He was thus the first Neptunist, while, as Geikie states, his "observations in Auvergne practically started the Vulcanist camp." We now come to Lamarck's own time.

He must have been familiar with the results of Pallas's travels in Russia and Siberia (1793-94).

The distinguished German zooelogist and geologist, besides working out the geology of the Ural Mountains, showed, in 1777, that there was a general law in the formation of all mountain chains composed chiefly of primary rocks;[70] the granitic axis being flanked by schists, and these by fossiliferous strata.

From his observations made on the Volga and about its mouth, he presented proofs of the former extension, in comparatively recent times, of the Caspian Sea.

But still more pregnant and remarkable was his discovery of an entire rhinoceros, with its flesh and skin, in the frozen soil of Siberia.