nto both the distinctive features and
the resemblance of forms" (_Encyc. Britannica_, Art. LAMARCK).

The work, moreover, is remarkable for being the first one to begin with
the simplest and to end with the most highly developed forms.

Lamarck's special line of study was the Mollusca. How his work is still
regarded by malacologists is shown by the following letter from our
leading student of molluscs, Dr. W. H. Dall:

"SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION,
"UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM, WASHINGTON, D. C.,
"_November 4, 1899._

"Lamarck was one of the best naturalists of his time, when geniuses
abounded. His work was the first well-marked step toward a natural
system as opposed to the formalities of Linne. He owed something to
Cuvier, yet he knew how to utilize the work in anatomy offered by
Cuvier in making a natural classification. His failing eyesight,
which obliged him latterly to trust to the eyes of others; his
poverty and trials of various kinds, more than excuse the occasional
slips which we find in some of the later volumes of the _Animaux
sans Vertebres_. These are rather of the character of typographical
errors than faults of scheme or principle.

"The work of Lamarck is really the foundation of rational natural
malacological classification; practically all that came before his
time was artificial in comparison. Work that came later was in the
line of expansion and elaboration of Lamarck's, without any change
of principle. Only with the application of embryology and
microscopical work of the most modern type has there come any
essential change of method, and this is rather a new method of
getting at the facts than any fundamental change in the way of using
them when found. I shall await your work on Lamarck's biography with
great interest.

"I remain,
"Yours sincerely,
"WILLIAM H. DALL."

FOOTNOTES:

[119] During the same period (1803-1829) Russia sent out expeditions to
the North and Northeast, accompanied by the zooelogists Tilesius,
Langsdorff, Chamisso, Eschscholtz, and Brandt, all of them of German
birth and education. From 1823 to 1850 England fitted up and sent out
exploring expeditions commanded by Beechey, Fitzroy, Belcher, Ross,
Franklin, and Stanley, the naturalists of which were Bennett, Owen,
Darwin, Adams, and Huxley. From Germany, less of a maritime country, at
a later date, Humboldt, Spix, Prince Wi