stinguish littoral
from ocean fossils, but no one accepts his theory that oceans make their
beds deeper owing to the action of the tides, and distribute themselves
differently over the earth's surface without any change of level of the
different parts of that surface.

. . . . . .

"Settling down to a single branch of science, in consequence of his
professorship, Lamarck now devoted himself to the twofold labour of
lecturing and classifying the collections at the museum. In 1802 he
published his 'Considerations on the Organization of Living Bodies'; in
1809 his '_Philosophie Zoologique_,' a development of the
'Considerations'; and from 1816 to 1822 his Natural History of the
invertebrate animals, in seven volumes. This is his great work, and,
being entirely a work of description and classification, was received
with the unanimous approbation of the scientific world. His 'Fossil
Shells of the Neighbourhood of Paris'--a work in which his profound
knowledge of existing shells enabled him to class with certainty the
remains of forms that had disappeared thousands of ages ago--met also
with a favourable reception.

"Lamarck was fifty years old before he began to study zoology; and
prolonged microscopic examinations first fatigued and at length
enfeebled his eyesight. The clouds which obscured it gradually
thickened, and he became quite blind. Married four times, the father of
seven children, he saw his small patrimony and even his earlier savings
swallowed up by one of those hazardous investments with which promoters
impose on the credulity of the public. His small endowment as professor
alone protected him from destitution. Men of science whom his reputation
as a botanist and zoologist had attracted near him, wondered at the
manner in which he was neglected.

. . . . . .

"He passed the last ten years of his laborious life in darkness, tended
only by the affectionate care of his two daughters. The eldest wrote
from his dictation part of the sixth and seventh volumes of his work on
the invertebrate animals. From the time her father became confined to
his room his daughter never left the house; and when first she did so
after his death, she was distressed by the fresh air to which she had
been so long a stranger.

"Lamarck died December 18, 1829, at the age of eighty-five. Latreille
and Blainville were his successors at the museum. The incredible
activity of the first professor had so greatly increased the n