IT PROGRESS OF PALEONTOLOGY 25 



But hardly more than two centuries have elapsed 

 since this fundamental problem was first exhaust- 

 ively treated ; it was only in the last century 

 that the archaeological value of fossils their im- 

 portance, I mean, as records of the history of the 

 earth was fully recognised ; the first adequate 

 investigation of the fossil remains of any large 

 group of vertebrated animals is to be found in 

 Cuvier's " Recherches sur les Ossemens Fossiles," 

 completed in 1822; and, so modern is strati- 

 graphical palaeontology, that its founder, William 

 Smith, lived to receive the just recognition of his 

 services by the award of the first Wollaston Medal 

 in 1831. 



But, although palaeontology is a comparatively 

 youthful scientific speciality, the mass of materials 

 with which it has to deal is already prodigious. 

 In the last fifty years the number of known fossil 

 remains of in vertebrated animals has been trebled 

 or quadrupled. The work of interpretation of 

 vertebrate fossils, the foundations of which were 

 so solidly laid by Cuvier, was carried on, with 

 wonderful vigour and success, by Agassiz in 

 Switzerland, by Von Meyer in Germany, and last, 

 but not least, by Owen in this country, while, in 

 later years, a multitude of workers have laboured 

 in the same field. In many groups of the animal 

 kingdom the number of fossil forms already 

 known is as great as that of the existing species. 

 In some cases it is much greater ; and there are 



