Palaeontologist

“ First in order, as the most definite and unquestionable of all the results of palaeontology, must be mentioned the immense extension and impulse given to botany, zoology, and comparative anatomy, by the investigation of fossil remains. Indeed, the mass of biological facts has been so greatly increased, and the range of biological speculation has been so vastly widened, by the researches of the geologist and palaeontologist, that it is to be feared there are naturalists in existence who look upon geology as Brindley regarded rivers. ”

“ It is to palaeogeography and zoogeography in their reciprocal relations that palaeontology has rendered the most unique services. Geographers are practically helpless as historians, and problems of the former elevation and distribution of the land and sea masses depend for their solution chiefly upon the palaeontologist. With good reason geographers have given reluctant consent to some of the bold restorations of ancient continental outlines by palaeontologists; yet some of the greatest achievements of recent science have been in this field. ”

“ The arts of living races help to elucidate what is obscure in those of prehistoric times by the process of reasoning from the known to the unknown. It is the work of the zoologist which enables the palaeontologist to reconstruct the forms of extinct animals from such fragmentary remains as have been preserved, and it is largely from the results of a comparative study of living forms and their habitats that he is able, in his descriptions, to equip the reconstructed types of a past fauna with environments suited to their structure, and to render more complete the picture of their mode of life. ”

“ During the preparation of these works he was from 1847 to 1855 “privat-docent” at Bonn, and was then appointed professor of geology, palaeontology and mineralogy in the university of Breslau, a post which he held with signal success as a teacher until his death. As a palaeontologist he made important contributions to our knowledge especially of the invertebrata of the Devonian and older rocks. ”

“ Lastly, it is only with the human remains of the Post-Pliocene period that the palæontologist proper has to deal. When we enter the "Recent" period, in which the remains of Man are associated with those of existing species of Mammals, we pass out of the region of pure palæontology into the domain of the Archæologist and the Ethnologist. ”

“ In 1846 he was appointed on the staff of the Geological Survey and worked under Edward Forbes until 1854; he was then appointed palaeontologist to the survey and gave his chief attention to the palaeozoic fossils, spending much time in Wales and the border counties. ”

“ Such facts emphasize the close connection between stratigraphy and palaeontology, and indicate that the successful tracing out of the geological history of any area is only possible when the evidence of the stratigrapher is reinforced by that provided by the palaeontologist. The fact that species of animals and plants which have been developed in a particular area do not spread all over the world at once but migrate very slowly led Huxley many years ago to put forward his hypothesis of “homotaxis.” ”

“ He is a botanist, and his science is botany. But if the investigation of animal life be his choice, the name generally applied to him will vary according to the kind of animals he studies, or the particular phenomena of animal life to which he confines his attention. If the study of man is his object, he is called an anatomist, or a physiologist, or an ethnologist; but if he dissects animals, or examines into the mode in which their functions are performed, he is a comparative anatomist or comparative physiologist. If he turns his attention to fossil animals, he is a palaeontologist. ”

“ Every one practically acquainted with palaeontology is aware that it is not every tooth, nor every bone, which enables us to form a judgment of the character of the animal to which it belonged; and that it is possible to possess many teeth, and even a large portion of the skeleton of an extinct animal, and yet be unable to reconstruct its skull or its limbs. It is only when the tooth or bone presents peculiarities, which we know by previous experience to be characteristic of a certain group, that we can safely predict that the fossil belonged to an animal of the same group. ”

“ The evidence that man had already appeared upon the earth is afforded by stone implements wrought by his hands, and it falls strictly within the province of the archæologist to judge whether given specimens were so wrought or not; it rests with the geologist to determine their stratigraphical or chronological position, while the paleontologist can pronounce upon the age and character of the associated fauna and flora. If left to himself the archæologist seems too prone to build up theories founded upon form alone, irrespective of geological conditions. ”

“ Microscopy and photography are of immense value in certain branches of fossil research, the former in the examination of the minute forms of mollusca, foraminifera and ostracoda, the latter in the exact portraiture of specimens too intricate to copy with the brush, or too evanescent to long retain, when out of their matrix, their clean fresh surfaces. With geology or palaeontology as an objective, a country walk may be a source of much enjoyment to its students, for “in their hand is Nature like an open book” ”

“ Primarily concerned, therefore, with fixing the age of strata, it is easy to understand how geologists have been content with a special kind of palaeontology which is out of touch with the methods of systematic zoology or botany. On the other hand, the botanist whose observations and researches have not extended beyond the limits of existing plants, sees in the vast majority of fossil forms merely imperfect specimens, which it is impossible to determine with any degree of scientific accuracy. He prefers to wait for perfect material ”

“ The degree of accuracy in such anatomical and physiographic restorations from relatively imperfect evidence will always represent the state of the science and the degree of its approach toward being exact or complete. Progress in the science also depends upon the pursuit of palaeontology as zoology and not as geology, because it was a mere accident of birth which connected palaeontology so closely with geology. ”

