Curiosities of Science, 127 



He died in 1840. Till the manner as well as the fact of the first 

 appearance of successive forms of life shall be solved, it is not 

 easy to surmise how any discovery can be made in geology 

 equal in value to that which we owe to the genius of William 

 Smith. Saturday Review, No. 140. 



DK. BUCKLAND'S GEOLOGICAL LABOURS. 



Sir Henry De la Beche, in his Anniversary Address to the 

 Geological Society in 1848, on presenting the Wollaston Medal 

 to Dr. Buckland, felicitously observed : 



It may not be generally known that, while yet a child, at your 

 native town, Axminster in Devonshire, ammonites, obtained by your 

 father from the lime quarries in the neighbourhood, were presented to 

 your attention. As a scholar at Winchester, the chalk, with its flints, 

 was brought under your observation, and there it was that your collec- 

 tions in natural history first began. Removed to Oxford, as a scholar 

 of Corpus Christi College, the future teacher of geology in that Univer- 

 sity was fortunate in meeting with congenial tastes in our colleague 

 Mr. W. J. Broderip, then a student at Oriel College. It was during your 

 walks together to Shotover Hill, when his knowledge of conchology was 

 so valuable to you, enabling you to distinguish the shells of the Oxford 

 oolite, that you laid the foundation for those field-lectures, forming part 

 of your course of geology at Oxford, which no one is likely to forget who 

 has been so fortunate at any time as to have attended them. The fruits 

 of your walks with Mr. Broderip formed the nucleus of that great collec- 

 tion, more especially remarkable for the organic remains it contains, 

 which, after the labours of forty years, you have presented to the Geo- 

 logical Museum at Oxford, in grave recollection of the aid which the 

 endowments of that University, and the leisure of its vacations, had 

 afforded you for extensive travelling during a residence at Oxford of 

 nearly forty-five years. 



DISCOVERIES OF M. AGASSIZ.* 



This great paleontologist, in the course of his ichthyological 

 researches, was led to perceive that the arrangement by Cuvier 

 according to organs did not fulfil its purpose with regard to 

 fossil fishes, because in the lapse of ages the characteristics of 

 their structures were destroyed. He therefore adopted the only 

 other remaining plan, and studied the tissues, which, being 

 less complex than the organs, are.oftener found intact. The 

 result was the very remarkable discovery, that the tegumentary 

 membrane of fishes is so intimately connected with their orga- 

 nisation, that if the whole of the fish has perished except this 

 membrane, it is practicable, by noting its characteristics, to re- 

 construct the animal in its most essential parts. Of the value 

 of this principle of harmony, some idea may be formed from 

 the circumstance, that on it Agassiz has based the whole of that 



* Longfellow has written some pleasing lines on " The Fiftieth Birthday of 

 M. Agassiz. May 28, 1857," appended to " The Courtship of Miles Standish," 

 1868. 



