INTRODUCTION. 41 



of Paris as a mass of fossil molluscs, amongst which the genus 

 Cerithia predominated ; and the limestones in Burgundy and 

 in the Morvan as similarly an aggregated mass of ammonites, 

 belemnites, and gryphites. Unfortunately, Rouelle published 

 nothing more than the bare outline of his ideas, and they failed 

 to benefit the general development of geology. 



A Swedish mineralogist of wide repute was Johann Ferber, 

 who taught first in St. Petersburg, afterwards in Berlin, and 

 finally settled in Switzerland. He was an indefatigable 

 traveller, and wrote interesting series of letters relating his 

 impressions and observations during journeys in nearly all 

 European countries. His description of the neighbourhood 

 of Naples, and still more his account of the ejected rocks 

 of Vesuvius, are among the finest scientific writings of the 

 eighteenth century. 



Ignaz von Born, an Austrian, was a learned mineralogist, and 

 a palaeontologist of far keener insight than most of his con- 

 temporaries. Like Rouelle, he realised the great part that 

 fossils were destined to play in historical geology, observing 

 that successive assemblages of fossils gave indication of the 

 different geographical and climatic conditions which had 

 obtained in the same area during successive ages. In one of 

 his treatises, Von Born recognised that the "Kammerbiihel" 

 near Franzensbad was an extinct volcano, but this opinion 

 was at the time attacked and contradicted by Reuss, the 

 Neptunist. 



G. L. Leclerc de Buffon}- It was only natural that misgivings 

 should have been aroused in the minds of many thinkers 

 regarding a science whose literature frequently indulged in 

 unfounded and fantastic hypotheses, and whose votaries seemed 

 often to arrive at worldly distinction without having displayed 

 any deep scientific knowledge or accurate observation of 

 nature. 



Buffon gave expression to this widespread feeling among his 

 contemporaries when he made the sarcastic remark that 



1 George Louis Leclerc de Buffon, born at Montbard in Burgundy in 

 1707, was the son of a wealthy land-proprietor and Member of Parliament, 

 Benjamin Leclerc. In the early part of his scientific career, he devoted 

 himself to physics and mathematics, but was appointed in 1739 to succeed 

 Dufay as Director of the Botanical Garden at Paris. He received the title 

 of Count with the surname De Buffon. He died in Paris in 1788. 



