Paleontology

“ Those whose business it is to acquaint themselves specially with the works of paleontologists, in fact, will be fully aware that very few, if any, would rest satisfied with such a statement of the conclusions of their branch of biology as that which has just been given.
Our standard repertories of paleontology profess to teach us far higher things—to disclose the entire succession of living forms upon the surface of the globe ”

“ 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. ”

“ First in order, as the most definite and unquestionable of all the results of paleontology, 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 paleontologist, that it is to be feared there are naturalists in existence who look upon geology as Brindley regarded rivers. ”

“ Paleontology also affords one of the chief lines of investigation for the solution of many of the problems of biological evolution. Those phases of paleontology which involve the study of fossils for the light they may throw on the history of the animal life of earth are paleontologic zoology. The term paleontologic botany would have a corresponding meaning in connection with plant life.
In a general way it is true that the animals and plants of any period are, on the whole, of higher types than those of preceding periods ”

“ Paleontology.—The geological succession of organisms embraces a field where zoologist and geologist meet. The wonderful progress made by American investigators is well described in the preceding chapters on Historical Geology and Vertebrate Paleontology.
Biometry. Since Darwin’s theory of evolution postulated the origin of new species by means of natural selection, it was obviously necessary in order to apply a critical test to determine the precise limits of a species. ”

“ Is paleontology able to succeed where physical geology fails? Standard writers on paleontology, as has been seen, assume that she can. They take it for granted, that deposits containing similar organic remains are synchronous—at any rate in a broad sense ”

“ None now doubted that these fossils had once been living organisms which could be understood by careful comparison with living forms.
It was through the study of fossil organisms—or paleontology—that geology first accomplished its true aim, viz., the deciphering of a portion of the earth's history by observed facts. We can hardly wonder that a field so fruitful should, since the beginning of our century, have been cultivated to the exclusion of almost every other. ”

“ I do not wish to quarrel with my superior officers, but I must first record a protest against the fact that in the classification scheme of this congress, in the year of our Lord 1904, paleontology is bracketed as a division of geology. It is chiefly an accident of birth which has connected paleontology with geology; because fossils were first found in the rocks, geology the foster mother was mistaken for the true mother, zoology—a confusion in the birth records which Huxley did his best to correct. ”

“ There is no reasonable debate as to the passage of one species to another. It is clearly manifested in the succession of fauna found today all over the world in the sedimentary rocks. Even the most casual student of paleontology is convinced of this glaring truth. ”

“ Paleontology, of course, supplies far better chronological tests, but even these have their limitations. There has been no time since rocks now in existence were formed, if ever, when the earth had a uniform climate and a single undiversified fauna over its entire land surface, as the early paleontologists supposed. ”

“ Then followed the assemblage of faunas, which brought the study of the fossil forms within the realm of historical geology, rather than being the mere phylogeny of a single race, and the value of vertebrate fossils as horizon markers became more and more appreciated by the stratigrapher. They serve to supplement the knowledge gained from the invertebrates, and in this connection are especially valuable in that they often give data concerning continental formations about which invertebrate paleontology is largely silent. ”

“ Such an achievement as the reconstruction of a continent would be impossible in paleontology pursued as geology or as a logical subdivision of geology. The importance of the services which paleontology may render geology as time-keeper of the rocks, or which geology may render paleontology, are so familiar that we need not stop to enumerate them. ”

“ OUR knowledge of the morphology both of the animal and plant kingdoms has been largely extended by the work of the paleontologist. Mention needs only to be made of the many species, genera and families, even orders and classes, established solely for fossil forms to show how much we owe to paleontology. There is not a single sub-kingdom but has been immensely enriched from this source. ”

“ Paleontology, a new science, seeks for the remains of animals dwelling on earth, before mankind. America has already afforded the huge mastodons, elephants, megatherium, megalonyx, as primitive land animals, and many large reptiles, crocodiles of streams and lakes. ”

“ Paleontology as the history of life takes its place in the background of recorded history and archeology, and simply from the standpoint of the human pedigree is of transcendent interest. Although it has progressed far beyond the dreams of Darwin and Huxley, the first general statement which must be made is that the actual points of contact between the grand divisions of the animal and plant kingdom, as well as between the lesser and even many of the minor divisions, have yet to be discovered. ”

“ We must wait patiently for more light from paleontology. But we may wait very hopefully. We may do so because the wonderfully rich harvest of fossil remains now being gathered in North America supplies us with good and solid ground for hope. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But, if the geological record be imperfect, it is still very instructive. The further paleontology has progressed, the more it has tended to fill up the gaps between existing groups and species; while the careful study of living forms has brought into prominence the variations dependent on food, climate, habitat, and other conditions, and shown that many species, long supposed to be absolutely distinct, are so closely linked together by intermediate forms that it is difficult to draw a satisfactory line between them. ”

