PALEONTOLOGY. 371 



Ziirich botanist, Oswald Heer, 1 has made his name famous by 

 the admirable comparative researches which he carried out on 

 the flora of Oeningen and other North Alpine localities. His 

 first pal^eontological works reach as far back as 1847. His 

 masterpiece appeared between 1855 and 1859, the Tertiary 

 Flora of Switzerland^ in two volumes, wherein no less than 

 nine hundred species, for the most part new species, are 

 described; one hundred and fifty-five plates illustrated the 

 work. 



His scholarly mind and wide knowledge of his subject 

 enabled Heer to reconstruct in the ablest manner the different 

 floras of the Tertiary epoch, to compare them with those of 

 other Tertiary districts and of the present, and to discover by 

 this means what had been the temperature and other climatic 

 conditions during the growth of the successive Tertiary floras. 

 The results of these important researches were afterwards 

 published in the form of a popular scientific work, The 

 Primeval World of Switzerland (1864), and roused great 

 interest in a wide circle of readers. Another fundamental 

 work by O. Heer treats the fossil flora of the Arctic regions. 

 It consists of several independent treatises written in different 

 languages; the whole work comprises seven quarto volumes, 

 which were published between 1869 and 1884. The Flora 

 Arctica forms not only an important contribution to the 

 systematic knowledge of fossil floras, but is a work of the 

 highest geological value on account of its inferences regarding 

 the earlier climates of Arctic regions. 



Heer advocates the view of a gradual approach of fossil 

 floras to living creation, and a progressive differentiation and 

 perfecting of all organised forms. He thinks the innate 

 tendency of the organic world towards higher evolution was 

 implanted in it by the Creator, and that evolution takes place 

 in accordance with immutable laws. In his opinion, the 

 variations of species and genera were not accomplished, as 

 Darwin supposes, by means of slow modifications in the 



1 Oswald Heer, born 3ist August 1809, at Niederutzwyl in Canton St. 

 Gallen, the son of the Protestant pastor, studied Theology in Halle, and 

 graduated, but in 1834 accepted a university tutorship at Zurich University ; 

 in 1852 was appointed Professor in the same University, and afterwards held 

 also a Professorship in the Polytechnic Academy of Zurich. In 1852 he 

 spent eight months in Madeira on account of lung weakness; in 1870 the 

 old weakness broke out afresh, and on 27th September 1883 he died in 

 Zurich. 



