tVOJfJ^ IN PALAEONTOLOGY 



135 



published in 1806) is the first truly scientific palaeon- 

 tological work ever pubHshed, preceding Cuvier's 

 Ossemens fossiles by six years. 



When we consider Lamarck's — at his time un- 

 rivalled — knowledge of molluscs, his philosophical 

 treatment of the relations of the study of fossils to 

 geology, his correlation of the tertiary beds of Eng- 

 land with those of France, and his comparative de- 

 scriptions of the fossil forms represented by the exist- 

 ing shells, it seems not unreasonable to regard him 

 as the founder of invertebrate palaeontology, as Cuvier 

 was of vertebrate or mammalian paleontology. 



We have entered the claim that Lamarck was one 

 of the chief founders of palaeontology, and the first 

 French author of a genuine, detailed palseontological 

 treatise. It must be admitted, therefore, that the 

 statement generally made that Cuvier was the founder 

 of this science should be somewhat modified, though 

 he may be regarded as the chief founder of vertebrate 

 palaeontology. 



In this field, however, Cuvier had his precursors 

 not only in Germany and Holland, but also in France. 



Our information as to the history of the rise of 

 vertebrate palaeontology is taken from Blainville's 

 posthumous work entitled Cuvier et Geoffrey Saint- 

 Hilaire* In this work, a severe critical and perhaps 

 not always sufficiently appreciative account of Cuvier's 

 character and work, we find an excellent history of 

 the first beginnings of vertebrate palaeontology. Blain- 

 ville has little or nothing to say of the first steps in 



* Cuvier et Geoffroy Saint- Hilaire. Biographies scienttjiques , par 

 Ducrotay de Blainville (Paris, 1890, p. 446). 



