PSOFESSOR OF JMVERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY 



37 



France began to send out those exploring expedi- 

 tions to all parts of the globe which were so numerous 

 and fruitful during the first third of the nineteenth 

 century. The task of arranging and classifying single- 

 handed this enormous mass of material was enough 

 to make a young man quail, and it is a proof of the 

 vigor, innate ability, and breadth of view of the man 

 that in this pioneer work he not only reduced to 

 some order this vast horde of forms, but showed such 

 insight and brought about such radical reforms in 

 zoological classification, especially in the foundation 

 and limitation of certain classes, an insight no one 

 before him had evinced. To him and to Latreille 

 much of the value of the Re gne Animal of Cuvier, 

 as regards invertebrate classes, is due. 



The exact title of the chair held by Lamarck is 

 given in the Etat of persons attached to the National 

 Museum of Natural History at the date of the ler 

 messidor, an II. of the Republic (1794), where he is 

 mentioned as follows : " Lamarck — fifty years old ; 

 married for the second time; -wlis: enceinte ; six chil- 

 dren ; professor of zoology, of insects, of worms, and 

 microscopic animals." His salary, like that of the 

 other professors, was put at 2,868 livres, 6 sous, 8 

 deniers.* 



Etienne Geoffroy St. Hilaire f has related how the 

 professorship was given to Lamarck. 



"The law of 1793 had prescribed that all parts of 

 the natural sciences should be equally taught. The 

 insects, shells, and an infinity of organisms — a portion 



*Perrier, I. c, p. 14. 



\ Fragments Biographiques, p. 214. 



