322 THE TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE ANIMAL WORLD 



so perfect as the Cephalopods, Crustacea, and Fishes. 

 These animals undeniably had ancestors, but we 

 had to go to Bohemia to discover them. Prague 

 is a large and fine city, gracefully situated on the 

 two banks of the Moldau, in a schistous region, 

 having a rather ungrateful and sterile soil, not 

 wanting in analogy with certain portions of the 

 central tableland of France, the Limousin, for 

 example. 



Natural sciences are held in honour in this town, 

 and it is not without a feeling of rather jealous 

 admiration that one beholds a magnificent building, 

 the National Museum, erected by the Czech nation 

 to Bohemia's glory. This superb palace contains 

 all the national collections of archaeology, of Pre- 

 history, of living natural history, and also geological 

 and palseontological collections. 



The visit to the museum of Prague is for the 

 naturalist, and particularly for the French geologist, 

 a pilgrimage to a real sanctuary. This museum, in 

 fact, vibrates with the memory of one of our most 

 learned countrymen, Joachim Barrande. Barrande 

 lived for many long years in Bohemia, and he 

 profited by this sojourn and the liberality of a Royal 

 patron to devote himself to a profound study of the 

 Silurian Basin of Bohemia. Prague is, in fact, 

 situated in the centre of a cuvette, or large basin, 

 for the most part composed of Silurian strata. 

 Barrande studied patiently, and layer by layer, the 

 strata of this basin, and collected the innumerable 

 fossils contained in each of them. The results of his 

 admirable discoveries are recorded in a magnificent 

 series of volumes entitled The Silurian System of 



