Etudes faites dans la collection de l'Ecole des Mines sur des Fossiles noveaux ou mal connus Premier fascicule Mollusques Tertiaires

Abstract

M. BAYAN, who occupies the office of Engineer of Bridges and Roads in connection with the Ecole des Mines, presents us in the work before us with descriptions of 47 genera and 106 species, illustrated by 139 well-executed figures of Fossil Tertiary Mollusca. The localities represented comprise the Calcaire Grossier, &c. (Eocene), of Longpont, St. Parres, Rilly, Roncā, Parnes, Aizy, Grignon, Anvers, Chaumont, and numerous other localities in France, Belgium, Italy, and Algeria. This is the author's second work, but out of the 106 species, upwards of 80 are christened by M. Bayan; which implies that either he has in the course of his researches come upon an unusually large number of new forms, or, not having been able to refer his new examples to the species already described by M. Deshayes and others, on account of their imperfect condition, he has preferred the easier method of giving them new names. Thus we find fifteen new Tertiary species of the genus Cerithium added to our already overburdened nomenclature, one half of which, at least, might have been referred to well-known species. This is all the more surprising as M. Deshayes' grand collection is now deposited in the Museum of the Ecole des Mines, besides numerous other well-known typical collections. The book is written and transferred to stone by a new auto-lithographic process, the result of which is that there are forty-seven more or less important errata given, which the reader must correct before he can use the book with safety. We are sorry to be unable to avoid what may appear a harsh criticism of M. Bayan's work, but those only know the labour which such monographs cause who require to use them as works of reference in the scientific determination of fossils. We are arrived at a period in palæozoology when we cannot be satisfied with merely getting a name to a fossil, but we must have the right name—that which expresses its identity with, or distinctness from, other nearly-allied forms obtained from other similar or different geological horizons around; so that as our work progresses we find we are helping to reconstruct a history of these old marine faunas, as a whole; not a series of disjointed essays. We want to see the work of Professors Beyrich and von Koenen in Germany, fitted in with that of M. Nyst in Belgium, and these with our countrymen Messrs. S. V. Wood and Frederick E. Edwards, joined to M. Deshayes' grand work on the Paris Basin; these again with Michelotti, Bellardi, and other Italian works, joined to Hörnes's great work on the Vienna Basin. By no other plan can we hope to arrive at a clear notion of the value of terms applied to geological horizons, and the names of the species by which they are characterised.

Etudes faites dans la collection de l'Ecole des Mines sur des Fossiles noveaux ou mal connus. Premier fascicule. Mollusques Tertiaires.

Par F. Bayan, &c. 4to., pp. 81, 10 plates. (Paris: F. Savy, 1870. London: Williams and Norgate.)