LAMARCK'S WORK IN GEOLOGY 



97 



by fossiliferous strata. From his observations made 

 on the Volga and about its mouth, he presented 

 proofs of the former extension, in comparatively re- 

 cent times, of the Caspian Sea. But still more preg- 

 nant and remarkable was his discovery of an entire 

 rhinoceros, with its flesh and skin, in the frozen soil 

 of Siberia. His memoir on this animal places him 

 among the forerunners of, if not within the ranks of, 

 the founders of palaeontology. 



Meanwhile Soldani, an Italian, had, in 1780, showfJ~ 

 that the limestone strata of Italy had accumulated in 

 a deep sea, at least far from land, and he was the first 

 to observe the alternation of marine and fresh-water 

 strata in the Paris basin. 



Lamarck must have taken much interest in the 

 famous controversy between the Vulcanists and Nep- 

 tunists. He visited Freyburg in 1771 ; whether he 

 met Werner is not known, as Werner began to 

 lecture in 1775. He must have personally known 

 Faujas of Paris, who, in 1779, published his description 

 of the volcanoes of Vivarais and Velay ; while Des- 

 marest's (1725-1815) elaborate work on the volcanoes 

 of Auvergne, published in 1774, in which he proved 

 the igneous origin of basalt, was the best piece of 

 geological exploration which had yet been accom- 

 plished, and is still a classic* 



Werner (1750-18 17), the propounder of the Nep- 

 tunian theory, was one of the founders of modern 

 geology and of palaeontology. His work entitled 



* Geikie states that the doctrine of the origin of valleys by the 

 erosive action of the streams which flow through them, though it has 

 been credited to various vifriters, was first clearly taught from actual 

 concrete examples by Desmarest. L. c, p. 65. 



