584 



scii:nce. 



[Vol. II., No. 39. 



hroiight out the remarkable and numerous 

 memoirs which have given him a place among 

 the first paleontologists of our time. 



Soon after his return to Switzerland, Ileer 

 associated himself with Froebel (since re- 

 nowned for his reforms in pedagogy) in the 

 publication of a magazine under the title of 

 ' Mittheilungen aus dem gebiete der theoretischen 

 erdkunde,' of which onl}^ four numbers were 

 ever issued. In the first of these, in 1834, 

 Heer printed two memoirs on the geographi- 

 cal distribution of insects and plants in the 

 Swiss Alps, drawing his material mainly from 

 his native canton, — memoirs which show, 

 especiallj' the longer one on insects, that he 

 must have gathered his facts through patient, 

 diligent observations of many 3'ears. These 

 two memoirs appear to have been his earliest 

 essays. He afterwards expanded the first 

 iuto a long and better known memoir on the 

 Swiss Coleoptera. These studies on geograph- 

 ical distribution formed au excellent basis for 

 the paleontological work to which he was 

 shortlj' to devote himself, one great value of 

 which lies in his careful studies of the relations 

 which the extinct insects and plants investi- 

 gated bear to living forms in the same or other 

 parts of the world. From this time on, not a 

 j-ear has passed withoiit some sign of activit}- 

 from this indefatigable student; and his last 

 volume was only last month rcA^ewed in our 

 columns. At first the memoir's concerned 

 mainlj' the transformations or distribution of 

 Swiss Coleoptera, and the distribution of 

 alpine plants; but from 1847, when his first 

 memoir on the tertiarj- beetles of Europe ap- 

 peared, his attention was directed almost ex- 

 clusivelj'' to fossil insects and plants, especiallj' 

 those of the tertiarj" epoch ; and it is here he 

 has won his renown. The volume upon ter- 

 tiarj- insects, issued between 1847 and 1853, 

 opened a new world to science, and will for- 

 ever remain the classic work on fossil insects. 

 He brought to it a painstaking and faithful 

 investigation, which in many cases will bear 

 the closest scrutiny' at the present time, not- 

 withstanding the advance of entomologj^ in 

 the generation since elapsed. Finding that 



the determination of fossil insects must de- 

 pend largely upon a study of their wings, he 

 made a special iuvestigatiou of the neuration 

 in living types, and proposed for the first time 

 a uniform nomenclature for all orders of in- 

 sects. From its burial in a memoir on fossil 

 beetles, this scheme received little attention ; 

 but it remains to-daj- the most philoso[)hical 

 presentation of the subject. 



Although his earlier paleontological papers 

 were mainlj* devoted to insects, his attention 

 was from the first attracted to the plants asso- 

 ciated with them. And, the mass of insects 

 from Oeningen disposed of, his memoirs now 

 became more and more largelj- paleobotanieal. 

 To these he gave a li^'ing interest, from hi& 

 discussiofls of the probable physical condition 

 and climate of tertiary time, drawn from the 

 data furnished bj* the plants. He was a strong 

 believer in a miocene Atlantis. His first essay, 

 dealing with ancient climates, was published iu 

 Giebel's Zeitschrift in 1859, and was after- 

 wards expanded into a volume, which passed 

 immediatelj^ through a much enlarged second 

 edition (in French) bj' the assistance of his- 

 friend Gaudin.^ Then followed that remarka- 

 ble series of illustrated quarto memoirs, pub- 

 lished in various countries and languages in 

 London, Stockholm, St. Petersburg, Zurich, 

 etc., in which the collections of various gov- 

 ernment expeditions are described and figured, 

 and which he afterwards collected into the vol- 

 umes which compose his ' Flora fossilis are- 

 tica ' (7 vols.), companion volumes to his- 

 'Flora tertiaria Helvetiae ' (3 vols.) and 

 ' Flora fossilis Helvetiae.' His studies upon 

 past climates were also carried into wider geo- 

 logic fields, and resulted in his ' Urwelt der 

 Schweiz,' a living picture of the past of his- 

 native country, clothed in popular language. 

 His imagination was here brought into plaj-, 

 and occasionally expressed itself in verse. 

 This volume, issued in 18G5, was translated 

 into French by Gaudin (1875), and into Eng- 

 lish by Ileywood (2 vols. 1876). To each of 

 these editions he added supplementary matter, 



> This last was also enriched by contributions from several 

 naturalists, notably Matheron and Saportrt. 



