Lull — Development of Vertebrate Paleontology. 193 



Art. VI. — On the Development of Vertebrate Paleon- 

 tology; by Richard Swann Lull. 



Introduction. 



Unlike its sister science of Invertebrate Paleontology, 

 which has been approached so largely from the viewpoint 

 of stratigraphic geology, that of the vertebrates is essen- 

 tially a biologic science, having its inception in the mas- 

 terly work of Cuvier, who is also to be regarded as the 

 founder of comparative anatomy. For long decades, ver- 

 tebrate paleontology was simply a branch of comparative 

 anatomy or morphology in that it dealt almost exclusively 

 with the form and other peculiarities of fossil bones and 

 teeth, often in a more or less fragmentary condition, very 

 little or no attention being paid to any other system of 

 the creature's anatomy. Distribution both in space and 

 in time was recorded, but the value of vertebrates in 

 stratigraphy was still to be appreciated and has hardly 

 yet come into its own. It is readily seen, therefore, that 

 the two departments of paleontology did not enlist the 

 same workers or even the same type of investigators, for 

 while the two sciences have much in common and should 

 have more, the vertebratist must, above all else, be a 

 morphologist, with a keen appreciation of form and a 

 mind capable of retaining endless structural details and 

 of visualizing as a whole what may be known only in 

 part. The initial work of the brilliant Cuvier set so high 

 a standard of preparedness and mental equipment 

 that as a consequence, the number of those engaged in 

 vertebrate research has never been large as compared 

 with the workers in some other branches of science, but 

 the results achieved by the few who have consecrated 

 their research to the fossil vertebrates has been in the 

 main of a high order. 



At first, as has been emphasized, this work was largely 

 morphological, dealing both with the individual skeletal 

 elements- and later with the bony framework as a whole. 

 Then came the endeavor to clothe the bones with sinews 

 and with flesh — to imagine, in other words, the life- 

 appearance of the ages-departed form — with such of its 

 habits as could be deduced from structure of body, tooth, 

 and limb. Next came the working out of systematic 

 series of vertebrates and their marshalling into species, 



Am. Jour. Sci.— Fourth Series, Vol. XLVI, No. 271.— July, 1918. 