“ And through all the countless ages revealed to the geologist, with ever new orders of successive life; with beast, bird, crustacean, insect, and zoophyte, endowed with wonderful constructive instincts, and perpetuating memorials of architecture and sculpture, of which the microscope is alone adequate to reveal the exquisite beauty and infinite variety of design: yet so thoroughly is the use of tools the exclusive attribute of man, that the discovery of a single artificially shaped flint in the drift or cave-breccia, is deemed proof enough that man has been there. ”

“ For long decades, vertebrate 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. ”

“ In making such determinations the general character of the fauna as a whole, rather than any single species, is to be relied on. Those phases of paleontology which involve the study of fossils for determining the age of formations or for determining the relations of land and water at successive periods or for the determination of geologic conditions of any sort are sometimes called paleontologic geology. Paleontologic geology, therefore, involves the study of fossils for the light they may throw on earth history. ”

“ The broad generalizations that rocks may be identified by their fossil contents and that the testimony of the rocks demonstrates the general order of evolution from simple to complex forms, have only been placed on a surer footing by long continued investigations. The modifications produced by conditions of deposit, of climate and of natural barriers to migration, while introducing complexities into the problems of Palaeontology, are every year becoming better known ”

“ Paleontology, therefore, is not a mere branch of geology, but the foundation on which that science mainly rests. This fact is a sufficient excuse, if one were wanting, for noting the early opinions in regard to the changes of the earth's surface, as these changes were first studied to explain the position of fossils. The investigation of the latter first led to theories of the earth's formation, and thus to geology. When speculation replaced observation, fossils were discarded, and for a time the mineral characters of strata were thought to be the key to their position and age. ”

“ These epochs are further sub-divided by some investigators, and several, if not all of them, are connected by intermediate stages. In other words, the remains prove that a steady evolution in culture has taken place. Nowhere do all these layers occur in one locality, and the evidence of their order is a matter of stratigraphy (i.e., it is essentially a geological method) . Palæontology decides on the animal remains found in the beds. The human anatomist discusses the human remains, and the archæologist deals with the artifacts or objects made by man. ”

“ Descriptions of floras of past ages and lists of fossil species, should be so compiled that they may serve the same purpose to a stratigraphical geologist, who is practically a geographer of former periods of the Earth’s history, as the accounts of existing floras to students of present day physiography. The effect of carrying out researches on some such lines as these, should be to render available to both botanists and geologists the results of the specialist’s work. ”

“ Indeed, it is rather because a geologist of experience has necessarily directed his attention to the various degrees of resistance to decay, which rocks of different kinds present, than by any deductions from pure geology, that he can materially aid researches in this respect. There is no doubt that very great benefit would result to the building art, if the whole kingdom were surveyed by geologists and architects, for the purpose of determining generally the occurrence and qualities of stone suited for great and costly edifices. ”

“ There is a laboratory of fossil botany, with a corps of paleobotanists, Mr. Lester F. Ward being in charge.
The paleontologists and paleobotanists connected with the laboratories above described, study and discuss in reports the fossils collected by the general geologists in the field. They also supplement the work of the field geologists by making special collections in important districts and at critical horizons; but the paleontologists are not held responsible for areal and structural geology on the one hand, and the geologists are not held responsible for paleontology on the other hand. ”

“ Palaeontology both borrow's from and sheds light upon geology and other branches of the physical history of the earth, each of which, such as palaeogeography or palaeometeorology, is the more fascinating because of the large element of the unknown, the need for constructive imagination, the appeal to other branches of biological and physical investigation for supplementary evidence, and the necessity of constant comparison with the present aspects of nature. ”

“ The mollusca of the Tertiary deposits of the Paris basin became, in the hands of Lamarck, the basis on which invertebrate palaeontology was founded. The same series of strata furnished to Cuvier the remains of extinct land animals, of which, by critical study of their fragmentary bones and skeletons, he worked out restorations that may be looked on as the starting-point of vertebrate palaeontology. These brilliant researches, rousing widespread interest in such studies, showed how great a flood of light could be thrown on the past history of the earth and its inhabitants. ”

“ With other physical sciences paleontology is hardly less intimate; from the physicist it demands time for the evolution of successive waves of organisms, from the geographer it demands continental connections or even whole continents for the passage of land animals and plants. As with geology, what it receives it is ever ready to return in gifts; the new branch of geography, for example, entitled paleogeography, appeals quite as often to the paleontologist as to the geologist for its data. ”

“ When we bring the microscope to bear upon the elucidation of the structure of these ancient teeth, it seems as if our labour had but just begun; and that so far from having by an external scrutiny exhausted all that they have to show us, our knowledge of them can be but scanty and superficial until we have studied them carefully under a magnifying power. Microscopic sections of such organic remains are prepared in the same way as those of the fossil woods already noticed; and a more interesting or beautiful series of objects cannot be conceived than a set of slices of these fossil-teeth. ”

“ But it is mainly by the remains of plants and animals imbedded in the rocks that the geologist is guided in unravelling the chronological succession of geological changes. He has found that a certain order of appearance characterizes these organic remains, that each great group of rocks is marked by its own special types of life, and that these types can be recognized, and the rocks in which they occur can be correlated even in distant countries, and where no other means of comparison would be possible. ”