AjCGENE ORY OF PROGRESS IN PALEONTOLOGY 497 
three centuries two simple and preliminary questions were 
vigorously discussed— (1) whether fossil remains ever belonged 
to living creatures, and (2) whether, if this be admitted, all the 
phenomena could not be explained by the deluge of Noah. 
Throughout all this long controversy regarding the nature 
and origin of fossils, little was done in the way of description of 
fossil forms; but with the reformation of the system of nomen- 
clature by the introduction of the binomial system, instituted by 
Linneus during the latter half of the eighteenth century, the 
way was opened for amore accurate description of fossils than 
had been practicable previously. Linneus himself described 
and named some species of Silurian fossils from Sweden, among 
which may be mentioned the well known and widely distributed 
Atrypa reticularis and Halysites catenulatus, although the genera in 
which these species are now placed are of later date. 
The real scientific study of fossils may be said to have begun 
with about the opening of the present century. William Smith 
(1790), in England, had recognized the value of the fossil con- 
tents of the rocks in tracing the strata over extended areas, but 
he did not devote his time to the description and naming of the 
fossils which he found. At about this same time rich stores of 
beautifully preserved fossils were discovered in the immediate 
neighborhood of Paris. The labors of Cuvier and Brougniart 
upon the vertebrates, and of Lamarck upon the fossil shells of 
this area, constitute some of the earliest really scientific investi- 
gations of fossil organisms. In fact, it may be said that Cuvier 
laid the foundation of the science of paleontology, when in 1797 
he called attention to the fact that elephant bones discovered in 
the Paris basin were different from the bones of living species, 
and thus drew a distinction between living and extinct animals 
as implying present and past groups of living organisms. 
Many of the works on paleontology published in the early 
part of the present century exhibited little or no attempt at 
classification of the materials described. The classic work of 
James Sowerby, entitled ‘ Mineral Conchology,” which was pub- 
lished in seven volumes, the first of which bears the date 1812 
