142 UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI BULLETIN 



oolite beds in which Smith had done most of his work, but 

 that it had wide applicability. It made possible a comprehen- 

 sive story of earth history. 



Smith did not undertake to explain why the character of 

 the life as expressed in the kind of organic remains that ex- 

 isted in the rocks changed so profoundly from one formation 

 to its next overlying or underlying one. This problem was 

 taken up by Cuvier and his associates, who worked on the ver- 

 tebrate fossils found in the rocks of the Paris basin in France. 

 As a result of this work, Cuvier announced his theory of 

 cataclysmic destruction of all organisms at the close of each 

 geological period and of the entire recreation of new forms 

 with the beginning of the succeeding period. The history of 

 the earth was a succession of periods of quiescence followed 

 by terrific cataclysms which changed the whole course of events 

 and made necessary practically the creation of a new world 

 at the beginning of each geological period. This was after 

 the promulgation of the Huttonian doctrine, but the latter was 

 not yet recognized as a true interpretation of the course of 

 the earth's history. 



This doctrine was stoutly defended, not only by the ad- 

 herents of Cuvier among biologists and anatomists, but also 

 by many who thought that it was demanded by the necessities 

 of biblical history. The doctrine showed astounding vitality, 

 but the work of Lyell seriously crippled it, and it was finally 

 given its death-blow by Darwin and his theory of organic 

 evolution. The flood of Noah was long pointed to as the last 

 of the great cataclysms that had overwhelmed the earth. It 

 was not finally abandoned until the establishment of the 

 glacial theory and the abundant proof that even that was 

 merely one of the events that took place in an orderly way, 

 rather than a cataclysmic one, and that it was, furthermore, 

 not universal in its extent, but local. 



Modern palaeontologists recognize the sudden disappear- 

 ance of faunas. It is not an uncommon occurrence to find a 



