XXIV PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Sarily to contend, cannot be too highly appreciated. The first step, 

 in this as in many other things, is the chief difficulty, and one apt 

 to be underrated by those who come afterwards. 



After his return from the Canaries, Switzerland, — always the 

 favourite region with Von Buch, — again became the scene of his 

 travels. The mode and epochs of the upheaval of mountain chains 

 were, among other subjects, the themes of his inquiries and essays. 

 The famous doctrines of Elie de Beaumont bear witness to the in- 

 fluence and suggestiveness of VonBuch's observations. His theories 

 concerning Dolomite, though not so productive of rich results, ex- 

 cited general attention and caused much wholesome controversy. 



Twenty-five years ago, when already past the fiftieth year of his 

 age. Von Buch seemed to enter upon an entirely fresh career, and to 

 take up a line of inquiry in a totally different direction from that 

 which he had previously followed, for he commenced those brilliant 

 palseontological researches that have secured for him a permanent 

 fame among the cultivators of the natural history side of geology, 

 and even among pure naturalists. I say "seemed" to enter upon 

 this course, for the thought and study had long been working in his 

 mind, as is evident from the essay ' On the Progress of Forms in 

 Nature,' printed by him as early as 1806. The ideas, then con- 

 ceived imperfectly, had been silently and steadily growing within 

 him, nourished by continual observations, and in 1828 they took a 

 definite form, when he published his observations on Ammonites, 

 followed at intervals by his monographs upon the Goniatites, Bra- 

 chiopoda, and Cystidea, There are two distinct aspects of Palaeonto- 

 logy, a geological side and a physiological side. Cuvier was the true 

 architect of the latter, but Von Buch erected the former. It was he 

 who first developed the idea of the chronomorphosis of genera, the 

 great leading principle of natural history applied to geology. He 

 arrived at it fairly and inductively, and demonstrated it monographi- 

 cally and practically. He gave a grand impulse to the study of 

 stratified rocks, an impulse only now beginning to be felt in its full 

 force. With his usual sagacity he saw clearly its value and bearings, 

 as is plainly indicated by his essays on comparative or geographical 

 geology, and the latest of his numerous memoirs, those on the Creta- 

 ceous and Jurassic formations. If I am not greatly mistaken, the 

 future progress of comparative geology will depend mainly on the 

 following up of the paloeontological doctrines that were originated by 

 Von Buch, Viewed, too, entirely apart from their geological merits, 

 and considered under a purely natural-history aspect, the mono- 

 graphs on fossils by Von Buch are most remarkable productions, 

 both as descriptive and as philosophic essays. Not long before he 

 died he directed his attention to fossil botany, and endeavoured to 

 evolve guiding principles from the study of the nervation of leaves. 

 He did not rashly enter upon this fresh subject, for botanical inqui- 

 ries had long before interested him in their details, as his Scandina- 

 vian and Canarian researches testify. 



Philosophers may be divided into two great natural orders, those 

 who sow and those who reap — the originators and the demon- 



