Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 16.djvu/387

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PALEONTOLOGICAL DISCOVERY.
367

his work on the Palæozoic fossils of Cornwall, Devonshire, and West Somerset, 1843, contained a great deal of original matter in regard to fossil remains. Morris's "Catalogue of British Fossils," issued in 1843, and the later edition in 1854, is most useful to the working paleontologist. The memoirs of Davidson on the Brachiopoda, Edwards, Forbes, Morris, Lycett, Sharpe, and Wood on other Mollusca, Wright on the Echinoderms, Salter on Crustacea, Busk on Polyzoa, Jones on the Entomostraca, and Duncan and Lonsdale on Corals, are of especial value. King's volume on Permian fossils, Mantell's various memoirs, Dixon's work on the fossils of Sussex, 1850, and McCoy's works on Palæozoic fossils, all deserve honorable mention. Sedgwick, Murchison, and Lyell, although their greatest services were in systematic geology, each contributed important results to the kindred science of paleontology during the period we are reviewing.

In Germany, Schlotheim's treatise, "Die Petrifactenkunde," published at Gotha in 1820, did much to promote a general interest in fossils. By far the most important work issued on this subject was the "Petrifacta Germanica," by Goldfuss, in three folio volumes, 1826-1844, which has lost little of its value. Bronn's "Geschichte der Natur," 1841-'46, was a work of great labor, and one of the most useful in the literature of this period. The author gave a list of all the known fossil species, with full references, and also their distribution through the various formations. This gave exact data on which to base generalizations, hitherto of comparatively little value.

Among other early works of interest in this department may be mentioned Dalman's memoir on "Trilobites," 1828, and Burmeister's on the same subject, 1843. Giebel's well-known "Fauna der Vorwelt," 1847-'56, gave lists of all the fossils described up to that time, and hence is a very useful work. The "Lethæa Geognostica," by Bronn, 1834-'38, and the second edition by Bronn and Roemer, 1846-'56, is a comprehensive general treatise on paleontology, and the most valuable work of the kind yet published.

The researches of Ehrenberg, in regard to the lowest forms of animals and plants, threw much light on various points in paleontology, and showed the origin of extensive deposits, the nature of which had before been in doubt. Von Buch, Barrando, Beyrich, Berendt, Dunker, Geinitz, Heer, Homes, Klipstein, Von Münster, Reuss, Roemer, Sandberger, Suess, Von Hagenow, Von Hauer, Zeiten, and many others, all aided in the advancement of this branch of science. Angelin, Hisinger, and Nilsson, in Scandinavia; Abich, de Waldheim, Eichwald, Keyserling, Kutorga, Nordmann, Pander, Rouillier, and Volborth, in Russia; and Pusch in Poland, published important results on fossil invertebrates.

The impetus given by Cuvier to the study of vertebrate fossils extended over Europe, and great efforts were made to continue discoveries in the direction he had so admirably pointed out.