FAREWELL LECTURE BY PROFESSOR EDUARD SUESS 

 ON RESIGNING HIS PROFESSORSHIP.^ 



In the last lecture we occupied ourselves with the structure of 

 South America. We saw that the earlier volcanic occurrences are 

 restricted entirely to the Cordillera of the Andes, but that in the 

 course of their appearance there are long interruptions. 



We have therefore arrived at the close of our hasty survey of the 

 earth's entire surface, and today We will review the events which 

 have been set forth during the last two semesters. The present 

 lecture, moreover, also closes my active life as a professor, and I 

 stand at the end of a career of teaching at this university, which I 

 have been permitted to enjay for eighty-eight semesters. Before I 

 take up the short summary mentioned, I believe it suitable to say 

 a few words in regard to the changes which our science has under- 

 gone during this long period. 



My collegiate work as lecturer on general paleontology was begun 

 October 7, 1857 — two years before the appearance of Darwin's book. 

 The Origin of Species. 



It is well known that in the eighteenth century prominent thinkers, 

 as Leibnitz, Herder, and others, properly recognized the connection 

 and unity of all organic life. But, at the beginning of the nineteenth 

 century, Cuvier, essentially by means of the fossils of the chalk of 

 Montmartre, was able to present the surprising evidence that there 

 had lived on the earth genera of animals which today are wholly 

 extinct, and that similar changes have again and again occurred in 

 the animal kingdom. He thus concluded that there had been repeated 

 revolutions. In this he was followed by the great majority of inquir- 

 ers, and at that time — the year 1857 — everyone was completely under 

 the influence of Cuvier's views. Personally, a paper by Edward 

 Forbes, on the influence of the glacial period on migrations, had 

 a great effect on me; the article merits reading even to this day. 



^ Given July 13, 1901, in the Geological Lecture Hall, Vienna University; taken 

 stenographically by Mr. H. Beck. For the original lecture, in German, see Mitth. 

 Pal. u. Geol. Inst. , Universitat Wien, 1902, pp. 1-8. Translator, Charles Schuchert. 



264 



