1 4 The Founders of Geology LECT. 



and of whose extensive natural history collections he 

 became custodian. On the Duke's death he enjoyed from 

 his son and successor a modest pension and a small lodging 

 in the Palais Koyal at Paris. 



It was to botany that his earlier years of unwearied 

 industry were mainly given. In the course of his botanical 

 wanderings over France and other countries he observed 

 how frequently the distribution of plants is dependent 

 upon the occurrence of certain minerals and rocks. He 

 was led to trace this dependence from one district to 

 another, and thus became more and more interested in 

 what was then termed "mineralogy," until this subject 

 engrossed by far the largest share of his thoughts and 

 labours. 



But Guettard was far more than a mineralogist. 

 Although the words "geology" and "geologist" did not 

 come into use for half a century later, his writings show him 

 to have been a geologist in the fullest sense of the word. 

 He confined himself, however, to the duty of assiduous 

 observation, and shunned the temptation to speculate. 

 He studied rocks as well as minerals, and traced their 

 distribution over the surface of Europe. He observed 

 the action of the forces by which the surface of the land 

 is modified, and he produced some memoirs of the deepest 

 interest in physiography. His training in natural history 

 enabled him to recognize and describe the organisms which 

 he found in the rocks, and he thus became one of the 

 founders of palaeontological geology. He produced about 

 200 papers on a wide range of subjects in science, and 

 published some half-dozen quarto volumes of his observa- 

 tions, together with many excellent plates. 





