132 HISTORY OF GEOLOGY AND PAL/EONTOLOGY. 



ring in Great Britain. The six volumes appeared in parts, 

 and comprise 604 cleverly-drawn coloured plates with ex- 

 planatory text. The material is not arranged in any systematic 

 order, the descriptions and figures have clearly been prepared 

 in the succession in which the specimens came into the 

 hands of the authors. A work of this character could not 

 have a very high scientific value, yet both the Sowerbys 

 were indefatigable collectors, good conchologists, and expert 

 draughtsmen, and their work did much to advance the study 

 of fossils. 



Among the monographs that appeared about this time, one 

 of the best was J. C. M. Reinecke's Monograph of the 

 Ammonites occurring in Coburg and Franconia (1818), a work 

 describing and figuring forty species of cephatopods from the 

 Jurassic and Triassic limestones of that area. Another valu- 

 able local work was that of Brocchi on the Tertiary mollusca 

 of Italy, Conchyliologia fossile subapennina (Milan, 1811). 



Very little was known about fossil Arthropods up to the 

 year 1820. Fossil crabs had been found in the lithographic 

 shales of Bavaria and the Tertiary strata of Upper Italy and 

 Tranquebar; trilobites had been found in England, Sweden, 

 and Bohemia, and occasionally insects had been recognised 

 and figured in the older palseontological works. But no 

 thorough scientific investigation of any group of arthropods 

 had been undertaken. 



Fossil Fishes play a not unimportant role in the history of 

 geology and palaeontology. The teeth of sharks had led 

 Palissy and Steno to correct conceptions about the significance 

 of fossils, and the early observations on fossil teeth were 

 incorporated in all great works on the rocks. Most of the 

 names given to them were fanciful e.g., "serpents' tongues," 

 "birds' tongues," "swallow stones"; of the more learned 

 terms, "glossopetra" and "lamiodonta" were the most usual. 



Impressions and skeletons of fishes were sometimes found 

 in an excellent state of preservation in the copper slate of the 

 Mansfeld district, in the Jurassic shales of Solenhofen and 

 Eichstatt, the calcareous marls of Oeningen, the black slates 

 of Glarus, the Tertiary calcareous shales of Monte Bolca, and 

 in other localities. Volta published in 1796 a splendidly 

 illustrated monograph of the fossil fishes of Monte Bolca. 

 Faujas de Saint-Fond, in his Essay on Geology, and later 

 Blainville in his Dictionary of Natural History (1818), gave a 



