48 HISTORY OF GEOLOGY AND PALAEONTOLOGY. 



in them provided an inestimable complement to Werner's 

 system, since the latter rested in the main upon mineralogical 

 distinctions. William Smith has received the merited appella- 

 tion of " father of historical geology." Two French scientists, 

 Alexandre Brongniart and Cuvier, attained similar results, 

 independently of William Smith, from their examination of 

 the fossils in the rocks of the Paris basin. 



Thus the knowledge and comparative investigation of fossil 

 faunas and floras came to be recognised as a leading feature 

 in the study of rock-formations. Rapid studies were made in 

 the new direction of research by Cuvier, Brongniart, Lamarck, 

 Schlotheim, Sowerby, and others. The name of Palaeontology 

 was given to the special department of zoological and geo- 

 logical science that treated of extinct organic forms. 



During this period (1780-1820), while advances were being 

 made in empirical methods of study, the theoretical aspect 

 of geology remained for the most part on the old lines. 



The theories of the universe presented by De Luc and De 

 la Metherie are largely imaginative. Cuvier's Catastrophal 

 Theory still betrays the dominating influences of the older 

 literature. Werner's hypotheses about the origin and de- 

 velopment of the earth scarcely rise above the ideas current 

 in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Indeed, the 

 erroneous views held by Werner with regard to the origin of 

 basalt and of volcanoes, together with the one-sided character 

 of his Neptunistic doctrines, appreciably retarded the progress 

 of geology. 



The opponents of the Neptunistic doctrines were the 

 Plutonists and Volcanists, who numbered in their ranks 

 many observers of world-wide repute e.g., Hutton, Dolomieu, 

 Von Humboldt, Von Buch, Breislak. Yet the early Plutonists 

 had no great array of facts before them, and their teaching was 

 necessarily inadequate for purposes of generalisation. 



On the whole, however, the close of the eighteenth and 

 beginning of the nineteenth century was a period made 

 memorable in geology by the pioneer labours of a brilliant 

 phalanx of scientific men Werner, Saussure, Humboldt, 

 Hutton, W. Smith, Cuvier, Brongniart, and others. Their 

 works and teaching stirred new activity and interest in this 

 branch of research in the mining-schools of Europe, and 

 numerous adherents gathered round the intellectual heroes 

 of the age. Students were attracted by the freshness of the 



