were
mediocre, and his lectures were said to have been tame and
uninteresting. Portal taught human anatomy, while Mertrude lectured on
vertebrate anatomy; his chair was filled by Cuvier in 1795.

Of this group Lamarck was _facile princeps_, as he combined great
sagacity and experience as a systematist with rare intellectual and
philosophic traits. For this reason his fame has perhaps outlasted that
of his young contemporary, Geoffroy St. Hilaire.

The necessities of the Museum led to the division of the chair of
zooelogy, botany being taught by Desfontaines. And now began a new
era in the life of Lamarck. After twenty-five years spent in botanical
research he was compelled, as there seemed nothing else for him to
undertake, to assume charge of the collection of invertebrate animals,
and to him was assigned that enormous, chaotic mass of forms then known
as molluscs, insects, worms, and microscopic animals. Had he continued
to teach botany, we might never have had the Lamarck of biology and
biological philosophy. But turned adrift in a world almost unexplored,
he faced the task with his old-time bravery and dogged persistence, and
at once showed the skill of a master mind in systematic work.

The two new professorships in zooelogy were filled, one by Lamarck,
previously known as a botanist, and the other by the young Etienne
Geoffroy St. Hilaire, then twenty-two years old, who was at that time a
student of Hauey, and in charge of the minerals, besides teaching
mineralogy with especial reference to crystallography.

To Geoffroy was assigned the four classes of vertebrates, but in reality
he only occupied himself with the mammals and birds. Afterwards
Lacepede[33] took charge of the reptiles and fishes. On the other hand,
Lamarck's field comprised more than nine-tenths of the animal kingdom.
Already the collections of insects, crustacea, worms, molluscs,
echinoderms, corals, etc., at the Museum were enormous. At this time
France began to send out those exploring expeditions to all parts of the
globe which were so numerous and fruitful during the first third of the
nineteenth century. The task of arranging and classifying single-handed
this enormous mass of material was enough to make a young man quail, and
it is a proof of the vigor, innate ability, and breadth of view of the
man that in this pioneer work he not only reduced to some order this
vast horde of forms, but showed such insight and brought about such
radical