Obituary — M. de Verneuil. 429 



OBITT7 J^ii'Y'. 



On the 29tli of May Fi-ance lost one of its ablest and most dis- 

 tinguished geologists. Philippe-Eduard Poulletier de Verneuil was 

 born in Paris on the 13th of February, 1805. He was destined by 

 his parents to become a magistrate, but he preferred to devote all his 

 time, energy, and fortune to the advancement of the sciences of 

 Geology and Palaeontology. He began his investigations by an ex- 

 ploration of Wales, at a period when Sedgwick and Murchison were 

 rendering that portion of Great Britain classic soil, and this first 

 journey had great influence in determining the future career of 

 young de Verneuil. On his return from Great Britain he visited 

 Turkey and the Crimea, and the results of his expedition will be 

 found recorded in the " Memoirs of the Geological Society of France." 

 M. de Verneuil next devoted much attention to the study of the 

 Devonian rocks and fossils of the Bas-Boulonnais and Ehenish 

 provinces ; these last he described in conjunction with Viscount 

 d'Ai-chiac in the fourth volume, second series, of the Transactions of 

 the Geological Society of London. 



The three summers of 1840 to 1842 were occupied by M. de 

 Verneuil, Sir E. Murchison, and Count Keyserling in an elaborate 

 exploration of Eussia and the Oural Mountains, an extent of country 

 equalling half the surface of Europe, which resulted in the pub- 

 lication of the magnificent work known as "Eussia and the Ural 

 Mountains." This great work was soon followed up by an explor- 

 ation of the United States, which enabled M. de Verneuil to 

 correlate the Paleeozoic rocks of Europe with those of America, a 

 work of great value and importance. The memoir embracing these 

 investigations, and many others by the same author, will be found 

 published in different volumes of the Bulletin of the Geological 

 Society of France, as well as an account of his numerous and im- 

 portant explorations and journeys into Spain, executed during the 

 years 1849 to 1862. 



M. de Verneuil was for many years a Member of the Academy 

 of Sciences of Paris, as well as a Foreign Member of the Eoyal 

 Society of London, and many other scientific bodies in France and 

 elsewhere considered it a high honour to have his name upon the list 

 of its members. In 1853 he received the Wollaston Medal from 

 the Geological Society of London. His taste for travelling was quite 

 extraordinary, he was constantly on the move, visiting every country 

 one after the other, and collecting every fossil upon which he could 

 lay his hands ; he consequently formed one of the largest and most 

 valuable collections of Palasozoic fossils to be seen anywhere, 

 which he has with great liberality bequeathed to the School of Mines 

 in Paris. 



M. de Verneuil was eminently what the French would term a 

 hon enfant, simple in his tastes, always cheerful and reatly to assist 

 and to impart information to others, and especially anxious to 

 note down in his pocket-book every scrap of information he could 

 obtain from his scientific friends. The joy he used to manifest on the 

 discovery of some new fossil or geological fact was truly remarkable, 



