Lethœa geognostica, oder Beschreibung und Abbilding der für die Gebirgs-Formationen bezeichnendsten Versteinerungen

Abstract

THE study of fossils may be approached from two distinct points of view: we may regard them as furnishing us with additional illustrations of the diversities of form and structure in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, or we may study them as making their appearance in a certain definite order, and thus as characterising particular geological formations. The former is the point of view of the biologist, the latter that of the stratigraphical geologist. Palæontology, or the study of fossil forms, must necessarily be pursued as a branch of biology, for only by the study of their nearest recent analogues can we hope to interpret the fragmentary and often obscure relics of former inhabitants of the globe; but, on the other hand, the progress of systematic geology has been bound up with the study of fossils ever since it has been clearly recognised that strata can be identified by the organic remains which they contain.

Lethæa geognostica, oder Beschreibung und Abbilding der für die Gebirgs-Formationen bezeichnendsten Versteinerungen.

Herausgegeben von einer Vereinigung von Paläontologen. 1. Theil: Lethæa palæozoica, von Ferd. Roemer. Textband: Erste Lieferung. Pp. 324. (Stuttgart, 1880.)