LAMARCK'S WORK IN GEOLOGY Whatever may be said of his chemical and physical lucubrations, Lamarck in his geological and palaeontological writings is, despite their errors, always suggestive, and in some most important respects in advance of his time.

And this largely for the reason that he had once travelled, and to some extent observed geological phenomena, in the central regions of France, in Germany, and Hungary; visiting mines and collecting ores and minerals, besides being in a degree familiar with the French cretaceous fossils, but more especially those of the tertiary strata of Paris and its vicinity.

He had, therefore, from his own experience, slight as it was, some solid grounds of facts and observations on which to meditate and from which to reason.
He did not attempt to touch upon cosmological theories--chaos and creation--but, rather, confined himself to the earth, and more particularly to the action of the ocean, and to the changes which he believed to be due to organic agencies.

The most impressive truth in geology is the conception of the immensity of past time, and this truth Lamarck fully realized.

His views are to be found in a little book of 268 pages, entitled _Hydrogeologie_.