WORK IN PALEONTOLOGY 



139 



ogy, had meanwhile established the fact that there 

 were two species of fossil cave-bear, which he named 

 Ursus spelcsus and If. arctoideus. He began to pub- 

 lish his ArckcBologia telluris* the first part of which 

 appeared in 1803. 



From Blainville's useful summary we learn that 

 Blumenbach, mainly limiting his work to the fossils 

 of Hanover, aimed at studying fossils in order to ex- 

 plain the revolutions of the earth. 



*' Hence the order he proposed to follow was not 

 that commonly followed in treatises on oryctology, 

 namely, systematic, following the classes and the or- 

 ders of the animal and vegetable kingdom, but in a 

 chronological order, in such a way as to show that the 

 classes, so far as it was possible to conjecture with any 

 probability, were established after or in consequence 

 of the different revolutions of the earth. 



" Thus, as we see, all the great questions, more or 

 less insoluble, which the study of fossil organic bodies 

 can offer, were raised and even discussed by the cele- 

 brated professor of Gottingen as early as 1803, be- 

 fore anything of the sort could have arisen from the 

 essays of M. G. Cuvier ; the errors of distribution in 

 the classes committed by Blumenbach were due to 

 the backward state of geology." 



The political troubles of Germany, which also bore 

 heavily^ upon the University of Gottingen, probably 

 brought Blumenbach's labors to an end, for after a 

 second " specimen " of his work, of less importance 

 than the first, the Archczologia telluris was discon- 

 tinued. 



* specimen archaologia telluris terrarumque imprimis Hannove- 

 rana, pts. i., ii. Cum 4 iabl. aen. 4 maj. Gottingse, 1803. 



