220 The Founders of Geology LECT. 



Although Cuvier's researches among fossil animals, and 

 the principles of comparative anatomy which he established, 

 contributed powerfully to the foundation and develop- 

 ment of palaeontology as a distinct department of biology, 

 his services to geology proper may be looked upon as 

 almost wholly comprised in the joint essay with Brong- 

 niart. Geology indeed had much fascination for him, and 

 he wrote a special treatise on it entitled A Discourse on 

 the Revolutions of the Surface of the Globe. 1 But though 

 it contained some interesting reflections on his own 

 palseontological discoveries, and displayed the eloquence 

 and grace of his style, it really indicated no advance in 

 geological theory. On the contrary, in many respects it 

 fell behind the knowledge of his time. In spite of the 

 popularity it attained, on account of the great celebrity 

 of its author, it cannot be cited as one of the landmarks 

 of geological progress. 



Cuvier's brilliant career is well known, but I am only 

 concerned at present with those parts of it which touch on 

 geological progress. In 1802 he became perpetual Secre- 

 tary of the Institute, and it was in this capacity that he 



1 In its first form it was prefixed to the Recherches sur les Ossemens 

 Fossiles as a preliminary discourse on the Theory of the Earth. It was 

 afterwards published separately as the Discours sur les Revolutions de la 

 surface du Globe (1826). The work went through six editions in the 

 author's lifetime, the latest (6th) corrected and augmented by him appear- 

 ing in 1830. It was translated into English and German. The versions 

 published in England were edited and copiously annotated by Prof. 

 Jameson of Edinburgh, whose notes to the early editions supply some 

 curious samples of his adherence to Wernerianism. Cuvier was also the 

 author of a Report on the Progress of the Natural Sciences, presented to 

 the Emperor Napoleon in 1808, in which he expressed various vague and 

 indefinite opinions on geological questions. In his earlier years his geo- 

 logical bias was decidedly towards Wernerianism (see the references in his 

 De Saussure already cited). 



