100 Charles Scliucliert — Historical Geology, 1818-1918. 



himself from tradition, and believed in the universality 

 and power of the Mosaic deluge. Again, he refused to 

 admit the evidence brought forward by his distinguished 

 colleagues against the permanence of species, and used 

 all his great influence to crush out the doctrine of evolu- 

 tion, then first proposed' ' (Marsh). 



In England it was William Smith (1769-1839) who 

 independently discovered the chronogenetic significance 

 of fossils, and in their stratigraphic superposition indi- 

 cated the way for the study of historical geology. He 

 first published on this matter in 1799, but his completed 

 statements came in works entitled i ' Strata identified by 

 Organized Fossils," 1816-1820, and " Stratigraphical 

 System of Organized Fossils/ ' 1817. 



Invertebrate paleontology in America during the 

 Catastrophic period had its beginning in Lesueur, who 

 in 1818 described the Ordovician gastropod Maclurites 

 magna. All of the paleontologists of this time were sat- 

 isfied to describe species and genera and to ascertain in a 

 broad way the stratigraphic significance of the fossil 

 faunas and floras. James Hall in 1854 (17, 312) knew of 

 1588 species, described and undescribed, in the New York 

 system, while in England Morris listed in that year 8300 

 Paleozoic forms. In 1856 Dana recites the known fossil 

 species as follows (22, 333) : The whole number of 

 known American species of animals of the Permian to 

 Eecent is about 2000 ; while in Britain and Europe, there 

 were over 20,000 species. In the Permian we have none, 

 while Europe has over 200 species. In the Triassic we 

 have none, Europe 1000 species ; Jurassic 60, Europe 

 over 4000; Cretaceous 350 to 400, Europe about 6000; 

 Tertiary hardly 1500, Europe about 8000. Since that 

 time nearly all of the larger American Paleozoic faunas 

 have been developed, but there are thousands of species 

 yet to be described. Who the more prominent American 

 paleontologists of this period were has been told in the 

 section on the development of the geological column. 



The grander paleontologic results of the Catastrophic 

 period have been so well stated by Marsh that it is worth 

 our while to repeat them here : 



"It had now been proved beyond question that portions at 

 least of the earth's surface had been covered many times by the 

 sea, with alternations of fresh water and of land ; that the strata 

 thus deposited were formed in succession, the lowest of the series 



