of geology; for the fossil remains in question may be
considered, from their nature, their condition, and their situation,
as authentic monuments of the revolutions which the surface of our
globe has undergone, and they can throw a strong light on the nature
and character of these revolutions."

This series of papers on the fossils of the Paris tertiary basin
extended through the first eight volumes of the _Annales_, and were
gathered into a volume published in 1806. In his descriptions his work
was comparative, the fossil species being compared with their living
representatives. The thirty plates, containing 483 figures representing
184 species (exclusive of those figured by Brard), were afterwards
published, with the explanations, but not the descriptions, as a
separate volume in 1823.[86] This (the text published in 1806) is the
first truly scientific palaeontological work ever published, preceding
Cuvier's _Ossemens fossiles_ by six years.

When we consider Lamarck's--at his time unrivalled--knowledge of
molluscs, his philosophical treatment of the relations of the study of
fossils to geology, his correlation of the tertiary beds of England with
those of France, and his comparative descriptions of the fossil forms
represented by the existing shells, it seems not unreasonable to regard
him as the founder of invertebrate palaeontology, as Cuvier was of
vertebrate or mammalian palaeontology.

We have entered the claim that Lamarck was one of the chief founders of
palaeontology, and the first French author of a genuine, detailed
palaeontological treatise. It must be admitted, therefore, that the
statement generally made that Cuvier was the founder of this science
should be somewhat modified, though he may be regarded as the chief
founder of vertebrate palaeontology.

In this field, however, Cuvier had his precursors not only in Germany
and Holland, but also in France.

Our information as to the history of the rise of vertebrate palaeontology
is taken from Blainville's posthumous work entitled _Cuvier et Geoffroy
Saint-Hilaire_.[87] In this work, a severe critical and perhaps not
always sufficiently appreciative account of Cuvier's character and work,
we find an excellent history of the first beginnings of vertebrate
palaeontology. Blainville has little or nothing to say of the first steps
in invertebrate palaeontology, and, singularly enough, not a word of
Lamarck's principles and of his papers and works o