Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 26.djvu/57

Rh and to a certain extent with geology. Comparative anatomy and osteology were an altogether unknown region; but I found myself drawn into it by the remains of a long-extinct fauna. And the first impulse was given by the discovery of a perfect fossil skull of an ox, with a wound in the frontal bone; this led to my busying myself with other fossil bones, and even to the discovery of some. The attempts to determine their nature are contained in my "Beiträge zur Petrefaktenkunde," which extend through several volumes of the 'Acta' of the Leopoldino-Caroline Academy."

The first portion of the "Beiträge," to which Von Meyer here alludes, is published in the 'Nova Acta' for 1829, in that fiftieth volume which contains Goethe's famous essay on the intermaxillary bone; and it includes four essays which offer a good example of the extent and variety of Von Meyer's knowledge, even at that time. The first is upon an Orthoceratite, the second upon Mastodon arvernensis, the third on Aptychus, the fourth on two new fossil reptiles, Rhacheosaurus and Pleurosaurus. For thirty years Von Meyer poured forth a continuous torrent of excellent and richly illustrated memoirs, sometimes upon Mollusca, sometimes on Crustacea, sometimes upon Fishes, but most commonly upon Reptiles and Mammalia.

The most complete monograph extant on the Amphibia of the Carboniferous epoch is by Von Meyer; the only monograph upon the Permian Reptilia is also from his pen. The great work upon the Fauna of the Muschelkalk, which was published in 1847–1852, is a wonderful monument of patient and skilful labour, and when it appeared, effected a revolution in the minds of geologists as to the character of the Triassic fauna, which instead of being poverty- stricken, as some supposed, revealed about eighty species of Labyrinthodonts and Reptiles in Germany alone. This fine monograph was supplemented by several excellent memoirs on the Triassic Fauna in the 'Palæontographica.' No less valuable is the work upon the Fauna of the Lithographic slates, which affords a complete conspectus of the Reptiles of that rich deposit.

In the preface to the memoir on the fossils of Georgensgmünd, to which I have already referred, Von Meyer makes some excellent remarks on the value of drawing as a help to the palæontologist, and on the frequent imperfections of drawings of fossils, and especially of osteological subjects, which are not made by persons conversant with anatomy. "I knew all this well enough," says he, "but I had no practice with the pencil, nor any experience in managing light and shade." This was a difficulty which would have appalled most men, but not Von Meyer, who set to work to teach himself drawing; with what admirable success all who are familiar with his works know. For it was Von Meyer's practice to draw all the illustrations of his numerous memoirs on the stone; and, at a rough estimate, some hundreds of quarto and folio plates must have proceeded from his swift and accurate pencil. There are seventy folio plates in the 'Saurier des Muschelkalkes' alone.

Though he must have devoted an immense amount of time and