220 Bibliographical Notice. 
garded as tentative. Gradually, however, some order began to be 
evolved out of the chaos. Bowerbank, Gray, and Carter in this 
country, Oscar Schmidt and others in Germany, proposed systems of 
classification, in which, although they could not be maintained in 
their entirety, certain well-marked groups were indicated ; and the 
recognition of these, coupled with the great mass of information 
accumulated by these authors, paved the way towards an intelligible 
systematic treatment of the class of Sponges. 
If there was all this difficulty in dealing with the recent forms, 
it is not surprising that the fossil sponges were treated after a very 
conventional fashion. The characters derived from the constitution 
of the skeleton, upon which it was shown more and more that we 
must chiefly rely in determining the nature and affinities of these 
organisms, were often lost or rendered exceedingly difficult of recog- 
nition by the process of fossilization, and paleontologists until quite 
recently founded their genera and species almost wholly upon the 
general form and other surface-characters of the fossils. By this 
means in some instances allied forms were roughly brought together 
in a manner which might suffice for stratigraphical purposes ; but 
in ali other respects our knowledge of the fossil sponges was most 
unsatisfactory. A few species and genera had been described by 
various authors with reference to their skeletal and other structural 
characters, but no respectable attempt to construct a classification 
of fossil sponges was made until the publication of Prof. Zittel’s 
admirable ‘* Studien iiber fossile Spongien” in the Memoirs of the 
Bavarian Academy for 1877 and 1878. That author having taken 
up the study of the fossil sponges as far as possible on the same 
principles as are applied to the recent forms, with a view to the 
preparation of his ‘ Handbuch der Paliiontologie,’ a portion of which 
has made its appearance, was led to the establishment of a remarkably 
broad and simple classification, which at once took its place as the 
certain foundation for all future work in this department of palzeon- 
tology. 
Some three years ago Dr. G. J. Hinde was applied to by the 
Keeper of the Geological Department of the British Museum to 
undertake the preparation of a Catalogue of the Fossil Sponges in 
the national collection. Already well known as a careful worker 
in several branches of what Ehrenberg denominated ‘ Micro- 
geology,” Dr. Hinde had been attracted to Munich by the publication 
of Prof. Zittel’s memoirs above referred to, and had remained at 
Munich for a considerable time, availing himself of the instructions 
of Prof. Zittel and of the magnificent series of preparations of 
sponges, recent and fossil, which that gentleman had collected during © 
the progress of his own researches. Dr. Hinde’s qualifications for 
the task offered to him, both natural and acquired, were therefore of the 
highest order ; and we are not surprised to learn that under these 
circumstances the original rather scanty design was in course of ' 
time expanded into the much more satisfactory form of which the 
present volume is the result. The first idea was that of arranging 
the fossil sponges in the Museum systematically, “ and preparing a 
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