Postscript, May 28, 1910.—Since delivering the lecture in November, 1909, I have spent the winter in Mesopotamia, and should like to add the following as a postscript:

That the region to the south of Ur of the Chaldees is probably the spot where the ark rested is further confirmed by these two facts:

(1) A vessel drifting down the Euphrates with the current and wind from the north and northwest would at Ur of the Chaldees meet the strong current of the ancient Tigris coursing down from the north, and would be driven ashore somewhere near the junction of the two rivers.

(2) When at Ur of the Chaldees the other day we found that the Arabs called the mounds to the south of Ur "Nûawês." Now, “Nu " is Arabic for "Noah."

That those primitive and early peoples whose records we possess in Genesis were certainly under the impression that the whole world was drowned out with the Tigris-Euphrates Delta is proved by the only explanation they could find for the great influx of people into the valley from the surrounding countries once order began again to be established. They could attribute the multiplicity of languages which began to be spoken all at once to nothing but divine anger at their extraordinary high hopes and ambitions.

The tradition of the flaming sword of the Cherubim at the Eastern gate of Paradise near Hit may have been connected with the bitumen and naphtha springs which abound in that locality. The region today is called "El Nafitha" by the Arabs.-W. WILLCOCKS.

ALBERT GAUDRY AND THE EVOLUTION OF THE

ANIMAL KINGDOM.

By PH. GLANGEAUD,

Professor of Geology in the University of Clermont-Ferrand.

(Translated by permission from Revue générale des Sciences pures et appliquées, Paris, 20th year, No. 6, March 30, 1909.

French science has recently lost one of its most illustrious representatives, Albert Gaudry. My cherished and venerated master, who has departed at the age of 81 years, leaves behind him universal and profound regrets, not alone in the learned world, but among all those who had met him and known him, and even among those (and they are legion) who have read his works-works inspired by the loftiest ideals.

The scholar who devoted sixty years of his life to science, in an exclusive manner, leaves behind him a shining track which brightly illuminates the history of the faunas which have succeeded one another on our planet for about fifty million years.

Gaudry occupied himself during his whole life in seeking the laws which presided over the destiny of those vanished faunas, and endeavored, with success, to unite the various links of this captivating history. In doing this he became truly the creator of a new sciencehistorical or philosophical paleontology.

I desire to set forth briefly in this place the characteristics of this fruitful work of Gaudry. But I ask permission to say a few words regarding the man before I occupy myself with the scholar.

He was the embodiment of kindliness and benevolence. These two qualities were native to him. All those who approached him, whether Frenchmen or foreigners, were won by his charming urbanity and courtesy. A rather thin voice gave a softness to his speech. If one adds great nobility of sentiment and integrity of character, which never wavered, one can comprehend the sympathy that his name everywhere evoked.

In order to comprehend the importance of Gaudry's work, it is necessary to go back more than a century, and to recall the different

paths along which have developed the ideas relative to the apparition of the faunas which have inhabited the earth during its various epochs.

I. CUVIER AND D'ORBIGNY.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the earlier works of Bernard Palissy, Faujas de St. Fonds, Guettard, Buffon, and especially William Smith, had made possible a comprehension of the importance of fossils, by means of which the age of the sedimentary deposits of our globe could be determined.

The researches of Cuvier on fossil faunas led this talented naturalist to announce that there existed in the terrestrial strata a series of superimposed and distinct faunas, which had disappeared successively and entirely under the influence of violent geological catastrophes, which he called the "revolutions of the globe." New and different faunas replaced the ancient faunas, not through new creations, as was commonly said, but by means of faunas derived from regions where similar revolutions had not taken place.

The revolutions of the globe, in the sense in which Cuvier understood them, were not universal. They resulted from considerable changes and extensive modifications in the distribution of seas and continents, brought about by the formation of new marine lands or the submersion of mountain chains, modifications caused by the cooling of the earth.

The two great treatises which summarize the work of Cuvier, one the "Recherches sur les Ossements Fossiles," and the other, "Discours sur les Révolutions du Globe," although more than a century old, remain as models of clearness of description and of scientific interpretation.

The first is the indispensable remembrancer of all naturalists who occupy themselves with the study of living and extinct vertebrate faunas; the second, of all geologists or geographers, who find in it at least the germs of the explanation of the causes of the physical changes wrought in our planet, and of the laws which govern them. Cuvier was, therefore, in reality the creator of paleontology. He first showed, contrary to the opinion of Buffon, that fossil animals are different from living ones, and, prompted by the researches of other naturalists, such as A. d'Orbigny, Al. Brongniart, von Buch, W. Smith, Werner, etc., who occupied themselves more especially with invertebrate animals, asserted that each stage presented peculiar and distinct fossils.

He thereby not only created paleontology, that is, the study of the fossils themselves, but also that of the order of their appearance on the globe. Thus, he not only enlarged the boundaries of this new ience, which is indispensable to zoology, but he made it serve the