Philippe Édouard Poulletier de Verneuil (13 February 180529 May 1873) was a French

paleontologist Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

.Géologues et paléontologues : de la passion à la profession pdf
"Le cas d'Édouard de Verneuil (1805-1873) est tout autant révélateur de la façon dont peut naître la passion. Il se préparait à une carrière de magistrat lorsque.."

Life

He was born in Paris and educated in law, but being of independent means he was free to follow his own inclinations, and having attended lectures on

geology Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other Astronomical object, astronomical objects, the features or rock (geology), rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology ...

by Jean-Baptiste Elie de Beaumont he was so attracted to the subject that he devoted himself assiduously to the study of science. He spent several years in travel through various parts of Europe, specially examining the geology of the

Crimea Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a p ...

, on which he published an essay (Mem. Soc. Geol. France, 1837). He next investigated the

Devonian The Devonian ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic era, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the Silurian, million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Carboniferous, Mya. It is named after Devon, England, wh ...

rocks and fossils of the Bas-Boulonnais; and in 1839 accompanied Sedgwick and Murchison in a study of the older Palaeozoic rocks of the Rhenish provinces and

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to ...

, the palaeontological results being communicated to the

Geological Society of London The Geological Society of London, known commonly as the Geological Society, is a learned society based in the United Kingdom. It is the oldest national geological society in the world and the largest in Europe with more than 12,000 Fellows. Fe ...

in conjunction with the Vicomte d'Archiac. When Murchison commenced his geological examination of the Russian empire, he requested de Verneuil to accompany him, and the researches of the latter were incorporated in the second volume of ''The Geology of Russia in Europe and the

Ural Mountains The Ural Mountains ( ; rus, Ура́льские го́ры, r=Uralskiye gory, p=ʊˈralʲskʲɪjə ˈɡorɨ; ba, Урал тауҙары) or simply the Urals, are a mountain range that runs approximately from north to south through western ...

'' (1845). Subsequently, de Verneuil paid a visit to the United States to study the history of the palaeozoic rocks in that country, and the results were published in 1847 (Bull. Soc. Geol. France). In later years he made numerous expeditions into Spain, and his observations were embodied in ''Carte geologique de l'Espagne et du Portugal'' (1864), prepared in association with Edouard Collomb. In 1853 the

Wollaston medal The Wollaston Medal is a scientific award for geology, the highest award granted by the Geological Society of London. The medal is named after William Hyde Wollaston, and was first awarded in 1831. It was originally made of gold (1831–1845), ...

of the Geological Society of London was awarded to him, and in 1860 he was elected a foreign member of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

. He died in Paris. De Verneuil was President of the Geological Society of France in 1840, 1853, and 1867. The deformed brachiopod fossil ''Cyrtospirifer verneuili'', known to quarrymen as the

Delabole Butterfly ''Cyrtospirifer verneuili'', also called ''Spirifer verneuili'', is an extinct species of brachiopods. The fossils are present in the Upper Devonian. In Cornwall they have the vernacular name Delabole butterfly, from the appearance of flatten ...

, was found in the upper Devonian beds of North Cornwall. It was named after de Verneuil.

References

Attribution: *
Darwin Correspondence Online Database Record

External links

Online extract from '' Annales des Mines'', Paris, with biography by Gabriel Auguste Daubrée {{DEFAULTSORT:Verneuil, Edouard de 1805 births 1873 deaths French paleontologists Wollaston Medal winners Members of the French Academy of Sciences Foreign Members of the Royal Society

Life

References

Further reading

External links