PALAEONTOLOGY. 367 



of Zoology, Comparative Anatomy, and Botany. He confined 

 himself in his treatise to fossil animals, and adhered to 

 a strict systematic order throughout his work, constantly 

 keeping in view the characteristics of the corresponding living 

 forms. At the same time, the geological occurrence of the 

 fossils is nowhere omitted. In his treatment of the Mollusca 

 and Echinoderms, Pictet agrees as a rule with D'Orbigny's 

 views; in classifying the Vertebrates he relies chiefly upon the 

 works of Cuvier and Agassiz. Pictet's work was taken as a 

 model for a number of text-books which rapidly made their 

 appearance. The Principles of Paleontology, by H. B. Geinitz 

 (1846), keeps closely to Pictet's order and treatment of the 

 subject; C. G. Giebel's Paleontology (1852) is merely a short 

 summary, his unfinished Fauna of the Past (1847-56) is a 

 diligently compiled enumeration of all known Vertebrates, 

 Cephalopods, and Arthropods. A large number of new 

 observations and illustrations are contained in F. A. 

 Quenstedt's well-known account of fossils, Petrefaktenkunde 

 (Tubingen, 1852). The work had passed through three 

 editions in 1885, and for more than three decades was the 

 chief handbook of palaeontology used by the German students. 

 Quenstedt's larger work, Petrefaktenkunde Deutschlands^ with 

 two hundred and eighteen plates, was published at intervals 

 between 1846 and 1878. As a collective book of reference on 

 the Vertebrate fossils found in Germany, it is indispensable in 

 palaeontological libraries. Sir Richard Owen's Paleontology 

 (1860) provides an excellent general survey of the Vertebrate 

 animals, but the Invertebrates are insufficiently treated. 



The systematic direction of palaeontology was until 1860 

 under the influence of Cuvier's theory of the invariability of 

 species. Lamarck's bold hypotheses regarding the transmuta- 

 tion and descent of organic forms remained almost neglected 

 by palaeontologists, although H. G. Bronn, Quenstedt, and a 

 few others had no belief in the fixed invariability of species, 

 nor in the sharp distinctions drawn between successive periods 

 of creation supposed to have been separated from one another 



palceontological labours, and the direction of the Natural History Museum. 

 Between 1866 and 1868 he became Rector of the Geneva Academy, and 

 was at the same time a member of the Council of Education for the 

 Zurich Polytechnic School ; he also took an active part in political life, 

 was a member of the Grand Council of Geneva, a,nd of the National 

 Council in Bern. He died on the I5th March 1872. 



