, Thomas, and 



I-laus Poniatowski, afterwards king of Poland. 

 The last is said to have announced to her his eleva- 

 tion to the throne in the words: 'Muman, votre fils 

 -t roi.' In ITtiu he prevailed on her to visit War- 

 n-here she was received with the greatest 

 distinction, and subsequently in Vienna she met 

 the same reception from the Kmpress Maria Theresa 

 and her son, Joseph II. Madame Geott'rin died 

 in October 1777, leaving legacies to most of her 

 friends. Towards the publication of the En<-</<'/<>- 

 /i'-'/ie she contributed, according to the calculations 

 of her daughter, who was no friend to her mother's 

 pet philosophers, more than 100,000 francs. The 

 panegyrics of D'Alembert; Thomas, and Morellet 

 are to l>e found in the filoges de Madame Geoff rin 

 l->12). Morellet likewise published her treatise 

 tr la Conversation, and her Lettres. 

 Ooffroy Saint-Hilaire, ETIENNE, French 

 zoologist and biologist, was born at Etampes ( Seine- 

 et ( >ise i, 15th April 1772. He was at first destined 

 for the clerical profession, but shortly after begin- 

 ning his studies at Paris he came into contact with 

 Ilri-M>u, who awakened in him a taste for the 

 natural sciences. He subsequently became a pupil 

 of Haiiy, Fourcroy, and Daubenton. In June 1793 

 he was nominated professor of Vertebrate Zoology 

 in the newly-instituted Museum of Natural History 

 at Paris. That same year he commenced the found- 

 ation of the celebrated zoological collection at the 

 .lardin des Plantes. The year 1795 is marked by 

 his introduction to his subsequent friend and 

 scientific opponent, Georges Cuvier. In 1798 

 Troy formed one of the scientific commission 

 that accompanied Bonaparte to Egypt, and he re- 

 mained in that country until the surrender of Alex- 

 andria in 1801. He succeeded in bringing to France 

 valuable collections of natural history specimens ; 

 his labours in connection with this expedition led 

 to his election, in 1807, into the Academy of 



rices. In 1808 he was sent by Napoleon to 

 Portugal, to obtain from the collections in that 

 kingdom all the specimens which were wanting in 

 those of France. On his return he was appointed 

 ( 1809) to the professorship of Zoology in the Faculty 

 of Sciences at Paris. All his important works were 

 published between this date and his death, which 

 took place on 19th June 1844. Throughout almost 

 all his writings we find him endeavouring to 

 il'lish one great proposition viz. the unity of 

 plan in organic structure (see EVOLUTION, Vol. IV. 

 p. -is | ). This was the point on which he and Cuvier 

 mainly differed, Cuvier being a firm believer in the 

 invariability of species, and grouping the Linnean 

 genera under the four divisions or vertebrates, 

 molluscs, articulates, and radiates. Geoffroy also 

 raised teratology or the study of monstrosities and 

 anatomical malformations to the rank of a science, 

 principally in his Philotophie Anatomique (2 vols. 

 1818-20). In addition to this he wrote Sur I' Unite 

 fife Composition Organique ( 1828) ; L'Histoire Natu- 

 relle des Mammiferes (1820-42) with F. Cuvier; 

 Philotoohie Zoologiqiie ( 1830) ; Etudes Progressives 

 I' mi Naturaliste (1886) ; besides numerous papers, 

 mostly on comparative anatomy, scattered through 

 magazines. See Life (1847) by his son Isidore, 

 Which contains a bibliography of his works ; also 



the Ap|M-ndix to vol. i. of De Quatrefage*'* 

 ItuinU.-* <,fa Naturalist (-1863). 



His son IsinoiiK, biologist and naturalist, was 

 in Paris, Kith Decefnber 1805. Educated 

 in natural history by his father, he became asftut- 

 ant nainiali-t at the zoological museum in 1824. 

 He too made a special study of teratology, 

 publishing in 1832-37 JItstoire des Anomalies tit 

 /'th-ijtinisation c/iez VHomme et leu Animaux. 

 As zoological superintendent he was led to study 

 the domestication of foreign animals in France ; 

 and the results of his investigations appeared in 

 Domestication et Naturalisation des A nimaux U tiles 

 ( 1854) ; in the same year he founded the Acclima- 

 tisation Society of Paris. In 1838 lie proceeded to 

 Bordeaux to organise a faculty of sciences. On 

 the retirement of his father three years later, Isidore 

 was appointed to the vacant chair, which in 1850 

 he resigned for that of Zoology at the Faculty of 

 Sciences. In 1852 he published the first volume of 

 a great work entitled JItstoire Generate des Regnes 

 Organiques, in which he intended to develop the 

 doctrines of his father, but he died at Paris, 

 10th November 1861, before completing the third 

 volume. He was a strong advocate of the use of 

 horse-flesh as human food, and championed his 

 views in Lettres sur les Substances Alimentaires, et 

 particulierement sur la Viande de Cheval ( 1856 ). 



Geognosy ( Gr. ge, ' the earth ; ' gnosis, ' know- 

 ledge ' ), the study of the materials of the earth's 

 substance, is a term now superseded by Petrography. 

 See GEOLOGY. 



Geographical Distribution. There is no 

 branch of scientific inquiry the interest and im- 

 portance of which have grown more rapidly in 

 recent years than that which forms the sub- 

 ject of the present article. In chief measure 

 this is due to the totally different complexion 

 given to the inquiry by the publication of the 

 Darwinian views of the Origin of Species. As 

 long as it was held that each species must have 

 been created, as a general rule, within the geo- 

 graphical area which it now occupies, the most 

 curious facts of distribution could be regarded only 

 with 'sterile wonder.' But when the idea came 

 to be entertained that allied species have had a 

 common origin, it was obviously implied that they 

 or their ancestors must have had a common birth- 

 place ; and consequently, when we find members of 

 a group severed from their nearest kindred, we feel 

 bound to inquire how this came al>out. Thus, 

 when it is observed that all the West Indian 

 mammals, with one exception, are allied to those 

 of America, we at once infer that the ancestors of 

 these animals must have been derived from that con 

 tinent, and we have to determine how the passage 

 was made from the mainland to the islands ; and 

 the problem becomes much more difficult when we 

 find that the single exception referred to ' belongs 

 to an order, Insectivora, entirely absent from 

 South America, and to a family, Centetida-, all the 

 other species of which inhabit Madagascar only ' 

 (Wallace, Geographical Distribution of Animals). 

 Similarly, we nave to explain how the tapirs are 

 confined* to the Malayan region and South America ; 

 the Camelidse to the deserts of Asia and the Andes; 

 marsupials to the Australian region and America ; 

 how tne mammals and birds of North America 

 resemble those of Europe more than those of South 

 America ; how the flora of Japan presents greater 

 affinities to that of the Atlantic than to that of the 

 Pacific States of North America ; and so on. 



The considerations that must be taken into 

 account in dealing with the problems of distribu- 

 tion are far too numerous ana complex to be gone 

 into fuHy within the limits of an encyclopaedia 

 article, and all that can be done under this head is 



