196 Sir A. Geiliie — Lamarck and Flay fair — 



a part of the outer crust of the earth represent marine organic 

 accumulations of former ages, although in course of time, by the 

 operation of various causes, all trace of organised structures may 

 have disappeared from them. 



The " Hydrogeologie " was Lamarck's single treatise specially 

 devoted to the discussion of geological problems, but it formed only 

 the beginning of the labours by which he conferred the most signal 

 benefits on geology and earned for himself the name of founder of 

 invertebrate palaeontology. For a long succession of years after the 

 appearance of that volume in 1802 he gave much of his time and 

 thought to the study of the fossil shells of the Paris Basin, and 

 published the valuable series of memoirs on these organic remains 

 which revealed the zoological riches of the Tertiary deposits of that 

 region, and likewise served as an accurate basis for the detailed 

 investigation of these deposits by Cuvier and Brongniart, who 

 thereby did so much to lay the foundations of stratigraphical 

 geology. These later achievements of the illustrious biologist, 

 however, and his contributions to the theory of organic evolution 

 lie beyond the scope of the present address. I have wished to 

 direct attention to one of his less known works which, while it 

 display's his weaknesses as well as his strength, is full of his, 

 philosophical genius and of that broad commanding view of all 

 the wide domains of Nature which was so eminently characteristic of 

 Lamarck. 



From Paris and its busy laboratories and museums in which 

 Lamarck quietly did his work, let us turn to Edinbui'gh, where at 

 the same time a few thoughtful and enthusiastic men were discussing 

 the same problems and were evolving some of the fundamental 

 conceptions that have shaped the course of modern geology. James 

 Hutton, the greatest genius in this northern group of philosophers, 

 died in 1797, leaving behind him in published form only an 

 incomplete account of his doctrines, but having impressed on the 

 minds of his friends a profound admiration of the originality and 

 grandeur of his conceptions of the history of our globe. It was 

 fortunate for his fame, and not less so for the onward march of 

 science, that one of these friends had gained so full and clear 

 a knowledge of the master's teaching, and at the same time possessed 

 such pre-eminent literary gifts, as to be able to present Button's 

 doctrines in the remarkable volume to which I have now to ask 

 your attention. 



This loyal and accomplished friend, John Playfair, was born in 

 1748. The eldest son of a Scottish parish minister, he was educated 

 for the Scottish Church at the University of St. Andrews. But 

 during his college career he showed such high mathematical and 

 philosophical attainments that, when only 18 years of age, he was 

 encouraged by his professors to compete for the vacant Chair of 

 Mathematics in the University of Aberdeen, and after a prolonged 

 examination came out third in the list of candidates. Failing in 

 this application, he eventually entered the Church, and was appointed 

 to succeed his father in his Forfarshire parish. Amidst the quiet of 



