THE STUDY OF STRUCTURE. 345 



sible to ignore the value of fossils as indices of the 

 geological age and succession of strata, it was not till 

 long afterwards that it became a general common- 

 place that palaeontology was part of zoology and bot- 

 any. To Huxley in particular we are indebted for 

 the conviction that the study of an animal living to- 

 day and of one living a million years ago, differ only 

 as regards the method of preservation and exami- 

 nation. 



As one of the most illustrious of British palaeonto- 

 logists — Dr. R. H. Traquair — has said : * ^' Palaeon- 

 tology, however valuable, nay, indispensable, its bear- 

 ings on Geology may be, is in its own essence a part 

 of Biology, and its facts and its teachings must not 

 be overlooked by those who would pursue the study 

 of Organic Morphology on a truly comprehensive 

 and scientific basis. . . . Does an animal cease to be 

 an animal because it is preserved in stone instead of 

 spirits ? Is a skeleton any the less a skeleton because 

 it has been excavated from the rock, instead of pre- 

 pared in a macerating trough ? . . . Do animals, be- 

 cause they have been extinct for it may be millions 

 of years, thereby give up their place in the great 

 chain of organic being, or do they cease to be of any 

 importance to the evolutionist because their soft tis- 

 sues, now no longer existing, cannot be imbedded in 

 paraffine and cut with a Cambridge microtome ? " 



That Palaeontology is Biology and that Biology 

 includes Palaeontology is now admitted by all (as a 

 theoretical proposition at least), but the recognition 

 has been an important result of nineteenth-century 

 work. The only hindrance to the practical recogni- 

 tion of the unity is that the correct interpretation 



* Address Zoological Section, Rep. Brit. Ass., Bradford, 

 1900. 



