geologist and palaeontologist, was
born at Saugues, Haute Loire, on the 11th of August 1799, and educated in
the Ecole Polytechnique at Paris. Although he had received the training of
an engineer, his first appointment was that of tutor to the duc de Bordeaux
(afterwards known as the comte de Chambord), grandson of Charles X., and
when the king abdicated in 1830, Barrande accompanied the royal exiles to
England and Scotland, and afterwards to Prague. Settling in that city in
1831, he became occupied in engineering works, and his attention was then
attracted to the fossils from the Lower Palaeozoic rocks of Bohemia. The
publication in 1839 of Murchison's _Silurian System_ incited Barrande to
carry on systematic researches on the equivalent strata in Bohemia. For ten
years (1840-1850) he made a detailed study of these rocks, engaging workmen
specially to collect fossils, and in this way he obtained upwards of 3500
species of graptolites, brachiopoda, mollusca, crustacea (particularly
trilobites) and fishes. The first volume of his great work, _Systeme
silurien du centre de la Boheme_ (dealing with trilobites), appeared in
1852; and from that date until 1881, he issued twenty-one quarto volumes of
text and plates. Two other volumes were issued after his death in 1887 and
1894. It is estimated that he spent nearly L10,000 on these works. In
addition he published a large number of separate papers. In recognition of
his important researches the Geological Society of London in 1855 awarded
to him the Wollaston medal.

The term Silurian was employed by Barrande, after Murchison, in a more
comprehensive sense than was justified by subsequent knowledge. Thus the
Silurian rocks of Bohemia were divided into certain stages (A to H)--the
two lowermost, A and B without fossils (Azoic), succeeded by the third
stage, C, which included the primordial zone, since recognized as part of
the Cambrian of Sedgwick. The fourth stage (Etage D), the true lower
Silurian, was described by Barrande as including isolated patches of strata
with organic remains like those of the Upper Silurian. These assemblages of
fossils were designated "Colonies," and regarded as evidence of the early
introduction into the area of species from neighbouring districts, that
became locally extinct, and reappeared in later stages. The interpretation
of Barrande was questioned in 1854 by Edward Forbes, who pointed to the
disturbances, overturns and crumplings in the older