ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. lxXV 



animals and plants, long since removed from observation as existing 

 genera and species, are associated. It has been justly said that 

 what he succeeded in accomplishing, in this new branch of science, 

 was so vast as to be almost beyond the intelligence, and, I may add, 

 the physical powers of any one man ; and, as a proof, I will at present 

 mention his Foraininifera of Cuba, of the Canaries, of Meudon near 

 Paris, and of Vienna ; his studies on the Crinoids, his " Prodrome de 

 Paleontologie," his " Course of Stratigraphic Geology," and especially 

 his " Palaeontology of France," which has extended to fourteen 

 volumes, and contains 1400 plates of French fossils. 



M. D'Orbigny was removed by death only four years after he had 

 been chosen Professor at the Jardin des Plantes, and before he had had 

 time to complete his great palaeontological works, though it is believed 

 that he has laid the foundation of a palaeontological collection worthy 

 of Prance. I have on a former occasion spoken of the nomenclature 

 introduced by him into geology, which, although founded in great 

 measure upon that previously adopted in England, deserves, from 

 its simplicity, and in many respects its euphony, the ready reception 

 which it has obtained on the Continent. In respect to his great 

 work on the Palaeontology of France, I am aware that many English 

 palaeontologists consider that he has been sometimes too hasty in the 

 creation of new species ; but this error, I fear, is common to a large 

 portion of palaeontologists, and will not be entirely remedied until 

 naturalists have made their comparisons, not with drawings, but 

 with actual specimens. Making, however, every deduction on that 

 account, the works of M. D'Orbigny must ever stand forth as a me- 

 morial of the most persevering industry and of a high order of in- 

 tellect, in confirmation of which opinion I will briefly but more 

 particularly notice some of his numerous works. 



In doing so I shall principally confine myself to the notice of such 

 works and opinions of D'Orbigny as affect materially either the phi- 

 losophy or the practice of geological science. Such papers as his 

 Monograph of the new genus of Gasteropods to which he gave the 

 name Scissurella, or his description of two species of the genus 

 Pteroceras, found in the Jurassic limestone of La Charente Inferieure, 

 or his essay on the beaks of fossil Cephalopoda, in which he divides 

 the Bhyncholites into two divisions, belonging to different genera, 

 one being the beaks of Nautili, and not of Sepice, as had been before 

 supposed, — an idea supported by the anatomical description, by Pro- 

 fessor Owen, of the Nautilus Pompilius, — or his note on the genus 

 Caprina, his tabular view of the class Cephalopoda, his memoir upon 

 a second living species of the family of Crinoids, to which he gave 

 the generic name Holojous, and many other of his papers, are suffi- 

 cient proofs of his great knowledge of, and accurate judgment upon, 

 almost all branches of natural history ; but others speak the language 

 of a philosopher on such subjects. 



Every one will doubtless remember the different opinions which 

 were once entertained on the true position, amongst organized beings, 

 of the Foraminifera, some naturalists having, from the resemblance of 

 form, allotted them to the Cephalopoda : after a careful examination 



