98 Charles ScJmchert— Historical Geology, 1816-1918. 



collections of fossils that had been brought together, and 

 the illustrated works that had been published about them, 

 were a foundation for greater progress, and, with the 

 eighteenth century, the second period in the history of 

 paleontology began." 



Diluvial Period. — During the eighteenth century many 

 more books on fossils were published in western Europe, 

 and now the prevalent explanation was that they were 

 the remains of the Noachian deluge. For nearly a cen- 

 tury theologians and laymen alike took this view, and 

 some of the books have become famous on this account, 

 but the diluvial views sensibly declined with the close 

 of the eighteenth century. 



The true nature of fossils had now been clearly deter- 

 mined. They were the remains of plants and animals, 

 deposited long before the deluge, part in fresh water and 

 part in the sea. ' ' Some indicated a mild climate, and some 

 the tropics. That any of these were extinct species, was 

 as yet only suspected. ' ' Yet before the close of the cen- 

 tury there were men in England and France who pointed 

 out that differ ent formations had different fossils and 

 that some of them were extinct. These views then led to 

 many fantastic theories as to how the earth was formed — ■ 

 dreams, most of them have been called. Marsh says : 



"The dominant idea of the first sixteen centuries of the 

 present era was, that the universe was made for Man. This was 

 the great obstacle to the correct determination of the position 

 of the earth in the universe, and, later, of the age of the earth. 

 . In a superstitious age, when every natural event is 

 referred to a supernatural cause, science cannot live . 

 Scarcely less fatal to the growth of science is the age of Author- 

 ity, as the past proves too well. With freedom of thought, came 

 definite knowledge, and certain progress; — but two thousand 

 years was long to wait. ' ' 



One of the most significant publications of this period 

 was Linnaeus 's Systema Naturae, which appeared in 1735. 

 In this work was introduced binomial nomenclature, or 

 the system of giving each plant and animal species a 

 generic and specific name, as Fells leo for the lion. The 

 system was, however, not established until the tenth 

 edition of the work in 1758, which became the starting 

 point of zoological nomenclature. Since then there has 

 been added another canon, the law of priority, which 



