CONTENTS. 



(The numbers refer to the pages of the text.) 



CHAPTER I. 



THE HISTORY OF ORGANISMS, ITS SCOPE AND IMPORTANCE. 



Man an organism among organisms, i. History of organisms and man's 

 relationship to living things The discussion not from the zoologi- 

 cal and botanical side, 2. The geological aspect of the history of 

 organisms Geological history not a repetition of like events, but a 

 progressive change of phenomena, 3. Investigation of the laws of 

 evolution Old notion of an organism contrasted with the new Work 

 of the paleontologist, 4. Botanists and zoologists observe individual 

 characters Paleontologists interested in the history of species, of 

 races, and of groups of organisms, 5. Organisms and environment, 6. 

 Geological formations The organism Races and their history 

 The chronological scale, 7. Theories regarding the length of geologi- 

 cal time, 8. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE MAKING OF THE GEOLOGICAL TIME-SCALE. 



The heterogeneous names now in use Importance of a systematic classi- 

 fication, 10. Ancient notions of Geology Beginnings of a scientific 

 system of classification, u. Lehmann's classification according to order 

 of formation Cuvier's, Brongniart's, and Reboul's contributions, 12. 

 Werner's perfection of the Lehmann classification, 13. Richard 

 Kirwan, and Geology at the close of the last century, 14. Geological 

 mountains (Gebirge} and formations, 15. The formation of sedimentary 

 rocks according to Werner and his school, 16. Werner's classification 

 of rocks by their mineral characters, 17. Conybeare and Phillips's per- 

 fection of the Wernerian system De la Beche Maclure's application 

 of the system to American rocks, 18. Amos Eaton's classification of 

 the New York rocks Principles involved in the Wernerian system of 

 classification, 19. Fossils substituted for minerals in classifying strati- 

 fied rocks Cuvier and Brongniart, 20. William Smith and Lyell 

 Lyell's classification of the Tertiary into Eocene, Miocene, and Plio- 

 cene, 21. Extension of the Lyellian system by Forbes, Sedgwick, and 

 Murchison, 22. Phillips' scheme, 23. Chronological succession in- 

 cluded in Lyell's system Dana's elaboration of a geological time-scale, 

 24. Biological classification of Oppel Geological terranes and time- 

 periods contrasted, 28. United States Geological Survey definitions of 

 formation and period English usage, 30. Geological systems the 

 standard units of the time-scale Cambrian system, 31. Ordovician 

 system, 32. Silurian system Devonian system, 33. Carboniferous 