“ Rise of Vertebrate Paleontology in Europe. To those who had been nurtured in the belief in a relatively recent creation covering in its entirety a period of 219but six days, and occurring but four millenniums before the time of Christ, the appearance of the remains of creatures in the rocks, the like of which no man ever saw alive, must have given scope to the wildest imaginings concerning their origin and significance ”

“ It is true that, later still, the old exploded errors about the plastic force and fermentation were from time to time revived, as they have been almost to the present day; but learned men, with few exceptions, no longer seriously questioned that fossils were real organisms, as the ancients had once believed. The many collections of fossils that had been brought together, and the illustrated works that had been published about them, were a foundation for greater progress, and, with the eighteenth century, the second period in the history of paleontology began. ”

“ But the true explanation of the seeming anomaly is this, that no one can believe in transmutation who is not profoundly convinced that all we know in paleontology is as nothing compared to what we have yet to learn, and they who regard the record as so fragmentary, and our acquaintance with the fragments which are extant as so rudimentary, are apt to be astounded at the confidence placed by the progressionists in data which must be defective in the extreme. But exactly in proportion as the completeness of the record and our knowledge of it are overrated, in that same degree are many progressionists unconscious of the goal towards which they are drifting. ”

“ The older the rock, the simpler the plant and animal life it contains. Thus fossils can give a clue to the age of the rock strata.
Fossils can teach history. They tell us about plants and animals that are now extinct—the dinosaur, for example. They can also tell of ancient climates. Coral found in rocks in Greenland suggests it must have once been warm. Remains of fir and spruce trees have been found in the tropics.
How are fossils formed? Teeth, bone and wood don't last long in their original state. However, buried materials decompose, leaving a film of carbon as a fossil. ”

“ In vain does Geology, after showing us the fossil trilobite and coral, unfold the volume of the Old Red Sandstone, and show us there the fossil remains of fish—so perfect that we might imagine them casts rather than fossils. In vain does Geology open its vast Oolitic system, and show us there other forms of extinct life in fossil insects, tortoises, mighty saurians, and huge iguanodons. In vain does Geology lay bare the Chalk, with its marine deposits; and the Tertiary formation, with its enormous theroid mammalia, far surpassing in size the largest animals we are acquainted with. ”

“ This aspect of the science is best seen in the historical and stratigraphical parts of geology, in which fossils are the chief data for study. The interpretation of a fossil into a species of organism, having its definite place in the elaborate classification of the zoölogist, or as an indicator of the time and place and mode of formation of the strata in which it is buried, is, to be sure, a most intricate and, at first thought it would seem, an unattractive process. ”

“ The Palæozoic was an immense period during which life abounded in the seas,—numberless species of mollusca, crustaceans, corals, fish are found,—and there were great forests, which have formed the coal measures, on land,—forests of strange primeval vegetation, but in which beautiful ferns, large and small, flourished in great numbers. The Secondary Era may be called the age of reptiles. To this era all the rocks we have so far studied belong. Now we come to the last era, the Tertiary, the age of the mammals. Instead of reptiles on land, in sea and air, we find a complete change. ”

“ The study of fossil animals embraces a much greater range of subject than that of fossil plants. The fauna of any particular geological formation, that is to say, its embedded animal remains, for the most part vastly exceeds in number its flora, or vegetable remains, and is likewise usually better preserved. About the nature and affinities of several tribes of fossil plants there hangs an amount of uncertainty which renders them a dubious guide to the climatal and other conditions of the period and locality in which they lived. ”

“ In the other we study fossils in faunal groups, as successive geological faunas, and the geographic diversity in each geological period—i. e., the evolution of geologic faunas and the causes of geographic diversity in each. In a word, we study the laws of distribution of faunas in time geologically and in space geographically, and the causes of these laws in each case. The first is strictly a branch of zoölogy and botany, and we leave it to these specialists. The second alone belongs properly to geology. ”

“ 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” ”

“ The treatise which laid the foundation for all subsequent invertebrate palaeontology was his memoir, Sur les fossiles des environs de Paris . . . (1802-1806) . Beginning in 1793 he boldly advocated evolution, and further elaborated five great principles—namely, the method of comparison of extinct and existing forms, the broad sequence of formations and succession of epochs, the correlation of geological horizons by means of fossils, the climatic or environmental changes as influencing the development of species, the inheritance of the bodily modifications caused by change of habit and habitat. ”